At the event in Seoul, Song Won-jae says he is feeling lucky. The 24-year-old, who just got out of the army, says it’s time for him to find a girlfriend. He’s not asking for too much.

“I hope I can meet someone with a good mind,” Song says. “And I know it’s a slim chance, but I hope she’s Christian like me. My parents would like that, since my dad is a pastor.”

Song is just one of a thousand or so singles who braved Seoul’s sub-freezing temperatures to join a Christmas Eve dating flash mob. Available women came to Yeouido Park wearing something red; the guys, something white. They used coded phrases to let each other know who’s on the market.

Song Won jae. (Photo: Jason Strother)

“Are you here to go for a walk? Do you want to go for a walk with me? he says.

Considering this is a flash mob, there was a quite a bit of stage-managing going on. Organizers had the men stand on one side of the park, women on the other. Then, the two sides converged. I lost Song in the sea of people.

The flash mob and other blind date events spread across social media here, and in a country where almost everyone uses a smart phone, news of events like these travels fast.

Yu Tae-hyung, who came up with the idea for the mass blind dates, says he’s surprised how much attention they got in both social and traditional media.

“I created a Facebook dating site to help me get over my own break-up a few months ago,” Yu says. “But then I posted that we should have one giant dating event for Christmas and it just took off from there.”

(Photo: Jason Strother)

Yu says he thinks the mass blind dates were so popular because being single on Christmas is just “boring.” Television networks play the same movies, like “Home Alone,” every year and people would much rather go out on dates for the holiday.

Back at dating event in Yeouido Park, the crowd shouts “kiss” at a young man and woman who seem to have hit it off.

But when I finally find Song Won-jae again, he tells me it wasn’t his lucky day after all. He asked four different young women to take a walk with him, but they all said no thanks. He attributes some of his bad luck to an overwhelming gender disparity.

“It’s too bad there were so many guys here,” he says. “But all I can do is keep trying.”

He’s not going to let it ruin his Christmas, though. Song says he’ll probably just end up watching “Home Alone” on television, like he does every year.

It’s a romantic comedy.

The last time a North Korean film was shown at the Busan festival was 2003, but that time, only foreign visitors were allowed to enter the theater.

There’s was a packed house for “Comrade Kim Goes Flying” in Busan. The movie tells the story of a young North Korean coal miner who dreams of becoming an acrobat. Through sheer determination and support from her working class community, Kim lands a spot in a circus trapeze troupe.

Of course, she wins the heart of her handsome teammate as well.

The organizers of the film festival got permission from the Korean government to screen the movie. Lee Sang-yong, director of Busan’s World Programming, says only government officials worry about pro-North Korean politics.

“The film does have some political content,” Lee said, noting that there’s a scene where Comrade Kim gets words of encouragement attributed to the late Kim Jong Il. “But South Korean people are not naïve. We know what the reality is in North Korea. We can tell what is propaganda.”

It wasn’t only North Koreans behind the film’s creation. Belgian screenwriter Anja Daelemans and British producer Nicholas Bonner oversaw much of Comrade Kim’s production. Bonner, who has made three documentaries in North Korea, says scripting a romantic comedy came pretty naturally for the North Koreans writers, and the humor is all theirs.

“For example, the doorman who is refusing to let someone in who is trying to bribe his way in with a bread ticket. They wrote that, we didn’t write that,” Bonner said. “Then there are these little nuances, the way the couples act. Instead of having kissing in North Korea, we have hand holding. It’s that wonderful passion that they show. The audience picks up on that.”

Bonner says people in South Korea got the jokes, too.

At the screening, the audience laughed at the mostly slapstick humor, and they gave the movie a big round of applause. After the movie let out, I asked some in the theater what they thought of Comrade Kim.

Kim Hyung-ryu, 22, said it was a nice change from the kinds of movies he usually sees.

“South Korean movies have a lot of complicated relationships between male and female characters. But this North Korean film showed very simple, pure love.”

Another view, 57-year-old Gu Eun-sun, said she came a long way to Busan just to see Comrade Kim.

“It reminded me of South Korean comedies from the 1960s,” she said, adding that she’s she had the chance to see this movie.

The North Korean cast and crew got to see the film at the Pyongyang International Film festival last month. They were invited to Busan too.

But for whatever reason, they weren’t able to make it.

Government officials are trying to do something to address the issue, though. In Seoul, they recently targeted a bridge that’s become a popular spot for suicide attempts.

Looking over the guardrails of the Mapo Bridge, it’s a 60-foot drop into the Han River. That’s probably not high enough to die on impact, but that hasn’t stopped many people from trying.

Over the past five years, at least 100 South Koreans have jumped into the river. About half of those died. Of the 31 bridges across the Han, Mapo seems to be the top choice for jumpers.

Tired of it being referred to as the bridge of death, the Seoul City government recently made some changes to the bridge. Now officials are calling it the Bridge of Life.

Instead of installing high fences to deter jumpers, officials chose a strategy of appealing to a person’s emotions.

Park Young-ki of the Korea Suicide Prevention Group was contracted by the city to give Mapo Bridge a new look.

“Most people commit suicide because they have trouble communicating and feel isolated,” Park said. “So this bridge will make people feel they are wanted and help them open up too.”

A message written on the guardrail of Seoul's Mapo Bridge asks "Do you have a secret?" (Photo: Jason Strothe)

All along the guardrails are inspirational slogans that light up as you pass by. They say things like, “how are you doing,” “Isn’t it nice to be walking on a bridge,” and “Did you eat anything yet?”

There are also pictures of babies on the rail, and at the center of the bridge is a bench with a brass statue of a stooped young man, being comforted with a pinch on the left cheek by a grandfatherly looking gentlemen.

If anything, it’s a unique approach to suicide prevention in the country has one of the highest suicide rates in the world.
But not everyone is impressed by the Bridge of Life and its positive messages.

“I was just walking here, talking to you, and I didn’t even notice it here,” said Dr. Kim Hyun-chung, a psychiatrist at the National Medical Center in Seoul, who came along with me to check out the new installations on the bridge.

She says she thinks some of the new features could actually be counter productive. She stops to look at a pictures of a baby.

“It might make someone more sad, because maybe they lost a child. It could be someone they miss very much and want to go with them.”

Kim says the officials missed an opportunity. The new signs and images don’t provide any help if a person with suicidal thoughts decides to walk back off the bridge.

“Maybe they’re trying to move your emotions a bit, but maybe they should give out more facts, like there are people willing to listen to you, there are better ways to solve your problems, please contact such and such a number. Maybe that would have been more helpful,” she said.

Suicide is still a taboo subject in South Korea, Kim says, and there’s no public dialogue about it, which leaves many people feeling it’s an acceptable way out of their problems.

A statue on the Mapo Bridge in Seoul shows an elderly man consoling an apparently depressed man. (Photo: Jason Strother)

Park Young-ki, the Bridge of Life consultant, acknowledges the new features don’t tackle all of the issues, but it’s a start.
“There is a need for suicide education and our organization is working to put similar messages not just on bridges, but also in schools,” he said.

Dr. Kim Hyun-chung concedes that at least the government is trying to address Korea’s suicide problem. But she says depressed people need more help than just positive messages on light-up guardrails.

“It just makes them more lonely,” she said. “We need to have more interest in people around us and listen to their difficulties. Nowadays people are so busy and caught up with their own problems; they really don’t have time to listen to one another.”

Kim says maybe suicide attempts at the Mapo Bridge will go down now, but if someone is really determined to jump to their death, there are plenty of other bridges across the Han River.

Gangnam is a district south of the Han River that’s associated with moving up the social ladder. Some families start their ascent by putting their kids into expensive schools there.

Cheon Sun-kyoung, 48, moved with her family to Gangnam so that her teenage daughter could attend one of Seoul’s best private tutoring, or cram schools to prepare for the national university entrance exam.

“To Korean mothers, living here in Gangnam means that you are sending your kids to the best schools and giving them more opportunities in life,” Cheon said. “It’s one of the most important things we can do for our children.”

But it comes at a price. Cheon and her husband had to take out a nearly $100,000 loan to pay the deposit for a new apartment. She does her grocery shopping in other, less pricey neighborhoods. She says the family can no longer save money.

Korea emerged from the financial crisis of 2008 largely unscathed, but now some observers say this Gangnam style is prompting fears of an American-style debt crisis in South Korea.

Baek Seong-jin, a financial advisor who deals with personal bankruptcy, says the situation in Korea is similar to what’s happened in the United States. He says that he has seen two to three times as many people going broke and declaring bankruptcy than he did a year ago.

Baek says inflation, a slumping real estate market, and high interest loans are all taking their toll. He points to figures showing that the average family in Korea spends one and a half times their disposable income. That’s a little more than what Americans were spending just before the start of the subprime mortgage crisis in 2008.

Tom Coyner, president of Soft Landing Consulting in Seoul, says South Koreans are racking up debt in similar ways.

“[They] take out six or more credit cards and once they’re maxed out, realizing they couldn’t pay off the balance, they started taking out loans,” Coyner said. “It’s constantly moving the debt around from credit card to credit card.”

It wasn’t that long ago that Korea was a nation of savers. But stagnant wages, a higher cost of living and a desire to spend in order to achieve a better social position are leaving families in the red.

Jeong Young-sik, an analyst at the Samsung Economic Research Institute in Seoul, says Korea’s overspending is the result of modern myths, for instance, that property value always goes up.

“Another myth is that education will increase their social position,” he said.

Jeong notes that real estate loans and private education are the main expenditures driving Korean households into debt. He says the best prescription now is some austerity to deal with the problem.

“The Korean government doesn’t want to increase government debt sharply,” he said. “The most important thing to solve household debt in South Korea is belt tightening.”

Cheon Sun-kyoung says her family has done some belt tightening since moving to Gangnam, but the sacrifice was worth it. She says her daughter is getting a better education and may be able to enroll in a top university.

Still, she is concerned that Korea’s over spending will get the nation into trouble.

“The Korean economy seems to follow America’s, and when I speak to my friends in the US and they tell me about how bad the situation is there, I get worried that we will face the same problems.”

Cheon says once her daughter gets out of high school, she plans to move the family out of Gangnam.

Moon, whose followers are known as “Moonies,” was a controversial religious leader who proclaimed to be the Messiah. He did jail time in at least three countries during his life.

Yet, he managed to create a multibillion-dollar business empire, and was granted audiences with world leaders, including North Korea’s Kim Il-Sung in 1991.

We have a report from Jason Strother in Seoul.

Fifteen countries are represented at the games for the first time, including North Korea that sent one swimmer to London.

Critics, however, say North Korea does not treat disabled people well and should not be allowed at the Paralympic Games.

Now that he’s living in South Korea, he does satirical art critical of the North Korean regime, including a painting of Marilyn Monroe’s body, with the head of Kim Jong Il.

Jason Strother has the story from Seoul.

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Park is the daughter of the late military dictator Park Chung-hee, who kick-started Korea’s rapid economic growth in the 1970s. He was assassinated in 1979 by his spy chief.

Ms. Park still has to win the nomination of her conservative party, but polls suggest she’d be the frontrunner in the upcoming general election.

The soft-spoken 60-year old politician once described her policies as “Korean Thatcherism.” But today at her announcement at a trendy shopping mall in Seoul, Park pledged that if elected, she would create more social welfare programs, and a country where no one is left behind. Park also promised to improve relations with North Korea.

Park’s pedigree as the daughter of the leader who helped bring South Korea out of dire poverty and into the first world, was reason enough for many here to vote for her. Jeong Cheon-joo, who came to watch the speech, said Park would be a different leader than her most recent predecessors.

“She’s honest and very direct,” Jeong said. “She’s not going to be corrupt like our other presidents. We are ready to have a female president.”

Like Jeong, most of the women in the crowd were in their sixties and seventies. Park’s campaign is having trouble attracting younger female voters, like Kang Yoo-jung, a 28-year old PhD candidate at Seoul’s Sookmyung Women’s University. Kang said she can’t separate Park Geun-hye from her father’s dictatorial rule.

“As a woman I’d be happy to see a female president, but not Park Geun-hye,” said Kang. “She’s a conservative who only got to where she is because of her father.” Kang added that Park only represents the privileged class, not normal Korean women.

Park’s gender hasn’t played much of a role in her political career — and some observers say that’s intentional. Bak Sang-mee, who lectures in cultural anthropology at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in Seoul, said Park’s political style isn’t much different from that of her male counterparts, and that works in the male-dominated politics of South Korea.

“I think Park Geun-hye has made a safe bet by playing the male game to show that she is as capable as male politicians,” Bak said. “I’m not sure if ordinary voters are ready for a female president.”

Bak added she’s also not sure if ordinary voters might feel put off by the fact that Park Geun-hye has never married or had children.

Kim Hee-jung, who’s 36, brought her 1-year old son to Park’s rally at the shopping mall. She said that the candidate could have learned a few things if she had a family of her own.

“Her image is that she doesn’t communicate well with others,” said Kim. “She doesn’t know how to listen.”

Whether Park is married or not, she added, that’s a quality a president must have.

Hakim Ali (Photo: Jason Strother)

But 13-year-old Hakim Ali has a much harder time doing this than other kids. He is severely cross-eyed, and that causes his vision to go dark and hazy.

Ophthalmologists say as many as four percent of children in India have crossed eyes. In fact, Hakim isn’t the only one in his family with the condition. Four brothers and sisters suffer from it too.

Hakim’s mother says the family hasn’t sought treatment for the children, even though local hospitals provide it for free. She says the family is so focused on trying to make a living that there is no time to worry about anything else.

But that may not be the only reason the children haven’t been treated.

“If a child is born with crossed eyes, it is considered to bring good luck to the family,” says Manish Kumar of ORBIS, an international organization that supports eye clinics around India that offer corrective surgery for crossed eyes.

Kumar says the belief that a cross-eyed child brings good fortune often gets in the way of his organization’s efforts.
“In many communities in India as well as in Nepal, this belief actually prevents the family or the parents to take the children for medical attention at an early age or maybe even later.”

And if parents wait too long, it can be too late to correct a child’s vision.

Hakim Ali's family (Photo: Jason Strother)

“The child not only loses vision, but also loses depth perception,” she says. “These get lost over a period of time”
So medical charities are trying to get parents to take the condition seriously.

Manish Kumar of ORBIS says he doesn’t try to convince families that they’re wrong about a child bringing good luck. Instead, his social workers warn parents about the harm that could come from delaying treatment.

“They say, ‘Look at your child, right in front of you. He’s not able to see now. Maybe in [the] course of time he might become blind…. As a mother, would you like to see your son blind?’” he says. “They try to play with that kind of an emotion. That has worked in a better way.”

And that’s the appeal Kumar makes to the family of 13-year-old Hakim Ali, in the Delhi slum.

“Surely, you’d want your son to be able to see well, don’t you?” he says to the boy’s mother.

Hakim Ali’s uncle, Ibrahim, says he’d always thought having an eye condition like this was the result of fate and that it was something his nephew would just have to live with. But the conversation appears to change his mind.

“I feel bad for him,” Ibrahim says, acknowledging that his nephew can’t ride a bike or lead a normal life because of his eyes. So Ibrahim agrees to take the boy in for treatment.

That sounds like good news, but the social workers from the charity say their job isn’t finished yet. Once they leave, parents often change their minds. So the workers will keep calling on Hakim Ali’s family until the boy actually shows up at the hospital.

Being a single mom can be hard anywhere, but it’s especially challenging in Korea.

Kim Jee-young, a single mother in Seoul, said that earlier this year she and her son lived in a shelter after losing their apartment. She said they had nowhere else to go.

“It’s very difficult in Korea for an unwed mother to live with her parents,” Kim said. “There is a tremendous prejudice toward single mothers and it’s an embarrassment to the family. My parents would feel ashamed to have us living them.”

Kim is not her real name. She asked me not to reveal her identity.

Unwed motherhood is often kept a secret in South Korea, much like in the US more than 50 years ago. But on Friday, the stories of women like Kim were told at the second annual Single Mother’s Day ceremony in Seoul.

It’s not just family abandonment. These women sometimes get fired from their jobs, and they’re treated like social outcasts, according to Choi Hyung-sook, who heads an advocacy group for unmarried mothers. She’s one herself. Choi said most pregnant single women here have only two choices.

“When I was eight months pregnant, my brother told me that I should have an abortion,” Choi said. “If not that, then I should put the baby up for adoption.”

Choi said after she gave birth, she did bring her infant son to an orphanage, but quickly changed her mind. International adoption has long been the last resort for pregnant single women in Korea, who were told they were unfit to be mothers.

It started in the 1950s, after the Korean War. Since then, at least 150,000 Korean babies have been sent overseas — most to the United States. Some of those adoptees have come back to Korea as adults, like Jane Jeong Trenka. She was born in 1972 and adopted with her sister by a family in Minnesota.

Now she advocates on behalf of unwed Korean mothers. Trenka is president of TRACK, Truth and Reconciliation for the Adoption Community of Korea, a group that opposes international adoption.

She said South Korean policies continue to make it financially difficult for single women to raise children on their own.

“Because Korea is so prejudiced against women having children out of wedlock, they prioritize their money in a way that favors orphanages over being cared for by your own mom,” Trenka said.

Shannon Heit, who is 30, said the way unwed mothers are still treated in Korea made her and other adoptees want to support them and get involved in Single Mother’s Day.

“We imagine our own mothers, if they had such support from people like us, or from you know politicians or the government, maybe it could have been different” for them, she said.

Heit added that she’s glad to see that these days, more single mothers, like Kim Jee-young, are willing to keep their children.

As for Kim, she said for now, things look pretty good. She has a part time job and she’s also studying to become a realtor.

But she begins to tear-up, when she talks about her son’s future. She said she’s worried about when he gets older, when teachers and other
parents find out that his mother isn’t married.

Then he too will feel ashamed.

Or is he?

We find out from reporter Jason Strother.

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Enkhjagal Khishigbaatar comes from Mongolia, but her two young sons were born here, like their father. The boys have Korean names and don’t really speak Mongolian, but she says she hopes they won’t forget their roots.

“I always remind my sons that they are also Mongolian, that they should be proud to be Mongolian.”

Mixed families like this are increasingly common in South Korea, according to Hong Inpyo, who heads the Seoul Multicultural Family Clinic.

“Multicultural families are really helping out Korea’s low birth rate,” Hong says. “By 2050 their children will make up 10 percent of the population. These children will be the next generation of the nation.”

Just this month, Seoul opened the Dasom School, the country’s first publicly funded school for multicultural children. Liang Man Ni, 18, who moved here from China in 2009 with her Korean mother and Chinese father, says she likes the school very much.

“I’ve made friends from Japan, Hong Kong and Vietnam.”

So far, Dasom has 48 students who were raised abroad. But soon, school administrators say, they expect to enroll children who’ve grown up entirely in Korea.

Korean authorities say many children from multicultural families aren’t attending school at all, especially in rural parts of the country. A recent survey found that about 30 percent of these children stay home with their foreign mothers, and many don’t learn to speak Korean proficiently.

That has the South Korean government worried, according to Chung Chin-sung, a sociologist at Seoul National University. Chung says she doesn’t want to see these kids fall through the cracks, even if it means educating them in separate schools.

“In principle, children from different backgrounds should be integrated with other students,” she says, “but there are children who cannot adjust to normal school. Without any help they cannot be prepared to get into normal society. I think this school can be a last chance for those children.”

Enkhjagal Khishigbaatar and her two Korea-born sons are one of South Korea's increasing number of 'multicultural families.' (Photo: Jason Strother)

“Southeast Asian countries are less economically developed than Korea. So that’s why they assume they are inferior to them,” she says.

Kim adds that isolating these kids in their own school isn’t going to reduce prejudice. Last year Save the Children launched an anti-discrimination pilot program in a few Seoul elementary schools. Students acted in role-playing games that had them pretend to be kids from non- traditional families.

Cha Eun-seo, who is 9, tells me she’s learned that she shouldn’t tease kids with parents from other countries.

She says she and some of her classmates have made friends with a boy from a multicultural family, and they’re trying to teach him Korean.

If there were any questions left as to whom now runs the reclusive state, the answer was made clear. Kim Jong-un. The son of Kim Jong-il, who’s in his late 20s, was called the Supreme Leader of the party, people and military.

Kim’s command of the North’s million strong army has some in South Korea concerned. Namely, that country’s own military conscripts.

Service in South Korea’s military starts with a buzz cut.

Lee Kwang-min’s barbershop is right outside an army post in Seoul. Soldiers drop in for their regulation shave. But Lee says, it’s not just a haircut for new conscripts, it’s a rite of passage.

“It’s kind of becoming a man,” he said with a laugh. “New life is coming.”

Soon conscript Kim Min-jun will sit in the barber’s chair. Kim was informed this week that his mandatory military duty will begin in February.

He had hoped against hope that this day would never come.

“When I was very young, I thought when I become 20 years old, which is the age you have to complete the duty of military, I thought our nation would be unified with North Korea. So it doesn’t really matter to me, I thought. That’s what I thought when I was 10 years old.”

That didn’t happen. In fact, relations between the Koreas are arguably worse now than they were a decade ago.

North Korea’s military is twice the size of the South’s. It also has a nuclear weapons program. And the North Korean army is now under the control of Kim Jong-un, who’s only in his late 20s.

Some South Koreans are concerned about the age and inexperience of North Korea’s new leader.

“The problem is that he’s too young,” said Kim Min-jun’s friend, Choi Chanyong. “In the young times, in the young ages, you can be aggressive, take risks, adventures, so what I was worrying about is that he’s young he wants to do something, he wants to show something, so he could accidentally do something”

Do something, Choi says, like launch an attack on South Korean soil. That’s not a far-fetched scenario. Last year, the North bombarded Yeonpyeong Island. Two South Korean marines and two civilians died in the shelling.

And so, Kim accepts the necessity of mandatory conscription, though, he’s not exactly looking forward to serving in the military.

“Very personally, I don’t like it,” he said. “But thinking about the country, yeah there are no options, no other options, yeah, I’ll have to accept it”

Kim says for now, he just wants to enjoy his last two months of freedom before he gets that buzz cut.

Lee Hyeon Seo watched some of the funeral during lunch at a restaurant in Seoul run by North Korean refugees. She’s one herself; she left North Korea in 1996 when she was 14.

Lee, who’s now 29, said watching the funeral procession, reminded her of when Kim Jong-il’s father, the North’s founding leader, Kim Il-sung, suddenly died in 1994.

“I was only 12 at the time, but I remember it being really shocking,” Lee said. “When I arrived at school, everyone was crying. I felt if I didn’t cry, then people would look at me strangely, so I just pretended. Now I’ve met other North Korean defectors who say they felt the same way too back then. I thought I was the only one who faked crying.”

Even though Lee wasn’t sure why she was crying then, many North Koreans did know, says Hyun In Ae, vice president of a Seoul-based organization made up of former North Korean elites. Hyun said many North Koreans still have great respect for Kim Il Sung, but Kim Jong Il is a different story.

“People blame Kim Jong Il for why North Korea is in such bad shape,” Hyun said, “and the government knows it. So that’s why during this mourning period they’ve given out more food and staples, and kept markets open. They’re treating the people a lot better than normal.”

Hyun and other refugees say the trick now is for Pyongyang to make the country’s new leader Kim Jong Un seem less like his father and more like his grandfather.

Defector Lee Hyeon Seo said based on the images she’s seen of Kim Jong Un from the funeral, that’s exactly what the North is trying to do.

“I’ve seen pictures of Kim Jong Un from a few years ago. He was slim then. I think he put on a lot of weight to look more like his grandfather. He even wears the same type of suit and has the same haircut,” Lee said.

Lee added that she’s not sure if North Koreans will be comforted by that for very long. But she said she hopes that Kim Jong Un will eventually earn their respect by making the kind of changes that his father and grandfather never did.

South Korean activists protest against both the hereditary succession in North Korea and those who wish to go to the North to pay respects to Kim Jong-il. (Photo: Reuters/NewsLook)

Kim Jong Un now heads the ruling Worker’s Party’s central committee, a post that helps clear the way for him to take over following his father’s death from an apparent heart attack earlier this month.

But little is known about the young Kim, who’s believed to be in his late 20s. Uncertainty in the North often translates to uncertainty in South Korea’s economy.

For instance, back in 1994, after North Korea’s founding ruler Kim Il Sung passed away, consumers in the South hoarded staples, fearing an outbreak of war.

But that doesn’t appear to be happening this time around. At the Well Being neighborhood market in Seoul, a clerk said nothing changed after news of the death of Kim Jong Il. Prices are the same and there’s no shortage of goods.

Whenever bad news comes out of North Korea, like when it tested a nuclear device in 2006, or when it attacked a South Korean island last year, the stock market in the South reacts. Lim Soo-ho, an analyst at the Samsung Economic Research Institute in Seoul, said South Korea’s KOSPI did drop a few points after the announcement of Kim’s death, but bounced back two days later.

According to Lim, South Korea’s economy has remained virtually unaffected because investors and consumers don’t see North Korea’s transition as a problem.

He added that people here have experienced these types of situations before, like in 1994. They’ve learned from them; any bad situation has always gone back to normal.

Lim said it also helps that the South Korean government isn’t provoking North Korea, like it did with a military build up in 1994.

Seoul’s expat business community didn’t flinch either, according to Tom Coyner, president of Soft Landing Consulting. He said the shock could have been greater if investors hadn’t seen this one coming.

“Korea seems to be a country that operates on a crisis du jour basis, so we have Kim Jong Il dying, but that’s not a big unexpected event. We knew he was in poor health and the business environment is taking it in stride,” Coyner said.

But Coyner said that given that we still don’t know a lot about the son, Kim Jong Un, investors and other business leaders will have to wait and see how things play out once he officially takes over.

Still, some observers see opportunity in Kim Jong Un’s rise to power.

Hank Ahn, a commissioner at KOTRA, a trade and investments agency, said the younger Kim’s exposure to the West during his school years in Switzerland could mean he’s open to doing business with the outside world — and that’s something South Korea could cash in on.

“It’s quite natural we can assume that North Korea will eventually open up its economy to the outside world,” Ahn said. “So it’s better for us, we can reduce our unification costs when the two countries are reunified, even if we don’t know when. And besides, we can export our products to North Korea as well.”

But Kim Jong Un might have more immediate concerns on his mind.

He’s preparing for his father’s funeral on Wednesday. So improving North Korea’s economy may have to wait.