KEI Live

At his first State of the Union, President Trump took an interesting approach to integrating North Korea policy into his speech. By inviting North Korean defector Ji Seong-ho and the parents of Otto Warmbier to the speech, the President focused on highlighting their suffering at the hands of the Kim regime instead of the harder military or policy options that have been floating around Washington recently.

Rosa Park, Director of Programs and Editor at the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, the organization that helped organize logistics for the defectors who met with President Trump after the State of the Union, spoke with Korean Kontext about President Trump's strategy and his continued focus on the human elements of North Korea policy.

This year for KEI's Korean American Day celebration, we chose to honor three great Korean Americans in the field of journalism and the media. One of this year's honorees was broadcast journalist May Lee, who is a correspondent at CGTN America and founder of Lotus Media House, who has covered major news events around the world and in the United States, including the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the 2004 tsunami in Southeast Asia.

In this episode, Korean Kontext host Jenna Gibson talks with May about how she got into journalism, what it is like to be one of the few Korean Americans on TV, and how the changing media landscape of today has affected her and her work.

On February 9, years of hard work will culminate in the opening of the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. A month later, on March 8, the 2018 Winter Paralympics will continue to bring excitement to PyeongChang.

At a recent event organized by The Korea Society in New York, Korean Kontext host Jenna Gibson was able to speak briefly with Jung Seung-Hwan, one of the stars of the South Korean Para Ice Hockey team. They discusses his background in ice sledge hockey (now known as para ice hockey), his goals for PyeongChang, and how he got the nickname "Rocketman."

Photo courtesy of The Korea Society

Spanning nearly a century and multiple generations, Min Jin Lee's Pachinko tells the story of a Korean family struggling to find their place in Japan before, during, and after the Korean War. It is a story that touches on a myriad of themes, including identity, the role of women, war, and discrimination. Pachinko has been widely praised, earning a place as one of the best books of 2017 on lists from The Chicago Tribune, NPR, CNN, and many more. 

Korean Kontext host Jenna Gibson spoke with Min Jin Lee over the phone about why she started writing Pachinko, how the story evolved over time, and what she's working on next.

A woman in hanbok joyfully rises above Mt. Baekdu, arms raised, in a art piece entitled Umma Rises: Towards Global Peace. This is just one of many recent art pieces by artist Mina Cheon featuring her North Korean persona, Kim Il Soon. Using her colorful and provocative style of "polipop" art, Cheon has been exploring issues such as information flow into North Korea, propaganda, and motherhood.

Korean Kontext host Jenna Gibson recently sat down with Cheon to discuss her creative inspirations, some of her recent and past work related to North Korea, and much more.

To see some of Cheon's work and learn about her recent exhibition at the Ethan Cohen Gallery in New York, please click here. 

A group of women gossiping about the new neighbor. A feisty middle schooler using a homemade drone to prank his classmates. A young military officer seeking information from his past. These themes could be from any American TV show. But they are, in fact, storylines from a new wave of soap operas produced by the North Korean state.

Former AP journalist Jean Lee, now a Global Fellow at The Wilson Center, analyzed four of these North Korean soaps for a new research paper commissioned by KEI. In this episode of Korean Kontext, she discusses some of her observations, including a shift from emphasizing military service to emphasizing family ties and a focus on youth and the next generation of North Koreans - themes which may indicate some of Kim Jong-un's main domestic priorities.

After more than a year of tensions over the Terminal High Altitude Aerial Defense (THAAD) system that is now deployed in South Korea, Seoul and Beijing seem to have made steps toward thawing relations. But is the row over THAAD really over? Will South Korean business see a return to normal in China? And what will the Chinese learn from this experience of using economic leverage to influence South Korean political decisions?

Bonnie Glaser, senior advisor for Asia and director of the China Power Project at CSIS, joins Korean Kontext host Jenna Gibson to discuss the latest in South Korea-China relations, as well as what it means for security and diplomacy in the region moving forward.

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.

Note: This is a rebroadcast of an episode from August 11, 2016.

Image from Steve Baty's photostream on flickr Creative Commons.

With President Donald Trump finishing up his first official trip to Asia, including a stop in South Korea last week, this week's episode of Korean Kontext asks: what do South Koreans think of President Trump? 

KEI program manager Juni Kim has been following the polls, and has found that while very few members of the Korean public have confidence in President Trump, their views of the United States as a whole remain high. In this week's podcast, host Jenna Gibson sits down with Juni to discuss some of the polling in South Korea about the United States and its leader, as well as how he thinks President Trump's trip to Korea could affect his approval rating among Koreans.

Image from Republic of Korea's photostream on flickr Creative Commons.

President Donald Trump is off on his longest international trip yet, stopping in Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines. There, he is expected to tackle a range of issues, including responses to North Korea's nuclear and missle programs as well as economic ties between the United States and the Asia Pacific. 

In this episode, we talk with Mark Fitzpatrick, Executive Director of IISS–Americas, about his expectations for the trip, how he thinks President Trump will handle the North Korea question, and particularly how his first visit to South Korea will go.

*Please note this episode was pre-recorded, some details of the trip may have subsequently changed*

Image from North Charleston's photostream on flickr Creative Commons.