From a Chosun Ilbo story on North Korean women making regular trips across the river to sell sex to Chinese villagers:

또 이 같은 이유 때문에 최근 북한에서는 아들보다 딸을 더 선호한다고 한다. 이 여성은 “북조선 인구 비율은 여자가 많은데 여자들의 살림가치가 높아서 딸을 좋아한다”며 “북조선에서는 여자들이 없으면 못 벌어 먹으며 이 때문에 북조선 남자들은 집 지키는 ‘멍멍게’나 ‘낮전등’이라고 한다”고 말했다.

For reasons like this (selling North Korean girls to entertainment businesses in China), nowadays in North Korea, daughters are preferred over sons. According to the woman, “Women make up a large percentage of North Korea’s population, and women are valuable providers. In North Korea, a household can’t make a living without women, and because of this, North Korean men are called “barking dogs” or “floodlights” that guard the house.”

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Upcoming Royal Asiatic Society - Korea activities of interest to M-Holers:

Tuesday, May 6th: RAS-K Lecture-Meeting featuring Michael P. Spavor (BA in International Relations from University of Calgary and now studying at the Graduate School of North Korean Studies in Seoul on foreign NGOs and the DPRK). He will be speaking on “Pyongyang through my eyes: An up close and personal look inside North Korea.” He will offer a slide-presentation focusing on what he experienced of the realities of contemporary North Korean society when he recently served in an NGO there. See the interesting description of this speech on our website for more. 7:30 pm in the 2nd-floor Resident’s Lounge of the Somerset Palace, Anguk-dong (N of Jogye-sa), Seoul. Free for RAS Members, w5000 donation requested from others.

Sat May 10th: Bukchon Hanok-Neighborhood Walking Tour in Seoul We will take a 3-hour walking tour in this fascinating area to observe its remaining traditional Korean houses (hanok). Our guide Prof. David Mason (me) will explain some of the history involved and point out key architectural features of interest. This introduction to the charms of Seoul’s former aristocratic neighborhood will feature a visit to the new Bukchon Culture Center in Anguk-dong and observe its preservation project for the hanoks, and visiting some artisans & museums who’ve established themselves there.

Mon May 12th: Buddha’s Birthday Tour in Seoul
On this RAS “tour of enlightenment” we will visit four different temples around northern Seoul in the afternoon and evening, to observe their treasures and the colorful ceremonies and festivities that mark this occasion. Led by Korean Tourism & Culture Professor David Mason.

Sat-Sun May 17-18th: Gyeongju Tour – Relics of the Shilla Kingdom A tour of the historically rich and scenic capital of the Shilla Dynasty, including the world-famous Bulguk-sa and Seokkuram temples. The whole city of Gyeongju is basically a big outdoor museum and is recognized as such by the United Nations; we will be introduced to its best sights.

Saturday May 17th: Special One-Time-Only! Daejeon Korean Christian Missions Symposium Tour with the TCIS Hannam Campus. Led by Dr. Donald Clark (well-known Professor of early-20th-Cen Korean History) and Dr. Elizabeth Underwood (Professor of Missionary-to-Korea Sociology).
This special tour will visit the TCIS (Taejon Christian International School) to attend its 50th Anniversary Symposium on Korean Christian Missions. Following the academic meeting, the RAS group has been invited on a walking-tour of the ten-acre garden-like TCIS campus, home of the third oldest foreign school in Korea. For more details on this rare opportunity, please read the description on our website.

Sun May 18th: Buyeo and Gongju, Ancient Capitals of the Baekje Kingdom Tour A “scenic historic-cultural tour” which will take us back for a survey of the Baekje Kingdom. Highlights include historic Buddhist temples, a famous king’s tomb and a ferry ride down the White Horse River.

Tuesday, May 20th: RAS-K Lecture-Meeting, featuring Professor Donald Clark (PhD in in East Asian History from Harvard, author of books on Seoul and foreigners-in-Korea history, son and grandson of Presbyterian missionaries who first arrived in Korea in 1902). He will speak on “Where do Foreign Missionaries fit in Korea’s Modern History?”, addressing four clusters of questions aimed at an understanding of what “missionaries” in general did and didn’t do in modern Korea. See the interesting description of this speech on our website for more. 7:30 pm in the 2nd-floor Resident’s Lounge of the Somerset Palace, Anguk-dong (just north of Jogye-sa), Seoul. Free for RAS Members, w5000 donation requested from others.

Sun May 25th: Odae-san National Park Tour This great park is much less-famous and thus less-visited than Seorak-san, but this is one of its attractions because it is possible to enjoy the beauty of the pine-forested sloped, deep valleys and grand temples in a relatively quiet atmosphere. Buddhists also consider it one of Korea’s most important mountains, as it was a crucial site in the history of the propagation of Buddhism in Korea.

Sat-Sun May 31-June 1st: Gangneung City / East Cost Tour A visit to the historic city of Gangnung, gateway to Korea’s east coast. After visiting the interesting and well-preserved Neo-Confucian architectural sites around Gangneung, we will take a scenic drive along the east coast, stopping at the stunning Bulyeong Valley on the way home.

Being a Member of the Royal Asiatic Society - Korea has many benefits, including free attendance of interesting Lectures, receiving newsletters of activities, discounts on great Tours of Korea’s most beautiful and fascinating places led by experts, discounts on books about all Korean subjects in English, and more. Everyone involved with Korean Studies who speaks English would do well to join this 108-year-old scholarly organization. For more information, call 763-9483 in Seoul during business hours, write to raskb@kornet.net or visit our website http://www.raskb.com/

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French photographer Eric Lafforgue has posted a wonderful photoset taken in North Korea on Flickr.

Check it out!

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We are in the middle of North Korea Freedom Week, a series of events in DC sponsored by (among others) the North Korea Freedom Coalition. If you are in the area, please drop in on some of the events and post a report in the comment section.

Here is a brief report on NKFW in the Chosun.

NKFW is also a friendly reminder, if we needed one, of why many of the Koreans protesting against China were there to get attacked by the Chinese student hooligans last weekend.

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Today’s Washington Posts asks if the new LMB administration will really put its food aid where its mouth is and choose principle over hunger in the North.

Does President Lee withhold food aid that may prop up the government of the North or will he help avert a possible humanitarian crisis? Choices.. choices…

Whereas some may have reservations of LMB’s policy to neighbors in the north, others are quite upset at his proposed “more mature” relationship with its neighbor to the east (you know, the country who’s name starts with a “J“).

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It is nice to see that North Korea did not let politics interfere with the the spirit of the Olympics (CNN):

The relay began at the Juche Idea Tower where Kim Yong Nam, the head of North Korea’s rubber-stamp parliament, handed the lit torch to 72-year-old Park Tu Ik, a hero of his country’s 1966 World Cup soccer team.

(Emphasis is mine, just in case your sarcasm meter is a little off today.)

The next stop on the tour is Vietnam, where any any planned protests about the Chinese encroachment on Vietnamese territory (which seems to be a common theme in these parts) will most likely be handled sternly.

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Robert wanted to see it on Youtube, well how about Veoh?  The video shown to Congress has been made public.  Check out the chummy picture in 5:40.

Update

The Washington Post has published an interesting article theorizing why the administration has made public, seven months after Israeli jets destroyed the site, the findings.  It also introduces an idea that the Bush administration (perhaps Dick Cheney, possessed by the ghost of John Bolton?) had less than an “honest” rationale.  Per the article:

“But there are still some who suspect the announcement is the work of Vice President Cheney and other administration neocons who are trying to upset those negotiations — and further ratchet up tensions with Iran. “

Even some Congressman who viewed the evidence were skeptical.  Rep. Pete Hoekstra, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, had this to say after his meeting with CIA briefers:

“I think many people believe that we were used today by the administration because - not because they felt they had to inform Congress because it was their legal obligation to do that, but because they had other agendas in mind. . . . I think what we saw in the committee today, I think the chairman would agree that the relationship that we need to get international issues done, foreign policy issues done, a trusting environment between the administration and Congress, does not exist.”

So, is the Bush administration genuinely concerned about proliferation and North Korea, or is this a clumsy neocon plot?

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Well, the North Koreans won’t be too happy about this:

After seven months of near-total secrecy, the White House is preparing to make public on Thursday video evidence of North Koreans working at a suspected Syrian nuclear reactor just before it was destroyed in an Israeli airstrike last September.
[...]
The timing of the administration’s decision to declassify information about the Syrian project has raised widespread suspicions, especially in the State Department, that Vice President Dick Cheney and other administration hawks were hoping that releasing the information might undermine a potential deal with North Korea that would take it off an American list of state sponsors of terrorism.

“Making public the pictures is likely to inflame the North Koreans,” said one senior administration official who would not speak on the record because the White House and the State Department have declared there would be no public comment until the evidence is released. “And that’s just what opponents of this whole arrangement want, because they think the North Koreans will stalk off.”

Chris Hill, meanwhile, is feeling abandoned:

Ms. Rice has been a strong critic of the 1994 agreement between North Korea and the Clinton administration, complaining that it was “front loaded” with rewards for the North.

That is exactly what critics say she and Mr. Hill have done in the most recent agreement. But Mr. Hill has argued in private that the Syrian episode and the uranium enrichment are side shows, and that the critical issue is stopping North Korea from producing more plutonium and giving up what it has. But his State Department colleagues say that he has been told not to defend the deal, or even explain it.

“He’s feeling pretty abandoned by Rice and Bush,” one of his colleagues said Wednesday. Mr. Hill did not respond to messages.

In the WaPo, One Free Korea and DPRK Studies favorite David Albright thinks it’s all overblown.

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The Defense Security Command says that it is going to get tough on Nork spies who have been getting a free pass over the past ten years.

However, other intelligence officials say the thing lacking over the last ten years was not arrests of spies but announcements of the arrest of spies (Yonhap link above):

The officials at the intelligence command said the number of arrests of North Korean spies has remained steady over the years, but said reports of such incidents have become rare because the command had been gagged under the former liberal administrations of Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun, both of whom sought to improve ties with communist North Korea.

I wonder if the get-tough policy will include cracking down on the Democratic Labor party.

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One Free Korea reports that there is a bill in Congress to address to force the deadenders at State to do their legally required jobsstreamline the resettlement process for North Korean refugees to the USA. It is not a moment too soon. I hope it will prevent reoccurence of this.

The bill notes that only 43 North Korean refugees have been accepted by the US since the North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004 was passed.

I hope that members of Congress get a chance to see this letter from NK refugees in detention in Thailand (via the Rosett Report) as they consider the legislation.

Granted, the refugees are legally ROK citizens and Seoul has “dibs” on them. However, 43 of a total of about 6,000 refugees is a pathetic total and, given how far the Bush administration seems willing to go to placate Kim Jong-il, I don’t hold much hope for improvement unless they are pressured to do the right thing.

A couple of excerpts from the refugees’ letter are worth noting.

First, they go over how the got to the point where they are and express hope to get to the USA:

For an anachronistic rise of communism and a long-term authoritarian ambition, the regime of Kim Jong Ilcontinues to suppress the lives and the human rights of its own people. We are North Korean refugees who have escaped from this regime, experiencing hardships and suffering in our long journey, having run until where we are now in Thailand, all in search of true freedom and happiness that is full of human rights.
Finally, we are now in a place where there is no threat to our lives. Through a lawful process and interviews, we have now been given the opportunity to freely choose a country of our choice.
We want to express our deepest gratitude to the United States of America and President George W. Bush for creating and enforcing national policies and many other lawful and practical tasks in order that we, who once lived without the protection of basic human rights nor the freedom to see, hear or say things and lived like slaves, would see this opportunity for an asylum for freedom and resettlement.

For reasons I noted above, I believe that sense of gratitude, while heartfelt, is misplaced.

Why they would rather go to the States than South Korea:

Through our daily personal experiences, we have come to learn more of the truth to the history that was once taught to us. We have clearly realized the evil deceit of Kim Jong Il’sregime, which has been covering the eyes and ears of the people from learning the real history. And we have come to know that the U.S.A, a place we only thought of as evil, is the North Korean refugees’ real safe haven and a place with the fullness of true freedom.
For all these reasons, we have declined the thankful invitation from the Republic of Korea where they welcome us each with a house to live in, resettlement money and warm brotherly love. We have instead boldly chosen a journey to the United States of America, where everything still seems so new and unfamiliar.
We realize the challenge of the language barrier, and we know that it is a place without any employment guarantee programs for refugees.

Unfortunately, this next part might make the Bush administration be even more negligent in its duty to welcome those refugees:

Still, we have not faltered in our decision to go to the U.S.A, not because we are selfish beings who will be satisfied with the newly found freedom and happiness while forgetting our past lives, but because we desire to live our lives as fighters for human rights and true freedom and to rescue our North Korean brothers and sisters who are still living in the unhappiness and pain that Kim Jong Il’s dictator regime has caused.

That does not go well with Bush’s new view of Pyongyang.

BTW, It is pretty clear from parts of the letter that many of those refugees have converted to Christianity and write with the passion of the converted.

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