So it’s election time in South Korea. Not the ‘big new President’ type of election, more the ‘small time local council’ type of election. Personally, I find the Korean method of election campaigning to be infinitely more interesting and enjoyable that what I’m used to seeing back home. There are a lot of candidates (this is for Jangyu alone) and they are all assigned a number (I’m not entirely sure how it works as some of the candidates share the same number, maybe they’re in the same political party or something). Now, to the campaigning itself; the candidates will roam around the place, sometimes in person, sometimes in the form of a promotional truck. Each candidate has a theme song and promo video which are played from the trucks. Some have dancers who will set up on the corner of a junction (the busier the better) and dance to the theme song (being blasted out of the truck) and/or wave/bow to the passing traffic. It can be very entertaining to watch (I think I saw someone at some point busting out the robot) and some of the choreography is great and very imitable (as my 3rd Grade Middle School kids showed me today by showing me the ‘Candidate #5′ moves).
So what I’ve been doing, even though I can’t vote, is picking my favourite based on the quality of their theme song and dancers, as well as their photo. I thought I had a winner with Candidate #5 who had some exceptional dance routines and looks like a news reader (so you know he’s trustworthy). Yep, #5 looked pretty much unbeatable from where I was standing (over the road). That was until Candidate #1 came storming onto my radar by first showing up at a bar, where a group of us were, wearing a sash which had his name and number illuminated in very bright red and white LEDs. He shook almost every hand in the bar and even posed for some photos with us. Despite the fact that the LEDs lit his face from below and made him look rather sinister (much the same way as when you hold a torch under your chin whilst you’re telling a ghost story) I thought that here was a new potential front runner in the ultimately pointless game I was playing in my head. That idea was cemented in my mind the very next day when we saw the Candidate #1 truck driving down the street and who was running (yes running!) just in front of it? #1 himself! Amazing! He even gave us a wave as he went past. If I could wear the skin of a Korean as a disguise in order to vote for this guy then I most definitely would. Unfortunately at the point of writing this I haven’t had any volunteers. I wait in hope.
Oh! Also we get the election day off work. Thank you Candidates. Thandidates.
