October 26, 2005
6:30 pm -- 8:00 pm
North Gate Library
UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism
Reception at 5:45 pm in North Gate Hall Courtyard

This is a free event.

PIC 1. North Korean Chosun Central TV (captured by South Korean KBS1)

This photo, posted on the abductee association’s website, shows South Korean fishermen on a group outing in North Korea in 1974. The men were identified as having been kidnapped during 1971-1972. One-third of the men in the photo are now believed to be dead, according to an abductee who escaped to South Korea in 2000.

Between 1955-1987, South Korea had its own version of a Bermuda Triangle near the 38th parallel, a place where ships and planes would mysteriously disappear. In this version, the vessels and their crews would reappear in North Korea after a few days, victims of abductions the North Korean government has become notorious for.

North Korean defectors play a unique role in outsiders’ understanding of what has since the 19th century been known as the Hermit Kingdom. They offer a rare glimpse into a country that most foreign journalists are unable to step foot in, much less have access to, making them one of the few first-hand recounts journalists can rely on. However, defector coverage – which often emphasizes their life in North Korea, their dangerous journey, or their reasons for escape – often lacks examination of the defectors’ subsequent experiences in South Korea. This is perhaps based on an assumption that their trials and tribulations have somehow evaporated upon entry into South Korean society. Yet some scholars argue that this is where a new set of challenges awaits.

Likewise, North Korea was not the impoverished pariah state it is today. It hovered in our backyard as a real military threat, and by all accounts its economy was neck and neck with South Korea’s.

"A State of Mind" (2004) offers a rare and fascinating glimpse of everyday life in North Korea. British director Daniel Gordon got permission to shoot this documentary in Pyongyang after making a previous film in North Korea, “The Game of Their Lives,” in 2002. Ostensibly a sports story about two girls training for the 2003 national Mass Games—the North Korean equivalent of the World Series, Superbowl and Oscars rolled into one—“State” actually is a revealing portrait of the girls’ school lives, family lives, and belief systems in a country about which not much is known outside of the country.

Lee Hee Sook, 74, was born in Cheongjin, North Korea in 1931. A member of one of the 11 million Korean families divided on either side of the 38th parallel after World War II, she is also among the few who have been able to travel back across that line to see her relatives again.

Jason LaBouyer has been to North Korea twice. In July 2004 and again in August this year, the 23-year-old from California’s Yuba City crossed over the 38th parallel—something most Americans have not been able to do since George W. Bush invented an Axis of Evil and made the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea a charter member. Both trips were arranged by the North Korean government.

“I travel to the DPRK not as a tourist," he told me shortly after returning from his latest visit, "but as a guest of the Korean Committee for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries."

In Pyongyang, a symbol of reunification of the Korean peninsula. At the base of the structure are messages of support from various individuals, organizations and nations for re-unification and peace.
Photo by Megyung Chung.

Political art about the nuclear disarmanment issue.
Photo by Megyung Chung.