Election fever is wild in Busan. Tomorrow citizens will vote for regional leaders (mayors, governors, etc). However, unlike in the United States, campaigning only began about 3 weeks ago and the election is tomorrow! Although most of the campaigning is centered around dancing 아줌마 (older Korean women) with matching straw hats, trucks strewn with banners of the candidates' awkward senior picture poses, and singing supporters on every corner, their shortened campaigns do make sense. Now, I've been reading that some of the campaigning has been lessened because of the sinking of the Cheonan, but still, it is not as ludicrous as the campaigning in America (even if there are dancing women in straw hats).
I suppose this got me thinking...imagine if the elections in the US were like this: campaigns only a few weeks long and more money spent on things that really matter than negative TV ads, years worth of buttons and countless yard signs. Now don't get me wrong, I think our debates and town meetings are important, but when did the length and spending get so out of hand? I suppose campaigning years in advance seems a little more necessary when you think about lesser known candidates wanting to rise from the unknown (ie Paul Wellstone and even Barack Obama), but still, as I said earlier, the amount of money spent is selfish and wasteful. Like many things I'm realizing about the US, we've taken it wayyy too far.
On another note, many of my teachers explained that the younger Korean generation is going to step up and vote in this election for the first time. Apparently this has not happened in the past but with the tensions between North and South Korea high, they are deciding it is time for them to lend their voice to the situation--my teacher included.
All of that being said, here is a video of some tough campaigning Aaron and I saw through a bus window the other day. :)
To be fair to the US, I don't think you're comparing apples to apples. As you said, these were Korea's regional elections... not national elections. The US doesn't really go all-out of off-year elections either.
ReplyDeleteLast year when we re-elected many local seats you only saw campaigning during October/November. This year, as some of the larger seats like governor come up for election... filings were due June 1st and campaigning hasn't really picked up yet.
You're comparing a local Korean election season to a national US presidential election. I do wish that dancing and straw hats made more appearances in our campaigns though :)
The dancing is fantastic.
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