All that to say, the entire country has been mourning the sinking of this ship and it's deceased crew members. They have cancelled festivals throughout the country in order for "a proper mourning" to take place. It's almost as if they punish themselves in a way... Korean's mourn for months, and sometimes years, over things like this, much the way we in the US mourned over the happenings of September 11th. The teachers at my school (myself included) have been wearing these pins on our sweaters, which are written in Chinese, but mean that "I am very sad."
Today is a very sad day in Korea, because the searching for the 46 missing soldiers will stop and a ceremony commemorating their lives will take place. Every school in Korea, at 10:00am this morning, had a moment of silence... Sirens roared throughout the city of Busan, reminding people of this sad occasion.
