As you leave for work in the morning, you probably do what I do. You take a quick inventory to make sure you have everything. For me, it’s glasses, my cell phone, car keys, my ever present effervescent bottle of diet coke, my lunch and my wallet. Double check the wallet, I need my McChord AFB ID Card to get on to the base. It’s no fun to get all the way to the base and have to turn back because you forgot your wallet and don’t have your base ID card.
Some of you might take a lap top, a newspaper, book, magazine or even an MP3 player. No problem. It’s a part of modern life.
But suppose you couldn’t take that stuff with you. Any books, phone device, computer or MP3 you might normally take with you must be left behind or checked at the gate. The reason? Some of your co-workers are not allowed to even see such things, let alone have them. If this is you, you probably live in South Korea and commute to the North
KAESONG, North Korea — It takes barely an hour to drive from downtown Seoul to the other side of the demilitarized zone, but the culture shock is such that you might as well be commuting to the moon.
Mobile telephones, newspapers, books, videos, laptops, magazines, MP3 players and many other appurtenances of 21st century life have to be checked on the south side of the border.
Also best left behind are any wisecracks about the North Korean regime, in particular those involving its leader, Kim Jong Il.
"You've got to watch what you say," said Kim Yi Gyeom, a South Korean telecommunications worker standing in a long line of Monday morning commuters waiting to go north. "The spirit of openness has not come to North Korea yet."
For the North Koreans, the experiment is a way to build their economy with only the most limited dose of openness to the outside world. But the North is also bearing all the political risk: Contact with the better-fed, better-clothed South Koreans could endanger the government's grip on power.
"It is natural that there is a culture gap," said Hwang Boo Gi, director of the Kaesong Industrial District, who led a group of foreign journalists through the park Monday. "We are talking about the difference between capitalism and socialism."
That dreary end of that gap is what the Socialist want for us.
Although all 11 companies now operating in the 23-acre pilot project are South Korean, the North Koreans keep a tight rein on the work environment. No South Korean money is accepted here, even at a Family Mart convenience store set up for the exclusive use of South Korean employees.
North Korean patriotic music in praise of Kim blares over the loudspeakers of a futuristic warehouse where North Korean women in crisp blue uniforms stitch athletic shoes using brand-new sewing machines.
The monthly salaries of $57.50 for each North Korean worker — regardless of position — are paid directly to the North Korean government, which in turn gives the workers about $8, more than double the average monthly salary. South Korean companies have asked repeatedly to pay the workers directly and to give bonuses for better work, but have been refused.
There you go, comrade – Equality, Justice, Fairness. Eight lousy bucks a month for everyone. Ain’t Socialism grand? Want to guess who gets the other $49.50?
The South Korean running dogs of capitalist treachery want to pay the workers more money, but it’s their Socialist masters that keep them on less than sweatshop wages.
When leftists talk about fairness, this is what they mean. They want to take away or limit an individual’s ability to better himself or his family.
Read the whole thing and thank God you are here and not there.
VW
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