Tuesday, February 23, 2010

CONTINUITY MORE STRIKING THAN CHANGE


in North Korea. So says Gordon Flake. Or does he? When the Korea Times article gets down to specifics, they are actually a bit scanty. First, Flake notes that the pace of change is slower than other places such as China.
"North Korea as a society, of course, they are changing. But the relative pace of change there is slower than the pace of change in all other nations." This is a stark contrast to what has happened in China over the same time period, he said.
He then observes that the much ballyhooed North Korean interest in English is exaggerated:
He said the alleged shift of North Koreans' foreign language preferences from Chinese and Russian to English represented only a narrow segment of society ― mainly the elite in Pyongyang.
And that's pretty much it. I suspect that Gordon would agree with me that this is a case of the headline seeking press exaggerating or twisting one's intended meaning almost beyond recognition.

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