Category Archives: NorthKorea

Op/ed Fridays: A living death: laws that remove judges and juries undermine justice

on November 22, 2013 in Blog, Freedom, NorthKorea

Different people mean different things by the term justice. I think of the term having at least four meanings or purposes. To deter people from committing crimes To punish people who committed crimes To give crime victims a sense of retribution To keep criminals away from society if society expects them to commit crimes again These four purposes don’t always work in concert. In any case, the United States seems[…] Keep reading →

Leadership and United States’ spying

on June 26, 2013 in Blog, Freedom, Leadership, NorthKorea

I’d like to look at some headlines from a leadership perspective. I don’t intend for today’s post to be political. Governments have needed secrecy and spying since before Sun Tzu’s The Art of War over two thousand years ago. People will also oppose governments that overreach their influence into their lives. Different people oppose different levels of intrusion so that the more a government intrudes the more people will oppose[…] Keep reading →

A model for strategy

on June 2, 2013 in Education, Entrepreneurship, Exercises, Models, NorthKorea, Tips, Visualization

[This post is part of a series on “Mental models and beliefs: an exercise to identify yours.” If you don’t see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you’ll get more value than reading just this post.] Strategy is a fundamental study for many fields, including leadership, military, games, and plenty areas of business. If you’re reading this page, you don’t need motivation[…] Keep reading →

Summary of North Korea Videos

on March 13, 2013 in NorthKorea

Any trip to North Korea will be eye-opening and amazing, even before Dennis Rodman visited. I visited last April for the celebration of the anniversary of Kim Il Sung’s birth. I believe visiting creates more understanding and communication than potential problems. As I’ve explained before here and in my book on North Korea, I consider such interactions among the best ways to increase communication and understanding with North Koreans, which[…] Keep reading →

Video: Teaching our North Korean guide colloquial English

on March 8, 2013 in Humor, NorthKorea

Last year we tried teaching our guide, Ms Yu, the phrase “You’re so money and you don’t even know it.” So this year when Jordan was busy doing something else, I decided to teach it to Ms Han, then have her say it to him. I don’t think she quite got the meaning of the phrase, but I think the fun came across. About halfway through the video switches to[…] Keep reading →

North Korean tour guide singing

on March 7, 2013 in Art, NorthKorea

One of the more touching moments of our trip was our guide, Ms Han, singing Arirang for us on our last night after nearly two weeks. According to Wikipedia, the song “is sometimes considered the unofficial national anthem of Korea.” Since the government requires tourists be accompanied by two guides plus a driver at all times and the guides communicate only the party line about North Korea’s history, politics, etc,[…] Keep reading →

Video: North Korean subway museum

on March 7, 2013 in NorthKorea

North Korean museums do things differently than museums elsewhere. First, I don’t remember seeing art museums there. They seem to make museums for historical and technical things, like wars and subway systems. Second, instead of trying to present the history or teach understanding of the technology, its development, or the people who created it, they do two things: describe the involvement of Kim Il Sung or Kim Jong Il and[…] Keep reading →

Sign up for my weekly newsletter