Nirayama HS Visit

Last week I hosted two students (I have declined to put their names here as I am a little unclear on the privacy situation) from Nirayama High School in Japan. Our first stop after school was the supermarket to buy supplies for dinner. I told them to pick what they wanted to eat, and they slowly became more open about their preferences and opinions if only because they had to make the choices. Conveniently, they picked exactly what I wanted; the first moment of connection. At the end, they were surprised to find Hi-Chew in the checkout aisle, and we had a brief debate over the relative merits of the Strawberry and Green Apple flavors.

Back home, Sami, the students, my parents, and I ate dinner and some ice cream and then we kids went into the hot tub. The students were visibly more relaxed, reflected in their improved speaking or willingness to work around words they did not know. Personally, I enjoy jumping in the cold pool and quickly migrating back to the hot tub. It gives you a lovely tingly feeling and might even be good for you. For Sami and our two students on the other hand, this was not the highlight of the exchange, though perhaps some bonding occurred over the poor decision it was to follow me. I decided to push the envelope a little on the verbal communication front and asked them to tell a story they heard as children in Japan. While the question took a few tries to translate, their response was immediate. They clearly had stories just as culturally ubiquitous as ours.

They told us two stories. The first was about Momotaro or Peach Boy (named for the giant peach inside which he was found), who, along with a dog, a monkey, and a bird, defeated a goblin and claimed its treasure. The second, known as The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, was about an old man who cut open some bamboo one day to find a girl inside. She grew up quickly, and one day people from the moon and took her back there. It turned out she was a princess from the moon who was sent to Earth as punishment for a crime she committed, as Earth was considered a "dirty" place. I guess they thought she had done her time, maybe. I was a little unclear on that part, but the narrative made sense; their articulation was an impressive exercise in the expression of complexity simply.

I had a chance to share over dinner, when we talked about the UN, its history, Model UN, and the current crises abroad. They were familiar with the UN and a lot of the vocabulary necessary to have a conversation about world power in Japanese, but not their English equivalents. Here, google translate was a useful tool. Sami and I would listen to a word, learn it, and next time incorporate it into our English sentence. An example would be: "The Kokuren (United Nations) can place seisai (sanctions) on the Isuramu Kokka (Islamic State) but not on Russia because Russia has a kyohi-ken (veto power)." While difficult, that exercise was fun for both parties but also allowed us to talk about more sophisticated things than food and homework (though we talked about those too).

I had talked a lot beforehand about this exchange being an opportunity to really connect with people who on the surface might seem totally distinct from you. When they got here, it became apparent that I had underestimated the sheer depth of understanding and connection that could be squeezed out of a single evening. Too some extent, the feeling is inexplicable, but I find it so meaningful to see myself in others. That is the definition of sympathy. In this sense, last week was quite a roller coaster. On Wednesday, I found my faith in the world lifted by an experience that reinforced my belief in universal commonality. On Friday, I was appalled by just how strongly some feel divides between themselves and their fellow human beings and just how much they will do to further divide the world. But on Saturday, my faith in humanity was reaffirmed by the stories of fareless taxi rides and the #PorteOuverte movement in Paris the evening of the attack. In a sense, I was reassured that the attempts to divide us are futile. Temporarily, we may close ourselves off to the world. Our government might pass laws that limit our freedom in the name of protecting it. We might commit to yet another violent conflict aimed at treating the symptoms of a problem and not its causes. But somewhere deep inside humanity there is an ingrained belief in compassion that can be suppressed but never conquered. And you know what, in a world where nothing seems certain, that's a pretty great thing to be certain about.

Reflection on the LiNK presentation and the RAND Conference

I recently attended an evening hosted by the group Liberty in North Korea (LiNK). The representative detailed LiNK's work in transporting North Korean defectors living illegally in China (where they are not considered refugees and are therefore subject to deportation back to North Korea) to nations in South East Asia. LiNK essentially pay smugglers to get the refugees over the border, at which point LiNK representatives join the refugees and take them to either the US or South Korea to be resettled. After finding homes for the former North Koreans, LiNK representatives continue to monitor and aid refugees in their adjustments to American/South Korean culture, both of which are vastly different from that of North Korea. LiNK performs all of these services at no cost to the refugee and makes no effort to gain from them any monetary "return" on LiNK's "investment."

The representative went on to describe how we students and social-media-savvy youth could aid LiNK. I have become a LiNK fundraiser and will be detailing the cause for and soliciting donations from my classmates, family, and friends in the near future. I have to say that the speech made by the rep was a little business-pitchy. It is likely that LiNK reps have some form of script they use to be effective and to promote fundraising, but I think I would have been more emotionally connected to and motivated by the speech had it been a little less structured.

By happy accident, this evening was scheduled around a week before a half-day conference that I attended at the RAND Corporation, a world-renowned think-tank based in Santa Monica. The conference was focused on the feasibility of Korean reunification, which represents the only realistic hope of prosperity for the North Korean populous should the current regime persist (and there is little indication that it will not). The depth and breadth of understanding demonstrated by the panel was as impressive as the titles of its constituents, among them the former Minister of Unification under the current South Korean leadership, a higher-up in the Ministry of Unification, and the Vice Presidents of two major, well-respected South Korean think-tanks (the Asan and Sejong Institutes). Too many fascinating things were discussed for me to try and summarize the conference here, but talk to me, and I will tell you about it in greater detail than you ever wanted. I'll give you a good quotation though. Coordinating the panel was Bruce Bennett, a senior analyst for the RAND Corporation. He posed this question (I am doing my best to quote him, but I suppose it is technically paraphrasing): "People always talk about the cost of unification, but what is the cost of division?"

OOOOOOOOOOOOOH, right? Anyway, really cool stuff. Yeah, that's pretty much it for now.