Dr. Brian Myers – on Let’s Talk Busan (with Kenneth May) – always brings out a certain demon in my spirit. On one hand, I was an analyst and linguist for the U.S. Army. I listened to North Koreans (very boring job). I worked with some of the most annoying South Koreans on the planet. It seems like a niche market, right? I mean how many hundreds get to study Korean and listen to North Koreans. On the other hand, I’ve never visited the DPRK, and I really don’t see myself doing so in my lifetime. Gulags, poverty…what’s interesting in any of that. I can’t even amass the sort of evidence a dilettante would need to become an expert. And, need I remind you in this venue, I’m mercifully no longer an analyst. I live in the better Korea now, and I married one of the better sort of Koreans. But, I’m no longer a koreaphile.
