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Opinion

Columnists

Speech celebration

The politician Winston Churchill has been quoted as saying that there are two things that scare any young man. One, asking a beautiful woman out on a date. Two, giving a public speech. What would Mr. Churchill have said about North Korean refugees speaking out despite threats from a despotic regime? You may not remember it, but on August 22, 2015, North Korea had threatened to shoot loudspeakers in the DMZ if South Korea didn’t turn them off by 5 pm, the same day as our second speech contest. In February 2017, the assassination of the half-brother of dictator Kim Jong-un alarmed participants...

2017-09-19 16:49

5 reasons NK refugees study English

Comedian Chris Rock has said, “If you see a homeless guy with a funny sign, he hasn’t been homeless that long.” I’m reminded of that because, six months ago, Eunkoo Lee quit her paid job to become a full-time volunteer for Teach North Korean Refugees (TNKR). I checked, yes, she is still smiling. With new free time, we have learned a lot in our 1:1 interviews and feedback sessions with refugees, using an Individual Education Plan developed by Columbia University professor Bae Young-seh. Unlike researchers with endless data-mining questions leading to research papers rarely read, we ask refuge...

2017-08-14 18:02

North Korea is not normal state

As if diplomatic failures over the past seventy years haven’t been enough, the video of an alleged North Korean re-defector and a speech by a former member of North Korea’s elite are the latest reminders of the challenges facing those dealing with North Korea. Jang Jin-sung, a former member of the North Korean government information warfare division, said last month in a speech at the TNKR Global Leadership Forum that there are two main reasons why the North Korean regime hasn’t collapsed One, North Korea survives because the United States and South Korea treat it like a normal country. The ...

2017-07-26 17:30

Why foreigners volunteer to help NK refugees

While most researchers who contact me want to learn about North Korean refugees, in recent months I have also been interviewed by researchers curious about the volunteers helping those NK refugees. Last Friday, TNKR National Director Eunkoo Lee and I were interviewed by researchers who insisted that TNKR is a pioneer in the field of volunteering in South Korea. They were intrigued by the amount of choices refugees have in TNKR: choosing their own tutors, choosing as many tutors as they can handle, and choosing their own paths of study rather than following a set curriculum. Many interviewers...

2017-07-17 16:53

Stopping Americans from visiting NK

Should Americans be banned from visiting North Korea? That evergreen chit-chat topic among reporters and commentators is now being taken seriously by the U.S. Congress, with the proposed North Korea Travel Control Act requiring licenses for U.S. citizens seeking to visit North Korea. The Act’s proposed ban on tourism is an overreaction to an American tourist being returned by North Korea in a comatose state.

2017-06-19 17:16

That black activist for North Koreans

I am occasionally blindsided when race comes up during discussions about my activities related to North Korean refugees. A South Korean colleague says she has observed three main reactions: Koreans highlight that a Harvard graduate is helping refugees; North Korean refugees praise my work; American reporters and intellectuals bring up race. After I spoke at a conference in the USA a few years ago, one of the professors who had been singing my praises informed me that some at the conference were asking: "Why is a black man doing so much to help North Koreans?" In a podcast discussion last yea...

2017-05-15 17:31

N. Korea refugees adjusting in UK

If they successfully escape North Korea, maneuver across China while evading human traffickers, Chinese police and North Korean agents, make it to a foreign embassy that won’t turn them away, and can convince government agents they are not spies or Chinese-Koreans, then North Korean refugees are challenged with an important question: Where do I go next? That’s when they need good information, fast. As a North Korean refugee recently told me, before seeing a World Cup tournament, he had been unaware that there were any countries besides China, South Korea, North Korea and the United States. H...

2017-04-17 17:13

They are students, not research targets

When researchers ask me to connect them with North Korean refugees, I expect them to explain to the refugees how their proposed research will benefit them. Their explanations are usually as eloquent and logical as young children explaining where babies come from. To avoid overly intrusive questions, I expect researchers to show me their questions to share with the refugees in advance. The researchers do so, with the eagerness of a criminal suspect handing over a smoking gun to police. One of the questionnaires had more than 50 data-mining questions seeking detailed information about refugees...

2017-03-21 17:29

Killing fails to scare N. Korean defectors

Interruptions are the norm when it comes to North Korea. In recent years, it has been missile launches, but North Korea occasionally even flips its script of interruptions. Back on August 22, 2015, North Korea was threatening to blow up loudspeakers on the South Korean side of the DMZ, imposing a 5 pm deadline. I remember it clearly because at about the same time, I was going to be wrapping up an English speech contest featuring North Korean refugees. That day, none of the refugees expressed fear at speaking even with the impending deadline, it was just North Korea being North Korea. This pa...

2017-03-06 15:44

[ROUNDTABLE] Trump to force N. Korea to choose: nukes or survival

Farewell, Sowell Brother

The semi-retirement of one of my favorite columnists brought back memories of my last intellectual upheaval. Economist Thomas Sowell’s life story would be rejected even by Hollywood as being too far-fetched. Born into poverty in 1930 in the Jim Crow South to a single black mother who soon died (his father had died before his birth), Sowell later became a tenured economics professor, adviser to US presidents offering him cabinet posts, and a long-time Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He never received a high school diploma, but earned degrees in economics from Harvard University (BA a...

2017-02-20 16:31

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