Randall Smith's Blogs
-
Day 11: Answers and observations
Editor's Note: For the next two weeks, Star editor Randy Smith will be traveling with a dozen U.S. journalists in both North Korea and South Korea. The trip, set up through the Gatekeeper Editor's program with the International Reporting Project, provides journalists with a glimpse of countries often in the news but not well covered. Look for regular updates at KansasCity.com. Tuesday For the last ten days, I've been collecting observations, answers to questions and personal thoughts on South Korea. Here are a few of them: Koreans love American pop culture. Paris Hilton was mobbed this week in Seoul, and Beyonce's concerts were a hit. The reason, say Korean media specialists, is the wide access to the internet and American television. The heating system is different here. Most Korean homes are heated by hot water running through pipes under the floors. It takes...
-
Day 10: Heading out of North Korea
Monday Two things happened this morning. First, a young North Korean waitress at breakfast wanted to talk to me about where I was from. We had a small, positive conversation about America, and then she moved away abruptly, noticing one of her co-workers was observing us with disapproval. Second, our group headed out early to the centerpiece of the visit, Mount Kumgang, in another bus convoy led by a military vehicle that snaked its way up switchbacks for about 45 minutes to the trailhead. Again, the walk was crowded. But the trail led to an incredible observation point where you could see the mountains and look down into the valley. North Korea is an absolutely gorgeous place when you can't see what's happening on the ground. And then it was time to go. On the way out, I assessed my feelings. In some ways, I thought...
-
Day 9: Traveling to North Korea
Sunday As our bus headed east toward the Sea of Japan early Sunday morning, the orders came swiftly. Do you have any newspapers or books in your possession? Any cameras with long lenses? Any recording devices? We were headed to Mount Kumgang (Diamond Mountain), a series of hotels built by an offshoot of the giant South Korean car manufacturer, Hyundai, at the base of a stunning mountain range in southeastern North Korea. The resort, the easiest place for foreigners to visit North Korea, is an experiment to see how leader Kim Jong-il will handle the economic reform that has helped transform China and Vietnam. With the reform, there is exposure to the outside world, something North Korea has tried to avoid. To get there, our bus had to go through two security checkpoints, the first at the South Korean border. It was not much different...
-
Day 7: The DMZ
Friday Today, we got up early to travel an hour by bus to the demilitarized zone. Once there, I thought it was the biggest, military-protected natural habitat in the world. Where else could you go in Korea to see wild boar, pheasant, deer and perhaps a tiger? There are many stories of brutality and espionage in this eerie place. But today it's also a tourist mecca, drawing thousands of visitors each year on military-escorted tours. While there today, I waved at some tourists, who must have been Russians, on the North Korean side. They waved back. What you have is two essential settings. The first is a set of buildings used for meetings that are on both sides and sit tightly on the line. The second is simply wide swaths of forest and wildlife. Scattered outposts dot the ridge. On our tour, we heard many...
-
Day 6: A Nobel winner and a squatter’s camp
Thursday When I was a young reporter in the mid 1970s, there was one day when I spent the morning interviewing a family who had lost everything in a house fire. In the afternoon, I spent four hours talking to Jimmy Carter about why he was running for president. I often reflect on that day as one of the reasons that I am in journalism: The range of people that you are able to touch is simply amazing. That’s what happened to me today. I spent the afternoon with Nobel peace prize winner and former Korean president Kim Dae Jung. And in the evening, I ate dinner with a family who was about to become homeless because of a cruel battle to turn a squatter’s camp into a multimillion-dollar condominium project. There is a feeling of hope when you are in the presence...
-
Day 5: Fighting tuberculosis in North Korea
Wednesday Tucked away atop an obscure office building in Seoul, the Eugene Bell Foundation is making a difference in a crisis that much of the world does not know about: the dramatic rise of tuberculosis in North Korea. Dr. Stephen Linton, the foundation chairman and a member of a third-generation American missionary family based in Korea, is quite familiar with the issue. He has twice been infected by the disease. Tuberculosis is the Number 1,2 and 3 health concern there, he said. Using North Korea's own statistics, 5 percent of the 22 million people are infected. But it would not surprise Linton if the real figure were a hundred times that many. TB arises in societies where the natural immune systems of the inhabitants are at risk. And North Korea's health system, set up to deliver care to every citizen, has suffered a virtual collapse. So groups like those...
-
Day 4: The Arts and Samsung
Tuesday A somewhat maddening element to meeting with senior officials here is that they want everything to be off of the record. Such was the case today when we met this morning with a group of intelligence officers who gave us a briefing that frankly could be found in past weekly issues of most news magazines. Luckily, the day was saved by a luncheon with three well-known women artists. And, later in the afternoon, we toured Samsung's massive facilities here. Part of the Samsung tour, which was through its highly protected research facilities, was supposed to be off-the-record. But we were able to get company officials, as we were leaving the facilities, to change their minds. Quickly, let me introduce you to the three women artists. Insooni (born Kim In-Soon) is a hit recording artist and has 19 albums. Part of her identity is that her...
-
Day 3: North Korean defectors
Monday One went to China to seek a better life. One lost faith in his government's leadership. Another saw his entire family harshly punished because of his father's misstep with authorities. On Monday afternoon, our editors group had lunch with a group of North Korean defectors, among the roughly 10,000 who now call South Korea home. Later, we had the opportunity to meet with Lee Jae-jung, who is South Korea's minister of unification, to hear his sense of what is happening in the North. The story of the defectors had common threads. These days, no one is walking across the DMZ. Instead, they are escaping over the Chinese border. They stay in China, dodging authorities who will send them back to North Korea and to prison camps. And they try to make a living while searching for a fixer who will find a way into South...
-
Day 2: Yoido Full Gospel Church
We crossed over the Hangan River, the giant body of water that divides Seoul, to head to the Yoido Full Gospel Church, which claims to be the biggest Protestant church in the world with 750,000 members. Inching along in heavy traffic, we asked our guide how the river was crossed 50 years ago. Very simply, he said: Wooden boats in the summer. In the winter, the thick ice made it easily passable. But the Mississippi-like river rarely freezes these days, mainly because of climate change. As we drove down a six-lane, Los Angeles-like freeway that nestles the Hangan, there were white brick apartment buildings jetting into the sky as far as the eye could see. They're built and torn down about every 25 years, our guide said, and often the owners double their investment because the property is so valuable. As we approached the Full Gospel Center, we...
-
Day 1: Off to Korea
Our 13-hour flight took off at 1:10 a.m. Saturday out of Los Angeles, and we flew the whole way to Korea in darkness, landing at 6 a.m. local time in Incheon just as the sun began to peek over the Yellow Sea. Ten years ago, Incheon was better known for its place in Korean War history. But it's now the site of an international airport, and major development is creeping like kudzu along the specially built highway that links the airport and Seoul, about an hour to the east. There's much going on here, from a presidential election next month to a special delegation of Americans who've just landed in North Korea in hopes of looking over the nuclear reactor that's caused so much international turmoil. So I thought that I'd give you a quick update on several subjects, based on personal observation and a...
Your donation helps continue the IRP's work to inform the public about international issues.
Make A Gift