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Choi Yearn-hong

Dr. Choi Yearn-hong (yearnhchoi@gmail.com) is a political scientist retired in Northern Virginia. The views expressed in the above article are the author's own and do not reflect the editorial direction of The Korea Times.

Choi Yearn-hong

In defense of president's choice

By Choi Yearn-hong The Korean people and media are critical of presidential appointments to Cheong Wa Dae staff and the Cabinet. Why? President Park Geun-hye needs her own men and women to carry out her presidential missions and duties. Critics seemingly want new political faces from outside her faction and party. Their wants are unreasonable in real politics. If Park’s men and women cannot perform their work in accordance with the presidential mission, then criticism must follow her appointments. However, when the President previously recommended Ahn Dae-hee and Moon Chang-geuk for the office of prime minister, the media ran a furious campaign to find their “dirty linen” in collaboration with the opposition party and before National Assembly confirmation hearings. Ahn was a respectable Supreme Court justice and Moon was a good editorial writer for the Joongang Ilbo. “Killing the president’s men” seems to be fun for some people in my eyes. This kind of political culture may have discouraged many decent men and women from standing for the Natio

Feb 26, 2015By Choi Yearn-hong
Choi Yearn-hong

Kim Sakkat's travels to the US

By Choi Yearn-hong Long after his death, Kim Sakkat the traveling Joseon-era poet finally traveled to the United States ― that is, his poems traveled here. I welcomed him to my humble home recently.Reading his poems in English was fun, and I laughed and smiled when I read them. So, I am sure, will my American friends.Kim Sakkat, born Kim Pyong-yon, lived in the late 19th century (1807-1863). His pen name, Sakkat, is the Korean word for “rain hat.”According to legend, Kim Sakkat wrote a poem that insulted the memory of his late grandfather ― a county chief who could not control the rioting in his county and was eventually killed as a traitor because the Joseon government believed he had collaborated with the rebels.After the incident, Kim Sakkat was so ashamed that he decided he could not face the sun. That is why he traveled everywhere with a rain hat on his head, or so the legend goes.This account may not be accurate, however, because it is doubtful that Kim Sakkat would have been allowed to live if his grandfather had been executed as a traitor. In Joseon time

Aug 29, 2014By Choi Yearn-hong
Choi Yearn-hong

White House Garden: my thoughts

By Choi Yearn-hong It is well known that first ladies have changed the White House furniture and interior decorations for their residence during their husbands’ presidential terms, four years or eight years. Mr. and Mrs. John F. Kennedy were shocked to see the deteriorating ugly Pennsylvania Avenue on the way to the U.S. Congressional lawn for her husband’s inauguration ceremony. After the inauguration ceremony, Jacqueline Kennedy ordered the White House staff to restore Pennsylvania Avenue, which connects the White House and Congress. Lady Bird Johnson was known for her contributions in upgrading the Washington area’s national park under management of the Department of Interior.Michelle Obama has distinguished herself as the first lady in educating and enlightening the American people about their fitness, including black children in particular. She has emphasized proper exercise and diet on many occasions since the Obama administration began. She also used part of the White House garden to grow vegetables, and harvested organic foods. Her smiling face with tom

May 9, 2014By Choi Yearn-hong
Choi Yearn-hong

Chunwon: Korea's Leo Tolstoy

By Choi Yearn-hong Lee Kwang-su was one of a number of great Korean writers during the Japanese colonial rule over Korea, the first 45 years of the 20th century. He is better known as Chunwon, his pen name, meaning “spring garden.” During the last phase of Japanese rule he was known as a “pro-Japanese writer,” something that was not easily pardonable. But he was a young patriot who drafted the Feb. 8 Declaration of Independence that was delivered by Korean college students in Japan in 1919 in Tokyo’s major public park, about a month before the March 1 Independence Movement in Korea.Immediately before that event, he went to Shanghai to join the Korean government in exile, and published and edited the Independence Newspaper, an organ of the exiled government during the first part of Japanese rule over Korea. After liberation, he was imprisoned for his pro-Japanese activities, but soon freed. When the Korean War broke out in June 1950, he was abducted by North Korean agents from his home in Seoul and died in North Korea on Oct. 25, 1950. (His death was

Apr 27, 2014By Choi Yearn-hong
Choi Yearn-hong

For young Korean leaders

By Choi Yearn-hong My first advice to young Korean political leaders: please do not bring your “bodyguards” to meetings.Bodyguards are seemingly their personal kobuns, a Japanese word meaning something akin to the “entourage” they represent in my eyes.They make the new Korean political leaders look like “old-style” politicians. I saw presidents Kim Young-sam and Kim Dae-jung accompanied by their kobuns whenever they went out. Once my friend in San Francisco called me to advise Kim Dae-jung to act as a rational political leader during his stay in Washington as a political exile.My friend, then a patriotic man, was not happy to see Kim coming out of his airplane with his so many kobuns. He asked me, “Why did he need so many kobuns when he visited San Francisco?” During Kim’s exile in the States in the early 1980s, I was Kim’s close associate. So my friend naturally told me about the airport story, which was funny but sad. He was an opposition party leader from a developing nation. (Now, it is no longer a developing nation

Mar 26, 2014By Choi Yearn-hong
Choi Yearn-hong

Monk-poet Hyesim's 'Magnolia & Lotus'

By Choi Yearn-hongAt my age, I have been very fortunate to be able to read ``Magnolia and Lotus: Selected Poems by Hyesim.’’ Some readers might know Hyesim as Mueuija, a man who did not wear any clothes. I am an old Korean poet, but had never been exposed to Hyesim before. This poetry book then, enlightened me a great deal. I am grateful to two translators and the publisher. Hyesim (1178-1234) was the first Zen Master dedicated to poetry in Korea; the tradition of Zen Buddhist poetry is frequently considered by Korean literary critics to have begun with his writing. The term “Zen” is a Japanese word, so it might not be the best word for Hyesim. However, the Korean ``Seon’’ is less well known than Zen to the Western world. The Chinese word “Chan” has the same meaning as the Korean Seon and Japanese Zen.Hyesim’s secular name was Choe Sik, born in Hwasun, South Jeolla Province. He studied Confucianism and Buddhism and became a scholar-literati as well as a high-level government official on his mother’s wishes. After his mother

Jul 11, 2013By Choi Yearn-hong
Choi Yearn-hong

For Asian sea and peace

By Choi Yearn-hongChina and Japan are launching their own dangerous war preparations openly regarding sovereignty claims on the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea. Korea and Japan are escalating tensions over their claims to the Dokdo islets, which are called Takeshima in Japan. Korea and China are struggling to claim Ieodo, an underwater rock in the East China Sea between the two nations.All these islands and rocks do not deserve or are not worth starting wars between and among neighboring nations in East Asia. They are three economic powers in the world.  All Western media are seriously commenting on possible military conflicts and confrontations, or a limited war for the occupation of the Senkaku Islands and concluded that China and Japan must be cooled. Dokdo has not been often covered by the Western media as much as the Senkakus have, and Ieodo is not on the surface yet, but it has been tense since South Korea constructed its ocean research tower on it in 1995.Professor Robert Wade of London School of Economics has proposed that China and Japan would bring th

Mar 8, 2013By Choi Yearn-hong
Choi Yearn-hong

58 Anniversary Korea Times Changed My Life

By Choi Yearn-hong WASHINGTON ― The Korea Times has been an important part of my life, and will remain so throughout my life. It is not just a newspaper. It has been my companion, friend, teacher and a source of pride. It has been a window to the world outside Korea and a way to view Korea from a foreign perspective. I first read The Korea Times when I was as a second lieutenant in the Korean army in 1963. I was an interpreting officer to liaison the Korean army and the U.S. army in Korea. Reading The Korea Times, a four-page newspaper in English, helped me perform my job as an interpreter. It was my first job after college. Since then, The Korea Times has been with me. It helped to form my intellectual opinion and to communicate cross-culturally. After my two years of military duty, I returned to Yonsei University graduate school, and lived in my old house in Gahoe-dong in Seoul. So on the way home from school, I stopped by The Korea Times at Joonghak-dong to see my college classmate, Kim Myung-ja who was a young reporter. I used to walk from the Jongro bus stop or the G

Oct 31, 2008By Choi Yearn-hong
Choi Yearn-hong

Dokdo in East Sea or Sea of Japan?

By Choi Yearn-hong The name of the sea, East Sea and Sea of Japan, has become a symbolic problem between Japan and Korea, since the neighboring countries have each claimed a single ― but different ― name for the sea between the two. I have been proposing the joint use of both names for the sea, if the two nations cannot agree on a single acceptable name, such as Blue Sea or Green Sea. Strange to say, the Japanese government has not been sympathetic to this nominal demand at all, because Sea of Japan has been the prevailing name in almost all maps over the past 100 years or more. Moreover, it has recently made clear that the Dokdo islets are part of its own territory, calling them Takeshima, even though many old Japanese maps showed that Dokdo was part of Korea, not Japan. Strange to say, the Japanese government has not been sympathetic to this nominal demand at all, because the Sea of Japan has been the prevailing name on almost all maps over the past 100 years or more. President Lee Myung-bak visited Japan and attempted to create a new atmosphere for the common fu

May 21, 2008By Choi Yearn-hong
Choi Yearn-hong

Politics of Discontent Over American Beef

By Choi Yearn-hong A very crazy thing or a series of crazy things are happening in Korean politics. President Lee Myung-bak is now the target of impeachment by opposition politicians and interest group leaders for his stance on open-door to U.S. beef. He was elected as new president in December 2007, by a large margin despite many problems and troubling factors. In May 2008, his popularity plunged to 29 percent. No one can explain this kind of roller coaster political phenomenon outside Korea. I believe a great majority of Korean people are patiently waiting for President Lee to react to this situation and emerge as a performing president to fix the nation's discontent and start a new leap towards economic development. But his 29 percent popularity is a troublesome factor to political scientists and Korean politics. Many of his staff and close associates in the Blue House and Cabinet are from affluent areas south of the Han River having allegedly amassed their fortune with illegal and immoral investments. No doubt, such a staffing policy could harm his popularity. L

May 12, 2008By Choi Yearn-hong
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