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<DIV><FONT size=4>Many thanks to Frank for alerting us to this fascinating
account.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>In general, I would hope that this List would always welcome
such</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>notice of articles or events on Korea; especially if these are
in places </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>where one wouldn't normally or necessarily go looking for
them.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>Kind regards</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>Aidan FC</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt; tab-stops: 120.0pt 180.0pt"><B
style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: Cambria; COLOR: black"><FONT size=3>Aidan
Foster-Carter<o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></B></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt; tab-stops: 120.0pt 180.0pt"><I
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: Cambria; COLOR: black"><FONT size=3>Honorary Senior Research
Fellow in Sociology & Modern <st1:country-region
w:st="on">Korea</st1:country-region>, <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City
w:st="on">Leeds University</st1:City>, <st1:country-region
w:st="on">UK</st1:country-region></st1:place></FONT></SPAN></I><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-FAMILY: Cambria; COLOR: black; mso-ansi-language: EN-US"><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>__________________________</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV>In a message dated 26/10/2013 01:53:35 GMT Daylight Time, fshulman@umd.edu
writes:</DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: blue 2px solid"><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" color=#000000 size=2 face=Arial>If the
Korean Studies listserve is permitted to circulate a posting from the
online "Chronicle of Higher Education" (Washington, D.C.), then the following
may be of interest to listserve members.<BR><BR>Frank Joseph
Shulman<BR>________________________________________<BR><BR>Signs of Hope for
the Hermit Kingdom<BR><BR>By Guest Writer<BR><BR>Online Chronicle of Higher
Education (Washington, D.C.), October 24, 2013<BR><BR>The following is a guest
post by Jonathan Levine, a freelance journalist and a former lecturer in
American studies and English at Tsinghua University, in Beijing. The names of
students have been changed for their
protection.<BR>———————————————————–<BR><BR>Clarissa was one of the smartest
students I ever taught at Tsinghua University. An English-literature major
fluent in Chinese, Korean, and English, she could discuss at length issues as
varied as gay marriage, the limits of Internet freedom, and the morality of
terrorism. She was recently accepted to graduate programs in international
relations at both Tsinghua and Peking University, China’s two best
institutions, and hopes for a career in government service.<BR><BR>Believe it
or not, when Clarissa goes home for the holidays, it’s not to family in China
or Japan or Europe, but in Pyongyang, North Korea. North Korean students
studying in China rarely make headlines, but their bursting potential may
augur profound consequences for the future of what is known as the Hermit
Kingdom.<BR><BR>At Tsinghua, I taught and interacted with a number of North
Korean students over the years. What I found most intriguing was how typical
of international students they were. Contrary to the popular narrative of
rabid xenophobia and virulent anti-Americanism, most of them were insatiably
curious about other cultures, America’s most of all. I am friends with one on
Facebook, another sat for my course “American Culture and Society.” Except for
the occasional lapel pin bearing the likeness of Kim Il Sung, the nation’s
founder, they were generally indistinguishable from other international
students.<BR><BR>Home, however, was never far away. Once a week, Tsinghua’s
North Korean students are recalled to their nation’s city-block-sized embassy
for evaluations and debriefing. Their classes and outside activities are
reviewed, and they are expected to undergo a bizarre ritual of self-criticism
in which they discuss how they have failed to live up to the spirit of their
leader’s ideals.<BR><BR>When North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Il died, in 2011,
Clarissa came to my class dressed all in black. She was shaken, but a far cry
from the much-caricatured video of sobbing North Korean citizens. While her
grief was genuine, I suspected that underneath lay more-complicated
feelings.<BR><BR>Another student, named Michael, was more
forthcoming.<BR><BR>“Did you feel sad?” I asked him, several months
afterward.<BR><BR>“I had to feel sad,” he noted, flashing a wry
smile.<BR><BR>I am under no illusion about who these students are. A famine
killed an estimated one million of their countrymen in the 1990s, but
Tsinghua’s North Koreans seem accustomed to a lifestyle of conspicuous
consumption. They would not be out of place in New York or Paris. Most wore
stylish clothes and eschewed pedal bikes in favor of motor scooters. I sparked
a fit of laughter in one when I asked if his sleek new iPad came from the
Apple store in Pyongyang.<BR><BR>Their families are the cream of North Korean
society. Many students said their fathers were “businessmen,” an increasingly
common profession in the hive of quasi-legal private industry that has
developed along the porous Chinese-North Korean border.<BR><BR>While these
students aren’t representative, their very existence and study-abroad
experience should be cause for hope.<BR><BR>In his recent book, The Impossible
State: North Korea, Past and Future, the academic and former National Security
Council member Victor Cha argued that North Korea today is more isolated and
less international than in previous generations. During the cold war, he
noted, members of the North Korean elite traveled widely in the Communist
world, and the leader, Kim Il Sung, was on good terms with the likes of East
Germany’s Erich Honecker and Romania’s Nicolae Ceau?escu. Since Chinese reform
and the fall of international Communism,, however, North Korea has experienced
unprecedented isolation. The wealth of ideas and intercultural exchange
offered by study abroad could be enormously consequential in any future
opening.<BR><BR>In an excerpt from an essay by Clarissa, we can catch a
glimpse of the country’s current dystopia.<BR><BR>“I grew up in a country
which is prepared to fight a war at any time,” she writes. “When I was
studying in Pyongyang, every semester schools held anti defense practices, in
which every student and faculty member would go down to the basement of their
school and have classes there in case of a sudden war.”<BR><BR>A North Korean
transition from Stalinist introversion to a self-sufficient and responsible
member of the international community may be one of the premier challenges of
the 21st century. But if Clarissa and her cohort are any indication of the
next generation of leadership, I believe there may be light at the end of that
tunnel.<BR></FONT></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV></FONT></BODY></HTML>