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It could also be that Russia has accepted that China owns NK and is now backing them, and that NK now finally got that. NK can no longer use Moscow as a minifoil to Beijing, now got the Memo and is like "oh noesss, must find some other possible foil or Beijing owns everything, and if they do that they wont need our glorious Kim family anymore!" Kim the first actually played Moscow against Beijing against East Berlin (it isnt proper juggling if you are only playing 2 sides against each other), and succeeded, when Kim the second tried that he just successfully managed to simultaneously piss off everyone involved. Bonus Points for bloviating, to iirc Chruschev, that Stalin and Berija were totally cool guys who were never wrong and always had the right ideas.
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Oct 8, 2014 21:32
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Nintendo Kid posted:To be fair, Jong Il's ability to play countries off each other was hindered greatly by Il Sung's policies of "spending about 2 decades before dying ripping off all other countries". Nah, Il Sungs degree of ripping of was actually pretty normal. He could also, not unfactually, state that his North Koreans did kick the South Koreans in the Korean war, before the US/UN troops intervened. In their communications, they claimed it as a victory because the US agreed on a White peace, despite intervening directly and despite the Soviets not being forced to intervene directly themselfs. You can guess that the Chinese, especially a decade or so later, were kind of offended by this reasoning since it placed them a Tier below the Soviets, who sacrificed far less. East Germany got offended because Yong-Il was like: North Korea: "I should be the Showcase Nation to demonstrate the superiority of communism, East Germany is allready doing great!" East Germany:"Do you know who builds your trains and gives them to you for basically free?" North Korea: "Yeah, that totally proves my point, if you can give me stuff for free, I am so poor and you are so rich that you should give me more stuff for free!" North Korea:" Dude where are my trains? East Germany? Hello?" USSR got offended because Yong-Il seriously tried to popularize North korean Yuche Ideology in the Soviet Union. Parts of the KGB actually liked that, because North Koreas Propaganda efforts made the USSRs beurocracy/propaganda appear to be very rational, streamlined, transparent and efficient by comparison, but the Party higher ups were to offended by the thought of some random Kim trying to dare and teach them communism that they got rather mad. They may still be ongoing, ill try to find some "Korea magazines" online somewhere. They were especially notable for being made from rare and high quality paper, with really good illustrations/fotos, and a level of written Russian that would come out if I run a German Rap Song through google translate with a maturity filter on. E: tldr, Yong Il was really really horrible at anything resembling diplomacy
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Oct 8, 2014 21:57
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They live ok, but are butthurt because random Chinese People live better. While they theoretically have Access to considerable riches, actually using/enjoying those would free them up to attacks on their "bourgois livestyle" or whatever. Concerning the feasability of US/SK liberating it, well, SK has a realistic appreciation of how much uplifting NK would cost, so they arent very keen on that. What is possible is that Russia + China make a deal with SK + USA concerning reunification in return for Neutralisation + some extras. The thing is, neither trusts the USA enough for that, and that the biggest loosers in such a scenario, the kim family, has enough people in North Koreas Military to quite literally kill/purge such a deal. Absent of a major training programm for North Koreas Military in either Russia or China, it is pretty impossible to wrest control of North Koreas army away from the extended Kim family without couping the Kims first, and it is also impossible to safely coup the Kims while they still control the army.
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Oct 9, 2014 17:59
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Alexzandvar posted:Really the best thing the NK elite have access to is nice cars, but not much other than that. Many of the high officials who have defected to south Korea remark that living qualities outside the top few that surround the Kim's are surprisingly mediocre with the only real permanent luxury they have is they won't starve to death. They can still murder North Koreans, or considerable numbers of South Koreans, which is all they need to do in order to torpedo any kind of deal.
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Oct 9, 2014 22:58
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TheImmigrant posted:Kind of hard to avoid that in South Korea. Soju is cheaper than Coca-Cola there. It's bad manners not to get wasted with your boss when he invites you out - can be perilous. I once saw a couple of wasted and besuited men screaming and slap-fighting each other outside a bar in Hongdae. When I asked my host what they were screaming at each other about, he said that one of them had wanted to stop drinking, precipitating the fight. They also got some pretty complex drinking games. And allegations of cheating at those are apperantly serious buisness.
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Oct 13, 2014 21:47
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My Imaginary GF posted:I want to learn more. One pretty funny drinking game went like this: Everyone sits on the table, one guy starts a drink, then everyone counts to three simultaneously. At "three" everyone points at someone else. They guy who drank last also points at someone, and says some other number (preferably less then 10) while pointing. So, imagine that dude A (who drank) is pointing at dude B who Points at dude C who Points at dude D who Points at dude A. If the number Dude A says is 2, then we follow the pointing from dude A to dude B to dude C, two steps in this case because he said 2. Dude C now has to drink, and following this the game is repeated with dude C saying a new number. Everyone is supposed to point simultanously, and conspiracy to get some (non foreigner) shitfaced is/may-be-based-on-social-mores-I-dont-quite-get serious buisness. In my case, I was saved by the fact that our gracious Korean Hosts had a bet running. We were a half-Russian half German (me) a pretty hilarious Lithuanian, a French guy and about 8 or so Koreans. To the Koreans, the question of wether a Half Russian-Half German can outdrink a Lithuanian is perhaps akin to the "Can a Ninja defeat a Kossak" question to a western European, well worth "empirically" exploring, more so if you are somewhat inebridated. Of course, two camps opened between the Koreans, and it was decided to make a monetary bet on which whitebread would be shitfaced last (we of course didnt know about that). As it happens, a combination of complex strategies done in order to make "their foreigner" win, Alcohol Prices in Dänemark, complex strategies on my part in order to not get shitfaced (I am actually quite good in evolutionary game theory, considerable less good at drinking than being half German half Russian and a reserve soldier would suggest though), and the fact that the hilarious Lithuanian dude could drink hilarious amounts of alcoholic beverages, resulted in a draw due to alcohol depletion. We basically ran out of booze, and were stuck with a snoozing/wasted French guy, 2 other drunk whitebreads, and a bunch of Koreans (and some other assorted East Asians) who were now completely unsure on who won the (monetarily charged) bet. More hilarity ensued. On the next day, I got a half serious Job offer from one of the summer school instructors because I could solve complex differential equations while looking like the Avatar of "being totally Hungover". But well, I can totally recomend travelling to South Korea. Pretty awesome place. E: Only thing that sucks is the beer. Mightypeon fucked around with this message at 19:34 on Oct 16, 2014 |
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Oct 16, 2014 19:31
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Oh my, the Soviets/Russian had/have better insults.... "That overblown hot air balloon which used to be a condom in a Petersburg gay club!" A drawback of isolation is that you are so disconnect that you cant properly offend others.
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Dec 27, 2014 22:28
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Yeah, they do have some pretty "unique" racist concepts. Like their "inherent superiority of Korean blood" enabling to show the puny Soviet Union the proper way towards true communism. Mind you, in Warsaw pact times, they had an important role because (post Stalin) you could make all the jokes about North Korea (while actually meaning your own leaders) you wanted without running officially afoul of the authorities. Well, in the GDR, Czecheslovakia and Moscow at least. Any kind of Joke in Ceaucescu land was bad, On the topic of North Korea, there are 2 different trip reports making the rounds on the web: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/10/north-korea-travel-tourism/382101/2/ and http://www.granta.com/Archive/127/Scavengers/1 I kind of prefer the first one, but I think both are informative.
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Dec 28, 2014 01:26
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computer parts posted:They'd be right at home in South Korea. South Korea iirc has an amount of black people due to the amount of US military bases.
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Dec 28, 2014 14:06
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