look at Mr. Lee…

The Republic of Korea elected a new president last night: Lee, Myung-bak. From the conservative Grand National Party, he garnered nearly 50% of the vote in a field of five candidates (his closest opponent was at 26%). That’s the biggest margin in the admittedly short history of democracy in South Korea.

Anyway, I’m no expert on Korean politics. I did want Mr. Lee to win as he is more pro-U.S. and less likely to bend over and take it up the ass from Mr. Kim, Jong-Il. By most accounts he did a good job as the mayor of Seoul. And he is the former CEO of Hyundai, so he knows business. The liberals are trying to conjure some scandal involving bribery and kickbacks, but the Korean public didn’t seem to care when they cast their ballots.

Two points I wanted to make with this post. First, I was astounded by the reaction of my Korean coworkers this morning. They were positively gleeful! Even the normally laconic Mr. Yi, Yong-in was going on and on about how happy he was that Mr. Lee had won because he thinks it will improve relations with the U.S. and make the economy stronger. What really surprised me was how much he hates the outgoing President Roh. I actually share that sentiment, as Roh is a cowardly leftist he has done much damage here in the short span of his five year term. I told Mr. Yi that I had memorized the Korean word for yellow by associating it with the soon to be former prez (roughly, no lang. which kinda sounds like no wrong. hmm, y’all know that Roh’s name is pronounced Noh, right?)

Anyhoo. I have three folks working for me with the surname of Yi. The funny thing is in Korean they are Lee’s, just like the new president. They are Yi’s now because USFK using a different Romanization convention and we actually require our Korean employees to spell their names the way we tell them to. Which is pretty outrageous, but there is supposedly a valid reason we do that. Perhaps I will write about that another day.

The other point of this post was to share with you the song that has been bouncing around my head all day. You remember the Bobbett’s, doncha?

One, two, three, look at Mr. Lee
Three, four, five, look at him jive
Mr. Lee, Mr. Lee
Oh, Mr. Lee
Mr. Lee, Mr. Lee
Oh, Mr. Lee
Mr. Lee

Mr. Lee, Mr. Lee
Oh, Mr. Lee
Mr. Lee, Mr. Lee
Oh, Mr. Lee
Mr. Lee, Mr. Lee
Oh, Mr. Lee
Mr. Lee

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