Writing
Despite the recent gunfire, Korea’s DMZ is a surprisingly nice place
CHEORWON, South Korea — Bill Clinton called the heavily armed demilitarized zone here “the scariest place on Earth.” It is at this border between North and South that the legacy of the 1950 to 1953 Korean War — which never resulted in a peace treaty — remains tense. It’s the tangible remnant of a “forgotten war” in which more than 2 million civilians died.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Oct 22, 2014
Meet South Korea’s red-busting Buddhist monk
SEOUL, South Korea — “Before, my mission was to rat out communists in the temple,” explained Chung Han-yeong, who is not your typical Buddhist monk.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Oct 13, 2014
Is Kim Jong Un’s powerful little sister running North Korea now?
SEOUL, South Korea — It’s been an unusually quiet quarter for North Korea, which has avoided the occasional exchange of bellicose bluster with the US and South Korea, and has not tested a much-prophesized fourth nuclear bomb.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Oct 6, 2014
Young South Koreans just really don’t care about suffering in the North
INCHEON, South Korea — Standing in front of a cluttered, rowdy classroom of about a hundred adolescents, North Korean defector Kim Su-ryeon, 25, kicks off her presentation with a pop quiz.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Sep 24, 2014
Think you’ve got it tough? Just be happy you’re not in the Korean army
SEOUL, South Korea — “So you think you can discuss military issues without even having served?” Conservative lawmaker Han Gi-ho hurled that question at conscientious objector Lim Tae-hoon in a parliamentary hearing. “You didn’t even go!”
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Sep 22, 2014
In South Korea, real business gets done in brothels and karaoke joints
SEOUL, South Korea — “It’s not fair!” complained a South Korean sex industry aficionado, a former “consultant” for a large call girl website. “The tax men are hurting business! Cracking down on company cards!”
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Sep 16, 2014
‘Comfort women’ who serviced US soldiers demand justice
UIJEONGBU, South Korea — Growing up in hardship in this once-poor Cold War outpost, the young Kim Kyeong-sun decades ago met a job recruiter who promised her housing and a paycheck to support her family.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Sep 11, 2014
Weaned on smuggled goods, North Korea’s new generation goes wild for Leonardo DiCaprio…
SEOUL, South Korea — By North Korean standards, Yeonmi Park, 20, grew up in affluence, the daughter of a party loyalist who traded in gold and silver with Chinese customers.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Sep 8, 2014
US announces crackdown on shady puppy imports
SEOUL, South Korea — Every year an untold number of dogs, raised in cramped and inhumane commercial breeding grounds known as “puppy mills,” make their way from South Korea and elsewhere into your local kennel for re-sale at premium prices, a GlobalPost investigation revealed in June.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Sep 2, 2014
The trouble with Abenomics
SEOUL, South Korea — For more than a year, the world has watched the bold economic experiment known as Abenomics, once exalted as the saving grace for two decades of economic torpor in Japan.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Aug 22, 2014