and what I did write was already crossing the line.

As I noted before with the longer quote, he clearly carved out a position of compromise – whether he sees it or not. And maybe if he’d spend less time trying to be snarky, he would see things like that.

Like, when he is so obtuse to draw a comparison between the Super Bowl half-time show and the mass games.

These things are not hard to see….(and it has nothing to do with logic…)

When our Super Bowls start requiring elementary to high school students to spend several hours a day throughout the year learning to move with such precision, we’ll be absolutely correct in ridiculing it and demanding it stop.

And look further at the idiocy of equating the US prison system with North Korea’s concentration camp:

King Baeksu — this is not rocket science!!

Rape, torture, and murder that occurs in the US prison system — isn’t a product of a national policy!! It’s a product of the people incarcerated, not a systematic use of such things to punish and control them.

You really need to stop commenting. You’re just making yourself look worse and worse…

[OFK:  Exactly.  I'm stalking you by responding to your ninth comment on this post alone.]

Don’t you have better things to do with your time than trawl the Web in search of my past Internet activity, however obscure or ephemeral?

[OFK:  I couldn't resist looking into how well a "professional critic" writes.  And I wondered about all of that critical acclaim for your writing, which led me to google your name and the title of your book, which led that TMH thread.  You made an obviously dubious boast and I called bullshit.]

In fact, another one of your rather disingenuous strategies is to detemporalize statements and make them seem like they apply to the present. Robert and I get along quite fine now.  He actually works right around the corner from where I live. People’s opinions do often change over time, and that quote of his above was made some time ago. In a similar way, did it not occur to you that 4 years after I wrote my “Arirang” review, some of my views on North Korea may have also evolved or changed?

[OFK:  And yet you're still keeping it to yourself.  I suppose we'll have to await the outcome of that "personal research" of yours to find out how.]

That said, I do stand by my original “Arirang” review and think I did a good job.

[OFK:  Congratulations on that masturbatory golf clap.  Give yourself one thumb up for your first good review.]

And by the way, if I was really a “hack” for the North, I probably wouldn’t have made a reference to Nazi propaganda in the title of my review, nor would I have thoroughly deconstructed it at the end. Some people happen to prefer ambiguity and subtlety, if only because we can’t all be so morally certain and self-righteous as individuals such as yourself.

[OFK:  Yes, I can see that from the extensive critical acclaim of your subtle and ambiguous writing.  Are you ready to quit yet?]

I like the way Robert Koehler put it:

Not a night passes when I don’t sleep soundly at night knowing that somewhere out there, Scott is leading the fight against the forces of evil tearing down Korean culture, allowing the rest of us to take cushy hack jobs pushing Seoul’s propaganda on the unsuspecting English-speaking masses.

I’m seeing at least five levels of irony in that comment.

I did not compromise. My goal before going and afterwards was to review “Arirang” and describe as accurately as possible what I saw. I did that. I did not visit any prison camps, but if I had I would have described them at some point, too. The remainder of my visit involved the standard tour and nothing extraordinary happened that wasn’t already written about many times before by others. No big story there, and my primary aim was simply to interact with people there and learn more about the country and culture.

I am the kind of writer who likes to see things first-hand before I write about them. If I ever see a prison camp in North Korea, I’ll probably write about them, but for now I haven’t. In any case, plenty of others have opined about them so I don’t feel a particular need to do so myself.

Usinkorea, following your logic, I’ll make a point next year of reviewing the Super Bowl half-time show and working in numerous references to the US prison system, the largest in the world and a gulag of sorts itself in which rape, torture and murder occur there on a regular, systemic basis.

Would that make you happy? Why aren’t you doing so yourself?

or else you won’t have to be such a girl …

I was a girl once. So was my mom. And yours. I wouldn’t expect such a elementary school playground sexist remark like that from you, Scott.
You DID compromise. You admitted yourself that you imposed significant self-censorship in your writing. Whether or not you wanted to avoid demonizing the North Korean regime is irrelevant because you didn’t have a choice as you acknowledged.

greatly overshadows that of the South as far as most of the West is concerned

Not to put words in your mouth, since you don’t like that, but are you implying you don’t place South Korea far from the North in terms of it being a terror regime?

That’s what living in South Korea (and visiting the North) has taught you?

Heck. Maybe you’re right. I haven’t been living in SK since 2002. Maybe it has become a place that needs to be ranked right down there with the North…

humanize it for outsiders. Demonization alone is not enough

I’m in a strange mood, because this made me laugh out loud hard.

You want to humanize Kim Jong Il’s regime…. Good gravy….

There is just so much so utterly wrong with that thought. Both in general and in the specific relationship to what you wrote:

You see your humanization of the most tyrannical regime on the planet, which you know good and well, as something noble. You don’t seek to humanize the poor people of NK living under the tyranny, but the regime itself – the nation, if you prefer…..You couldn’t have humanized some other aspect of the society….???…

….you chose the mass games — which is one of the epitomes of what is so wrong with NK: — wasting large quantities of money and man hours — money wasted by a nation with people starving as a way of life in that society for a long time now —- with large amounts of CHILDREN forced to drill hour after hour after hour after hour day after day after day after day after day —– to show utter devotion to —- the tyrannical regime that grinds the society into dust….

….that is what you believe is worth humanizing to point out better qualities of North Korea people don’t give it enough credit for….Unbelievable…

Watching those games – you don’t even have to know anything about North Korea — when you see that large a group of children that young moving with that kind of precision —- you have to know something is very wrong —— that you can only get that kind of result if you rob a significant portion of the lives of those poor kids…..

And then the more you learn about North Korea – and the more you learn about those mass demonstrations —– the more shameful you should find them — not less…

for personal research

–sigh– I’ve been known in the K-blogs for blowing gaskets in exchanges like this, and I’ve been in a mood to try to work on it — but it can be hard….

It isn’t the fact you went to the games and toured the North that is the problem we’re pointing to (at least that is how I read OFK’s comments too).

I can’t stretch my imagination enough to see how writing such a “humanizing” piece about the regime that puts on those games is part of your “research” —

A few of the people I’ve know in Korean Studies, and a few K-bloggers I’ve read over the years, have made the same or similar trip to North Korea. A couple as part of their research. And they managed to come back without writing laudatory pieces about the regime. (If I think about it long enough, the fact you got money for the effort might even manage to piss me off a little more….but I don’t know….I’ll have to think about that a little more —- which is worse? feeling the need to volunteer to help de-demonize Kim Jong Il’s regime or doing so because you want to but also getting paid for it….???….

I can conclude this: if you had strictly done it for pay — because you needed the money — I’d honestly respect you more.)

Anyway, I haven’t been into the part of this discussion about either party’s writing ability, but:

the general tone you produce in your writings is no doubt extremely off-putting to the average reader

and

You’re clearly so partisan that you’ve already lost half your potential readership right there

Yes, I imagine most of the average readers who feel the need to find some “balance” by “humanizing” Pyongyang will find the tone and information offered at this blog a bit much to stomach.

— but I don’t think they’ll be a sizable enough block to be considered “half” of anything. Not counting North Korean officials who have internet access, I’d say the number is probably not greater than the number of fingers I have on one hand…

Do you really mean to come out looking like such a defender of Kim Jong Il’s regime?

You are preaching “balance” and against “partisanship” — when it comes to the government in North Korea?

You really want to do that?

I’m serious. That is your objective in this discussion: to fight for balance and non-partisanship in coverage of the regime in Pyongyang?

Next, your line of attack about how OFK should shut his trap because he isn’t living in Korea and thus can’t know anything about it —– is surely making the average reader here think much less of you than him. —- His reputation is rather good……due to the writing, the sourcing of information, and the personal sources of information he’s built up over time while doing so much work on issues that can be downright depressing and overwhelming when you deal with them week after week for years…

Again, I think I can speak for a large percentage of the regular readers here, judging by the comments on threads going back years….you are really only damaging yourself with this “You’re not even in Korea and so don’t know what you’re talking about!!” line…

Lastly, I don’t put much stock in your making this a conservative vs. liberal thing.

In fact, it’s demonstratively false – for anyone whose read the site off and on the past few years: OFK attacked Bush’s flipflop and turning his NK policy over to HIll from early on. He’s been consistent in that.

And in fact, most of the people who’ve commented here, people who have knowledge about the issues, have also been consistent critics of both the Bush and Clinton administrations when they have been following similar paths on NK.

The criticism hasn’t been based on party affiliation.

Dismissing it out of hand as some blank partisanship also doesn’t work. The left/liberals are typically the ones most often vocal about human rights violations.

Even I don’t chalk up your need to humanize and de-demonize the most tyrannical regime on earth as stemming from liberalism…

“Gee, I’d sure hate to lose you as a reader, Scott.”

I can already predict what you have to say most of the time, which makes you a very boring writer. But I’ll continue to monitor the other side from time to time, just because it’s part of my job if nothing else.

[OFK:  Buh bye!  We'll miss you!]

Look, I don’t see why it’s so hard for conservatives to understand that along with exposing the worst of the Kim regime to the outside world, which is well-known by just about anyone, to the point that North Korea’s image as a “rogue, terror regime” greatly overshadows that of the South as far as most of the West is concerned, it’s also worth trying to understand North Korea from all different angles and to humanize it for outsiders. Demonization alone is not enough.

[OFK:  I'm sure Ezra Pound would have agreed completely; after all, your argument is just as applicable to Nazi Germany or Khmer Rouge Cambodia (they solved urban overcrowding!).  But the fact that Nazis made the trains run on time does no more to redeem their system than Kim Jong Il's talent for flogging children into choreographed obedience.  And your "angle" adds no additional useful knowlege.]

In any case, I also went there for personal research of the kind that neither you nor Joshua are aware of, and I’ll just it at that for now.

[OFK:  Secret personal research!  Whatever it is, I'm sure it leaves a heavy buildup of resin.]

Joshua, if I’m such a poor writer, why do people keep offering me good money to write for them? I had a two-page essay in Newsweek Korea recently, and they actually offered me a regular gig because the editor-in-chief was so pleased. Had the same thing happen to me with Chosun Ilbo and Kyunghyang Shinmun, and many others. How much do you get paid per word?

[OFK:  I have a day job.  You call yourself a professional writer.  So do people who write Hallmark cards.  When you're a white guy writing in Korean, you can be a terrible writer and still have novelty appeal.  When you write in English, you use cliches and platitudes the way my four year-old uses tinkertoys.  And if you're earning so much money from your writing -- which doesn't make it good writing, because it's not -- why did you evade my question of whether that's how you support yourself?]

When I was 22 or 23 and just starting out, I spent a lot of time overwriting and trying to be clever so as to “impress” readers, and that seems to be the stage you’re at now.

[OFK:  Yes, we can see you're past trying to impress anyone with your writing.  Huzzah for you.]

But there are other important things to consider such as tone, and I must say that the general tone you produce in your writings is no doubt extremely off-putting to the average reader.

[OFK:  Whatever you say.]

Trying to be less show-offy and more sutble would probably attract many more readers to your site.

[OFK:  And you're speaking from experience?]

You’re clearly so partisan that you’ve already lost half your potential readership right there, and then add on top of that your whole “alpha male” routine, which seems to be de rigeur for conservative pundits, and you’re only going to retain the most hard-headed and tolerant readers.

[OFK:  OK, I promise not be any more partisan than you from now on.]

Don’t you actually want more people to think about what you’re saying, instead of approaching the world as if in perpetual combat? I don’t think most people have much tolerance for that kind of thing, and you limit yourself as a result.

Oh yeah, and “preventive nesting” doesn’t help much, either.

[OFK:  Gee, I'd sure hate to lose you as a reader, Scott.  You contribute so much intelligent thought to the discussion here!]

I would have actually gotten my tour company in trouble if I’d written anything about the tour itself because we were forced to sign waivers that we would not write media articles about it, and what I did write was already crossing the line. I could have gotten my NK guides and Koryo Tours in serious trouble if I’d done anything more extreme.

I fail to see how this is not describing a position of compromise….but it’s minor point for me anyway…

I’m not the kind of person to make compromises, especially in my writing, and am rather offended by the suggestion. I interpreted the show the way I saw it, end of story.

[OFK:  Well, it's not a compromise if you're an outright sympathizer.  It wouldn't be such a stretch to believe that.  But if you really are morally troubled by concentration camps, ethnic and political cleansing, and the mass crushing of souls for the entertainment of bemused foreigners -- without seeing fit to denounce any of that -- you're just a cheap hack who still can't write.  So which is it?]