Aaron‘s wife, Soo Jin, first showed me this commercial in Busan last weekend.
SAN FRANCISCO – The Bush administration is drawing up plans to further tighten the noose around North Korea by barring financial firms investing in Pyongyang from conducting business in the United States. Washington is moving fast to capitalize on Pyongyang’s alleged counterfeit dealings, but so fast that it is omitting a major factor: Korea is reunifying.
At Incheon International Airport in South Korea, flat-screen televisions beam a Samsung cellphone commercial of a concert with South Korea’s pop icon, Lee Hyo Ri, and the North Korean dancer Jo Myung Ae. Korea’s most popular female stars, they sing a song about parted lovers with the lyrics, “Someday we will meet again, although no one knows where we’re going, someday we will meet again, in this very image of us separated.”
As they hold hands, the blue “One Korea” flag rolls down behind them, and as they turn to watch the flag, Lee Hyo Ri says, “That day I was so nervous because the story wasn’t just about the two of us.”
Here was Samsung, one of Korea’s most powerful corporations, popularizing reunification. And the South Korean government was also sending a clear message to all foreigners landing on Korean soil: Reunification is happening, slowly, but surely.
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