President Moon Jae-in is extremely lucky to play host to the Winter Olympics just nine months after his inauguration. The honor could have gone to former president Park Geun-hye, had it not been for the disastrous Choi Soon-sil scandal.　Moon should be particularly happy to have declared the 23rd Winter Games open, because a handful of North Korean athletes marched into the PyeongChang Stadium as members of a joint team from “Corea,” the result of his strenuous efforts to have the North participa

Viewpoints Feb. 14, 2018

In 2002, Korean soccer fans and the rest of the nation were ecstatic as the national squad in the FIFA World Cup reached the semifinals, beating major powers one after the other. Team manager Guus Hiddink, a Dutchman, instantly became the most popular person in the country.　Now sixteen years later, the Vietnamese team made it to the finals of the U-23 AFC championship in China, the joy of their compatriots looked even greater than we had in the 2002 World Cup. Park Hang-seo, the Korean manager o

Viewpoints Jan. 31, 2018

Political revenge or establishment of justice? If the ongoing investigation of those people in power a decade ago is to be determined an act of political revenge, the natural question is what they had done to call for it.　Former President Roh Moo-hyun was under investigation in connection with bribery charges involving family members in 2009 when he took his own life. He was questioned for 10 hours on April 30 in the Seoul Prosecutors’ Office, traveling 1,000 kilometers from his country home. He

Viewpoints Jan. 17, 2018

The 23rd Winter Olympics in PyeongChang are little more than a month away. We do not know yet what impact the world festival on snow and ice will have on this country, which is undergoing immense domestic and external woes. Financially, a balance sheet in red letters is very likely, but some magic outcome may not be too far-fetched when we recall what happened three decades ago. 　 We happily recall the excitement of watching the TV broadcast on the night of Sept. 30, 1981, when International Oly

Viewpoints Jan. 3, 2018

Revolution is a most serious matter. A revolution accelerates history or reverses it sometimes. It changes individuals’ values and can even affect their morality. We should not use the word revolution for simple rhetoric nor for demagoguery. One must not glorify revolution unless he or she is ready to devote his life to its cause.　So, we feel uneasy when President Moon Jae-in and his associates define their new government as the result of the “candlelight revolution” that stirred the country fro

Viewpoints Dec. 20, 2017

It was pleasant to see President Moon Jae-in welcoming Korean and US personnel from the Joint Security Area and Lee Kuk-jong to the Blue House last week. The president praised them for their acts in saving the life of a North Korean defector who was shot and critically wounded when he ran across the demarcation line in the truce village of Panmunjeom on Nov. 13.　Lee from the Regional Trauma Center at Ajou University Hospital in Suwon, wearing a black Navy officers’ uniform, impressively introduc

Viewpoints Dec. 6, 2017

“They are more worried about us than we are about them.” These words of self-reproach are often heard in open prayers during Sunday services or revival sessions at retreat centers held by members of Christian churches. “They” of course means the outside world, which is the common subject of Christians’ pleas to God for protection from all kinds of evil. Secular matters that are often mentioned in church services, in both individual and collective prayers by the clergy as well as congregants, inc

Viewpoints Nov. 22, 2017

History does repeat itself. Jeong Yeon-ju, a liberal journalist, took the helm of the state-run Korea Broadcasting System at the start of the Roh Moo-hyun administration in 2003. He was sacked in 2008 in his second term as Lee Myung-bak’s conservative rule began. To force his departure, the new government reshuffled the KBS board, which then charged Jeong with a host of personal misdeeds. 　Nine years later, no sooner had Moon Jae-in been elected president in May 2017 than the CEOs of KBS and Mun

Viewpoints Nov. 8, 2017

It was too bad that internal confusion here deepened while national security concerns grew with North Korea’s rising nuclear and missile provocations. South Koreans have passed the past year in ever-worsening political turmoil, including a presidential impeachment and under fears of war as the North has tested the patience of the world community by exploding a hydrogen bomb and firing missiles of various ranges one after the other. During this extraordinary period, people’s political minds were

Viewpoints Oct. 25, 2017

My long extended Chuseok holiday consisted of a one-day trip to the ancestors’ gravesite on a South Coast hill, two movies on the full moon day and another on the following day, a family luncheon and a four-day stay at a friend’s country villa. The highlight, of course, was beholding the perfect lunar circle hours after watching the sun set into the horizon of the West Sea off the coast of Anmyeondo. Experts were right that the moon is “more round” on the night after Chuseok, Aug. 16 by the luna

Viewpoints Oct. 11, 2017

As warm air from the south lets flowers bloom further north, it allows for reflection on Seoul’s aid to Pyongyang. The worse the tensions become, the greater the impact of aid on the international community and its beneficiaries.It’s chrysanthemum season. Hampyeong in South Jeolla Province, famous for its butterfly festival in spring, is inviting flower lovers to what has been dubbed the biggest chrysanthemum fair in the country. All across the country, people are joining in preparation for the

Viewpoints Sept. 27, 2017

The scenes on TV screens were heartbreaking and incomprehensibly absurd. Just a few days after North Korea tested what it called a hydrogen bomb, hundreds of people clashed violently with a large police force as they attempted to obstruct the installation of an anti-missile system delivered here to protect them against missiles from the North -- possibly those mounted with nuclear bombs.　It took eight hours from midnight Sept. 6 to complete the transportation of the components of a US Terminal H

Viewpoints Sept. 13, 2017

The wet, sultry summer is finally over and above us are high, blue skies filled with cool, crisp air. Salaried workers are looking forward to a long Chuseok holiday, which could be the longest ever if the seemingly most generous government ever inserts a onetime holiday into the October calendar. That gift is expected for the first Monday of the month, which will link the previous weekend to the Oct. 3 National Foundation Day and the official three-day Korean Thanksgiving holiday to then be exte

Viewpoints Aug. 30, 2017

People seriously think of war here on the Korean Peninsula. Life goes on as usual on the surface for the Republic of Korea, but unease turns into fear as increasingly fierce words about war are delivered from the capitals of our ally and enemy. War means destruction and deaths inevitably, win or lose. Will it be possible to rebuild the nation from the ashes of a second Korean War and get back to where we are today in the world, we ask. Our minds’ eyes see power stations, auto plants, shipyards,

Viewpoints Aug. 16, 2017

Thousands of workers are on forced vacation since the construction of two nuclear reactors at the Shin Kori site stopped late in June. They must feel deeply frustrated because the fates of what would be Korea’s 26th and 27th reactors, and their own, are being put on trial by a “citizens’ jury,” a novel process proposed by the Moon Jae-in administration. 　This particular body of unique power has no statutory basis yet and no manual has been made of its operation, except that it will consist of 35

Viewpoints Aug. 2, 2017