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Busan e-FM Week 24: Korea and the English Language

About 'Open Mike in Busan'

Introduction

Now this probably a very important subject in Korea – especially for Busan e-FM listeners – today’s subject is Korean and the English language.

The Korean English language school

I met my wife in England, where she did some postgraduate studies at the local college and university in my home town. Both were quite popular with overseas students, and perhaps that’s what led to the story of the Korean English language school.

In my job as Student Union President, I spent a lot of time liaising with the university’s management. One day they called me up and asked “Do you know anything about the plan to open an English language school for Koreans here?” Well I didn’t, but the story was this: apparently some Korean businessmen intended buy a building near the university and turn it into a school that would just teach English to people who would come over from Korea. Then the businessmen actually came to the city, met local council leaders, and finished up having their pictures taken, shaking the mayor’s hand, which then appeared in the local newspaper.

And that was the last I heard of it, until six months later, when suddenly the first Korean students arrived. There first question was naturally, where is the school? Exactly. Where, indeed, was it? I knew the building the Korean businessmen said they were intending to buy, and I’d looked at it every time I walked by – and there’d been no visible signs of any activity at all. I had contacts in the local council as well as with the university, and they hadn’t heard anything about it since the businessmen had gone home either. Didn’t the plans work out suddenly, or was it a con from the beginning? I don’t know, but it didn’t look good.

The students had spent all their money in some cases. Some returned to Korea, and some transferred to the local city college. But I specifically remember the story of one girl, who had no money and felt too ashamed to go back home. What I took from this was how important English must be in Korea, and what a big business it seemed. But it didn’t always seem a fair business.

Fusion-combination under fusion-combination environment

And then I came to Korea and saw it for myself. I was shocked by the number of hagwons. Yes, you know there are going to be a lot, but I wasn’t expecting there to be ten within a hundred meters of my apartment. I guess there are thousands in Busan alone. It’s mindblowing. But I can’t help feeling that despite all this it doesn’t really work.

At first – I admit – it was funny to see all the badly written English signs, and all the badly used English, such as the “Korea Literature Translation Institude” and the restaurant advertising “Spaghetti with swimming crap”. But soon it made me a little sad because of all the money you can see being poured into it, and it can have consequences.

For example, one wedding album we looked at started off “You will always have a special place in my hear”. Then, under a picture of the bride you’d have the words “with palpitation just like the fist time”, and it finished with what appeared to be a disastrous cut-and-paste failure from Ben E. King’s classic song ‘Stand By Me’, where the main line “Just as long as you stand by me” became “hust as ling as you stand by me”. Well, that’s not a wedding album I can send back to England really, because it creates a bad impression of Korea, and it kind of makes the whole wedding seem like a bit of a joke.

It’s not just companies that end up with odd English. The Ministry of Health and Welfare sent out a multi-language leaflet on the importance of having children vaccinated “in order to ensure our children grow up to be healthy human resources of the future.” Then again, this is Korea, maybe we are all just ‘human resources’ to the chaebol in the end. But my favourite is the Korean Internet & Security Agency. Recently I visited their English page trying to find out why a website I’d tried to visit was blocked. It explains “We need to prepare a counter-measure system against infringements related to fusion-combination under fusion-combination environment.” The page goes on to talk about the need to create “digital warmth” for minimising the ‘dysfunction’ of the Internet. What is ‘digital warmth’? [The whole page is worth reading because it essentially encapsulates so many of the failures that English translations have here - and translations into Korean from English can raise very serious issues too].

The english waves come in [sic]

I became more sympathetic as I struggled with the Korean language, but it’s still surprising though when you see these really big brands using bad English – why don’t they pay for proper translations?

Then I started to hear a few stories from foreigners doing the translations. They were rewording advertising material from a first draft in English done by a Korean, but after they’d corrected it, the company would often go back to the first one, because they said it sounded better.

[I can’t believe they let me mention this on air]. Take the Busan e-FM slogan for example. “The english waves come in” - it’s on the signs and advertising. This is a small issue, but it makes a big difference: there’s an apostrophe missing between the ‘E’ and ‘S’ of ‘waves’. So instead of “The English Wave Has Come In”, instead it really states that the waves come in around the coast of England. 그래서, 영국의 파도가 옴니다, 그리고 나감니다. There’s no capital for the word ‘English’ either.

Working in a Korean business environment is hard [story pending]

So seeing all this makes me think that working in a Korean business environment could be very hard for a foreigner. My impression is that whatever foreigners might say, Korean businesses just plough on regardless. They don’t care.

Whose language is it anyway?

But then I had a revelation, at least about the English language. Maybe these Korean companies don’t even want good English... because they’re not pitching their messages at English speakers, they’re pitching it at people who ‘speak’ English in Korea. And who’s to say they can’t? Perhaps Korean English is a new language like American English [an earlier bastardisation of the original language – although modern British English is in itself arguably a bastardisation of ‘olde [sic] English’]. If people are happy with this new version of English - ‘Korean English’ - then maybe it’s OK.

And really, the way some ‘native’ English teachers write on websites here – what language is that? I call it “native English teacher English”. Maybe that’s a new version of the language – with bad grammar, awful spelling, and a general inability to communicate. My God, I wouldn’t want some of them anywhere near my child teaching English.

To quote the playwright George Bernard Shaw, “Britain and America are two nations divided by a common language.” What he meant by that of course is that you can have two groups, essentially using the same language, but still not communicating well. So maybe this is the problem with English written in Korea – or Korean English, and we can’t necessarily expect it to ever change. And looking at it from a Korean language point of view, perhaps when I reach Korean fluency I’ll still have problems communicating, so the Koreans and I will still be divided by a common language too.

And that might be the world we live in today anyway – everyone’s talking but many people are not understanding what’s being said.

Links
Busan e-FM
Inside Out Busan

Air date: 2011-04-06 @ ~19:30

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Busanmike.blogspot.com

Twitter: @BusanMike
YouTube: /BusanMikeVideo
Flickr: /busanmike

Brush with Celebrity, a K-pop Moment

Or, as Shane remembers it, the-time-Rose-nearly-got-us-trampled-by-preteen-girls. This little tale happened all the way back in December, but please don't hold the tardiness against me.

Myeon-dong Neighborhood

In Seoul while on vacation, we devoted a couple hours in Myeong-dong, a neighborhood well-known for its shopping and especially sought out by us for the H&M, where I knew clothes in my size could be found. After shopping, we headed back toward the subway. Suddenly, we found ourselves in the throes of a teeming mass blockading the sidewalks.

The walkway holds temporarily.

I couldn't resist-- maybe it'd be a free giveaway, maybe something else. We were ushered into lines, an invisible barrier creating an aisle among us. This aisle held up pretty well, until the door of the dark windowed SUV cracked open even a hair. Then all bets were off. The crowd surged forward, cameras poised, voices excited. The door closed. Security guards again formed the aisle through the mostly young, mostly female crowd. The door opened. The aisle collapsed again.
The cycle repeated for about twenty minutes, until at last, out stepped... drum roll..... JYJ, a K-pop band that enjoys a huge following in Korea, Japan, and beyond. For those of you looking to expand your music repertoire, here's a sample: Ayyy Girl. Wowza.

Two of the three members of JYJ.

For those of you looking for the adrenaline rush of nearly being trampled by fervent fans, here's a video summary:

atek teachers’ fundraiser

yesterday, we had a bake sale/rummage sale/sports day/pillow fight to raise money for the association for teachers of english in korea’s volunteer teachers. we raised almost 300,000 won ($275) for the teachers to buy materials for the orphans they tutor once a week. a few of my favorite students came down, and i got to play with them in a beautiful park all day. i tried to teach angel how to play badminton.

she wasn’t all that good at it, but she did see to overcome her fear of dogs. so much so, that we borrowed someone’s pooch for a walk. having no pets of her own, she was fascinated by the dog’s ability to poop. “can i show jenny when she gets here?” she asked.
“what, like show her the poop?”
“yeah!”
“well, sure, angel, if you think she’d like to see it…”
i did not photograph the remarkable poo.
actually, i didn’t photograph much. the photos from the day were mostly taken by matthew teacher.

but i did finally get to shoot the bitchin wizards of busan on their motos.

bitchin’ matthew.

bitchin’ eric.

bitchin’ jeff.

and bitchin’ rhylon, attended, as always, by his guard shark water gun.

album drops 12-21-2012.

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gyeongju

after a lovely field trip last week with my favorite class,

it was off to the ROK’s former capital, gyeongju, to see the cherry blossoms in full force before they transformed into the florescent green that lines the streets today.

we rented bikes.

and let me tell you, cruisers are not good for going up hills against the wind. so we took frequent breaks.

but slowly,

slowly we made our way.

and there were lots of lovely things to see.

like this field of yellow flowers packed with Korean families taking portraits. but in a field this crowded, how could you get a clean background?

the cherry blossoms were abundant, as promised.

i liked this place, especially.

on the way back to town, i spied on these old men, who had inexplicably set up a table for lunch under a bridge.

Seoul's Garage Sale: Ttukseom Resort Flea Market

That is a picture of my lunch that I had at a Vietnamese restaurant near the Tteokssom Resort in Seoul. But before I take you into this weekend's adventure I first want to remind you of one of the best parts of modern culture, and that is the garage sale.

I have always enjoyed going to garage sales as a kid. It gave me great pleasure to look at other people's stuff and wonder why they were giving it away and if it could have a special place in my life. Along with garage sales I also was very fond of thrift stores. I lived off of clothing finds from thrift stores all the way through college until the trend caught on and things started to get more expensive. Even when I go back home to visit family, I find myself at a garage sale or thrift store taking in those musky smells and used items.

After coming to Korea I wondered where people sell their used and unwanted items since no one seems to have "garages" or "yards" here. I have been to the Folk Flea Market but that seemed more like an antique's shop than an actual flea market.

I have heard from others that apartment complexes usually hold little flea markets now and then, but never really found one.

That is why to my pleasant surprise I found myself at a genuine market of used goods yesterday at the Ttukseom Resort Station. You will see later what I am talking about, but for now let's go back to lunch.

It was a nice spring day, except for a strong river wind blowing down the park. Families and couples were out with picnic gear and bicycles.

The cherry blossoms have already come and gone, but there remained full flower boxes among the path.

I always try to get a picture of JH but the guy is camera shy and often does the following gesture.

However, I don't mind my picture being taken.

That second one is me nagging JH to ride the paddle boats, but we both decided that with the wind it was a bad idea.

It might be hard to tell, but in the picture below the boat #47 was being bad since the folks (kids) inside were leaning to one side and making it nearly capsize.

On our way, to the area under the bridge, the wind was pretty fierce but I managed to get some pics.

Once up the stairs we made it to the flea market, where people were busy selling and buying. Mostly there was for sale clothing and shoes, but there was a good mix of random household items, electronics and jewelry. It seemed people were mostly trying to sell off things unwanted from their homes, but there were a few that looked like they had collected odd stuff from here and there.

Not settling for the spoken price was common as people haggled down items that only cost 3,000 or 1,000 won to begin with. JH and I found a nice little tote bag, an English study book and a cat toy.

It was a lot of fun and after looking around we headed over to a sunny spot to soak in some rays.

Lastly, of course, a trip to the park wouldn't be complete without a stop at the public restroom.

I highly recommend you get out to the flea market one of these Saturdays and see if you can find a great treasure. I hope to someday sign up and sell a few unwanted things from my own home.

I leave you with this video I made of the market:

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foreignerjoy.blogspot.com

Profile My Artwork Photography JoyTube ExpatAbundance

Random pictures, part 43

Presenting the latest installment of random pictures – fun stuff that didn’t make it into any other posts.

Dennis Rodman called – he’d like to know why his line of hair coloring is being pictured on a foreign girl in Korea. Seen in Dongtan’s Metapolis.

The streets of Gangnam look a little different now that the saju / tarot tents are now more permanent structures.

One way you know Buddha’s birthday is coming is when the lanterns start appearing. Seen just outside of Daecheon station.

Socks! Korean socks are colorful and cute, and come in seemingly endless varieties. Seen at a shop at the Cheongdo bullfighting festival.

A rather abstract look at the bullfighting stadium roof.

An obligatory cherry blossom picture – yes, I’m a sucker for pretty flowers. Taken in Daegu., near Daegu Grand Park.

© Chris Backe – 2011
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

This post was originally published on my blog, Chris in South Korea. If you are reading this on another website and there is no linkback or credit given, you are reading an UNAUTHORIZED FEED.

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Oneweirdglobe.com

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According To mK Business Daily, Samsung Has Already Won

영어선생 Hall of Shame Entry #9 Bonus
Sometimes, it is just your lucky day. the mK Business Daily, in one fell swoop, gets to be the subject of this article for its content, and it also richly deserves its entry into the 영어선생 Hall of Shame.

Generally Speaking, the mK Business Daily (매일경제) is Good
For the most part, the mk Business Daily is pretty good. For example, it has correctly pointed out that there are shortcomings in the Korean economy, that the Korean consumer is very stretched, and that manyl of the large construction projects in Korea are either financially non-viable, creating stress on the lenders. However, this article is poorly written, and editorializes to the point that it deserves an Entry into the 영어선생 Hall of Shame.

Apple v Samsung: The Giants’ Spat
It is not news at this point that Apple has sued Samsung and vice versa. It is a very delicate matter, since Apple relies on Samsung for many of the parts used in the iPhone and the iPad. Samsung’s Lee Kun-hee has publicly remarked on the matter, although it is the Seoul Gyopo Guide’s opinion that he should stay silent, and let the lawyers do the talking. The quality of the public dialogue will the topic of tomorrow’s post, which highlights out the great divide in communication styles between the Korea and the U.S.

Apparently, mK Business Daily Has Inside Information
Here are a couple of direct quotes from the mK Business Daily article:

The Korean tech giant plans to submit a similar claim to the US court as well. Before doing so, however, Samsung will first answer Apple’s accusations on design stealing by proving such allegations to be baseless and legally indefensible. The counterclaim will come in the next two to three months, after the Korean company successfully defends against Apple’s attacks.

This isn’t reporting; it is editorializing and presumes that Samsung will certainly win. First, Apple’s claims are “baseless” and Samsung will defend itself “successfully.” How does the newspaper know this after less than one week, with no evidence presented in any court, and with no legal expertise to make such conclusions?

A couple of paragraphs later, the same message continues:

Samsung had cited breaches against its telecommunications patents for the legal battle against Apple, most probably because the Korean company holds a comparative advantage in the field. Samsung is the largest foreign company in the US in terms of patent registrations, and takes a bulk of the nation’s mobile phone-related technological patents. Apple, on the other hand, has a relatively weak patent base for hardware technology.

Maybe this is true, maybe it isn’t. It is doubtful, at best, that the mK Business Daily is in any position to make these conclusions as if they were fact.

Poor Diction = Poor English
Maybe the mK Business Daily should more this article to the Editorials section. At the very least, using adverbs such as “successfully,” and describing Apple’s patent base as “weak” are very judgmental. Those words suggest that the outcome has already been reached, when nothing could be further from the truth. Does someone really believe that Steve Jobs is going to take these allegations without defending Apple vigorously? 웃긴 것 치지 마세요. The same can be said for Samsung, and rightfully so. This article makes, due to its poor English word choice, makes it seem that the result is a foregone conclusion. So while there is no doubt that reading newspapers written in English is, overall, an excellent way to learn English, this article isn’t a good example, for multiple reasons. For that reason, the mK Business Daily receives Entry #9 into the 영어선생 Hall of Shame.

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www.seoulgyopoguide.com www.twitter.com/thelostseoul

Busan e-FM Week 23: Korean History

About 'Open Mike in Busan'

Introduction

Today I’m going to talk about Korean history. Now you know what they say about Korea having 5,000 years of history [or more], so obviously I’m not going to discuss all of it – only bits.

Knowing history

I didn’t know a lot about the history of Korea before coming here. Of course, everyone knows about the Korean War... or maybe they don’t – a few months ago I read about a 2008 survey conducted by the Ministry of Public Administration and Security, and in it of 1,016 Korean middle and high school students surveyed, 51% didn’t know the war started with an invasion by North Korea. In fact 14% blamed Japan for starting the war, 13% blamed the United States, 11% blamed the Soviet Union, and 2% said it began when South Korean invaded the North. I found this lack of knowledge of the historical facts of something which is so important here very surprising. There was another survey conducted last year by Gallup, and that produced broadly similar results.

Don’t get me wrong. British children are no more familiar with their history – perhaps they are even less so, but South Korea has a strong reputation for its educational system, so that’s why I found the results so unexpected.

Haeundae Beach Memorial Day

Last year I was on Haeundae Beach on Memorial Day. A group were running a photo display of the Korean War on the beach and they had the flags of the 68 countries which had assisted South Korea in the conflict. The lack of knowledge of these historical events was one of the issues the group mentioned in its display.

In fact, it was also interesting that the group had pictures of the alleged destruction of one of their previous displays by a ‘candlelight rally’ in Seoul, so it suggests that history here can be a highly controversial subject.

Because they were highlighting the international effort there were pictures of British soldiers and their contribution in the Korean War amongst the display, and I have to say that was heartening to see. The U.S. carried a lot of the effort in the war but often other contributions get ignored in this and other historical events because of the cultural imperialism of Hollywood and the frequent rewriting of history it conducts as part of that. [It's not just truth sacrificed in the name of entertainment either - some of it appears to have a particularly nasty agenda].

885

I haven’t visited the U.N. Cemetery in Busan. I’ve looked over it from a nearby hill but haven’t been inside – I’ve been putting it off because I think it will be an upsetting experience. There are 885 British soldiers buried there. I didn’t know about them when I came to Busan. I find these kinds of numbers overwhelming – and it’s just a very small percentage of the total number of foreign casualties, let alone the Korean ones.

The Haeundae Beach display, which highlighted the sacrifices of people from other countries, carried the title “Thanks Runs Forever”. But maybe it doesn’t, because today in Korea foreigners are under attack, even receiving death threats, just for voicing opinions that some people here don’t like. Even I’ve been attacked for relating things I’ve seen in Korea, which perhaps don’t portray this country in a positive way. I don’t know what it is with these people – maybe they don’t know their history, and maybe they don’t care. But when foreigners are attacked – when I’m attacked – I think of those 885 British soldiers buried here in Busan, who fought to defend this country. People like Private G.W. Harrison – to mention only one random name of those 885 - who died on the 27th March 1952 at the age of just 19.

Affinities foreign and local

As much as I feel an affinity for my countrymen who fought and died here to defend South Korea, I also feel an affinity – as a former student activist myself - towards the student activists who fought against the dictatorship here. I saw a display about the Busan-Masan Democratic Uprising while I was at PNU [Pusan National University]. They risked their lives – not against an external aggressor – but for a domestic idea – democracy and freedom of speech in the face of an extreme right-wing regime. It’s something I hope foreigners will one day have here too as we battle against today’s right-wing threats.

Japan

Aside from the Korean War, and the Democratic Uprising, the other particularly well known part of Korean history overseas, is the Japanese occupation. I know it’s very much part of the ongoing narrative in South Korea, but even so I was a little surprised to see a statue of Park Jae-Hyuk – who threw a bomb at the head of the police station here in 1921 – in the Children’s Park. Parents were standing their small children beneath the statue to take photos of them. I guess the ‘Japanese awareness issue’ starts at an early age in Korea. I’ve also been to Tapgol Park in Seoul – the birthplace of the March 1st Movement, which was a really interesting place.

Korea has a long and unfortunate history of invasions, and I understand that the national psyche, even today, is traumatised by that, which manifests itself sometimes as this sense of many aspects of life being about Korea versus the rest of the world. In other words, understanding Korean history is important in understanding Korea today.

Mongols, more Japanese, Korean Neo-Confucian Radicals

I went on honeymoon to Gyeongju, the old capital of the 신라 [Silla] Kingdom, because my wife knows I’m interested in history. But I thought it would be like Kyoto, and of course it wasn’t, because over the years most of it has been destroyed by the Mongols and Japanese during their historic invasions, and Korean Neo-Confucian radicals [who oddly enough, as far as I can tell, seem to often get relegated to a footnote in the cultural-destruction blame game].

So Gyeongju wasn’t what I expected, but then what is? I saw many temples in the region, such as Bulguksa, but I left feeling honestly confused about what is real and what is a rebuilt copy. History is being destroyed in Korea – and it continues today with Beomeosa and Namdaemun.

And Modern Koreans

But it’s not just about the destruction of history which disappointed me, it’s also about the way that history is disrespected, even if just from a tourism perspective. For example, the first historical place I ever went to in Korean was Beomeosa, and there was a beautiful building there which housed the temple’s drum, and it’s a great sight and a great first ‘traditional Korean’ photo to take... except there are vending machines next to the building and phone boxes. Gyeongju has a similar issue. There’s a Korean folk village down there – Wolseong Yangdong - and obviously, like Beomeosa, it’s marketed as a tourist destination. But amongst all this 15th and 16th century architecture you have a big modern church and satellite dishes on the side of the traditional Korean houses. [It’s a ‘living’ historical village but for the effort the authorities are making you’d think they might have sorted out a cable TV solution for the residents, and the Catholic church I used to attend in England didn’t have a tall spire or fall into the architectural trap of looking overtly religious, so this can be done too I think, if the will is there].

I seriously banged my head in the folk village – low beams. It demonstrates the importance of understanding history [people used to be smaller and Korean architecture is sometimes designed accordingly].

I want to learn more about Korean history. During my time here, I’ve tried to come to terms with what Korea is, but to really understand that, I feel I need to also know what it was, and how it became what it is today. It’s an important part of living here.

Links
Busan e-FM
Inside Out Busan

Air date: 2011-03-30 @ ~19:30

Two Takes on New Hopes for Six-Party Talks

Here are two takes on negotiating with Pyongyang and the role of the Chinese in the Six-Party process.

First, Nicolas Eberstadt in a WaPo editorial:

With China’s backing, North Korea is vigorously campaigning to draw the United States into another round of “six-party talks,” the multilateral deliberations on North Korean “denuclearization” first convened in 2003.
American officials appear increasingly receptive; this weekend, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is to visit South Korea, purportedly to test the waters with this key U.S. ally about a possible diplomatic reengagement with the North.
But if Obama’s North Korea team really expects to settle some of its many differences with the North, it is in for a rude awakening. Pyongyang shows no intention of being ready to compromise with Washington. Quite the contrary: There is every reason to believe the North Korean regime regards new talks as an avenue for achieving permanent ratification of its status as a nuclear weapons state and for pressing demands for stunning new strategic concessions from Washington.
(…)In six years of the intermittent six-party process, North Korea went from hinting it had a “war deterrent” to declaring itself a full-fledged nuclear power with repeated atomic blasts. Pyongyang is confident it can manipulate the process to generate further, perhaps unprecedented, benefits for its otherwise impoverished and discredited regime. For all its many weaknesses, North Korea has a coherent and consistent strategy for its negotiations with counterparts. Before they sit back down with the North Koreans, American officials might want to be sure they can say the same.

Now, Joel Wit:

Last week, China’s nuclear envoy Wu Dawei proposed after a meeting with his North Korean counterpart that the two Koreas hold dialogue as a first step to reopening the six-party talks, the nuclear negotiations that have been stalled for two years. The Chinese proposal may or may not succeed. But until official talks resume, figuring out what Pyongyang is thinking must be done through deciphering messages in its state-controlled media or through unofficial contacts, such as former U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s upcoming visit to Pyongyang. When left to experienced hands, both can yield insights. When practiced by inexperienced observers, they can do more damage than good.

Honestly, it’s hard to take Eberstadt seriously given the derisive tone of an editorial he obviously intends as a sermon to the congregation he already knows will agree with him. Spinning why your opponent continually bests the U.S. at negotiating stunts as total theater showcasing outrageous demands works about as consistently as what the North Koreans pull off. But then, how would Eberstadt suggest the North Koreans negotiate with him, when he has nothing else to offer than “Please remove yourself from power peacefully.” One side doesn’t want to negotiate in good faith, and it’s not the North Korean team. Presumably, Eberstadt has a job that entails something other than publishing snark in second-rate newspapers. So, maybe he should do something, like negotiate and find facts.

Consider the recent Aspen Institute meeting with the North Koreans in Germany. I only mention it because one participant published an account of the session in the Washington Post last week. I didn’t attend. Following a trip to Pyongyang in November 2010, where a small delegation including myself met with senior North Korean officials, I organized a separate meeting in Germany just before the Aspen group’s conclave. Compared with the Washington Post account, the contrast is striking.

In the Aspen meeting, the North Koreans reportedly staked out standard tough positions on denuclearization that have been well-known for the past few years (such as: They aren’t going to give up their nukes until the whole peninsula is denuclearized and the U.S. nuclear umbrella protecting Seoul is removed). The public description of the meeting leaves the reader with a one-dimensional impression of the North Koreans as inflexible.

In contrast, while our meetings in Pyongyang and Berlin included the usual rote recitations, the North Koreans did show a willingness to explore pragmatic solutions. Everything from denuclearization (even when it came to their highly enriched uranium program) to nuclear nonproliferation to the safety of their fledging reactor program was fair game.

(…)One might argue that the North Koreans just use outsiders for their own purposes. That happens. The visit of a Stanford University delegation to Pyongyang’s newly minted uranium enrichment facility in November triggered an international uproar since that was the first time any foreigners saw the facility. But the Stanford group did everyone an important service by telling the world what it saw and by eliciting important information from the North Koreans on its nuclear efforts.

Granted, the North Koreans use Track II encounters to break bad news, but they also use them to send important private messages that the participants — mostly trained diplomats, scientists, and experts with both extensive international experience and practice in dealing with North Koreans — can relay home. In the meetings I attended, the North Koreans were authoritative officials, clearly able to speak for their government and willing to lift the official veil to give us a passing peek at their thinking.

Finally, our meetings were private and confidential. That allows the North Koreans to speak more freely and openly about what is on their minds. In contrast to the Aspen meeting in Germany, none of us have written articles in major newspapers about our talks and there have been almost no public leaks of the substance.

It would, of course, be infinitely preferable for governments to conduct their own discussions. But at a time when they aren’t talking, unofficial channels of communication run by seasoned practitioners can be indispensible.

So, is Wu Sawei an enabler or an honest broker? The U.S. and China could probably agree, that they both wished the North Koreans would go away. It’s not that I think anything that Wit heard from those North Koreans will “solve” the North Korean problem. The only benefit I can see is, that somewhere in those meetinngs there are North Koreans who can run a future North Korean state. The U.S. and its Japanese and South Korean allies have their own problems deciding what to do with North Korea, and agreeing on it. That’s one reason Pyongyang “succeeds” so consistently. All I can say is, that it’s more entertaining than Eberstadt. Perhaps if “negotiators”, like Eberstadt” quit trying to excel at being highly-paid jerks, they might do what they’re paid to do.