For women in my family, in Korean culture, women are really valued in their youth, and then when they get older, it's like they almost become irrelevant.
I think, in the long term it's in the goal of everyone to see a unified Korea that actually provides for the people of North Korea the kind of life that they need.
I think I sort of realized it was an international thing when we went to South Korea for The Fast [and the Furious] 6 premiere. We knew nothing about South Korea, and we came through the sliding doors [at the airport] with my luggage and there were like 60 fans with Luketeer banners: "We're your Korea Luketeers." It was like, wow, this is amazing.
It's actually a character choice for a movie I've been filming in South Korea called Okja. My director had this idea of having my hair be a very vibrant red/pink/watermelon color. We haven't finished filming so I'm kind of riding the wave of the red hair right now in terms of everything else that I have to do with The Last Tycoon press and you know, regular life. I'm really loving it. It's turning into a thing for me.
An exploration of the challenges Korea faces in transforming its economy from a government-directed, low-cost producer to an innovative world economic power based on its own scientific and technological development.
China is a major power in the Pacific and I think we are dealing with some common threats in that region: the whole issue of Korea and the stability of Korea, the whole issue of nuclear proliferation, the whole issue of providing free access to our ships that are operating in that area.
Obviously I have concerns, right, about national security in terms of Russia, and China, and North Korea, and obviously, the problems we have in the Middle East.
Korean feminism is on the brink of death. Korea has a less clear boundary between popular literature and serious literature than in other countries. I feel that feminism is abandoned like a product that was a craze in the past.
If you happen to live in Korea, you might always suffer from anger towards people in power, because of political and social problems. I felt gloomy under this social dictatorship. Looking back, I feel like I never saw a sunrise in Seoul.
Women in Korean myths disappear after giving birth. The reason they were born is to produce sons.
Living in Korea as a girl meant living under a lot of discrimination and limitation. It was the same in my university and in the Korean literary world I am involved in now.
If you happen to live in Korea, you might always suffer from anger towards people in power, because of political and social problems. I felt gloomy under this social dictatorship. Looking back, I feel like I never saw a sunrise in Seoul. When I was at university, the policemen used to measure how short the women's mini-skirts were and how long guys' hair was. We were living under a government that considers her people to be soldiers.
You cannot call a poem female just because it is written by a woman. Nevertheless, I think attempts to find femininity in female bodies, life, and thinking, attempts to find a way for women to speak, will improve widely in Korea.
It seems Korean women are enjoying a passive and fragile status, intoxicated by appearance. Not only feminism, but any serious discourse ends up being swept away by popular culture in Korea.
If you propose there is a feminism problem in Korea, somebody would point out that you are bringing up antiquated issues. No one acknowledges that discrimination against women is still widespread.
Living in South Korea as a girl meant living under a lot of discrimination and limitation. It was the same in my university and in the Korean literary world I am involved in.
We would welcome that, but it's going to require a commitment on the part of the North Koreans to denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula and pursuing a stable relationship with their neighbors. Instead, we've seen a lot of provocations and a flouting of international norms and obligations.
Bush advisers have long been worried that a lagging economy could hamper the president's re-election chances. They hope that the Cabinet shake-up will provide a needed jolt. If that doesn't work, North Korea has to go.
THe Chinese like the satellite state [North Korea] between China and our forces, they fear that in a reunified Korea, American troops would be at the Yalu River and they've seen that movie before. They didn't like it the first time they saw it and they don't like it any better today. So they are quite happy with the divided Korean peninsula and that's a fundamental difference between the way they see things and the way we see things.
The North Koreans will sell anything to anybody for hard currency. If Al Queda came up with enough dollars to buy a nuclear weapon from North Korea I don't have any doubt that the North Koreans would sell it to them.
I think the regime in North Korea is more fragile than people think. The country's economic system remains desperate, and one thing that could happen for example would be under a new government in South Korea, to get the South Korean government to live up to its own constitution, which says any Korean who makes it to South Korea, is a Korean citizen. A citizen of the Republic of Korea. And you could imagine the impact that would have inside North Korea if people thought, "If I could get out and make it to South Korea, I could have a different life."
Just as that little opening in the Iron Curtain that Hungary created caused a flood of people out, and ultimately the beginning of the end of communism in Europe, if you could get refugee flows coming out of North Korea, while there'd be a very difficult humanitarian problem in the short run, both for China and South Korea, in the long run it would lead to reunification.
The only way to resolve the North Korean problem is to change the regime.
When an executive walked on our floor, it was at their own risk. As far as what others thought of working for me, I know I was very tough at times, and would storm down the hall after watching some bad animation from Korea. But overall, I feel we had a good time.
North Korea has declared its own time zone that they are calling 'Pyongyang Time,' and set their clocks back half an hour. So if it's say, 11:40 here now in New York, in North Korea it's still 1925.
