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Jean H. Lee

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feature stories, news articles & op-eds

Featured
BBC Radio 4: A Korean Thaw?
Feb 12, 2018
BBC Radio 4: A Korean Thaw?
Feb 12, 2018

From bombs to Olympic banners: Can winter sports diplomacy stop a war in the Korean peninsula? North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un took the world by surprise with his announcement that his nation and South Koreawould unite under a single banner at the Winter Olympics. Was it a diplomatic masterstroke or a cynical stunt? Journalist Jean Lee pieces together what really led to this public relations coup. 

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Feb 12, 2018
New York Times Sunday Review: Will North Korea Win the Gold Medal for Deceit?
Feb 8, 2018
New York Times Sunday Review: Will North Korea Win the Gold Medal for Deceit?
Feb 8, 2018

North Korea’s participation in these Olympics runs the risk of rewarding bad behavior and handing Mr. Kim a diplomatic victory that he will brandish as proof that his strategy was right. Still, we have to start somewhere after so many years of tension.

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Feb 8, 2018
KEI: Soap Operas and Socialism
Dec 18, 2017
KEI: Soap Operas and Socialism
Dec 18, 2017

Romance, humor, tension — everyone loves a good sitcom, even North Koreans. But in North Korea, TV dramas are more than mere entertainment. They play a crucial political role by serving as a key messenger of party and government policy. They aim to shape social and cultural mores in North Korean society. And in the Kim Jong-un era, they act as an advertisement for the “good life” promised to the political elite. 

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Dec 18, 2017
New York Times Op-Ed: Donald Trump is giving North Korea exactly what it wants
Aug 11, 2017
New York Times Op-Ed: Donald Trump is giving North Korea exactly what it wants
Aug 11, 2017

If President Trump thinks that his threats last week of “fire and fury” and weapons “locked and loaded” have North Koreans quaking in their boots, he should think again. If anything, the Mao-suit-clad cadres in Pyongyang are probably gleeful that the president of the United States has played straight into their propaganda.

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Aug 11, 2017
Esquire: Inside Kim Jong Un's bloody scramble to kill off his family
Aug 10, 2017
Esquire: Inside Kim Jong Un's bloody scramble to kill off his family
Aug 10, 2017

While Kim Jong Un stares down his enemies abroad, it's easy to forget that he's also fighting a battle from within his own borders: to survive at all costs. Like any autocratic leader, he's under constant pressure to maintain order and allegiance. But his youth and inexperience make staying in power that much more of a challenge, which in turn requires absolute control. Opposition must be eliminated. No one is safe, not even his own family.

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Aug 10, 2017
Wilson Quarterly: For North Korea, the War Never Ended
Jun 1, 2017
Wilson Quarterly: For North Korea, the War Never Ended
Jun 1, 2017

We in the United States often call the Korean conflict the “Forgotten War.” My high school history textbook in Minnesota devoted barely a paragraph to it, and growing up as the child of Korean immigrants, I knew almost nothing about a war my own parents survived as children. But the war is very much alive and present in North Korea, and the standoff with the United States figures prominently in their propaganda, identity, and policy. 

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Jun 1, 2017
New York Times Op-Ed: North Korea's Palace Intrigue
Feb 24, 2017
New York Times Op-Ed: North Korea's Palace Intrigue
Feb 24, 2017

After the 14th-century Korean ruler Taejo, founder of the Joseon dynasty, chose the youngest of his eight sons to succeed him, a spurned son killed the heir apparent and at least one of his other half brothers and eventually rose to the throne. Today, rumors of royal fratricide are again swirling, this time around the court of Kim Jong-un, the ruler of North Korea.

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Feb 24, 2017
Jan 7, 2016
New York Times Magazine: Kim Jong Un's Generational Ambitions
Jan 7, 2016

It was party time in Pyongyang. Workers scrambled to hang congratulatory banners in the lobby of the Koryo Hotel, my home away from home in the North Korean capital, where I was posted as an Associated Press correspondent. A gaggle of cooks, still in aprons and chef’s hats, dashed out from the kitchen to watch the festivities, and mothers tightened the pink bows in their daughters’ hair as the girls fidgeted in anticipation.

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Jan 7, 2016
Jul 20, 2013
AP: Vet Returns to North Korea for 1st Black Navy Aviator
Jul 20, 2013

Two years after he made history by becoming the Navy's first black pilot, Ensign Jesse Brown lay trapped in his downed fighter plane in subfreezing North Korea, his leg broken and bleeding. His wingman crash-landed to try to save him, and even burned his hands trying to put out the flames.

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Jul 20, 2013
AP: Pyongyang Glitters, but Rest of North Korea Still Dark
Apr 29, 2013
AP: Pyongyang Glitters, but Rest of North Korea Still Dark
Apr 29, 2013

A year after leader Kim Jong Un promised in a speech to bring an end to the "era of belt-tightening" and economic hardship in North Korea, the gap between the haves and have-nots has only grown with Pyongyang's transformation.

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Apr 29, 2013
AP: Sweeping New Changes Expected at North Korean Farms
Sep 24, 2012
AP: Sweeping New Changes Expected at North Korean Farms
Sep 24, 2012

North Korean farmers who have long been required to turn most of their crops over to the state may now be allowed to keep their surplus food to sell or barter in what could be the most significant economic change enacted by young leader Kim Jong Un since he came to power nine months ago.

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Sep 24, 2012
AP: Ex-North Korean Star Recalls 'Ping Pong Diplomacy'
Jul 12, 2012
AP: Ex-North Korean Star Recalls 'Ping Pong Diplomacy'
Jul 12, 2012

Her eyes well up when Li Pun Hui recalls her role in a historic example of "ping pong diplomacy."

"For 50 days, 24 hours a day, we lived together as one, trained together, slept in the same room and ate all our meals together," Li told The Associated Press at an interview in Pyongyang. "We shared the same food and our feelings."

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Jul 12, 2012
AP: In North Korea, learning to hate US starts early
Jun 23, 2012
AP: In North Korea, learning to hate US starts early
Jun 23, 2012

For North Koreans, the systematic indoctrination of anti-Americanism starts as early as kindergarten and is as much a part of the curriculum as learning to count.

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Jun 23, 2012
AP: North Korea's Bethlehem is Birthplace of Kim Religion
Apr 8, 2012
AP: North Korea's Bethlehem is Birthplace of Kim Religion
Apr 8, 2012

As the snow drifts through the towering evergreen trees, silence enshrouds this remote pilgrimage site, a place some here consider the Bethlehem of North Korea.

As North Korea celebrates the centenary of Kim Il Sung's birth, his past, like the misty peaks of Mount Paektu, remains veiled in myth.

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Apr 8, 2012
AP: North Korea Rebuilds Pyongyang to Welcome New Leader
Mar 31, 2012
AP: North Korea Rebuilds Pyongyang to Welcome New Leader
Mar 31, 2012

Scores of soldiers march through a zone sealed off by green mesh fencing and checkpoints. A crew of about 1,000 soldiers and 2,000 police officers works around the clock, along with thousands more civilians in street clothes and hard hats, spurred on by billboards that rate their performance.

But they are not building tanks here at the foot of Mansu Hill, or weapons, except perhaps for a propaganda war. They are building 3,000 new apartments, a department store, schools and a theater, in the hope of selling a modern version of Pyongyang to the people of North Korea albeit one that most will never get to see.

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Mar 31, 2012
AP: China Brings Supermarket Concept to North Korea
Feb 26, 2012
AP: China Brings Supermarket Concept to North Korea
Feb 26, 2012

In his last public appearance, late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il went shopping. He peered at the prices affixed to shelves packed with everything from Pantene shampoo to Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. And he nodded his approval of Pyongyang's version of Walmart, which was soon to open courtesy of China.

The visit played up a decidedly un-communist development in North Korea: A new culture of commerce is springing up, with China as its inspiration and source. 

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Feb 26, 2012
AP: Shades of North Korea's Founder in Its Young New Leader
Jan 7, 2012
AP: Shades of North Korea's Founder in Its Young New Leader
Jan 7, 2012

The resemblance is striking: the full cheeks and quick smile, the confident gait, the habit of gesturing with both hands when he speaks.North Korea's young new leader, Kim Jong Un, appears to be fashioning himself as the reincarnation of Kim Il Sung, his grandfather and the nation's founder, as he seeks to solidify his hold on the nation of 24 million in the wake of his father's death last month.

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Jan 7, 2012
AP: A Look at North Korea Finds Country on Cusp of Change
Aug 3, 2011
AP: A Look at North Korea Finds Country on Cusp of Change
Aug 3, 2011

Communist North Korea is a world both foreign and familiar, a place where the men wear Mao suits and children tote Mickey Mouse backpacks, where they call one another "comrade" and love their spicy kimchi.

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Aug 3, 2011
AP: Quiet Digital Revolution Under Way in North Korea
Jul 24, 2011
AP: Quiet Digital Revolution Under Way in North Korea
Jul 24, 2011

North Korea is undergoing its own digital revolution, even as it grapples with chronic shortages of food and fuel. It is still among the most isolated of nations, with cyberspace policies considered among the most restrictive in the world. Yet inside Pyongyang, there's a small but growing digital world, and a whole new vocabulary to go with it: CNC, e-libraries, IT, an operating system called Red Star and a Web portal called Naenara.

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Jul 24, 2011
AP: North Korea's Rooney Loves His Cars, Clothes and Rap
Jun 14, 2010
AP: North Korea's Rooney Loves His Cars, Clothes and Rap
Jun 14, 2010

He plays like Rooney but behaves a little like Beckham. He loves his cars, his rap music and his clothes, and changes hairstyles more often than you can say "Kim Jong Il."North Korea striker Jong Tae Se is not your average North Korean.

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Jun 14, 2010
May 19, 2010
AP: For the 2 Koreas, Joint Appearance at World Cup Turns Sour
May 19, 2010

With both North and South Korea in the World Cup for the first time, many on this war-divided peninsula were hoping that sports could cross the border and unite people. But the sinking of a South Korean warship in March has shattered the mood and heightened tensions between the two nations, turning the World Cup into a missed opportunity less than a month before the games start.

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May 19, 2010
take me to the archive
North Koreans inline skating on Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang. Photo credit: Jean H. Lee. All Rights Reserved.

North Koreans inline skating on Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang. Photo credit: Jean H. Lee. All Rights Reserved.

New York Times' Lensblog: Off the Dictated Path in North Korea →

July 25, 2011

A little boy skips along grasping a classmate’s hand, his cheeks flushed and a badge of the Great Leader’s smiling face pinned to his Winnie the Pooh sweatshirt. Men in military green share a joke over beers at a German-style pub next door to the Juche tower. Schoolgirls wearing the red scarves of the Young Pioneers sway in unison as they sing a classic Korean tune that I, too, learned as a child.

Everywhere I look, Communist North Korea is a world both foreign and familiar to my Korean-American eyes, a place where the men wear Mao suits and children tote Mickey Mouse backpacks, where they call one another “comrade” and love their spicy kimchi.

Since becoming the Seoul bureau chief for The Associated Press in 2008, I have made five eye-opening visits to North Korea. The chief Asia photographer, David Guttenfelder, has traveled to the country numerous times over the past 12 years.

This year, David and I have been granted unprecedented access. We traveled into the countryside, accompanied by North Korean journalists, not government minders. We had a cellphone, Internet access and a van with a driver who took us to Kaesong to the south, Mount Myohyang to the north and Nampho to the west.

During our wanderings, we got a glimpse of daily life in one of the most hidden nations in the world and found a country on the cusp of change.

Much of what we see during our reporting trips is calculated to show the bright side of a nation suffering from chronic economic hardship. The poverty isn’t immediately visible in the modern metropolis of Pyongyang. We are led through gleaming hallways and cavernous, chandeliered lobbies by guides in sparkling gowns or neat military uniforms, speaking as though from a script. The hedges are trimmed, the begonias in bloom.

But in between the staged visits, candid moments put a human face on a society enigmatic to the West, more complex and textured than typically portrayed.

In Essays, Featured, AP Tags North Korea
← AP: A Look at North Korea Finds Country on Cusp of Change AP: Quiet Digital Revolution Under Way in North Korea →

Latest Posts

Featured
Jan 22, 2019
Asia Dispatches: We Need a Roadmap: Second Trump-Kim Summit Needs to Be More Than Just Another Photo Op
Jan 22, 2019
Jan 22, 2019
Sep 19, 2018
Wilson Center: 'Face-Saving,' Promises, and Propaganda: Jean H. Lee on the Inter-Korean Summit
Sep 19, 2018
Sep 19, 2018
Jun 11, 2018
Wilson Center: A Historic Handshake
Jun 11, 2018
Jun 11, 2018
Jun 10, 2018
Wilson Center: ‘Kim Jong Un, International Statesman’
Jun 10, 2018
Jun 10, 2018
May 15, 2018
NPR: 2 Generations, 2 Different Perspectives On Korean Reunification
May 15, 2018
May 15, 2018
Feb 12, 2018
BBC Radio 4: A Korean Thaw?
Feb 12, 2018
Feb 12, 2018
Feb 8, 2018
New York Times Sunday Review: Will North Korea Win the Gold Medal for Deceit?
Feb 8, 2018
Feb 8, 2018
Jan 21, 2018
Getty Images: Skiers at North Korea's Masikryong ski resort
Jan 21, 2018
Jan 21, 2018
Dec 18, 2017
KEI: Soap Operas and Socialism
Dec 18, 2017
Dec 18, 2017
Oct 10, 2017
Prospect: Kim Jong-un has realised there’s a benefit to behaving badly
Oct 10, 2017
Oct 10, 2017
Copyright Jean H. Lee 2014