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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

Education of Lee Eun-koo

When my South Korean co-director and I began having disagreements about a project centered on North Korean refugees, she pulled the “expert card” on me. Based on her years of experience working with refugees, interviewing them directly in Korean, and her academic background (she has a master’s degree in North Korean Studies), Lee Eun-koo said that as a newcomer I didn’t know it was “known” that North Korean refugees are passive. Warning that expecting refugees to take charge of how they learn was doomed to fail, she threatened to quit. She frowned at me numerous times as we held our first “M...

2017-01-16 15:48

Time and a dime

It is often noted that South Korea and Ghana had similar GDP levels per capita in 1960, but since then Korea has flourished while Ghana has floundered.

2016-12-19 16:49

Is Donald Trump a racist?

Leading up to the US presidential election, there were news reports about white supremacists supporting a candidate.Yes, in 2008, white supremacist David Duke said Barack Obama as president would be “a visual aid” and “indisputable proof” that whites had lost control of the U.S.

2016-11-29 16:25

Art of dealing with Trump

To the relief of expats, visitors, experts and veteran Korea watchers, Yonhap News reported on Nov. 10 that in a 10-minute phone call with South Korean president Park Geun-hye: “Trump says U.S. will remain 'steadfast, strong’ in defending against NK.”

2016-11-15 15:31

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