BETWEEN FOUR WORLDS: CHINA, RUSSIA, JAPAN AND AUSTRALIA;
BETWEEN FOUR CAREERS: DIPLOMAT, ECONOMIST, JOURNALIST AND
JAPANOLOGIST;
BETWEEN FOUR LANGUAGES: ENGLISH, CHINESE, RUSSIAN AND
JAPANESE
Chapter
25
The Gaijin Educator
1. The Tama Experience
2. Family Education Affairs
3. Akita International University
4. Columnist and Blogger
5. Paradise Found
6. Conclusion – Status Lost
(In 1997 I am
asked to become president of a small, all-Japanese
university at Tama in the Tokyo western suburbs.)
(In the
previous chapter I give the reasons for this unusual
request, and why I agreed.)
------
1. The
Tama Experience
Arriving at
Tama I told myself I wanted to find out whether Japanese
university students really were as idle as they were said
to be.
That turned
out to be fairly true.
But I also
discovered that when they were doing the things they wanted
to do – when they had motivation - they could show
extraordinary energy and commitment.
Though the
university had only 1,500 students, clubs proliferated like
mushrooms. The annual two-day university festival saw an
unbelievable outburst of organization competence and
events, all powered by student voluntary labor.
The university
drama club gave performances close to professional
standard, despite never having the chance to perform before
proper audiences.
Motivation
in the Classroom?
Next move was
to see if one could inject some of the same kind of energy
and commitment into the classrooms. That was not going to
be easy.
The entire
university system in Japan seems designed to make students,
and teachers, feel they exist in what some describe as a
nuruma-yu or ‘warm bath’ atmosphere – in
a state of soft somnolence.
Failing
students, or making them work hard, was seen as unfair and
unsporting.
After all,
they had paid their university fees. The university was
therefore under an obligation to look after them through to
graduation, it seemed.
(On one of the
many Education Ministry committees I was invited to join I
was told that payment of the very high university entrance
fee amounted to a contract to provide education through to
graduation.
(In theory at
least a parent could sue a university that tried to expel a
student simply for failing grades.
(This was an
interesting concept, I thought. How did this mesh with the
Ministry’s call for more rigorous grading of
students? What happened to those with consistently poor
grades?
(Ministry
silence.)
True, Tama had
better teachers than most. Many had experience of the
outside business world and at least had a degree of
maturity – something badly lacking in most university
people, as I had discovered to my cost earlier at
Sophia.
(Some of the
stories I heard about other Japanese universities were even
more horrifying).
Even so, we
did have our share of what the students call amai or
‘sweet’ teachers who make few demands on
students.
So I decided
to try to run a course myself, where there would be
demands.
-----
First move was
to get rid of those term-end exams, where teachers feel
obliged to pass almost anyone who shows up, regardless of
what they write in the exam.
(I once had
students who would simply write about how much they liked
me and how they hoped I would not fail them.)
To fail large
numbers of them would in effect be seen as an admission of
one’s own incompetence as a teacher.
So I decided
that from day one students in my class would have to
prepare for and take weekly short tests (quizzes).
One aim was to
do something about those idle students who would just show
up occasionally for lectures, and hope that was enough to
gain a pass.
Results of the
short tests, scored on a scale of zero to ten, would be
returned each week.
Only those
with a term average of six would pass. A no-show was rated
as zero.
Soon the idle
ones would realize they were in trouble and leave the
course, in time to sign up for classes with one or other of
the more amai teachers.
I would be
left with the more dedicated students.
In the process
I would also provide some of the all-important motivation
to study.
In particular,
I could try to operate on what I see as the only basis for
university teaching – require students to read some
relevant text in advance of the class and spend class-time
answering questions or explaining points in the
text.
(That in fact
was the basis of the tutorial system I had gone through at
Oxford.)
There is very
little in this world of undergraduate standard of knowledge
that does not have something of quality written about
it. Why should teachers waste everyone’s time
just repeating that?
Regular weekly
short tests would aim to discover whether students had in
fact read the required text in advance of the class.
True, having
to correct over 100 short test papers each week and hand
out results was onerous, especially given the appalling
handwriting of most Japanese students.
But the plan
worked out well enough, though hopes other teachers would
do as I did proved rather optimistic.
Provisional
Entry
It was at Tama
that I developed another idea, one which would not just
improve motivation but would also help rid Japan of its
wretched ‘exam hell’ for university
entry.
I called it
zantei nyugaku, or provisional entry (to the extent the
system came into use, zantei nyugaku was to be my
contribution to the Japanese language).
Confronted
with the fact of bored and idle students in our midst at
Tama, I realized that many were only there by
accident.
They had taken
entrance exams for several universities roughly equal to us
in terms of entrance difficulty, hoping they would be lucky
enough to pass at least one exam.
Somehow they
had just passed the Tama exam (in Japanese, as it turns
out, ‘tama-tama’ is yet another of
those, probably of Polynesian origin, double
words, and means ‘by chance’ ) and had gone
there regardless. They had little interest in Tama itself
or its specialized education.
They just
reckoned that if they sat out the required four years (five
years if they were really bad) they would graduate
safely.
Universities
would not want to hold on to them forever.
But under my
scheme, students whose entrance exam grades were close to
the pass-fail line, above or below, would be told they
could only be accepted on a provisional basis.
If at the end
of first year their results were satisfactory, they would
be accepted as regular students.
Otherwise they
would have to repeat the year, or find themselves another
university.
That way we
could hope to deter the rubbish.
But serious
and committed students who due to bad luck or other factors
had just missed the entrance exam pass line would be happy
to accept those conditions.
Indeed, some
(mainly sons of small company owners whose fathers were
desperate to have them trained as their successors) would
be happy to enter Tama under any conditions.
In short, not
only was the scheme a good way of testing genuine desire to
enter Tama.
In effect we
would be using end of first year results as a test of
suitability for continued university study –
certainly a better test of suitability than the standard
university entry exams which were simply tests of ability
to memorise high school textbooks.
And we would
ipso facto be able to provide a study incentive –
even if for only one year and even if only to those
provisional students.
-----
But as with
many of my other ideas for improving university education,
the merits that seemed obvious to me were not so obvious to
others.
Over protests
I managed to have the scheme adopted by my university
professorial committee.
But it ended
up being called doryoku nyugaki – entry through
effort – with my original version heavily watered
down.
However, and
as I mentioned earlier, I did manage to get a mention of it
included in the final report of the 1999 Obuchi national
education reform commission.
And at the
university I was to move to after Tama – Akita
International University (see below) – it was to be
adopted in full, with excellent results.
At the end of
first year there the provisionals often had better results
than most of the regulars.
Some teachers
also mentioned how the provisional students had motivated
regular students to work harder.
(I should add
that there was nothing radical in my ideas. In most US and
Australian public universities, all or most students are
zantei nyugaku in the sense that entry is easy for all but
many are weeded out if they fail year-end tests or GPA
targets.)
(Only in Japan
could the idea be regarded as dangerously
revolutionary.)
(True, the
Oxford I knew in the fifties was ‘Japanese” in
that few of those who managed to pass the difficult entry
process would later be failed. But we were graded strictly
in very comprehensive graduation exams – A, B, C and
D. Those with C or D results found it hard to get good
jobs.)
(I was lucky
enough to get a B.)
(Once when I
mentioned this Oxford system to a committee of Japanese
businessmen, one said that he would prefer the C or D
students, provided they had been active in sports. Their
results proved they had not wasted their time listening to
useless teachers in meaningless classes!)
(Out of the
mouths of babes and senior Japanese businessmen sometimes
comes truth, at least where Japan is
concerned.)
…..
My six years
at Tama passed happily enough (the original four year
appointment was extended a further two years).
I too was
enjoying the nuruma-yu - in my case freedom from most
administrative work.
Duties were
mainly light – ceremonies (of which there are many at
Japanese universities) , attending conferences, speeches at
various functions.
Each year
student quality improved as our graduates moved into the
society and became the all-important OBs that every
university has to have – former graduates (old boys)
who help fresh graduates into jobs into the firms they have
managed to enter.
We also came
to be recognized for our efforts, such as they were, to
provide education more serious than that in many other
universities.
Parents do not
like to pay for bad education for their child, even if the
arbitrarily decided status of your university decides most
employment chances for your graduates, regardless of the
quality of the education you have provided.
(You have to
hope that continued efforts to raise quality will
eventually raise your status – which seems to have
happened at Tama recently.)
I came to like
many of our teachers, and respect their dedication. Even in
a flawed system most Japanese will do their best, even if
they can do little to change the system.
Tama confirmed
for me was something I had realized earlier when teaching
on the Sophia main campus – the merits of
Japan’s zemi or seminar system where students are
placed with a teacher of their choice for their third and
fourth years.
The bonding
and attention they get does much to solve the motivation
problem, and sometimes the job-finding problem. Later Tama
accepted my proposal it be extended to second and even
first year students.
(In their
first confusing years, students have a special need for
attention and bonding.)
---
I was also
impressed by our still-fledgling graduate school, where
some business experience was an entry requirement.
There, we had
no problem of motivation. Most were mature students paying
their own way.
Indeed, it was
there that I discovered a key element in Japan’s
education dilemma.
Most teachers
want to teach properly. But faced with students who
do not want to study properly they have little incentive to
teach properly, which in turn adds to the students not
wanting to study properly which in
turn…
The key is to
find a way to break the vicious cycle.
With mature
graduate students who realize that their futures depend on
good study the cycle is broken neatly.
----
But I would be
exaggerating to say I did much for Tama over the six years
I was there, other than provide a figure-head, and help get
the name of the university into the media.
Perhaps my
main contribution was enforcing a ban on smoking.
Also, in a bid
to do something about the harm caused by three years of bad
English teaching in high schools (partly the result of the
need to prepare students for university entrance exams) I
also decreed a ban on English as a compulsory subject in
our entrance exams.
( See my Japan
Times article of February 2009 for further details of my
motives.)
The move
gained great media attention, and great Education Ministry
disapproval.
Others also
disapproved, and even suggested I had done this as part of
the general dumbing down of university entrance exams by
universities desperate to attract students.
And this,
despite my having foreign language courses increased from
one to two years (but using the teaching techniques I had
found effective and ending the traditional ways of teaching
languages).
In the end my
meddling with the entrance exam system was fairly
meaningless since well over 95 percent of students
continued to choose English it as an entrance exam
subject.
And my
teachers of English soon reverted to their favorite
techniques – heavy emphasis on translation and
vocabulary.
My efforts to
reform English language teaching in Japan would have to
wait till later, if ever.
Bad habits,
like smoking, tend to die out slowly.
Post-Tama
As my time at
Tama started to run out I began to enjoy thoughts of
semi-retirement.
True, I had no
physical need to retire. I was in good shape, playing
squash regularly.
Farming and
development work in Boso also kept me fit.
But I was
already well into my sixties. The lecture circuit was
running down, at last.
I was keen to
be doing more in managing my Boso property (see
Chapter
17 ).
I was also
keen to do something about my dormant Chinese and Russian
before it was too late.
Most of all I
wanted to do some serious writing about Japan.
Yasuko had
reached retirement age at the Ajiken where we had first met
(it is now called IDE or Institute of Developing Economies)
and was enjoying her freedom.
And while I
had accepted IDE’s request to head their
MITI-financed school set up to teach Japanese and Asian
graduates the principles of economic development (IDEAS it
was called), that too was a mainly titular position.
(Apart from
anything else I had little desire to get involved greatly
in propagating the ideas of the MITI-related scholars,
namely that unlimited free trade was the key to Asian
development.)
Family
responsibilities were also getting lighter. My two sons
were at or close to university graduation and finding
jobs.
2. Family
Education Affairs
Both sons had
got into the elitist Keio, mainly thanks to their English
language ability (English carries inordinate weight in
entrance exams for many universities).
Older son,
Dan, had gone the conventional ‘escalator’
route – entry to Keio’s elite secondary school
which guaranteed his entry to Keio, where he joined the
economics faculty.
There he had
discovered just how bad Japan’s elite universities
can be, but had held on long enough to graduate.
(For one
crucial exam he had been asked to write an essay on Asian
economic progress through free trade. I helped him with
what I thought was a good original essay, pointing out how
protectionism had also helped some economies at times,
Japan especially.
(But his
teacher like many others at Keio was a market
fundamentalist fanatic.)
(So Dan was
failed. Contradicting your teacher and injecting your own
ideas is one of the greater sins in Japan’s
education system.
(But did that
mean that I, an economics professor with much Asian
experience, was also failed?)
---
Second son,
Ron, had also made things difficult for himself.
Again,
thanks to his English ability he had got into a quality
secondary school, this one famous for being able to get
most of its graduates into one or other of Tokyo’s
top four universities, with one third going to Tokyo
University.
But that
precisely was the problem.
For three
years the students did nothing but focus on the textbooks
that guaranteed success in the entry exams for those top
universities.
Young Ron was
keen on chemistry. But for two years he never once was
allowed to use the school chemistry laboratory.
Just memorise
the chemistry textbooks, he had been told. Laboratory
experiments were of no use when it came to university
entrance exams.
He had also
got into trouble when he took a week off to go and work as
a volunteer after the Kobe earthquake.
So he decided
he did not need that kind of education, and just walked
away from the school. Technically, he had joined the
growing ranks of Japan’s jookoo kyohi (school
attendance refusal) students.
Fortunately
Japan has a system whereby you can also take a special
nationwide exam (daiken) to qualify for university
entry.
Working from
home he disciplined himself to do the required study, and
passed. He was then able to take the entrance exams for
Keio University.
But he too was
to be badly disappointed by the flawed university education
system. So he poured his energies into squash, ending up as
one of Japan’s top players, despite having to
compete mainly against fulltime squash
professionals.
A determined
lad, with some of his father’s obstinacy
perhaps.
3. Akita
International University
With the
children graduated and the lecture circuit out of the
way, I was finally free.
But then came
the unexpected.
Someone I had
not seen for some years – the former president of
Tokyo Foreign Languages University (Gaidai) and well-known
China scholar, Nakajima Mineo – was asking me to join
a committee for establishing a university in Akita.
It was to be
on the campus which Minnesota State had set up some years
earlier, in a bid recruit students for its own State
universities.
Their Akita
campus had provided a two year preparatory course in
advance of going to the US for eventual graduation there.
(Quite a few other US states and universities had set up
similar operations during the heady seventies and
eighties.)
But with the
fading of the kokusaika (internationalization) boom and the
collapse of the Bubble economy, almost all had all pulled
out.
Minnesota
lasted longer than most, but eventually it too
succumbed.
With help from
Akita prefecture, Nakajima hoped he could take over the
unused campus buildings to set up a regular four year
university where the entire education would be in English,
including during a one compulsory year abroad.
But
unlike the US universities he would get formal recognition
from the education bureaucrats.
Would I join
the committee, please?
---
I said yes,
tentatively.
(It would have
been hard to say no since I was, after all, claiming to
have a strong interest in language education in
Japan.)
Before long,
however, the request had become: would I agree to be the
vice-president of the university he planned to establish.
This time I
tried to say no, but ended up saying yes.
Nakajima
Mineo
My connection
with Nakajima was curious.
He was
well-known as a conservative activist, enjoying good ties
with the Japanese rightwing, the Sankei and Yomiuri media
stables especially.
That would
normally have been a good reason not to want to get too
involved with his new university.
But he was
also a China scholar of some repute, even if in recent
years he had joined the rightwing clamor predicting
China’s impending economic collapse, and the need to
rescue Taiwan from Beijing’s clutches.
Many years
earlier he had suddenly rung me out of the blue, saying he
had just read my chapter on the Sino-Soviet dispute in the
Japanese translation of my ‘In Fear of China’
book.
He
congratulated me on my research, saying that no other
China-watcher had worked so hard to discover the true
origin of the dispute - the 1958 Taiwan Straits
crisis.
Could we meet
and talk about it?
(I should add
that to this date, and apart from one or two Chinese
scholars, no one else has appreciated the work and research
I put into that chapter, or the way the mistaken version of
the dispute led directly to the tragedy of Vietnam
.)
Years later he
had asked me to join the Gaidai shimon kaigi (advisory
council).
There too I
had developed some sympathy for his efforts to cope with
the factionalism and inertia that afflict most Japanese
universities, Gaidai especially.
----
But while I
appreciated the past attention, now he wanted me to become
the vice-president of a university in distant snowy Akita
when all I wanted to do was to start to enjoy life.
I still had to
remain Tokyo based, to take care of my rather foolhardy
investment in Boso land and houses. I could hardly ask for
the normal vice-presidential salary on that
basis.
But once
again, and as with Tama, I was promised a fairly easy
advisory and titular role, with only some teaching, and a
salary appropriate to those relaxed duties.
Eventually and
after repeated requests I agreed, mainly out of curiosity
to see how the experiment would turn out.
I also managed
to invent a rather uninspiring English name for the new
university - Akita International University or AIU. (In
Japanese it was Kokusai Kyoyo Daigaku –literally
International Liberal Arts University)
AIU
As an
experiment in the power of publicity and novelty to attract
quality students when student numbers are declining, AIU
has been an outstanding success.
But as an
experiment in turning out fluent English speakers equipped
with the education needed to function on the world stage,
the university still has some way to go.
I got almost
nowhere trying to persuade our PhD saturated
English-language teaching division that language teaching
should focus on concentrated listening to content-filled
materials, rather than lectures on English grammar and
composition.
On the other
hand I never suffered from the fact that politically
Nakajima and myself were poles apart. On the contrary, he
was later to defend me from rightwing attack.
However, he
did seem to want to become even more conservative in his
politics and attitudes (he was part of the move for a
revival of Bushido values to save Japan).
He remained
deeply critical of Bejing, even as it was obvious that
China had become a key player in world economy and
politics.
But we related
to each other as academics should, with respect for each
others’ professional qualities. When it came to
maneuvering through Tokyo’s education politics and
bureaucracy, and establishing links with foreign
universities, he was expert.
That was
largely why he had been able to set up his radically
different university.
And that was
why my rather artificial relationship with the new
university has managed to survive.
New
Directions?
With the
sudden drying up of the lecture/interview circuit
(explained in the next chapter) I found myself with a lot
of spare time.
AIU only
required me to show up occasionally, mainly to give some
courses there and attend management conferences.
The air travel
and overnight hotel stays were unpleasant. So too was the
cold, raw atmosphere of a brand-new university in
Japan’s far north.
Personnel
squabbles were draining.
True the
quality of some of the students, drawn from all Japan
thanks to the publicity Nakajima had gained for his
experiment in international education, was a
compensation.
But a visit to
China to recruit partner universities had opened my eyes,
again, to the dynamism and progress of the new China
– so very different from the Cultural Revolution
chaos and backwardness I had seen only a few decades
earlier.
Returning to
Japan with its negativism, its struggling economy, its
apathetic students and its backward politics was
sad.
Time to move
in some new directions, I felt.
If it could
not be to China (then still difficult to break into) maybe
it could be in another more intellectual direction.
Fortunately
that chance was soon to come, in the direction of Spanish
and Latin America. More details later.
4.
Columnist and Blogger
For years I
had had an on and off relationship with Japan’s main
English-language newspaper of quality, the Japan Times,
writing occasional pieces and providing interview
comment.
But while I
was at Tama they had asked me in to join a group of
‘names’ backing their rather desperate attempt
to get a license for a new FM radio station.
I agreed, and
later had suggested they let me write regular opinion
columns for them.
First efforts
were fairly amateur; my years as correspondent for The
Australian still had not taught me the secrets of good
column writing – conciseness, personalism, direct
views etc..
Good writing
in today’s busy world is a ‘speaking and
listening’ process. Most of us, when we see
worlds in print, instinctively translate them into sound
and ‘listen’ to them as if the writer was
speaking to us.
It is very
much an emotional, sub-conscious process, which is why good
writers can have such influence.
That also is
why good writers like to avoid the passive; we do not use
it much in normal speech.
(But one
editorial rule about simple writing gets it wrong –
the rule that says you should not use brackets and dashes
too much.
(Editors do
not realize how brackets, dashes, colons etc convey the
pauses and intimate after-thoughts that readers like to
hear in any realistic conversation.)
The Japan
Times persevered with my scribblings, though with the
occasional censorship and cuts at first.
Eventually I
reached regular status, where I could pick virtually any
topic I liked and run with it for close to 1000
words.
I even had a
syndication into Singapore for a while, though they
preferred shorter articles there.
Being able to
get my words into permanent hard print rather than the
ephemeral airspace before a microphone was a satisfying
experience.
Going
Website
But even
better was to come.
Getting
published regularly was giving me visions of grandeur - I
wanted my own website.
A computer
expert who had done much to wire my Nakadaki community with
Internet helped set one up for me.
There I was
able not just to list up my JT articles over time. More
importantly I could rescue and display many of my past
writings, in particular the articles filled with the past
pain and futility of trying to explain China and protest
the Vietnam War to an Australian audience, apathetic at
best, hostile at worst, and basically ignorant
forever.
Reviving those
writings was cathartic.
The past had
suddenly become the present.
5.
Paradise Found
More was to
come.
The Japanese
claim to be a maritime nation. But deep down I
suspect they are afraid of the sea.
Historically,
and apart from the pirates raiding the Chinese coast and
elsewhere in Asia, they were a stay-at-home people.
This in turn
could also have helped imposition of the sakoku or island
isolation policies of Tokugawa in the past.
But to come to
the present, it could also explain the strange lack of
marinas and yacht leisure today.
Yet I
think I can say with authority that much of
Japan’s coastline is as beautiful as any in Europe,
with parts able to rival the Riviera and Adriatic
coastlines.
By accident I
was able to discover one of those parts, close to Tokyo,
and close to the Riviera ideal.
----
The Asian
financial crisis of the late nineties – yet another
economic disaster bestowed on us by those nice Americans
– had seen yet another downturn for the Japanese
economy.
Suffering most
were the small ship owners.
One of them in
years past had carefully leveled out a site on an isolated
hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean, near the fishing port
village of Ohara, about 30 minutes from my Nakadaki site
and only a little over an hour from Tokyo.
He had even
built himself a private tunnel to give himself access
through to the top of the high ridge on which the site
stood.
There he had
built himself a simple pre-fabricated holiday
house.
And while the
house may have been cheap, the view could only have been
made in heaven.
The Asian
crisis had left him and his small fleet of ships stranded
financially. He was desperate to sell.
----
There is
always a catch 22 problem in finding good real
estate.
To find
something good you need to live in an area for some time
and have the contacts. But to live in that area for some
time and have contacts you need real estate.
Fortunately
living and working in the east coast area of Boso peninsula
for some years had given me knowledge and contacts I
needed.
And while I
liked the Boso hills where I had developed my community, I
had the typical foreign desire (not shared greatly by many
Japanese, fortunately) to have something by the
ocean.
When one of my
contacts told me there was a large piece of land with ocean
views and house going cheaply on the coast nearby,
attention was grabbed.
When I was
told the land was cheap because it was in a national park
(where on paper there are building restrictions), attention
was grabbed even more firmly.
When I
actually saw the place I was intoxicated. In my years of
traveling the globe I had never seen anything as
perfect.
Facing due
south, surrounded by hundred year old sub-tropical trees,
protected from severe winds and looking out to ocean
horizons with a view of a tiny beach and bay (once a
fishing port) surrounded by massive cliffs immediately
below, I could not believe my good luck.
Thanks to that
tunnel entrance it had complete privacy. Not a single human
or house was in sight.
And all this
so close to Tokyo civilization!
Heaven on
Earth.
It took me all
of ten seconds to decide that this would be my future
home.
There I have
been able to base myself now for almost a decade –
writing, storing my books and papers, meeting
people.
And I was
able, foolishly perhaps, to continue to my very
time-consuming and expensive hobby -more land development
and house building (an abandoned playing field next door
was also available cheaply and now has a tennis court and
four rental houses on it).
Later, and
thanks also to the Boso connection, I was to discover yet
another hobby, this time on the other side of the Pacific
Ocean, in Latin America.
But that is
another story.
6.
Conclusion – Status Lost
Sophia had
kept me busy for almost twenty years. Tama and AIU for
another ten.
That is a long
time to be involved with what passes for the Japanese
higher education system.
Meanwhile the
world outside Japan was changing.
But so too was
Japan, and not necessarily for the best.
I had already
earned some enemies by criticizing the Koizumi structural
reform mantra of the early 2000’s, and the childish,
petulant, ignorant personalities of the people behind it
– not just Koizumi but Takenaka also.
(Later I was
to be proved 100 percent correct, with even the formerly
pro-Koizumi people turning very negative.)
(Japanese
traditionally have been able to make these flip-flops
easily. It is a cultural thing, only to be expected
in a society with weak
ideological sensibility.)
(But in Japan,
as with the West over Vietnam, China etc, the
world does not welcome, or even want to remember, those who
opposed the conventional wisdom of the time).
Now I was to
be targeted by Japan’s powerful ultra-rightwing ,
mainly for my views of policy to North Korea – the
abduction issue especially.
Here I was to
be targeted with the venom and sneakiness that only those
people are capable of.
In the nation
with which I had become so involved, and had come very much
to like in some ways, I was to go from persona very grata
to virtually persona non grata, almost
overnight.
More to
follow.
Please join the
Online Forum for Discussion
about this
Chapter.