Full Transcript of Podcast

Daniel: Hello. Good evening. This is Daniel LaFontaine, KBC’s 9.9 with Daniel. Tonight, we’re having Dave Woods, Richard DeBourke, Stephane, and William Sisson. First off, maybe a little bit about each one of you. Dave, would you like to introduce yourself?

Dave: Thank you. My name is Dave Woods. I now live in Dallas, Texas. I spent about ten years in Korea mid-80s into mid-90s. Half of that time spent on South Korean compounds interrogating North Korean infiltrators and defectors.

Daniel: Excellent. Richard, what about you? Rich?

Richard: Hello. This is Rich DeBourke. I currently live in Seoul, Korea. I’ve been doing business here since ’93, moved here in 2004 doing business development, product marketing, customer service and things of that nature.

Daniel: Excellent. Stephane?

Stephane: My name is Stephane Bewekedi. I’m living in South Korea from 2007 to 2009. I was a visiting professor at Chosun University. Now I’m living in Paris working as an international trader and business developer.

Daniel: Excellent. And William?

William: My name is William Sisson. I’m originally from the US. I’m living in Korea for the last four years, and I am involved in executive search and recruiting for multinational companies in Korea.

Daniel: And as usual, this is Daniel Lafontaine. I’m from Ulsan, Korea. I’ve been in Korea for just over ten years. I’ve done everything, as like most Canadians here in Korea, I was an English teacher when I first arrived but over the years, I’ve gone and developed myself into doing different things from… highlight of my career until now is teaching the whole upper management team at SK Chemical for two years. Other than that, I’ve had a job in-licensing medicines and I’ve also started my own food import business.

First off, tonight’s topic – North Korea. And when it comes to North Korea, do you know; do you understand what’s happening in North Korea, and why or why not?

First off, for me, when I look at North Korea, I always think about my bosses. My bosses who are the top men of major companies in Korea. They’ve always been totally anti-communism. They’re strident anti-communists.

One of my bosses, actually, his family moved from North Korea into China and down through Pusan. The hatred that they have for North Korea is truly strong.

When I think about that and I think about North Korea surviving in the last 60 years, I say, “Yeah, well, if there’s so much of power of hatred, then there must be a lot of power…Power can push you to do extreme things.”

Dave, what do you think about North Korea? Do you understand them? Do you not understand them? General viewpoints?

Dave: Well, I think I’ve got a little insight. I haven’t spoken directly with them and discussed the circumstances. It’s been a while. But I don't know. It’s an intensity, but hatred is on one hand, but this is really not a… Everybody’s “Han” [race]. I think that will help, when the floodgates open, that Koreans are Koreans. I think they’ll do everything they can to help the folks up north when push comes to shove.

Daniel: I think so, too. If Korea ever collapsed – if Korea collapsed tomorrow, I think the South Koreans, in many ways, they, “Hey, let’s do it. Let’s get to work. Let’s try and rebuild. Let’s help our neighbor. Let’s help our brothers.”

South Korea – my wife, who’s Korean, she was routing very hard for North Korea this year [in the World Cup]. She really wanted them to succeed well. When Japan was doing well, my wife wasn’t too impressed. [laughs]

What about you, Rich? Do you understand North Korea, and what’s happening there and everything?

Rich: No, no. As far as North Korea and the World Cup, I always point out to the South Koreans that I work with, that I’m involved with, that if North Korea did make it to the 32 – there are a lot of countries that didn’t get that far, so you’ve got to give them a lot of credit for doing that well.

The thing I’ve always thought about North Korea is their negotiating style, there’s nothing that they will not give up. There’s nothing you can hold against them, offer them, that makes any difference.

Daniel: Very much so. North Korea, I don't know if anybody would agree with me, but North Asia, in general, has a very strong sense of self; very strong nationalistic sense. They’re not going to give an inch to anybody because, hey, we are here; we’ve been here for 5,000 years and we’re not going anywhere.

They’re not going to bend over. They’re not going to bend a twig, I think. What about you, William? What do you think?

William: Well, I’ve got a couple of thoughts. It’s been a whole generation or so since the Korean War and I think that dictatorship has tried to install a sense of paranoia within the younger people, basically saying that everyone from the outside is trying to take over your country, etc.

However, I do sense that maybe one day that they’ll be an uprising of some of the more…People who have experience outside of North Korea, and that could be an internal coup. We’ll see what happens there.

But I also have been talking with some South Koreans over the years. I have some friends who do not want the unification because they fear that once the wall comes down, if you will, that there’ll be such a flood of the poor Northern Koreans, that the South Korean economy cannot handle it, so that would be an economic collapse. So interesting next few years.

Daniel: That’s very true. What happens if there’s many of the North Koreans coming into South Korea? There’s so little room as it is. What about you, Stephane? What do you think?

Stephane: I think that North Korean people want to have peace, and that they do resent… in other countries, and specifically South Korea to say, “I’m strong,” but it truly is not strong anymore.

Daniel: He’s definitely not strong anymore, but the country still survives. The country is still kicking around. It’s very interesting that the country is still working and it’s still functioning. The people are still living and everything else. What about you, Richard? What do you think?

Richard: Well, I think the currency thing they had a little while back was an interesting thing where they just suddenly announced, “Okay, we’re changing the currency and everybody, you only get…” I think it was like $30 worth. Everything else that you had been saving, throw it away. So they did fire one guy, but I’m not sure that people really bought into it that it was really his fault.

Daniel: Exactly, because as a communist, they’re not supposed to… Everybody’s supposed to be equal. You’re not supposed to have more money than your neighbor.

Richard: Well, the thing was the people were saving. They were making a choice. So they said, “Okay, we’ll sacrifice this month to save cash.”

Daniel: Exactly, exactly.

Richard: So the people who had sacrificed, they got screwed, technically.

Daniel: Exactly. They got screwed and everybody else that didn’t sacrifice, they’re right back at where they came from. The idea of “to each to his own,” in North Korea, that’s like the guy who is talented, the guy who tried to save, he got burned and he’s going to say, “Well, what the hell am I working for now? What do I do now? I save for 25 years, I save for ten years and now all I get is $30 out of it?” Oh, my God.

Richard: That’s all he gets.

Daniel: That’s all he gets. So what do you think about the Cheonan incident? Some people say North Korea didn’t do it. The majority has been … while some of the international communities are definitely sure that they did do it.

What do you guys think? Did the North Koreans sink that Cheonan or what happened? What do you think happened there? William, what do you think?

William: Well, first of all, if I step back, if it was just the South Korean engineers or researchers that were saying, “Yes, we have proof.” You know, they were really smart and I think they went outside of the country and they got people from Canada, US, Europe, Japan and those people came together after a month or two of investigation and they said that they have proof that North Korea did it.

Then they did not hide anything. They allowed the Russians in, the Chinese; they offered. So can I say for sure, 100%? No. But I haven’t seen the evidence. But I’m about 80-85% sure that I would not put it past Kim Jong-il to have orchestrated that.

Daniel: And what about you, Stephane? What is your talk about the Cheonan and everything else?

Stephane: Sorry, I didn’t understand the question.

Daniel: The Cheonan. A few months ago, the boat was sunk. In the European news, there has been a lot of discussion about this; the sinking of the Cheonan. Or it’s mostly just… not interested in Europe?

Stephane: In Europe, it was a... in the French community. We don’t understand why North Korea would do that. For me, military power to show, “We’re here.” But it’s only this one.

Daniel: Exactly. What about you, Rich? What do you think?

Rich: Well, it goes back what I was saying earlier about their negotiating position. There’s nothing that they care about, so they can do these kinds of things. As far as whether they did it or not, I look at what are the possible alternatives and none of the possible alternatives make any sense. So I think it has to have been something that was initiated, done by the North Koreans.

Daniel: And what about you, Dave? Do you think North Korea…The Cheonan was in pretty shallow waters. North Koreans say, “Hey, we can’t have done it. The water is too shallow. How are we going to be able to have a torpedo through it? We think it must’ve been your boat that just blew up by itself.” Does that make sense?

Dave: No. And I really, as he mentioned, the international group that looked into it and the reports on the generals being re-promoted after being demoted the last time the thing went bad. I don’t think there’s any question that the North Koreans did it.

I would like to say, to my surprise, I originally didn’t think that Lee Myung-bak, and then the country or the politicians would respond well. They did an act of war. Period. That is, a lot of sailors are dead and if the world didn’t have the rest of the conflicts, and Islamism and everything else going on, I think it would be a huge deal.

But everybody is so preoccupied, that I think South Korea, and politicians and government have done a pretty good job on keeping their eye on the ball and pushing the issue just fast enough to keep it in front of everybody. Something positive, I hope, may actually come out of this in the long run.

Daniel: I hope so, too. I was actually very surprised. Like you said, it was an act of war. Sinking a military battleship where 46 sailors died and everything else, it is a true act of war. South Korea didn’t respond to it in a way that was, what I would consider, normal.

Was it the right way? I keep thinking about the Strait Times in India. They wrote about South Korea acted in a very mature way. I think it’s true. I don't know if Russia, if the Soviet Union 25 years ago would’ve sank a British sub, a British ship off the coast of Russia or close to the coast of England. We would’ve been in World War III. But it’s kind of blown over. Today we don’t even talk about it. It’s kind of interesting.

Well, this is 9.9 with Daniel. I thank you very much everyone for coming. Dave, Rich, Stephane, and William, I thank you very much for being here and I hope you all have a good night.