lessons from movies

I am currently absorbed watching a Korean Movie (With English subtitles of course) about the Korean monarchy and the political scheming which goes on in the palace and strangely enough its all too familiar because you can see the same scheming going on everywhere today. The movie not only has an interesting story line but shows a lot about ancient Korean culture which are really quite admirable>You get to see palace etiquette, palace language and palace dress code.Its interesting to note amongst other things that you cannot live in comfort even though you are a king.As a king you cant have absolute power to make decisions and I cant help but compare this to the kind of lives our leaders have.I'm sure that any national decision will have to be made in consultation with the ministers and other leaders and as leaders do not often go to the ground they have to depend on the feedback given to them by their trusted aides.Sometimes things are shielded from them and its the underlings who may decide what they should know or not know.That is why its so important for leaders to get down to the grass roots and see and hear things for themselves.That is something which I reckon no leader in the world today does.When the PM for example meet with the people its all superficial and they have little opportunity to talk to the people. I remember when I was an Education Officer and was invited to officiate at school functions I saw what they wanted me to see and I heard what I was supposed to hear.Yes ,if govt. servants today give briefings to govt. leaders they would let them listen only to the good things. The movie also give insights into human character.A leader needs advisers and if they depend too much on them the power goes into the hands of the advisers and sometimes they deliberately give them the wrong advice.I believe this what caused the downfall of some of the weaker Prime Ministers whom we had."Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown"..how true>The ruler in reality and the ruler in fairy tales are two different beings,the real ruler has to face countless problems ,the fairy tale one lives in a dream world where all things are fine and rosy.Look at the world leaders today and you can imagine the kind of life they live.That's one of the reasons why the king said he would just want to drop everything ,live in a simple country house and have a simple life style.Sounds familiar right? In our hearts of hearts I'm sure that is something which many of us want....to be able to spend time with our children and spouses and be away from the rat race which many of the younger generation are caught up with today.Ironical ,that there was a time when we used to dream of fame and fortune but today we go back to a dream of a simple life. There is a lot to learn about palace protocol,language ,culture and officialdom from the movie and I would say that if you look out for these things you can learn a lot just by watching it.Incidentally there are more than 100 episodes to this movie and after nearly two months I have not finished watching.I'm sure there is much more to be learned.