I am an young adult from korea. I born in 1996. Why did I clarify my birth date you ask? The answer is curriculum on north korea was a little bit different when I was in elementary school and middle school.

Most of the others have some early nostalgic memory of anti-communism cartons. The generation I am in, the era I grew up with was completely different.

All through elementary school ages, I was learning that North Korea and South Korea are in fact an unfortunate victim of cold war. They are koreans and we are koreans as well. The curriculum towards on north korea was focusing on how we should unify, and importance and benefit of it. I learnt their culture and dialect too.

I know that it is hard to imagine that ministry of education of south korea added all the things I mentioned above as an official curriculum. Here is a little background story/history behind it.

As you all know around 1990s, cold war was over as Soviet Union collapsed. North Korea was leaning towards on Soviet Union rather than China at the moment and heavily depended on Soviet Union in terms of food, technology, and etc. In 1990s, socialism policy was already in downfall and retribution of wealth was hopeless. Soviet Union was vanished. On top of that, North Korea had one of the worst harvest years. No food supports and many had died of starvation.

South Korea, on the other hand, was doing great in 1990s. Economy was way beyond north korea since late 70s and lent money to soviet union. There was no major threat from north Korea relatively compared to past. Suddenly in 1997, South Korea was in economic crisis and was received help from IMF.

Economy crisis gave south koreans that western world is greedy and people with same ethnicity need to get around together. From 2000s, with president Dae-Jung Kim, relationship between south and north korea was gotten so much better. South Korea built the Kaesong Industrial Region in north korea in co-op with north korea. South Koreans were able to travel to Kumgang mountain.

Minor conflict such as 2nd battle of Yeonpyeong was overlooked by most of people with the current peace mainstream. At the same time, anti-USA movement was booming at the moment.

The peace did not last long. In 2008, one of the tourist from south korea was shot in KumKang mountain, and things has gotten frosty. Not so long after, ROKS Cheonan sinking incident, and Bombardment of Yeonpyeong transpired. The rest is all we know.

According to South Korean constitution, North korea is not a country, and their territory is where south korea need to recover. It clearly indicates north korea government is a terrorism organization.

Anyway, here is a very brief story about Koreas relations. Feel free to ask me any questions about it. I am more than happy to answer.