South Korea has a Ministry of Unification in the same way that Macey's has a Father Christmas. It is something nice to tell the children. Even a cursory trip to Seoul reveals that very few South Koreans have much stomach for reunification. It is nice to talk about a yearning to be reunited with one's long-lost family, cruelly separated by a civil war that ended in 1953. But in reality, many South Koreans are sniffy about “country-bumpkin” northerners and fearful about the wrenching social and economic costs of welding their rich, shiny country to the backward rust-bucket that is North Korea.
韓國有個統一部，這就像Macey's百貨里有個圣誕老人，可以拿來哄小孩。就算是到首爾匆忙走一趟，也會發現，對統一真正感興趣的韓國人為數極少。讓失散多年的親人團聚，說起來不錯（1953年結束的內戰害得親人們生生分隔兩地）。可在現實中，很多韓國人看不起“土包子”北方佬，也害怕把自己富裕、一片光明的國家和落后、銹跡斑斑的“廢鐵桶”朝鮮硬是結合在一起，會帶來慘重的社會和經濟成本。