"What To Do With Myself"

This week we are holding our final exams. This is great for me because I only teach one day this entire week, and the rest of the days I can leave early. Yesterday,  however, I was told I shouldn't leave around 2pm, to which I inquired why.


"We are having an alarm today" she said.
"An alarm?" I questioned. "You mean a fire drill?"
"No, it's a drill for if we are attacked by North Korea." 
"Oh, so what do we do?" 
"People all over the area are supposed to go to shelters and subways." 
"Ok - but what do WE do?" 
"Since we don't have students after lunch today, we don't have to do anything."

Remind you of anything?

Some of my friends even pointed out that at their schools, all the students had to stand outside in the blistering cold during the 15 minute drill - because outside in the middle of a soccer field is the safest place to be if bombs are landing around you!

South Korea held it's 15 minute civil-defense drill yesterday. According to CNN this was "to prepare the public for a potential military attack from North Korea after Pyongyang shelled a South Korean island less than a month ago."

"After the bombing, we believed it was important for the public to know where to take shelter since the South is within five-minute-distance from a North Korean air raid," Kim Kwang-hee, the director of civil defense said."

"The drill involved 12 fighter jets which flew over the airs of Seoul and the country to mock an enemy air drill. More than 250,000 public workers helped civilians take shelter in underground facilities and subway stations, according to the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA)."

Here is what I don't understand. This country has been living with the threat of attack for 60 years, and had stopped these drills a decade ago. Ever since the most recent attack a few weeks ago when the North fired artillery on Yeonpyeong-do have people been taking things a little more seriously. I fear that the South is ill-prepared for any serious attack, and if for some reason they are prepared, the people (especially us foreigners) will have no clue what to do besides what our embassies tell us (which is minimal at best).
 

I feel as though the South Korean government doesn't take things too seriously at times, and is more focused on rhetoric and maintaining an image than actually being effective and prepared for these eventualities. If this was to happen in the US we would have drills, evacuation plans by town, the media would be warning us what to do for weeks in advance, and we would all live in fear hunkered down in our homes watching Glenn Beck while cleaning our guns.