Nork Football Coach Reprimanded for Ideological Shortcomings

[Big Orange]

The whole torrid affair is very phoney and stage managed with the surprisingly tall and healthy looking "North Korean" supporters soon revealed as Chinese actors.

[Cecelia5578]

My brief personal experience with Koreans - much like what I've heard about Ukrainians - is that they seem to have a big chip on their collective shoulder about their standing in the world and dislike being confused with the almost identical (culturally and ethnically) Japanese (or the Russians in Ukraine's case). Even if they were legitimately hard done by under the harsh rule of their stronger cousins in the recent past, with many avoidable deaths, their whining in recent years still gets annoying especially in light of some Koreans being quislings in the IJA and IJN during WWII and Ukrainians like Nikita Khrushchev becoming ruler of the Soviet Union. The Korean Gunzoku auxiliaries were particularily disliked by American and British Empire POWs and SK dictator Park Chung-hee served in the Manchukuo Army.

Well, the Japanese tried to culturally wipe out Korea when they colonized it-like outlawing the Korean language, religion (different types of Buddhism, i.e. the whole emperor worship thing, plus many of the people who resisted Japanese rule were Christians).

I always thought it was ironic that among more conservative, socially traditional Koreans knowledge of and use of Chinese characters (hanja) in addition to hangul was a sign of one's sophistication, considering that they are importing another countries' language (China).

[Prannon]

If they want to see "the light" they just need to look across the border into China. The fact that the Chinese side lights up (no pun intended) while the NK side remains dark during the night should clue them in on something. They could also try doing the same across the South but they most probably won't see far into the DMZ.

Actually, I would be surprised if there were very many North Koreans who didn't know the truth. North Korea already imports a lot of goods through China that are better manufactured than local stuff, and many of those items are stamped with South Korean labels. North Koreans are already in the business of getting as much foreign currency as they can, since their own currency is practically worthless. Certainly, many Koreans in the elite or in the party already definitely know that much of what they've been taught about North Korea's predominance in the world is false.

The thing is, they don't know the extent of the truth. People who go outside of Korea's borders are almost certainly more closely observed once back in those borders. Many get imprisoned simply because of some slip of the tongue. Others, who want to get into the regime's good graces, frame others to the authorities for similar slips of the tongue. There is very much a culture of fear built up that keeps people from acting on their doubts, and the regime itself is so well established through social intertia and force of arms that there is little way that anyone in the North could organize its collapse from without.

As to how this relates to the football players, they've seen what the outside world looks like. They see relatively well fed South Africans (far from a first world country itself) and they've seen how prevalent certain luxuries are. There's no missing the cars, busses, well manufactured clothing, and stuff of that sort. Thoughts will be going through their heads on how things are back home and the risk is that they could start telling stories of what they saw. Furthermore, they got spanked so hard that they have to wonder whether all that "Koreans are the most excellent people ever" stuff they've been taught is false. The regime knows that they'll doubt, they know that they carry the mere image of the outside world, and regardless of what they've done to their coach, each of the players is going to be so heavily watched that they'll all be afraid to say anything other than the party line.