Korean Kontext

In this episode, Korean Kontext speaks with Ms. Jie-ae Sohn, President of Arirang TV & Radio, Korea's first English language international broadcast system. Ms. Sohn worked as the former CNN Bureau Chief for Seoul and Head Correspondent for South Korea. She was also the spokeswoman for the Seoul G-20 Summit in November 2010. During the interview, Ms. Sohn spoke about modern Korean culture, K-culture, the role of women in South Korea, her experiences as a journalist, and more.

Last week, the news of a high-level defection by a North Korean diplomat stationed in London captivated North Korea watchers. For the next few says, analysts and the media speculated about Thae Yong-Ho, his motivations for defecting and what this news will mean for Pyongyang. Here to talk about this and other high-profile defections is Keith Luse, executive director of the National Committee on North Korea. Luse discusses what we know and don't know about defections, and why it's so difficult to speculate about North Korea.

Ghosts and goblins are everywhere in Korean folktales, causing havoc for people through their antics. Equally common are the shamans who act as intermediaries, helping offer solutions to life's supernatural problems. For this week's episode of Korean Kontext, host Jenna Gibson interviewed Dr. Michael Pettid, of the State University of New York at Binghamton, who specializes in pre-modern Korea, particularly the role shamanism and folk culture has played in Korea. They discuss the history and experience of Korean shamans over the centuries, how they fit into folk tales, and what to do when a hobgoblin tries to steal your shoes.  Photo from Woohae Cho's photostream on flickr Creative Commons.

For many years, South Korea has been a homogeneous country. But with more foreigners coming to live in Korea, that is starting to change. In fact, the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs estimates that the number of multicultural families in Korea could reach nearly 750,000 by 2020.  This week's guest is Dr. Daisy Kim, who studies these multicultural families, with a particular focus on marriage migrants - women who move to Korea to marry a Korean man. We discuss some of the particular issues these women and their families face, what the Korean government has done to support them, and much more.

In early July, the United States and South Korea announced that they had come to an agreement to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system near the city of Seongju. This announcement sparked a wave of protest both from local groups in South Korea and from countries like North Korea and China. Our guests this week are KEI experts Troy Stangarone and Mark Tokola. They sit down with Korean Kontext host Jenna Gibson to discuss the THAAD system itself, the decision to deploy it, and the negative responses to that decision. 

With Election 2016 well underway, KEI's very own Phil Eskeland has been closely following how both the Republican and Democratic parties have been talking about foreign policy and Asia. He sits down with Korean Kontext host Jenna Gibson to share his insights from nearly 30 years working in government, including 25 years as a staffer on the Hill. Phil and Jenna talk about the Republican and Democratic National Conventions, party unity, the two vice presidential picks, and how all this could impact Korea and Asia more broadly.

In the late 1930s, nearly 200,000 ethnic Koreans were forcibly removed from the Soviet Far East, packed into trains and sent to Central Asia. More than 70 years later, their descendants still live in the former Soviet Union, most of them in what is now Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Victoria Kim grew up in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, knowing that her grandfather was Korean. But it wasn't until much later that she began looking into what that meant - how her grandfather and other Central Asian Koreans arrived in Uzbekistan and made their lives there. This story became a multimedia project called "Lost and Found in Uzbekistan: The Korean Story." In this week's episode, we talk with Victoria about the experience of Central Asian Koreans in the 1930s until today, how her project delved into these stories, and much more. To view Victoria's project, please click here.

From nuclear power in the United Arab Emirates to new free trade agreement negotiations opening with Israel, to South Korean President Park Geun Hye's visit to Iran, 2016 seems to be a year of increased Korean outreach to the Middle East. Here to talk about this phenomenon and offer some insight into the best ways for Korea to continue reaching out to the Middle East is Dr. Alon Levkowitz. Dr. Levkowitz is a Lecturer  and Coordinator of the Asian Studies Program Bar-Ilan University in Tel Aviv, Israel. He is an expert in Korea and Northeast Asia's connections with the Middle East. He sits down with Korean Kontext host Jenna Gibson to present the findings of his recent KEI paper, "The Middle East Reopens for Business but with Old and New Hazards for South Korea."

With no shortage of North Korean news in 2016, we look back at one of our interviews with Ambassador John Everard of the UK. He provides an inside perspective of North Korea from his time living in Pyongyang. From the original broadcast: In this episode we speak with Ambassador John Everard, who served as Ambassador of Great Britain to North Korea from 2006-2008. Ambassador Everard experienced firsthand life as one of only a handful of foreign diplomats posted in Pyongyang, and draws from his experience to share anecdotes and insights into a way of life and a system of governance that is largely obscured from public view.

After North Korea launched its fourth nuclear test in January 2016, an outraged international community once again cracked down, passing tough sanctions both at the UN and domestic levels. While early signs seem to indicate that these sanctions are putting a dent in North Korea's trade with other countries, it remains to be seen whether they will have a real impact on the DPRK's policies. This week's guest is skeptical about the ability of sanctions to push real change in a targeted country. Dr. Dursun Peksen, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Memphis, has studied sanctions around the world for years, and his new paper for KEI suggests that sanctions against North Korea may be less effective than we hope.

In May 2016, Park Geun Hye became the first South Korean president to visit the African Union headquarters in Ethiopia. This trip, which also included stops in Uganda and Kenya, has been hailed as part of a growing Korean interest in Africa, particularly when it comes to development aid. To discuss this trend is this week's guest, Valerie Dabady Liverani. She has worked at the African Development Bank (AfDB) since 1998, and now serves as the manager of their Resource Mobilization and External Finance Department.  In this episode, Dabady Liverani talks about Korea's work with the AfDB, some areas where more resources are needed, and possible overlap between Korea's cultural promotion and aid projects. Photo from Korea.net's photostream on flickr Creative Commons.

This week, we have a very special guest who flew in from Paris to talk about Korea's economy. Dr. Randall Jones is head of the Japan/Korea Desk at the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), and has studied the Korean economy extensively for the OECD's new economic survey of Korea. In this episode, KEI senior director Troy Stangarone spoke with Jones about the report, including Korea's recent economic performance and future outlook. They also discussed some of Jones' recommendations to help Korea increase its growth moving forward.

As Seoul has grown, it has become more and more international. The city has been making an effort to attract more foreign visitors, whether as tourists, students or workers. This week, we sit down with one of those visitors, who called Seoul home for more than five years. Ross Tokola first visited Korea in 2009 when his father, KEI Vice President Mark Tokola, was deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul. He returned in 2011 and stayed, working for the Asan Institute for Policy Studies and spending time learning Korean at Sogang University. In this week's episode, we chat with Ross about his experience living and working in Seoul, how the city has changed since he first moved there, and more.

Over the last 50 years, Myanmar has oscillated between periods of friendship with South Korea and partnership with North Korea. As Myanmar opens to the international community, however, investment and aid from South Korea seem to be cementing its loyalty to Seoul.  How has Myanmar interacted with the two Koreas in the past, and could they swing back toward Pyongyang in the coming years? In this episode, we talk with Myanmar expert Dr. David Steinberg to flesh out Myanmar's tangled relationship with the two halves of the Korean Peninsula. As a government official, researcher and academic, Dr. Steinberg has decades of experience following Myanmar's many political and economic transitions. This week, he brings that expertise to Korean Kontext.

Anyone who has spent time in Korea knows the term Yellow Dust. Sand from Mongolia sweeps across China, picking up pollutants and carrying them across borders. Every spring, Koreans bring out their facemasks and lament China's lax environmental standards. But according to this week's guest, the "Blame China" narrative is an oversimplification of the problem. Our guest for this episode is Dr. Matthew Shapiro, associate professor at the Illinois Institute of Technology. He recently wrote a paper for KEI on Asia's air pollution problem, including how Korean industry investment in China may be partly to blame.