Aquariums is a powerful book, and should be read by all. The descriptions of the work camps are harrowing -- families having to raise rats secretly in order to survive, the hateful treatment of the children by the indifferent teachers and guards. The author describes his return to South Korea, and his confrontation w/ Marxist South Korean college students, and these useful idiots refuse to believe what is going on north of the border. They fantasize and valorize Kim Jong Il and his regime, and simply will not accept any direct evidence that contradicts their marxist utopia.
The reason why so many South Koreans are ungrateful is because ungratefullness is natural. Few people want to be indebted to anyone else, especially when it comes to morality. If someone feels indebted to someone, the debt is very personal--like someone saying "I'm indebted to my father" or "to my wife". This is in a way reflexive back on the speaker because of the connection--sure, my father/wife is more honorable than me for raising me/loving me, but because I am that person's son/spouse, therefore I partake in that honor in some way. But when it is by nature impersonal--feeling indebted to people of a different nationality and language, to tax payers and soldier families thousands of miles away, shame sinks in. There is no personal connection to it, no personal honor to be salvaged at all.
So cognitive dissonance sets in, and these Germans/French/South Koreans/US Leftists refuse to believe that any stranger could be higher on the moral or spiritual food chain than themselves, so they must rationalize reasons for why the top dog isn't all that and should be taken down a couple of notches. Up is down, black is white, and George Bush is the real Hitler and Castro/Saddam/Kim are the real saints. It passes off the guilt for being indebted to others who sacrificed their lives and livelihoods to protect their nation, and it makes them feel superior to those benefactors as well by inverting the values. Human nature sucks.
Very interesting.