Skaters

I’m not a skater. I can’t stay on a skateboard for more than 5 seconds without nearly falling to my death. But I do want to someday buy myself a longboard and learn to conquer it. It’s on my bucket list. So even though I don’t know how to ride a skateboard, I do admire those that do. I think it’s an impressive skill and an artistic means of expression. So imagine my intrigue when I came across an article about skaters in North Korea!

Visualtraveling is a website created by Patrik Wallner with documentaries and photos of skaters of all different nationalities who travel the world and film themselves skating in new environments. Although Wallner is also a skater himself, he mainly films and photographs his friends as they perform the tricks. What’s interesting about these documentaries is that it’s not just a film about skaters doing tricks but the culture of the host country is always what drives the atmosphere of the documentary. He already has several films released that document their adventures in various countries over the past six years. One of which includes North Korea.

Exploring the Connection between China and North Korea: Part II

In Seoul Train, often the Chinese government did not seem to consider the North Korean defectors as eligible for asylum. Therefore, I will first clarify the definition of refugee and asylum-seeker as stated by the United Nations Refugee Agency. According to the 1951 Refugee Convention that established the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, “a refugee is someone who owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his [or her] nationality, and is unable to, or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself [or herself] of the protection of that country,” and an asylum seeker is “someone who says he or she is a refugee, but whose claim has not yet been definitively evaluated.”[1]

Exploring the Connection between China and North Korea: Seoul Train Part 1

Last year I had first joined Yale University’s branch of THiNK, There’s Hope in North Korea, the group that I had addressed in my previous article. Thinking back to the year I joined, one of my first experiences as a member of THiNK was watching the documentary Seoul Train produced by Lisa Sleeth and Jim Butterworth. I knew that it left a strong impression on me as well as a bit of bitterness toward China, but rather than work from memory, I think that it is a better idea to take another look at the film itself.

Vice’s Guide to North Korea: Review

I remember going to the DMZ and being curious about what the experience would be like from the other side. Even though we saw documentaries during our internship about North Korea, they involved commonly photographed locations, like the stadium for extravagant displays of gymnastics and the theme park from hell. However, recently I saw the Vice Guide to North Korea online, and, though it made the same conclusions about the process of touring North Korea as a foreigner, it did highlight some different occasions, not to mention a funny host that livens up the grim locations. Here are some interesting locations and details they covered that I had not seen in other documentaries:

In the News – Kim Jong-un ‘Watched Long-Range Missile Launch’

In the News – Kim Jong-un ‘Watched Long-Range Missile Launch’

 Korean Central Television on Sunday, North Korea’s new leader Kim Jong-un appears in a military vehicle (top) and a helicopter at an undisclosed place in North Korea. /KCTV-Yonhap”]

In this undated image aired by [North

North Korean state TV marked new leader Kim Jong-un’s birthday on Sunday with a documentary that claimed he watched the launch of a long-range missile alongside his late father Kim Jong-il in April 2009.

The 50-minute film focusing on Kim junior’s so-called on-the-spot guidance tours said he accompanied his father during a visit to the control center for the launch of the Kwangmyongsong-2 satellite. The launch of the fictitious satellite was a thin cover for what is widely believed to be an attempt to test a long-range missile.

A Hundred-Year Journey of the Family

I had the privilege of working with Professor Kim Duk-chul, the director and producer of A Hundred-Year Journey of the Family, a documentary that appeared in the line-up for documentaries in the sixteenth annual Busan International Film Festival (2011 October 6-14). Professor Kim Duk-chul’s documentary aired on both the 8th of October and the 10th of October. Although I had viewed the documentary while Professor Kim Duk-chul was still editing the film, I was fortunately able to participate in the official first screening of the documentary at the Busan International Film Festival.

The documentary was filmed in Japan over a period of ten years and explored the history and identity-formation of the Korean minority community in Japan. The documentary revealed how the division of the Korean peninsula has not only impacted the lives of people living in North and South Korea, but has also created long-term effects on the Korean communities outside of the boundaries of the peninsula, such as that in Japan. Professor Kim Duk-Chul’s documentary gives the viewer a glimpse of the division of the Korean minority in Japan, the Zainichi Korean community, upon the end of the Korean War and the importance of unification to the communities there as well as to families in North and South Korea.