I’ll admit, the IOC just plain bothers me, and inevitably anything I read about it, I juxtapose it with its decision to remove baseball from the summer games. In fact, even during the recent winter games the removal of baseball crossed my mind a few times. Like when that Georgian died while he was riding [...]

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UU5wJJuxM74

Haven’t heard of the show that’s promoting itself here, but I liked this so much I’ll make a special point to download an episode.
Love the first comment on the video too…
ItsNicolebaybie2011 koreans ARE fuckin crazy, though.
Found via One Free Korea.

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Good interview an an Australian ABC affiliate with Busan-ite Brian Myers on North Korea and his new book The Cleanest Race. The interview is about eight minutes in length and available in audio and transcribed format. In it Myers outlines his general view of North Korea as a far-right, racist and nationalistic entity, rather than a [...]

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That’s right folks, after years of being denied entry to Taiwan, His Holiness the Dalai Lama has agreed in principle to visit Taiwan’s typhoon-affected disaster areas.   Read more about it here.

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One more post-script on the Laura Ling/Euna Lee/North Korea hostage situation. Today I came across a couple interesting pieces, the first is by Christoper Hitchens writing for Slate, titled A Lousy Day’s Work
Was Bill Clinton’s visit to North Korea worth the time, energy, and prestige? No way. Hitchens nails some of the fawning press, most [...]

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The man needs to introduction — he’s just plain right. B.R. Myers, professor of North Korean studies at Dongseo University in Busan, with the Atlantic on Bill Clinton and Kim Jong Il’s powwow in Pyongyang. I’ve been busy so I didn’t soak in much coverage of this outside of a couple minutes on CNN while [...]

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For some reason I get the feeling (just a hunch) that the reporting of what’s currently happening in North Korea is somehow misrepresented in the Western media, so I feel the need to point things like the following out. I view this from a purposefully limited vantage point — meaning I try not to be [...]

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The CPBL’s La New Bears released switch-hitting leadoff man Tim Raines Jr. in late May after just 15 games.
Apparently the Bears had had enough of Raines Jr.’s ideal leadoff production, and abruptly showed him the door. He was hitting .327 with a .367 on-base percentage and 11 steals in only 55 at bats, caught [...]

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It would be an understatement to say my friends and family living outside of Korea react to provocations by North Korea than I do living here. I don’t want to say I take things too lightly, having seen how quickly the dream world can cross into violent reality having lived in New York City during [...]

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Now I’m almost 50 and I feel quite sad that I have to take to the streets again because our hard-earned democracy, freedoms and human rights seem to be under threat.”
— a woman in Kaohsiung, surnamed Shih
Over one hundred thousand took to the streets in Taipei over the weekend in ongoing protests of the Ma [...]

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TV talk show host Cheng Hung-yi’s popular “Talking Show” on the SET TV network has come under fire from Taiwan’s NCC (National Communications Commission) and is facing cancellation under the guise of budget cuts despite its status as Taiwan’s most popular political TV program.
According to the Taipei Times, Cheng–whose news show is one of the [...]

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWLeWqPOFpU

According to Reuters, Japanese finance minister Nakagawa Shoiichi “resigned on Tuesday after being forced to deny he was drunk at a G7 news conference“.
Shoichi Nakagawa told reporters that prime minister Aso Taro accepted his resignation, just a day after Aso had asked his close ally to stay in his post despite uproar over his behavior [...]

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If you skipped over my recent link to the National Geographic story and photo essay Escape From North Korea please reconsider. The magazine has now produced a short Q&A with the author of the piece Tom O’Neil, who goes into detail about the investigating and writing of the piece.
Photographer Chien-Chi Chang and I went to [...]

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A great article in National Geographic chronicling the lives of three North Korean defectors — two of whom are women trafficked to Northern China as sex slaves, and one who escapes across the border into China. Together they train across China toward South East Asia, travel through Laos, and finally across the Mekong River into [...]

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This isn’t a political statement, so if you’re looking for that you’ll be disappointed at the punch line. I don’t live in the U.S., so the Obama Inauguration will be largely lost on me aside from the articles I read or hear, and maybe a few minutes spent on CNN World. I’d actually be more [...]

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The title is a bit of a misnomer. Yes, North Korea placed a three year ban “succession talk,” but the meat of this story in the Telegraph is the curious role women are playing in the North Korean government. One of these days someone will write a Hamletesque novel about these people.
Despite his recent stroke [...]

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Don’t miss Brian’s collection of photos from yesterday’s fracas in the Korean parliament. I’ve tried to find a couple he doesn’t have on his site to put here for all the completests out there. The matter at hand is the FTA agreement with the U.S. Essentially what happened is the ruling Grand National Party barricaded itself [...]

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Just a quick link here…the Washington Post had an interview/profile of a man named Shin Dong-hyuk, who defected from North Korea in 2005. He lives a fairly destitute life in Seoul, but has produced a book of line drawings about his experiences growing up in a prison camp.
As you might expect he’s seen some terrible [...]

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I think by this time a lot of people have heard about Park Sang Hak, the North Korean defector leading the group that launches balloons filled with pro-democracy leaflets headed for North Korea. The South Korean media reports on this, but not in depth (as far as I’ve seen) and not usually with footage. I’ll [...]

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During the recent EWC outage there was a typically thought-provoking piece published in The Atlantic by Busan resident B.R. Myers. He doesn’t always cull his expertise on North Korean literature into his work, but when he does he’s entering into territory very few have insight into.
Here he’s quoting a novel issued in North Korea entitled [...]

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