Recently, a friend of mine sent me a summary of Dr. In Yohan’s speech on the current situation of South Korea. Dr. In, also known as John Linton, is the son of an American missionary who built churches, schools and hospitals here before South Korea began its modernization. Dr. In is a renowned medical doctor and professor who loves South Korea so much that he has lived here all his life. According to the summary, Dr. In visited North Korea some time ago. In the car headed for Pyongyang, h

Shame, though painful or unpleasant, is an integral virtue of human beings. Human decency and integrity stem from a sense of shame. If we are shameless and brazen, we are no longer human and reduced to animal-like creatures. In fact, the spectacle of shameless people makes us feel ashamed on their behalf. Unfortunately, we encounter so many unabashed people and things that make us feel ashamed these days. Recently, we were appalled at North Korea’s brutal shooting and presumed burning of

Recently on the internet, I came across a rather penetrating passage that says, “The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism, but under the name of liberalism, they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program until one day America will be a socialist nation without ever knowing how it happened.” At first, I thought a conservative American wrote it to warn the American people of the pervasiveness of socialism. To my surprise, the author was a renowned 19th centur

Today, quite a few countries suffer from populist leaders who are tearing their nations apart by dividing people with factional brawls and crippling the economy by spending money unscrupulously to flatter the people. These populist leaders gravely degrade the integrity of their respective nations with indecent words and behavior. Consequently, some populist leaders have made their countries bankrupt already, whether spiritually or financially, and others have seriously damaged the image of their

The famous motto of the US state of New Hampshire is “Live Free or Die.” The phrase is adopted from a toast by New Hampshire’s famed Gen. John Stark of the American Revolutionary War, who wrote in 1809, “Live free or die: Death is not the worst of evils.” That means that losing freedom is worse than death. It also resonates with what Patrick Henry said in 1775, “Give me liberty or give me death!” Those phrases especially appeal to the American mind becau

Recently I came across “Snows of Kilimanjaro,” a collection of English poems by a Korean-American poet, Yearn Hong Choi. The title intrigued me because I very much admire Ernest Hemingway’s short story, “The Snows of Kilimanjaro.” In the epitaph of the celebrated story, Hemingway wrote, “Kilimanjaro is a snow-covered mountain 19,710 feet high, and is said to be the highest mountain in Africa. Its western summit is called the Masai “Ngàje Ngà

When German poet Anton Schnack wrote the celebrated essay “Things That Make Us Sad” last century, he referred to sentimental, melancholic objects such as a small dead bird found in the garden, drizzling autumn rain and indecipherable graffiti in a desolate castle. He also mentioned old letters from a deceased father that read, “My son, you gave me so many sleepless nights.” In 2020, a plethora of things make us sad in Korea, too. Unfortunately, however, we do not have th

When you receive a card that says RSVP, which stands for the French “repondez s’il vous plait,” it means you must reply immediately whether you accept or decline the invitation. The same thing goes for emails and text messages, even though there is no RSVP attached. Since it all depends on the person -- we cannot stereotype people. However, it is undeniable that older Koreans are notorious for not responding to emails or text messages. The only problem is that older people fr

Sometimes outsiders can see what insiders cannot; that is why foreigners’ perspectives are often illuminating. Recently, foreign commentators have expressed concern and puzzlement about the policies and performances of some of our Korean ministries. First, many have raised a question about the necessity of the Ministry of Unification. We know that the Ministry’s primary task is to prepare for the unification of the Korean Peninsula and deal with matters related to North Korea. In

We tend to think that movies are merely a form of entertainment, but this is only partially true. In fact, a film is an excellent cultural text and an important social document. Furthermore, a film is a valuable text through which we can learn about life and the world. It that sense, movies are like audiovisual books that we enjoy watching and reading, through which we become not only well informed and knowledgeable, but also enlightened and refined. Films also drench our souls with mesmerizin

We tend to believe we are doing the right thing when our intentions are good. Often enough, however, we realize in retrospect that we were wrong at the time despite our good intentions. This is especially true for those who insist that they are doing something for a Grand Cause or for the Greater Good. Those who become obsessed with these righteous visions may not hesitate to sacrifice smaller causes or lesser goods in the name of the ideology they blindly worship. Those self-righteous people ma

In 1964, Leslie Fiedler, a distinguished American literary critic, announced the advent of the Age of the New Mutants. In his monumental essay, “The New Mutants,” Fielder envisioned the American youth of the 1960s as new mutants who cut off their attachments to mainstream culture and created a new image of America marked by diversity and multiplicity. Indeed, these “New Mutants” of counterculture radically altered the conservative terrain of American society and remade

In the famous fairy tale “Red Riding Hood,” a girl goes on an errand to bring food to her sickly grandmother who lives in the woods. Aware of this, the Big Bad Wolf rushes ahead to her grandmother’s house, devours the grandmother and dons her clothes, then waits for the girl whose nickname is Red Riding Hood in disguise. When she arrives, the wolf swallows her too, and falls asleep. Just in time, a woodcutter comes to the rescue. He cuts open the belly of the wolf and takes out

Recently, a BBC reporter, Laura Bicker, wrote via Twitter, “Prosecution in South Korea are asking for an 18-month sentence for a man who stole 18 eggs because he was hungry.” This was the same amount of prison time, the reporter observed, that the court sentenced for the operator of Welcome to Video, the world’s largest-known darknet child pornography site. She also reported that the Seoul High Court said no to the appeal from the US for his extradition to face charges in the

Recently, a friend sent me a succinct but powerful essay written by Lee Jung-woong, a former TBC producer, on the topic, “What is America to us?” The friend who thoughtfully sent me this essay wrote that she read it many times and every time she read it, she felt ashamed of not being grateful enough to the American soldiers who died for us during the Korean War. While reading the heart-rending essay, I, too, felt ashamed. Based on the testimony of the late Gen. Chae Mying-shin, Lee