Korean Quarterly

Giving Voice to the Korean American Community

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Parents who care too much, or not enough

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Love Next Door describes two friends who almost miss their chance for love | By Carl Ackerman (Winter 2025)

Love Next Door is directed by Je-won Yoo and screenwritten by Hau-en Shin. It was originally aired on South Korea’s TvN and is now available on Netflix.  

Seok-ryu Bae (So-min Jung), we learn in the first minutes of this K-drama, went to the University of California at Berkeley.  It’s a minor point  (tiny, one could say) in the story arc of this series, but it is a departure from similar dramas about 20-somethings that describe the pedigree of characters by their association with elite private U.S. colleges and universities.

It is, in fact, the first time I have heard a non-Ivy League institution mentioned in a Korean drama. However, this state university in fact, has a rich history that is a part of the American cultural fabric as the site of the free speech sit-ins of the ‘60s that sparked a national anti-war movement, and as a powerful public institution built by the taxpayers, not the American elite.  It is, however, not the kind of history that would usually get much attention in South Korea, so this rom-com, for me, has an interesting egalitarian edge. It also made me curious about the personality of the character who chose to be educated there.

Seok-ryu gets her all-important managerial training at Cal, which lands her a job with a global company, Greip.  In her choice of education and other ways, Seok-ryu was the kind of student, and is in the present-day of the drama, the kind of person, who does not fit the mold of the up-and-coming career professional in South Korea.

In the many flashbacks, the viewer learns of her dedication to excellence in everything she does.  Her parents see her as the family’s hope. Her father runs a modest cafe.  Her younger brother, compared with her, is viewed as unambitious.  Her mother sees herself as responsible for supporting her daughter, although that support often seems self-serving and even controlling – more of a helicopter mom.

In flashbacks of the immediate past, we see that everything was coming up roses for her in the U.S. She had a steady international lawyer boyfriend, Hyeon-jun Song (Joon-woo Han), who she intended to marry. But suddenly Seok-ryu is back Korea, much to her parents’ surprise. Her childhood friend Seung-hyo Choi (Hae-in Jung), who was never her boyfriend, is secretly delighted.

There is much mystery around Seok-ryu’s abrupt abandonment of her career and her return home.  We believe for much of the drama that it is a failed romance, but there are hints throughout the story that the reasons are deeper than that. She needs support, which Seung-hyo can provide, but will she be able to lean on him to support her in her life-long dreams?

Seung-hyo runs a successful architectural firm with very devoted employees, whose stories become subplots in the story.  The firm is prosperous but experiences project failures because its personnel are still naive in the ways of the world.  Seung-hyo is industrious and talented, wins awards and is loved by all. We learn, however, that a driving force in his life is his secret love for his childhood companion, Seok-ryu. Because he believes it is an unrequited love, he is afraid to tell her how he feels.   

As in all Korean rom-coms worth their salt, there are mothers of the young adult characters who are in an ongoing competition with one another about the relative success of their children.  From the opening scene, Seok-ryu’s mother (the opinionated Mi-sook Na (Ji-young Park )) is bragging about her successful daughter who will be imminently marrying a young, successful Korean American man.

The mother of Seung-hyo (Hye-sook Seo (Young-nam Jang)) is intended target of this bragging. Hye-sook has been employed by the Korean Foreign Affairs office. In flashbacks, we learn that her chosen career, with its many postings in foreign countries, left her with very little time for her son as he was growing up, or for her overworked and devoted emergency doctor husband Kyung-jong Choi (Seung-joon Lee). As the drama opens, she is ostensibly waiting for a new appointment, with time to hang out with her women friends and brag of her son’s accomplishments.

Hye-sook’s chronic absence from home drove Seung-hyo closer to Seok-ryu and her family – he is like a son to Seok-ryu’s parents. The competing mothers are their own subplot, but the essence of this K-drama is the inseparable Seok-ryu and Seung-hyo, and their see-sawing relationship as they reunite as adults.  The tilt and speed of their relationship is both uneven and bumpy, as many life issues emerge as the story unravels.

As Seok-ryu arrives home, rudderless and unsure what to do with her life, to the disappointment and alarm of her parents, there is a flashback to Seung-hyo. We learn that as a high school stand-out swimmer, Seung-hyo had an accident and could no longer compete in what may have been an Olympic career. Seok-ryu challenges him, cajoling, pleading and nagging him to get his act together and go on with his life.  She pulls him out of a downward spiral, and gets him on the road to physical and psychological recovery.

In the present day, after her return to Korea, Seok-ryu is also facing overwhelming circumstances; obstacles because of the expectations of her family, and and some serious, possibly life-threatening personal challenges. It is her turn to receive tireless support from Seung-hyo.  The see-sawing relationship of this couple does not prevent them from leaning on each other at times of need. They are reliable partners throughout the story in this respect.

Our main two protagonists have a childhood friend Mo-eum Jeong (Ji-eun Kim), who is well aware of Seung-hyo’s adoration for Seok-ryu, and even digs up a time capsule on the grounds of their high school, in which Seung-hyo once deposited a letter declaring his love.  Confronted with the letter, Seung-hyo attempts to minimize and excuse the feelings he once put in writing, while in reality, his feelings are exactly the same as they were back in high school.

It is this sort of (nearly) love confession-episode that drives the viewer crazy.  Obstacles continue to impede the path of true love, along with other issues, such as the appearance of Seok-ryu’s former fiancé, who flies in from the U.S. to try to re-kindle their romance.  Also, Seung-hyo’s ex-girlfriend Tae-Hui Jang (Ji-hye Seo), a fellow architect and a former colleague, enters the romantic quagmire by accepting an offer for architectural work with Seung-hyo’s firm. 

Mo-eum, the friend and third wheel in this relationship, has her own love story that provides some real comedy and poignancy.  After a series of silly predicaments, she falls for Dan-ho Kang (Ji-on Yoon) a straightforward, honest reporter who has been covering Seung-hyo’s meteoric rise in the architecture scene.  Dan-ho has assumed the role of father for his little niece Yeon-du Kang (Ji-yu Shim), in the time since Yeon-du’s parents (his brother and sister-in-law) were killed in a car accident.  

Mo-eum, who works as an emergency medical technician, navigates several physical encounters with both criminals and patients.  In one case, she cleverly captures a mentally-challenged guy, while Dan-ho, in self-defense mode, literally falls on his face trying.  Early in their friendship, Mo-eum is also the maybe-girlfriend who is becoming very fond of her maybe-boyfriend’s spunky niece, and there are some endearing scenes of this relationship developing. The same is true of Mo-eum’s mother Jae-sook Do (Geum-soon Kim), who agrees to babysit Yeon-du, and clearly would like to be a grandma.

Ji-yu Shim as Yeon-du, a five- or six-year-old, shines brightly in this role.  She is portrayed as kid-like, but capable of a kind of compassion for her dad that is well beyond her years.  Ji-on Yoon as Dan-ho plays his role as young and dorky, but honorable in his dual roles as a serious journalist and a devoted father.  Ji-eun Kim as Mo-eum Jeong shows a tough bad-ass side in her role as an emergency medical technician, which presents opportunities for some cleverly-executed physical comedy.

The key couple Seung-hyo (Hae-in Jung),) and Seok-ryu (So-min Jung) have chemistry and likeability as the lifelong friends who almost miss their chance to be partners.  Hae-in Jung is an experienced and well-known film and drama actor who has skillfully portrayed some complex characters/romantic partners in dramas including Something in the Rain and One Spring Night. So-Min Jung has also acted in numerous dramas and films, most recently in the 2022 two-part Alchemy of Souls. 

The writing by Hae-eun Shin is meticulous in accounting for the fates of other important characters as the story closes. The two lovers have learned the emotional maturity to reach out with honesty to their parents and other family members and heal past rifts, while taking the next steps together as a couple.

Seok-ryu (aided perhaps by her Cal Berkeley training to think outside the box) deals frankly with her family about the past, particularly in articulating how her unwanted role as the family’s only hope has been a source of constant pressure and debilitating stress which possibly endangered her life. Her determination to reject the hamster wheel of corporate life and move forward in a more creative path is also a lesson for her loved ones that they can change their strict definition of their family roles and support each other better in the future.

At the same time, Seung-hyo shows compassion toward his angst-ridden mother and his emotionally-distant father, helping them to heal their relationship as he separates himself from them as an adult. He helps them gain stability for the future as he also steps into a new role.

The critical take-away in this romantic drama is two-fold: One is the karma that may not be apparent; and that life plays out in strange ways that we cannot foretell or see.  The other is the notion of how true friendship can save us; especially, how growing up with someone and spending time understanding their feelings can form a foundation on which to build a lasting romantic love.  

While a bit frustrating at times, Love Next Door has a satisfying ending. Despite, or perhaps because of the adversity, Seok-ryu and Seung-ho deepen and strengthen their long-term relationship. The audience can be joyful despite the inevitable frustrations and plot twists of the story.  Oh, and perhaps, with great parents like Dan-ho and Moe-hum, daughter Yeon-du will make it to Cal Berkeley.  Who cares about Stanford and the Ivy League, anyway?

Korean War history told by survivors

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Ghost Flames: Life and Death in a Hidden War, Korea 1950-1953 ~ By Charles J. Hanley

(Hachette Book Group, Boulder, 2020, ISBN #978-1-5417-6817-8)

Review by Bill Drucker (Winter 2025)

The title comes from the Korean phrase hon bul meaning “ghost flames.” Country people speak of seeing this unusual fire, a ball of light, the spirit that leaves the body upon death.  Ghost flames of Korea have become associated with the restless dead from the war.

Author Charles J. Hanley, a familiar name in the writings about the Korean War, takes a fresh look at the 1950-1953 event from the narratives of 20 participants. Some of the storytellers include: U.S. Army General Matthew Ridgway; physician and Maryknoll nun Sister Mary Mercy; Song-chul Yu, a North Korean general; Clarence Adams, U.S. infantryman; Teh-huai Peng, general of the Chinese People’s Army; Gil Isham, U.S. infantryman; South Korean journalist Bill Shinn; British journalist Alan Winnington; and Won-moo Hur, a Seoul high school senior conscripted into the South Korean Army. In allowing eyewitnesses to speak, the author captures many moving moments of humanity. 

The books is divided into four main sections, by the years of the war – 1950, 1951, 1952, and 1953.  On June 25, 1950 the Russian and Chinese backed seven North Korean divisions which invaded South Korea.  The capital Seoul quickly fell.  President Harry Truman called on General MacArthur to defend South Korea against the forces of communism.  The fleeing South Korean troops and civilians, and then U.S. troops are driven to the defensible area around Busan.

It was 1953 when an armistice stopped the fighting, and 1954 when, after 16 meetings, the two sides gave up trying to work out a peace treaty. There is no peace treaty and no official end of the war even now.

In 1950, before the Korean War broke out, General Matt Ridgway was in the U.S., enjoying his new young, third wife, and their 20-month-old son.  Called away from home to Washington, DC, Ridgway would meet General MacArthur in Japan, and later replace him.  In the rugged terrain of Korea, Ridgway would negotiate failed campaigns, cope with the lack of supplies, demoralized troops, brutal winters and scorching summers, and the Chinese People’s Army.

The author emphasizes that this civil war was over ideological differences, which were often extremes.  The style of warfare was also extreme.  South Korean authorities sanctioned the execution of thousands of suspected leftists.  North Koreans executed southern rightists and anticommunists. Formal talks to stop the killing dragged on while troops died. 

Infantryman Clarence Adams, a 21-year-old African American with hopes of being a pro boxer, was a foot soldier in a segregated U.S. Army.  At that time, there was resistance to racial  integration all the way up to the generals.  Adams grew in the racist city of Memphis, which he fled, and enlisted in 1947, joined an all-black regiment in Japan, and in 1950, his troop was sent to Korea.

Korean journalist Bill Shinn (Associated Press) got his wife and children out of Seoul, witnessing chaos as people and troops rushed to the Han River bridge number 1, and then took the road south, ending up in Pusan.   

British journalist Alan Winnington reported the Korean war from Beijing.  He was first to report to the west that Seoul has fallen.  In China, he was the rare westerner to witness the emergence of Chairman Mao Tse-tung and the People’s Liberation Army.

Major Donald Nichols, an American adviser, witnessed the massacre of 1800 people in Suwon.  The irrational wartime fears, long-held desire for revenge, and ideological difference unleashed bloody consequences. 

In 1951, MacArthur’s military miscalculations were a concern.  Staff questioned his leadership. His leadership abilities come to question by staff and Washington, DC. The U.S. and UN ponder a truce along the 38th parallel, but truce talks soured, and a prolonged war resulted. Journalist Bill Shinn witnessed the execution of accused 20 collaborators.  His earlier reports of mass killings are noted.  The U.S. Army responds and calls for an investigation, and the U.S. military leadership banned reporters from following the troops.

Ridgway’s new ground and air attacks slaughter thousands of civilians caught in the crosshairs.  In ’51, the U.S. troops recapture Seoul.

Sister Mary Mercy, a Maryknoll nun and physician, landed in Pusan, where thousands had taken refuge from the war further north.  In the city overcrowded by refugees, she sets up a clinic with the aid of two assistants.

In 1952, Hanley reports, the war was being fought on two fronts: On the physical battlegrounds where there were costly casualties of both allied troops and the Chinese volunteer army.  The war was also fought by a battle of words in tents in Panmunjom.  A truce along the 38th parallel was sought, and also the issues of thousands of Chinese and North Korean POWs.

Chinese General Peng Teh-huai goes to Moscow and gets an earful from Joseph Stalin on how to wage war.  In March 1953, just four months before the truce, Stalin dies.

Marine Pete McCloskey was wounded, which became his ticket home.  He earned the Navy Cross.  He finishes his enlistment at Fort Pendleton, and is put in charge of preparing young recruits for Korea.  He describes how he is haunted by the faces of the young men he would send to the fruitless battle.

One of the bloodiest fights of 1953 becomes known as Pork Chop Hill.  Survivors of that bitter encounter wondered was it worth the cost.  Infantryman Gil Isham faces possible court-martial for his insubordination.  That year, Clarence Adams is released from a Chinese prisoner camp, after a lecture praising a new life in China.  He is presented with a choice from his former captors; he can return to America or consider a new life in China.

On Monday, July 27, 1953, the Armistice was signed.  In April 1954, the warring parties met in Geneva, Switzerland to discuss peaceful reunification of the two Koreans, but the issue of a peace treaty was unresolved after 16 meetings. 

A persistent criticism by the author is the wanton slaughter by all parties in the war. Needlessly, B-29 bombers flattened Pyongyang, and other warplanes dropped bombs and napalm on civilians.  With suspected enemies hidden among fleeing civilians, orders were given to kill everyone.  South Korean president Syngman Rhee sanctioned the mass killings of suspected communists, including men, women and children. There will never be a full account, but it is estimated that some three million were lost, most of them civilians.

Author and journalist Hanley reported on events from 100 countries in his four decades with the Associated Press, including Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq.  His reporting on the infamous No Gun Ri massacre of Korean civilians by U.S. forces, and the subsequent U.S. cover-up, won Hanley and his associates the Pulitzer Prize, the Polk Award, and other awards.  In 2001, Hanley’s publication of his account The Bridge at No Gun Ri led to new talks between the U.S. military and South Korea about this war crime.

Forever Woman

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A very short story | By Sophia Epony Kim (Winter 2025)

Jongno Disrict 2017. Photo by Sophia Epony Kim

His hair is slicked back, I don’t like his look, and there is no way I would have given him a second glance at the club — he looks like a nalady — but I feel somehow obliged. That’s my problem. He’s sent his friend over to retrieve my number. And even though I have the feeling it’s a mistake, I write it down. Later, when I find out he paid this friend ₩10,000, I am both flattered and dismayed.

At the restaurant where we meet, he looks at my face so hungrily I avoid his eyes. Still, he has no problem opening up. He tells me about his upbringing, about his father having an affair, and how he decided then that he would avoid this temptation by finding a woman he finds so attractive he will never want another. He goes on about the beautiful Korean woman he dated who ate with her mouth open, smacking loudly, and how unattractive it was. I cannot eat or smile after he tells me this, and become wooden like a mannequin. And they don’t know about carnal matters, Korean women, he adds. I have no idea what he is talking about. He registers my blank expression and stops. Sex, he says, instructively, and my face turns red.

He asks to stop by his apartment before we head to the club, the club where he first saw me. As I wait by the door, I hear everything: How meticulously he brushes his teeth and the three pumps of cologne he sprays on. As he slips on his shoes, he insists on my leaving my small backpack to retrieve later after we have danced. I demur and his face closes.

At the club, he talks only to his teacher friends, barely acknowledging me. It’s fine. I’d rather not be near him or his friends. We ignored the white teachers, downing one Corona after another while standing at the end of the bar, ogling women. My friends and I yell and laugh over the loud techno music. They don’t know who I came with, thankfully. “Santa Maria” starts and I pull them to the dance floor, on the far side, where I can dance freely without being watched. This song undoes me. I don’t know any of the lyrics and I don’t know where Santa Maria is, but the music sends me somewhere else and I close my eyes.

When a slow song finally comes on, we’ve had enough, and I find him still rooted in the same spot, his face now dark. I thank him for dinner and say goodbye before leaving alone. He gives me a perfunctory nod and looks away as if he could care less. It is this last impression, so cold, that liberates me from any doubt I’ve done the right thing. I have succeeded without having to say a discouraging word.

But even now, decades later, I find myself wondering from time to time: Did he find his forever woman?

The global significance of South Korea’s leadership crisis

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South Korean activists are showing the world how to save democracy | By John Feffer (Winter 2025)

Protests calling for impeachment of President Suk-yeol Yoon in front of the parliament.

Democracy isn’t doing so well around the world. One poignant sign of democracy’s decline is that it’s cherished most fervently in places where it effectively doesn’t exist — in Venezuela, for example, among voters protesting a stolen election.

In existing democracies, meanwhile, voters don’t hold their defining political institutions in high regard. In the U.S., less than 20 percent of Americans think Congress is doing a good job. In the European Union, only one-third of citizens on average trust their national governments and only one-fifth trust their political parties.

Familiarity breeds contempt, which explains why voters have elected anti-democratic candidates to high office in country after country. Viktor Orban has won four straight elections in Hungary. Narendra Modi has been consolidating power in his own hands for over a decade as India’s prime minister. Benjamin Netanyahu has somehow survived at the top of the Israeli political system for 17 out of the last 28 years. A chainsaw-wielding rogue economist, Javier Milei, now presides as president of Argentina.

And, of course, the profoundly anti-democratic Donald Trump is returning to the White House.

Many of these right-wing leaders used the ladder of democracy to reach office, and they’ve been trying ever since to knock down that ladder so that no one can follow them into power.

These autocrats in democratic clothing have met with political opposition, some of it quite intense. In the most extreme cases, like Russia, that opposition has been jailed, exiled, and assassinated. Elsewhere, autocrats have simply declared martial law. In Tunisia, Kais Saied suspended the constitution in 2021 and put an end to the only example of democratic governance produced by the Arab Spring.

Then there are the leaders who over-reach. Donald Trump tried to find a way to stay in office after he lost the 2020 election. He attempted to overturn the results in the courts. He marshalled a crowd of agitators to pressure the vice president and Congress to withhold certification of the election. There was even talk of martial law inside the Trump White House in December 2020.

Ultimately, without the U.S. military on his side, Trump grudgingly vacated the White House.

The decision by South Korean President Suk-yeol Yoon to declare martial law on December 3 was, by comparison, a shock. To be sure, Yoon was frustrated by the considerable opposition he faced in the South Korean parliament. He promoted figures from the New Right Movement, which telegraphed his own more favorable views of the Japanese colonial period and the authoritarian modernizers of the post-Korean War era. But few expected such a brazen power grab.

Yoon probably figured that, unlike Trump, he could succeed with his martial law declaration because he had the military on his side. Indeed, Defense Minister Yong Hyun Kim confessed that martial law was all his idea. But Yoon and Kim had probably been discussing the timing of such a declaration since the summer.

Fortunately, South Korean democracy has proven remarkably durable. Perhaps because the last martial law period is still in the living memory of many people, including a generation of parliamentarians, Yoon’s opposition moved quickly to block his attempted seizure of total power. The guardrails of democracy — political institutions, courts, civil society — held firm. Yoon was impeached less than two weeks after he declared martial law.

Another key guardrail is cultural. Shame is an integral part of Korean society. A number of Korean politicians — former president Moo Hyun Roh, former Seoul mayor Won Soon Park — have committed suicide because of what they perceived to be their own shameful conduct. Defense Minister Kim also tried to commit suicide in his jail cell. Short of killing themselves, Korean politicians will also make elaborate apologies, as Yoon has done.

Compare that with politicians like Donald Trump, who never admits wrongdoing or ever apologizes. It is impossible to shame Trump, no matter what he has done, from sexual misconduct to flagrant violations of the law. Indeed, his campaign to regain the White House was largely an effort to prove to the American people that he was innocent of all charges, legal and otherwise.

Right-wing politicians generally lack shame. Putin has destroyed Ukrainian society, ruined the lives of millions of Russians, and hobbled his economy for generations to come, but he would never admit that he ever did anything wrong. Even in a country like India, where shame is an integral part of the culture, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has pushed an anti-Muslim agenda, fumbled its response to the COVID crisis, and criminalized dissent — but he sees no reason to apologize for any of his actions.

This absence of shame is real and troubling, but the issue here is not cultural. Rather, it’s the refusal of leaders in putatively democratic countries to engage with their opposition, respect political institutions, and take responsibility for their mistakes. Yoon did what many right-wing leaders have done — Trump, Putin, Modi — but he wasn’t clever enough to figure out a way to concentrate power in his hands without declaring martial law, which is an obvious red line in Korea.

According to the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index, which rates democracies according to their relative strength, democratic standards have been eroding over the last decade. Less than 8 percent of the world’s population now live in “full democracies.” Another 50 countries, including the U.S., are “flawed democracies.”

South Korea ranks as a “full democracy,” but just barely. Its overall score is dragged down by poor marks for “political culture,” the worst of any other full democracy. Indeed, its grade is exactly the same as the U.S. In the Economist’s next report, the ability of South Korean to defend against Yoon’s declaration of martial law and the failure of U.S. voters to prevent Donald Trump from lying and bullying his way back into office will surely produce more divergent results for the two countries in the Democracy Index.

The sad truth is that South Korean efforts to save the country’s democracy — which, of course, is still an ongoing process — is increasingly anomalous in the world today. Political polarization, growing economic inequality, persistent military conflict, the stresses of climate change, and periodic shocks like the COVID pandemic have left the institutions of democracy much weaker.

In some places, like South Korea, cultural attributes like shame still exert some kind of restraint. But shame, as Donald Trump is proving, is fast becoming anachronistic.

People power in the form of right-wing appeals to populism is destroying democracy. But people power like what South Koreans have done after Yoon’s declaration of martial law can still save democracy.

Originally published in Hankyoreh.

When Jimmy Carter went to North Korea

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Ever the peacemaker, he met with Il Sung Kim in 1994 and helped freeze Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program for over a decade | By Christine Ahn (Spring 2023)

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and then-North Korean leader Il Sung Kim examine the West Sea Floodgate in 1994.

As the world reflects on the legacy of President Jimmy Carter, it’s important to remember the place where he may have left one of his greatest post-presidency marks — the Korean Peninsula.

Not only was Carter instrumental in preventing a U.S. attack on North Korea that could have been a second Korean War, he also was an advocate for replacing the 1953 ceasefire with a peace agreement to formally end the Korean War. Now, Carter’s legacy can provide the Biden administration with crucial insight of how to move forward with North Korea, especially as Pyongyang has become a de facto nuclear power.

To Korea watchers, President Carter’s legacy on Korea is mixed. While in office, he made a tragic error in quashing the democratic uprising in Gwangju, South Korea, that claimed hundreds of lives. Tens of thousands of citizens took to the streets to protest martial law following a military coup. On May 22, 1980, Carter’s national security team gave the green light to Lieutenant General Doo-hwan Chun to use force against the student protests in Gwangju, the birthplace of South Korea’s democracy. Much of the South Korean populace who longed for democracy felt betrayed by a U.S. president who championed human rights diplomacy.

But after leaving the White House, Carter played an instrumental role in preventing a new Korean War. In September 1994, as President Clinton weighed a first-strike on North Korea’s nuclear reactor at Yongbyon, President Carter, flanked by a CNN camera crew, flew to Pyongyang to meet Il Sung Kim and outline the terms of the Agreed Framework, which succeeded in freezing North Korea’s nuclear weapons program for over a decade.

In his experience speaking with North Korean leaders, from Il Sung Kim to Jong Il Kim, Carter felt that he understood what North Korea wanted, as well as how the U.S. and North Korea could move forward on a path toward peace.

“All that the North Koreans have wanted is a peace agreement instead of a ceasefire and that we should help North Koreans access the outside world by ending our embargo,” he told me in November 2018, when we sat down together at the Carter Center in Atlanta. “They want basic peace with the United States and the ability to become part of a community of nations on an equal basis. I pray and hope that we work out an agreement and treat the North Koreans fairly.”

Carter pointed out the irony of how the U.S. had spent the last 70 years trying “to destroy the economy of North Korea” while working “to boost the economy of South Korea. And still, we condemn the North Koreans for not having a good economy.”

At that time in 2018, the two leaders of North Korea and South Korea, Jong-un Kim and Jae-in Moon , met three times — twice at Panmunjom and once in Pyongyang — where they signed two declarations committing to ending war on the Korean Peninsula and ushering in a new era of peace. But peacemaking between the two Koreas alone was not enough; the success of the inter-Korean peace process also rested on the U.S. establishing peace with the North.

Unfortunately, summit meetings between the two in 2018-2019 ended in failure. Now we’re seeing the consequences of that. This year has already witnessed dangerously high tensions on the peninsula: North Korea recently displayed enough ICBMs to overwhelm the U.S.’s missile defense system and Washington and Seoul are ramping up massive joint military exercises in response. And South Korea under a conservative President Seok-yeol Yoon is flirting with the idea of arming itself with nuclear weapons.

The backdrop to this endless cycle of provocations is the U.S.-China great power conflict, which has put the Korean Peninsula on its front line.

While the Biden administration’s North Korea envoy has said he is willing to meet with his North Korean counterparts “anywhere, anytime,” Pyongyang has largely ignored those offers, and it’s not hard to understand why. Many U.S. policymakers across the political spectrum continue to resist calls for a peace, arguing that signing a peace agreement with North Korea would grant the Kim regime the right to become a nuclear-weapons state. Hawkish Sen. Lindsey Graham has argued that a declaration of peace should only come “after [the North Koreans] give up their nukes.”

Even Joseph Yun, a moderate and former U.S. Envoy to North Korea, said, “[I]t would be a real mistake to have a peace treaty come first, then denuclearization, because that is clearly an open admission that you’re dealing with North Korea as an acknowledged nuclear weapons state.”

But a peace agreement would not necessarily recognize North Korea as a nuclear weapons state. As pointed out in the Korea Peace Now! report “Path to Peace,” a peace agreement wouldn’t change the terms of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which only acknowledges a nuclear weapons state as one that manufactured or tested a weapon prior to January 1, 1967. (North Korea conducted its first nuclear weapons test in 2006.)

Plus, there are more compelling reasons why a peace agreement would help defuse tensions and halt the arms race. Stanford University professor and nuclear scientist Siegfried Hecker, who routinely inspected nuclear facilities in North Korea through the 1990s, said, “North Korea will not give up its weapons and weapons program until its security can be assured. Such assurance cannot be achieved simply by a U.S. promise/agreement on paper. It will require a substantial period of co-existence and interdependence.”

Former U.S. Ambassador to South Korea James Laney put it best when he said, “[a] peace treaty would provide a baseline for relationships, eliminating the question of the other’s legitimacy and its right to exist. Absent such a peace treaty, every dispute presents afresh the question of the other side’s legitimacy.”

A peace agreement is also supported by members of Congress. On March 1, Representative Brad Sherman will re-introduce the Peace on the Korean Peninsula Act, which was first introduced in 2021 and calls for formally ending the Korean War with a peace agreement.

As we approach the 70th anniversary of the signing of the Korean War Armistice, the Biden administration should take the lessons from his predecessor, Jimmy Carter, who made the most progress with North Korea to finally end the Korean War and usher in a new era of peace.

Originally published in Responsible Statecraft

Unofficial envoy Jimmy Carter’s diplomacy in the DPRK

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A 2011 KQ essay reiterates the sticky issues plaguing the U.S. relationship with North Korea, then and now | By Jimmy Carter (Winter 2011 issue)

Former President Jimmy Carter meets with then DPRK leader Jong Il Kim in North Korea in 1994. First Lady Rosalynn Carter on left.

Editor’s note:  As the 39th U.S. President Jimmy Carter is honored after his recent passing at age 100, we are reminded of his many distinguished accomplishments of his post-presidential era, one of which was as an unofficial U.S. envoy from the U.S. to both North Korea and South Korea.  This essay, under the headline “The winding road to permanent peace: A short history of North Korea’s consistent message to the U.S.”  from KQ’s  Winter 2011 issue (available in original form in the KQ Archive), was written by Jimmy Carter after the former president was asked to consult with the North Korean leaders on its development of enriched uranium. The enriched uranium process was viewed as an infraction of the non-aggression agreements that came out of the Six Party Talks.

This very factual essay, which reads like an update from a diplomat, shows Carter’s skill at reading between the lines of the North Koreans’ acts of aggression, and noting that that nation’s behavior may be a thinly-veiled signal that “they deserve respect in negotiations that will shape their future.”   At the end of the essay, Carter reiterates his belief that avoiding war will certainly require “a permanent peace treaty to replace the ‘temporary’ cease-fire of 1953,”  a step that activists are still working to bring about in 2025, 14 years after Carter’s essay was first published.

No one can completely understand the motivations of the North Koreans, but it is entirely possible that their recent revelation of their uranium enrichment centrifuges and Pyongyang’s shelling of a South Korean island last November are designed to remind the world that they deserve respect in negotiations that will shape their future. Ultimately, the choice for the U.S. may be between diplomatic niceties and avoiding a catastrophic confrontation.

Dealing effectively with North Korea has long challenged the U.S. We know that the state “religion” of this secretive society is juche, which means self-reliance and avoidance of domination by others. The North’s technological capabilities under conditions of severe sanctions and national poverty are surprising. Efforts to display its military capability through the shelling of Yeongpyong Island and through weapons testing has provoked anger and a desire for retaliation.  Meanwhile, our close diplomatic and military ties with South Korea impels us to comply with its leaders leaders’ policies.  

The North has threatened armed conflict before.  Nearly eight years ago, I wrote about how, in June 1994, President II Sung Kim expelled The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors and proclaimed that spent fuel rods could be reprocessed into plutonium. Kim threatened to destroy Seoul if increasingly severe sanctions were imposed on his nation.

Desiring to resolve the crisis through direct talks with the U.S., Kim invited me to Pyongyang to discuss the outstanding issues. With approval from President Bill Clinton, I went and reported the positive results of these one-on-one discussions to the White House. Direct negotiations ensued in Geneva between a U.S. special envoy and a North Korean delegation, resulting in an “Agreed Framework” that stopped North Korea’s fuel-cell reprocessing and restored IAEA inspection for eight years.

With evidence that Pyongyang was acquiring enriched uranium in violation of the Agreed Framework, President George W. Bush — who had already declared North Korea part of an “axis of evil” and a potential target — made discussions with North Korea contingent on its complete rejection of a nuclear explosives program and terminated monthly shipments of fuel oil. Subsequently, North Korea expelled nuclear inspectors and resumed reprocessing its fuel rods. It has now acquired enough plutonium for perhaps seven nuclear weapons.

Sporadic negotiations over next few years among North Korea, the U.S., South Korea, Japan, China and Russia (the so-called Six Parties) produced, in September 2005, an agreement that reaffirmed the basic premises of the 1994 accord. Its text included denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, a pledge of nonaggression by the U.S., and steps to evolve a permanent peace agreement to replace the U.S.-North Korean-Chinese cease-fire that has been in effect since July 1953. Unfortunately, no substantive progress has been made since 2005, and the overall situation has been clouded by North Korea’s development and testing of nuclear devices and medium-and long-range missiles, and military encounters with South Korea.

North Korea insists on direct talks with the U.S., while leaders in Pyongyang consider South Korea’s armed forces to be controlled from Washington and maintain that South Korea was not party to the 1953 cease-fire. Since the Clinton administration, our country has negotiated through the six-party approach, largely avoiding substantive bilateral discussions, which would have excluded South Korea.

This past July I was invited to return to Pyongyang to secure the release of an American, Aijalon Gomes, with the proviso that my visit would last long enough for substantive talks with top North Korean officials. They spelled out in detail their desire to develop a denuclearized Korean Peninsula and a permanent ceasefire, based on the 1994 agreements and the terms adopted by the Six Parties in September 2005. With no authority to mediate any disputes, I relayed this message to the State Department and White House. Chinese leaders indicated support of this bilateral discussion. North Korean officials have given the same message to other recent American visitors and have permitted access by nuclear experts to an advanced facility for purifying uranium. The same officials had made it clear to me that this array of centrifuges would be “on the table” for discussions with the U.S., although uranium purification -a very slow process, was not covered in the 1994 agreements.

Pyongyang has sent a consistent message that during direct talks with the U.S., it is ready to conclude an agreement to end its nuclear programs, put them all under IAEA inspection and conclude a permanent peace treaty to replace the “temporary” cease-fire of 1953. We should consider responding to this offer. The unfortunate alternative is for North Koreans to take whatever actions they consider necessary to defend themselves from what they claim to fear most: A military attack supported by the U.S. along with efforts to change the political regime.

The writer was the 39th president of the U.S. This op-ed was published Nov. 24, 2010 by The Washington Post. For more information, visit: Waging Peace. Fighting Disease. Building Hope. www.cartercenter.org

Trove of craft culture

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City of Jinju offers arts viewing and education for locals and visitors | By Sara Salansky (Winter 2025)

Bojagi artists Ming Yeong Jung and Hyun Sook Kang, and Hanbok artist Gahp Rahn Kim (Lahn Kim). Photos by Stephen Wunrow

Through my interactions with Korean adoptees all over the world, I have discovered that many fellow adoptees want to learn more about Korean culture; its history, traditions, culture, music, visual and performing arts, and other topics. Many of us wish for one place in Korea where we can fulfill that hunger by learning and experiencing the culture firsthand.

There are various Craft Creation Support Centers in regions and cities all over South Korea sponsored jointly by the Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Craft and Design Foundation.  Such centers offer visitors experiences of the arts scene of that region, and opportunities to exhibit and ways to get technical support.  

In May, I toured the Craft Creation Support Center in Jinju-si  (Jinju city). I met the director and some highly-acclaimed guest artists who volunteer to instruct local people in their specialty art or craft. Including Jinju, there are eight cities that have a Craft Creation Support Center; the others are Seoul, Gyeonggi, Cheongju, Asan, Gimhae, Naju, and Jeongeup.  Each Craft Creation Support Center specializes in an aspect of Korean culture that is representative of that region. 

Jinju, located in South Gyeongsang province in southern South Korea, is a member of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Creative Cities Network. The city is located in a key area specializing in crafts and folk art.  Two local visionaries, the Jinju mayor Kyoo-il Jo and emeritus philosophy professor Byung Hoon Jeong, were instrumental in obtaining the sought-after network membership for the city.

Jinju’s geography points to why its people have produced fiber arts and woodcrafts since ancient times.  It is a basin-shaped city and is bisected by a river. Jiri-san mountain is nearby, as is a vast forested mountain region.  Wood crafting has long been practiced using timber harvested from the surrounding area.  Because of the river, timber was not only available, but easily transported to other places by water. 

Hyun Suk Kang (bojagi artist), Chunghie Lee (fiber artist, lecturer, teacher and orgainzer of the The Korean Bojagi Forum and Silk Residency program at the Jinju Craft Center), and Jiyoung Seo (Jinju Craft Center team leader), stand in front of the Center in Jinju. Photo by Stephen Wunrow

The Jinju Craft Center (JCC) promotes the region’s diverse crafts, particularly the region’s silk and woodcraft sectors.  The JCC team leader is Jiyoung Seo, whose staff develops craft learning opportunities for people in Kyungnam and Jinju. The intent is for students to then become coaches and teachers who will promote the craft domestically and internationally.  They also work with international artists who teach or take lessons.

The JCC building is large, with many rooms to support the diverse curriculum the center offers.  Along with work rooms, some with highly technical equipment, there are classrooms, conference areas and exhibition space that invite idea-sharing and collaboration. 

Worker at the BJ Silk production facility in Jinju. Photo by Stephen Wunrow

Jinju is also the home of Korean silk. The  BJ Silk Co produces over 80 percent of the country’s silk, and is one of five large silk production areas globally, according to the Korean Silk Research Institute.  For more than 100 years, silk has been the basis of most of Jinju’s textile arts.  The environment beneath Jiri-san Mountain is ideal for raising silkworms. The clean water of the Nam River supports textile dyeing. Every October, Jinju holds a silk fair, which includes exhibits, competitions, and demonstrations of natural dyeing and other silk-processing steps.  

The BJ Silk Co. also has silkmaking demonstrations, and there is a company store, Shemasilk, near the Gwangjang Market. BJ Silk also has a cosmetic line, Eau de Silk, developed from sericin, a silk protein.  There is also an Eau de Silk store in Jinju.

A hotbed of cultural artists

In May 2023, the Jinju Craft Center hosted the 2023 Jinju Silk Residency in concert with an international exposition of Korean traditional quilting art (bojagi), the 2023 Biennial Korea Bojagi Forum.  The residency program brought together 10 fiber artists from various countries to participate, appreciate, share, and collaborate with local artists. 

Jinju is a hotbed of cultural artists. Chunghie Lee, a global icon in the world of Korean fiber art and founder of the Korea Bojagi Forum, wanted Jinju to host its first silk residency so that international artists could collaborate and learn from their Korean counterparts.

The first Silk Residency happened in 2023. For 10 days, local fiber artists worked with the international artists to create works for exhibition made from fibers specific to the region. During the residency, the artists also learned how to use natural dyes made from local products such as persimmons.  The creations from the residency were displayed at the November 2023 Jinju Traditional Craft Biennial Exhibition.  

Examples of bojagi styles and uses (above) work by Ming Yeong Jung and (below) by Gahp Rahn Kim (Lahn Kim). Photos by Stephen Wunrow

As an art form, bojagi has developed over the centuries from humble origins. Like Western quilting, bojagi began as a way to utilize various remnants of fabric to make something practical, such as a wrapping cloth to carry as a parcel or give as a gift.  The art comes out of women’s creativity, frugality and poverty — the need to apply one’s creative problem solving to something out of practically nothing.  The origins of bojagi itself seem to inspire its artists to reflect the art form’s humble character, even as they aspire to spectacular and beautiful art.

 As a bojagi beginner, (I tried the art form for the first time in 2022), meeting the artists and seeing their work was humbling for me.  I noticed among the artists a big dose of mutual respect and appreciation for each person’s artistic journey of love of the art, sense of responsibility to reach out through teaching, and preserving in our own ways this ancient Korean textile tradition. 

Every bojagi artist I have met has had their own unique perspective on the art. No artist is trying to replicate another; instead each is making their own mark on the tradition with their own imaginations and original designs. Some artists are more notable than others, but we (even me, a rank beginner) are all artists nonetheless.

I spoke with three bojagi artists who were guest presenters at the Jinju Silk Residency, and a traditional woodworker who works with the JCC. A short biography and review of each artist’s specialty is below.

Photos by Stephen Wunrow

Bojagi artist Ming Yeong Jung

“I am just a housewife who enjoys sewing,” was the description that artist Min Yeong Jung offered about herself and her progress of her journey as an artist over many years.

This humble artist started her bojagi career purely out of curiosity, while sitting beside her father’s hospital bed 17 years ago.  Her mother, now age 80, had a dowry for herself when she got married consisting, in part, of various traditional fibers and textiles from the region, such as mulberry tree fiber (mosi) and silk. Jung’s first bojagi piece was made with remnants of the dowry fabrics, and it is one of the cherished hangings displayed in her studio. She shares the space with her husband who runs a bicycle repair shop. 

Jung said she began by practicing traditional Korean hand sewing, and what started as a hobby has now become her life.  She has attended numerous craft competitions and her creations have been recognized.  She has had several solo exhibitions.

The techniques of traditional Korean sewing are sometimes referred to as gyubang gongye which refers to a craft that solely belongs to women. In the past, Korean women had limited opportunities for external activities and learning. Into the textile works they created, they poured their innovation, creativity and elegance.

Viewing the work in her studio, I sense her regal and traditional style, developed to faithfully preserve this ancient and practical art form. Jung has studied embroidery, sewing techniques and patterns of the traditional clothing worn by the noble (yangban) class, the elite aristocracy of Korea.  Her work gives us a visual image of the clothing and traditions of the upper classes during the Joseon Dynasty. 

Jung considers herself to be just a housewife but she really isn’t.  She is a prolific and skillful artist with a heart for sewing and working with her hands. She also has the patience and sense of excellence that drives her to constantly improve her craft.  I left her studio feeling fortunate to be educated by her works.

Photos by Stephen Wunrow

Hanbok artist Gahp Rahn Kim (Lahn Kim)

Gahp Rahn Kim, aka Lahn Kim, owns a specialized traditional dress (hanbok) shop, Lahn Kim located in Jinju, where she produces wearable art.  She has been in business for more than 35 years, and she creates designer hanboks, as well as hand-dyed silk scarves and  other silk accessories for her creations.  She also sells quilted bojagi hangings.

The Lahn is Kim’s fashion label.  Kim creates special-order hanboks, typically with a 10-day turnaround.  Kim’s hanbok shop includes outfits made in the traditional way, but since learning the bojagi method 21 years ago, she has incorporated the concept and designs of bojagi in her custom hanboks as well.  She uses the patchwork (jogabko) style in her designs.  

She has used bojagi patching for various parts of the hanbok – the top ( jeogori), the skirt (chima), the tie closing the top (goreum), and the cuffs (kkeutdong). She has integrated bojagi design elements in both women’s and men’s hanboks.   

As a designer she has a unique sensibility about color, and blending patterns to make appealing wearable art. This has helped her develop bold colors in her bojagi creations, where many colors are side by side.  

Beginning with paper and colored pencils, Kim creates blueprints for her creations, choosing colors inspired by nature.   

Kim has exhibited at the Korea Crafts Fair, Jinju Silk Fair, and the Jinju Silk Hanbok Fashion Show and at other smaller exhibitions throughout Korea.  Her first international exhibition was at the March 2012 New York City Fashion Show.

Kim dyes silk in the fall after Korea’s rainy season at her Saimdang Workshop, where visitors can watch and even participate in the process. She is interested in teaching in order to pass on knowledge of techniques she has developed.   

After our formal meeting was over, her question to me was, “What do you want to learn from me today?”  I told her I wanted to learn how to make a maedeup (traditional button), which prompted her to get out yarn and scissors, and give me a personal lesson.  

As a volunteer at the JCC, she guest-instructs some of the bojagi classes, and serves as a technical expert on all the daunting machines available in the sewing class.  She obviously has great pride in the Korean traditional crafts she has learned, and a desire for all her students to be successful in the art at whatever level they strive for.         

Photos by Stephen Wunrow

Hyun Sook Kang, Bojagi artist

Hyun Sook Kang first learned the bojagi craft 21 years ago.  She took a class with her friend Lahn Kim, offered in Jinju.  This artist’s work is simple and classy, and has a subtlety to it, with straightforward designs and fabric color selections that evoke a beautiful and clean sense of expression.  

Kang displaying her “lucky sign” (gil sang) bojagi pieces at Jinjuseong Fortress in Jinju. Photo by Stephen Wunrow

From some of my research while preparing to interview and write about these artists, I discovered that letter patterns is a type of bojagi style.  As in wall hangings and paintings in Korea, the placement of words or even single characters with auspicious meanings on objects are intended to bring good luck to the recipient of the object.

During the Joseon dynasty period (1392 to 1910), typical letter patterns were the “lucky sign” (gil sang) patterns.  There were Confucian symbols in ancient times, which were replaced by the more modern hangul letters of modern Korean.

Kang said she continues to enjoy the process of bojagi – not only the result, but the enjoyment of the repetitive stitching.  There is a zen-like rhythm of stitching pieces together.  

Some of Kang’s artistry has been accepted for international exhibits throughout Korea.  She was one of the invited Korean artists at the 2023 Korea Bojagi Forum in Seoul.  As a guest artist at the 2023 Jinju Silk Residency, Kang collaborated with the international artists and assisted with some of their projects that were in the November 2023 Jinju Traditional Craft Biennial Exhibition.  

Kang said her love of bojagi has opened up a life in which she meets and collaborates with many international and domestic artists. She also enjoys a simple lifestyle from day to day, as a grandmother and a volunteer with the JCC as time permits, where she can meet new people and engage in dialogue with like-minded artists.

Photos by Stephen Wunrow

Min Cheol Park, former Jinju Craft Center director, woodcrafter, and Ph.D. Candidate

Min Cheol Park has a country home outside Jinju, where he likes to take visitors to his loft for a tea ceremony.  I began to notice recently, with my many formal and informal meetings, sitting down over a drink seems to be a Korean traditional ice-breaker.  In southern  Korea, tea is often the beverage of choice. 

“I started woodworking in 2000 and began making tea utensils from wood for Jinju’s tea culture.  All of this is a gift from nature,” Park told me.

Park followed his father’s woodworking passion. Although his father has died, the elder Park’s work is displayed in Park’s home and studio, and is a daily inspiration to him. His father built the house Park still lives in with his mother, wife and two children.  His father was a contemporary fusion woodcrafter who married modern designs to Korean traditional concepts.  For his Ph.D. degree, Park is studying and creating wood pieces used in traditional Korean tea culture throughout history.

His mother is a professional landscaper who has made the surroundings of the house into a garden and haven.  She has also made the surrounding mountainside beautiful through cutting, splitting and propagating plants with an eye for pleasing aesthetics.

In his studio, Park has a collections of tree branches, wood, and many woodworking machines.  He has a deep knowledge of the tree species in the Jirisan Mountain area, and the qualities each wood provides in woodworking.

Park also volunteers at the JCC once a week. The woodworking shop offers classes for all ages and abilities in building tables, wooden boxes and serving trays.  Park and other woodworking artists, through the JCC, provide a human link between the regional wood crafts and the landscape from which traditional woodworking emerged centuries ago. The passing down of this knowledge through local artists are the ultimate goals of JCC, with the support of the Korean people through the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.

North Korea

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Bill passes House; will link Korean Americans with North Korean relatives | By John Kim (Summer 2024)

Younger siblings of Jun-do Cho, 89 (left) traveled from South Korea to meet her in North Korea in 2018.

Approximately 100,000 Americans with relatives in North Korea saw a boost of support from the U.S. House of Representatives when it voted 375 to 8 in favor of the Korean American Divided Families National Registry Act (DFNRA) (H.R. 7152).

The bill, introduced by Rep. Jennifer Wexton (D-VA) and Rep. Michelle Steel (R-CA), and passed by the House on June 25, will establish a national registry of Korean Americans and their relatives in North Korea to facilitate future family reunions. The new U.S. registry will be similar to the existing registry of South Korean and North Korean separated families. 

The DFNRA is closely related to a bill titled  The Divided Families Reunification Act (H.R 826) That bill, which was made law as part of the (fiscal year) 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, directs the Secretary of State and the Special Envoy on North Korean Human Rights Issues, to consult with their South Korean counterparts to host family reunions. The bill did not specify a definitive timeline, despite the need for urgency with over 85 percent of divided family members aged 80 and older. Should reunions not occur in the near-term, a family registry would ensure that descendants of Korean American divided families can participate in future reunions.

One such Korean American from a divided family, Ki Shin Lee, born July 5, 1934, was interviewed by Paul Kyumin Lee, president of Divided Families USA. Lee told the interviewer “before I die, my last wish is to see my two youngest siblings again,” and “I’m hoping for an opportunity to visit North Korea through the United States … and say that I’m sorry to them.”

Logistical and implementation challenges

The passage of the Registry Act must be considered in the context of geopolitical developments between the U.S. and North Korea. The 2019 U.S.-North Korea Summit in Hanoi, a meeting between North Korean leader Jong Un Kim, and former U.S. President Donald Trump, led to the halt in bilateral communication after the two sides could not come to an agreement over UN sanctions relief in exchange for a limited retraction of nuclear weapons capability. Since then, Kim has deepened his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and has agreed to help the war against Ukraine by sending more than 7,000 containers stocked with ballistic missiles, artillery shells, and conventional weapons. 

Meanwhile, inter-Korean relations reached an all-time low in January of this year when Kim took the unprecedented step of calling South Korea (the Republic of Korea (ROK) its “principal enemy,” – the U.S. had formerly held the position of  “principal enemy” – and threatened to annihilate it if provoked. Four months later, Pyongyang released hundreds of trash-filled balloons towards South Korea, which landed in streets, on buildings, and on cars. The trash balloons were reportedly released by the North in response to the “frequent scattering of leaflets and other rubbish” in border areas by activists in the South, according to a BBC report.

With the renewed trilateral security cooperation in the U.S.-Japan-South Korea alliance, the current political situation requires the easing of tensions prior to the resumption of family reunions. But since any easing of tension does not seem to be imminent, the Family Registry Act comes at a timely moment amidst increased pressure for the preservation of family history.

There are other complexities in establishing the family registry and getting separated families to sign on to it. Korean American family members with North Korean relatives may not wish to identify themselves as such in a public way, due to perceived shame of association with North Korea and/or fears that doing so could risk the safety of their North Korean family members. 

There are also official and procedural concerns about which nation’s agency (whether the U.S., South Korea or North Korea) will cover the cost of reunions. There are significant costs in administering reunions, including family members’ travel, lodging, the cost of establishing compatible telecommunications links, and other costs.

The ROK’s Ministry of Unification is in charge of that nation’s inter-Korean relations and has played a significant role in the past in administering the reunions. In North Korea, the  Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland (CPRF) is its main agency responsible for managing inter-Korean relations, but it ceased operations this year after Kim declared an end to the policy of reunification.

A reunion of a divided family in 2012.

The history of Korea’s divided families

The saga of divided families began at the end of World War II (in 1948) when the Korean Peninsula was partitioned along the 38th parallel, which placed the northern half under the Soviet Union’s control and the southern half under control of the U.S.  During the Korean War, thousands of refugees fled their hometowns, and some went south to avoid the warfare or to find other family members.  After the Korean War ended (July 27, 1953), the refugees found that they could not get back to their homes and families due to the militarization of the border between South and North. Some of these refugees settled permanently in South Korea, others were able to immigrate to the U.S.

The first formal inter-Korean family exchanges happened in 1985 when a group of 50 South Koreans traveled to Pyongyang and a reciprocal group of 50 North Koreans went to Seoul. Inter-Korean family reunions were again revived under South Korean President Dae-jung Kim (1998- 2003) and again under President Moo-hyun Roh (2003-2008). Reunions occurred less frequently during the more conservative administrations of Presidents Myung-bak Lee and Geun-hye Park. Overall, between 2000 and 2018, 21 ROK-DPRK family reunion gatherings were held, bringing together more than 20,000 family members.

Next steps for the Divided Families Registry Act

The passage of the DFNRA in the House of Representatives is only half of the equation. In March 2024, the Senate version of the National Registry Act (S.3876), was introduced bySen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL). The bill thus far has garnered five bipartisan co-sponsors, including Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Chris Coons (D-DE), Jon Ossoff (D-GA), and Mark Kelly (D-AZ).

Due to scheduling and other logistical challenges, it is unclear whether DFNRA will get a floor vote, which is necessary for the bill to move out of the chamber and onto the President’s desk. The Senate is in recess during August and the first week of September. After recess, there are only a few weeks of legislative time before the end of the 118th Congress in December. The upcoming election in November will also slow down legislative business, since nearly a third of senators will campaign for reelection in their home states. The Senate is facing other competing priorities; Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D- NY) listed his priorities: Government appropriations, a child tax credit bill; rail safety regulation; and cannabis banking.

If the Registry Act is not voted on by the end of 2024, it will have to be reintroduced in the 119th Congress (2025-2026). There is a pattern that previously-passed House bills with strong bipartisan support tend to be supported in the following session. However, a major factor in continuing to push the bill is that the original sponsor, Rep. Wexton, will not return to Congress due to a health condition. The bill will have to find a new sponsor.

Author’s note:  The views expressed in this publication are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Korean American Grassroots Conference (KAGC) nor its members. 

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The transformation of civil society

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Civic Activism in South Korea: The Intertwining of Democracy and Neoliberalism ~ By Seungsook Moon

(Columbia University Press, New York, 2024, ISBN #978-0-2312-1149-9)

Review by John Feffer (Winter 2025)

In the late 1990s, at the request of five South Korean organizations, I put together a conflict resolution training program in Seoul. The groups were interested in learning more about nonviolent ways of resolving disputes in the community, at a national level, and across borders. Another aim of the program was to explore ways for peace activists to learn professional skills and create sustainable livelihoods for themselves.

It was a pivotal stage in South Korean democracy. The people power that had forced the Tae-Woo Roh government to usher in elections in 1987 had given way to a new set of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) devoted to expanding and deepening the fledgling democracy. People’s movements (minjung undong) continued to operate throughout the country, relying on volunteer organizers and often ad hoc actions. But increasingly, the political space was dominated by civic groups (simin tanche) that employed staff, engaged in fundraising, and tried to expand membership through sustained programming. The late 1990s, according to survey data, was the moment of peak influence for such citizens organizations.

Although movements played a critical role in the political life of South Korea, the movement life was a difficult one. It was fine for young people who didn’t need much money. But as activists got older, got married, and had children, a life of unpaid protest became increasingly unsustainable. To turn activism into a profession was one of the goals of our conflict resolution training program — as well as to think about how to turn negatively framed campaigns of protest into positively framed programs of action.

The tension between the more radical and spontaneous movements and the more bureaucratically organized and professional organizations has continued in South Korea. Today, the NGO space is rich, diverse, and well-connected, with organizations devoted to the environment, women’s issues, immigrants, government transparency, and so on. But social movements have continued to mobilize the energy of different constituencies, particularly young people, on critical issues, for instance around food safety during the 2008 beef protests or the more recent protests that led to the impeachment of Suk-yeol Yoon.

In her new book Civic Activism in South Korea, Seungsook Moon looks at this tension between movements and NGOs through an economic lens. She argues that South Korea, across different political administrations, adopted a neoliberal approach to the economy, and this has necessarily influenced the political life of the country. Neoliberal policies — promoting market solutions, putting the onus on individual rather than collective action, pushing NGOs to undertake services that the government might otherwise provide — have all established the rules of the game by which everyone must play.

Moon tells her story through the experiences of three groups: People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy (PSPD), Democratic Friends Society (DFS), and Friends of Asia (FOA). Devoted to promoting transparency and accountability in government and the business world, PSPD was one of the first prominent South Korean NGOs (and one of the five groups participating in our conflict resolution training program). DFS focused more on the empowerment of women. And FOA was a volunteer effort to help foreign migrants adjust to Korean society.

Through these three organizations, Moon shows how neoliberal values shaped, constrained, and changed the trajectory of civic politics. Even the conflict resolution program I helped create in South Korea was part of this neoliberal turn because of its goal of providing activists with professional skills.

“Not all advocacy organizations supported neoliberalism or functioned as its tool, but there is an elective affinity between the professionalization of activism and neoliberal governance,” she writes. In effect, neoliberal governance needed paid NGO staff to undertake tasks that the government couldn’t or wouldn’t perform. This was not just a cost-saving maneuver. It also potentially prevented under- or unserved communities from rising up in anger to unseat the government.

PSPD is emblematic of the challenges that NGOs faced in that first decade of democratization. To effect change in government behavior, PSPD had to engage with and lobby public officials. When progressives took over the national government, PSPD worked with them closely on social welfare issues, though it frequently took contrary positions on foreign policy. At the same time, PSPD also wanted to retain some aspects of a movement organization by encouraging grassroots participation. When that participation began to wane, PSPD had to address more seriously the criticism that it was a “citizens’ movement without citizens.”

The other two organizations faced similar challenges. DFS established coops that provided healthy food. These coops proved so popular that they overshadowed DFS’s original goals of feminist social change. Because it received funding from the government to provide social services, it also ended up supporting a key neoliberal principle of privatizing state functions. FOA, meanwhile, didn’t take government funds and thus relied on volunteers, for instance, to teach Korean to immigrants. But without consistent sources of funding, it was hard for FOA to maintain its activities and its volunteer staff.

Moon points out, quite correctly, that even progressive administrations in Korea pushed certain neoliberal policies, such as the deregulation of financial services, the flexibilization of labor, and the establishment of free trade agreements. Given this policy environment, it was very difficult for any NGO that hoped to influence government actions not to “play the game.” Or, as Moon puts it in the context of PSPD: It “appropriate[d] neoliberal governance by reinterpreting it as democratic governance; this appropriation is tolerated as long as its activism does not seriously threaten the core logic and practices of neoliberalism.”

It has thus been the responsibility of more radical movements, with little experience of engaging with this type of “democratic governance” and unseduced by funding provided by national and local government agencies, to challenge the neoliberal logic through, for instance, the protests against the free trade agreements that the Moo Hyun Rho administration supported.

Although she recognizes the limitations of such movement politics — inconsistency, disorganization — Moon tends to valorize such activism because of its refusal to obey neo-liberal dictates. But this kind of dichotomizing is possible largely because of the way Moon defines neoliberalism as an all-encompassing analytical category. To be sure, neoliberalism is a powerful ideology in the way that it has influenced policy across the political spectrum. But neoliberalism is only one form of capitalism, not capitalism itself. And many of the criticisms she levels against Korean NGOs could apply to NGOs functioning under different forms of political economy.

Take, for example, the professionalization of activism. This was a challenge in modern societies prior to the rise of neoliberalism in the 1980s, though of course the need to earn money takes on a slightly different meaning under current market conditions. Social work, as one field of professional activism, existed before the deregulation of the state (indeed, before the creation of the welfare state). PSPD was not just conjured into existence by the spread of “neoliberal globalization,” as Moon asserts. It drew inspiration from an earlier generation of activists like Ralph Nader, who pioneered the holding to account of corporations and government prior to the rise of the neoliberal state.

This is not just an analytical criticism. The challenges that Korean activists face derive not just from the specific nature of Korea’s current form of political economy. Activists must struggle with the issue of professionalization in social democracies as well. The relative balance of state versus non-state social services is going to be a question even in countries that eschew the market. And the accountability of institutions is an essential issue in modern societies, whatever their political economies.

As such, the imagining of alternatives outside the neoliberal frame must also take into account the dynamics of different varieties of capitalism, the imperative of economic growth associated with industrialization, and the evolving nature of modernization more generally. As political parties — and even institutions like the World Bank — begin to recognize the shortcomings of neoliberalism, activists, too, have an opportunity in South Korea and elsewhere to explore new ways of thinking about political economy. This is a potentially liberating moment, but activists will discover that many of the challenges of the neoliberal era will not wither away because they are, to a certain extent, independent of neoliberalism.

Despite these minor criticisms, Civic Activism in South Korea is a valuable text on the transformation of civil society in a modern, globally connected democracy. Korean civil society has proven remarkably vibrant across half a century. The tensions between the more ad hoc movements and the more professional NGOs have ultimately strengthened the country’s social fabric, even under the corrosive influence of neoliberal economic policies. Activists and analysts across the world can learn much from the Korean experience, which Moon’s book so trenchantly describes.

Small dinner, big questions

by

Dinner for One skillfully mixes comedy with some poignant topics | Review by Joanne Rhim Lee (Fall 2024)

Sun Mee Chomet (Miss Sophie), Jim Lichtscheidl (James) and Sun Mee Chomet (Miss Sophie) in Dinner for One. Photos by Lauren B. Photography

Dinner for One Co-created by Christina Baldwin, Sun Mee Chomet, and Jim Lichtscheidl
(Directed by Christina Baldwin, Music directed by Emilia Mettenbrink, Jungle Theater, Minneapolis ~ November 30- January 5)

As the elderly but still spry Miss Sophie descends the regal staircase of her house on her birthday, her butler offers his hand to escort her to the dining room, where the table has been lovingly set with place cards for five guests. But as James begins to serve the first course of mulligatawny soup, it’s clear that Miss Sophie’s guests will not be arriving, and that she will be dining alone. Are they running late? Have they sent their regrets?

Dinner for One was originally produced in Germany in 1962 as an 18-minute black-and-white video recording,  written and performed in English by two British actors. Since then, it has become a kind of cult hit, broadcast every New Year’s Eve on television in several European countries, including Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Denmark, and Sweden.

In June 2023, Jungle Theater Artistic Director Christina Baldwin and actors Sun Mee Chomet and Jim Lichtscheidl sat down to brainstorm and workshop ideas which turned  Dinner for One into a full-length play. That production was a sold-out hit last winter, and Jungle Theater has brought it back for an encore run this holiday season.

This updated version is a poignant yet humorous portrayal of a relationship between an elderly employer and her faithful employee, and the tenderness that comes with decades of knowing each other’s tendencies, quirks, and personal losses. As Miss Sophie and James, actors Chomet and Lichtscheidl portray that knowing comfort with each other. Chomet embues Miss Sophie with quiet dignity along with a Lucille Ball-like hilarity with her subtle facial expressions and body language. As the butler in constant motion, serving the food and drinks, Lichtscheidl is a master of physical comedy, tripping over a bump in the rug and pouring refills in an exaggerated manner, all the while demonstrating his deep loyalty and affection for Miss Sophie.

Dinner for One might seem like a simple show with only two actors, but there are complex elements to this production. In Miss Sophie’s home, there are lots of beautiful vintage frames, but they are all empty. Were they once filled with photos of her loved ones, or has she always been alone?

There is also a large, framed stage where Musical Director Emilia Mettenbrink and fellow musicians seamlessly and cleverly weave music into each scene. Unlike many shows where the musicians are unseen, the musicians in this production are active participants in the story, challenging James and Miss Sophie with their notes.

One of the most creative elements of the show was the audience participation. Audience members were asked to write answers to a few pointed questions on a card in the lobby before entering, and some of the answers were read by the actors during the dinner. This could be risky as an improvisation, but it worked in this production, often resulting in laugh-out-loud comedy during the show.

Despite the humorous moments, Dinner for One is tinged with sadness throughout its 80-minute run time. When the dinner is over and the curtain closes, we are left with many questions about ourselves, our relationships, and our futures. We also leave with some topics for a good dinner party conversation.

Dinner for One runs until January 5, 2025 at Jungle Theater. 

Copyright ©2025 Korean Quarterly. All rights reserved.

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