I flew home last week, or what I thought was home. As soon as I stepped out of the airport everything appeared as if through a fog, vaguely familiar but somehow different, even foreign. After having spent the past couple of years complaining about, lashing out against and ultimately adjusting to life here in Korea, [...]
Filed under: America, Asia, Daily life, Identity, Opinion | Tagged: America, Identity, immigration, Korea, travel, US | Leave a Comment »
Last week I headed up to the 9th floor of my office building to take care of some routine duties. The floor is filled with young interns, dressed in the tattered jeans and flannel shirts that are the trend during Korea’s wintry weather. Turning a corner I bumped into one of them, a young man [...]
Filed under: America, Asia, Korean War, Opinion, Politics, history | Tagged: America, bow, China, history, Japan, Korean War, Obama, Politics, US | Leave a Comment »
Andrei Lankov has an op-ed in the IHT offering his take on what American negotiators can accomplish as they prepare to engage with Pyongyang fully aware that its leaders have no intention of abandoning their nuclear arsenal. 1) it is possible to agree on dismantling the North Korean nuclear research and production facilities. 2) North [...]
Filed under: America, Headlines, Korean War, North Korea, Politics | Tagged: America, China, North Korea, Obama, Politics, pyongyang | Leave a Comment »
Went to the local E-mart a few nights ago. Standing around with my son while my wife finished the shopping we both got sucked into staring at a nearby flat-panel TV screen showing Madagascar 2. “Wow, look at that quality, and the price… but what the hell is a Haier?” The sales woman told us [...]
Filed under: Asia, economy | Tagged: America, China, economy, globalization, Korea, trade | Leave a Comment »
Excellent piece in the New Yorker by Seymour Hersh on securing (or not) Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal in the face of increasing attacks by the Taliban and radicalization of the nation’s military. A senior Pakistani official who has close ties to Zardari exploded with anger during an interview when the subject turned to the American demands [...]
Filed under: America, Asia, Headlines, North Korea, Politics | Tagged: America, China, Japan, Korea, North Korea, Obama, Politics | Leave a Comment »
I tend to shy away from conversations about race in Korea, just because they tend to be circular and not really go anywhere. Also because more often than not they tend to be in English (or any other language that is not Korean) and thus miss the audience that most needs to be included in [...]
Filed under: Daily life, Identity, Korean Society, Opinion, education | Tagged: America, education, family, Korea, racism, sauna, tatoos | Leave a Comment »
With regard to the shooting in LA, as well as an earlier rampage in New York, the following I think really goes beyond the ususal suspects of the media or simple insanity in exploring how a person – an immigrant in both these cases – becomes a cold-blooded killer. Read the full article here: Whenever [...]
Filed under: America, Headlines, immigration, language, media | Tagged: America, immigration, language, media, Suicide, US, violence | Leave a Comment »
A report by Yonhap suggests that Beijing may be more inclined than previously thought to take North Korea to task for its pending rocket launch. This [does] not mean the Chinese have agreed to push for a U.N. Security Council resolution or U.N. sanctions condemning North Korea. Even so, the development marks a significant change [...]
Filed under: Asia, Headlines, Korean War, North Korea, Politics | Tagged: America, China, North Korea, Politics, pyongyang | Leave a Comment »
An Associated Press story notes that Voice of America has been granted permission by the Lee Myung-bak administration to broadcast into North Korea from transmitters in the South for the first time in three decades. That makes the signal much clearer than VOA’s long-running shortwave broadcasts from far-flung stations in the Philippines, Thailand and the [...]
Filed under: Headlines, Korean War, North Korea, Opinion, Politics, media, religion | Tagged: America, human rights, Korean War, media, North Korea, Politics, pyongyang, religion | Leave a Comment »
Isolated, impoverished and universally hated North Korea is going ahead with some sort of space launch. It can’t keep its cities lit or its roads full. It can’t even feed its people. But it can keep the entire region on alert as it ratchets up the kind of tension that has proven to be a [...]
Filed under: America, Asia, Korean War, North Korea, Opinion, Politics, Seoul | Tagged: America, China, Japan, Korea, Korean War, North Korea, Obama, Politics, pyongyang, Seoul | 1 Comment »
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