KEI Live

When you hear about trilateral cooperation between the United States, South Korea and Japan in the news, people are usually talking about how these three countries can work together to counter the security threat posed by North Korea. But there is also a lot these three countries are doing to cooperate in the economic realm.

This week's guest is Shihoko Goto, senior Northeast Asia associate at the Woodrow Wilson Center's Asia Program, who spent more than 10 years as a journalist covering economics and Asian markets. She sits down with Korean Kontext host Jenna Gibson to discuss what the three countries have been doing to improve economic relations, and what opportunities they can seize in the future.

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.