What kind of a country is South Korea?

[markwillstar]

Im reading a book written in 1990 about a second Korean war, and as it begins we see student rioters demanding reform, freedom of various things, speech, and such.

But yet we guard this country like fort knox from the north and china and russia.

Are they a free nation?

or are they about as communist as the north is?

[Joe]

They are dictatorial. They are not democratic they are not communist. But it is because they are not communist that we support them.

Scratch that, apparently they overthrew the dictators, thank you andreaqi. I learn something new everyday.

[Reverence]

a bad country. Don't go there!!!
Its scary.

[Vatican Guru]

The reason we still guard South Korea is because, technically, the Korean War is still going on. There has never been an official truce, and the "conflict" in South Korea has just been an unofficial truce. Its sort of like England. It has a president that fulfulls the duties of Prime Minister.

[Lance]

Vatican Guru is right

[andreaqi]

South Korea is a free, very advanced democratic country, with a profound and diverse culture from Japan and China.

By the way it is also a nice place, with an average of very nice (and very hard headed) people and recently is producing very good movies.

It is a country that suffered a lot, including 50 years of Japanese invasion , the war with the north and several US backed fascist dictators after that. Last was the 1980 coup d'état by General Chun Doo-hwan who ruled up to 1987.
Meanwhile Korea was able to develop and from 1987 is a full blown democracy, with a per capita GDP equal to many western European countries, advanced technologies, nice cities and a bustling and living capital, Seoul.

[Blair H]

I don't know what it was like back then, but today SOUTH KOREA IS JUST AS COOL AS JAPAN!!! They are making alot of technollgy advanced things and they're math level is off the charts. One time, they looked at results of a math tests from SOuth Korea and compared them to ours. By god the South Koreans eradicted us.

[the italian idol]

kimchi taekwondo and dmz - thats what they are famous for.

[totallergroup]

Korea is very nice country.
Technically advanced and much developed country.

Korean War is not going on right now and both South and North Korea are trying to join together.

It is not a dangerous or bad country.
There's no terrorism, war AT ALL.

It's actually a peaceful and quiet country.

[Jack Brown]

Socially Korea is still a third world country. Its economy is booming but social changes are slow. I found Koreans asocial, extremely egoistic and indifferent people. For example Korean drivers don’t yield right of way to ambulances or fire engines, like they don’t care about those sick and dying. Drivers run red lights and they’d rather run over a child than be a little bit later at home. They make constant noise even in the middle of the night, and obviously don't care about neighbours.

Seoul city is a very ugly city which looks like East Berlin in the 60s with its thousands of ugly block of flats. Strangely enough Koreans don’t wash their windows what makes their cities look filthy. And Seoul streets are dirty, especially back streets. And those ugly panels on most of the city’s building.

The underground system is pretty good but people on the tube are being obnoxious – they get on before others get off, they muscle in like rugby players to be first on an empty seats, they yell to their mobile phones, men don’t give up their seats to their women, and they often turn the tube cars into a market, selling things. Koreans drink and smoke a lot and eat smelly kimchi so the underground is really smelly too, especially in the evening.

There’s also an amazing number of love-motels and different kinds of brothels in Korea, where one can buy a woman. I’ve read that amazing number of about 1 million Koreans work for this dirty business. Unbelievable. You can find more on the topic in Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitutio...outh_Korea

I’ve also read that Korean men are among the most unfaithful husbands in the world. Even government encourages companies to pay their employees for not going out for prostitutes on holidays.

http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/200...ll_pa.html

http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_e...98846.html

Koreans are prone to various addictions – they are alcoholics, huge number of Koreans smoke, they beat world records in computer and internet gaming, they cling to their mobile phone like their lives depended on them, there are TV sets literally nearly everywhere in Seoul, they can’t live without Korean soap-operas and infantile TV shows.

There are many foreigners who love Korea but at the same time really a lot of those who can’t stand Korean culture and its people.