I watched the last of the Korean presidential debates. I understood almost zero of what the heck they were talking about. Yet I watched it, nevertheless, because politics is interesting to me even when I don’t understand it. Because I’m weird.
I remember a lot was made of analyzing the body language of Obamney during the US presidential debates, and at the time, I thought, that’s dumb – there are more important things in a debate. I still think it’s dumb for serious political analysis to talk about those things, but in watching this Korean debate, I nevertheless basically did more of that than any actual content analysis, given how poor my Korean listening skills really are. Seriously – when I all I understand are the conjunctions and transition words, the debate is a sort of kabuki where I’m looking for nonverbal signals.
Here’s one thought – Moon (the male, leftistish candidate) needs to get the stick out of his butt. He’s about as charismatic as Michael Dukakis. Uh oh. Did I just say that? Park (the female, rightistish candidate) is much more personable. She will win. Admittedly, I’m bringing other information to the table – not least, the informal polls I periodically conduct in my middle-school classes. Over the years, these have proved remarkably representative of Korean public opinion. I’m not sure of the sociological reasons why tiny samples of Korean middle-schoolers in above-average-income suburbs of Seoul accurately reflect Korean public opinion, I’m just sayin’.
