Not much!
I'll explain. Oki has been watching (video feed of news via internet) the campaign for several months now. I would get daily briefings, sometimes more than once a day, about the goings on and her feelings about it. She comes from the Southern Province where people are the most engaged in politics. That part of the country had the highest voter turnout of over 90%. She also has a cousin who ran for higher political office several times, unsuccessfully, and one time was a campaign manager for a presidential candidate that just missed out on becoming president. Had this campaign been successful, her cousin would have become vice president of the country. So one could say Oki has politics in her blood.
As I was getting these updates they were always accompanied by the comments that none of the candidates were very good and she couldn't understand why there weren't better choices available. Last night I watched a CNN report where the reporter from Seoul called it "the campaign of the unlikeables". Oki nailed it.
The problem is that neither of the two front running candidates
has any international relations experience and both have somewhat
checkered pasts. The only bright spot (here) was that the
candidate who won was the one that Oki thought was the lesser of
the two evils. There was just a 0.8% vote margin for the winner.
Now we have to sit back and see how the new guy can do.
Steve
p.s. I see that PBS has a program on at 8pm tonight about: "A look at the talent and dedication of Italy's artisans, including glassblowing in Venice, ceramics in Umbria, olive oil-making in Tuscany and cashmere weaving in Genoa, as well as regional culinary traditions."
I may have to check this out as we went to a glassblowing factory
in Burano when we visited Venice and found it fascinating.
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Steve, I'm wondering what you and Oki think about South Korea's new president? Donna
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