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Category: Joohee Cho | Main

JOOHEE CHO

ABC News Reporter

Joohee Cho is ABC News’ Seoul Bureau Chief and reporter covering the Korean peninsula. She joined ABC News in 1999 as a producer in the Seoul bureau. Among the stories Cho has covered are the Korean nuclear crisis, the Korean stem cell scandal, and the historic North-South Korean Summit in 2000. She has traveled to many North Korean cities and interviewed hundreds of North Korean refugees.

View the latest blogs from Joohee Cho below:

What North Korea Really Wants

March 12, 2009 11:47 AM

By Joohee Cho, ABC News Seoul Correspondent

Finally, we have an idea of when North Korea will test those missiles. Or should I call it a satellite?

Either way, Pyongyang’s notifying the International Maritime Organization of its plan to launch a ‘satellite’ between April 4 and April 8 was the best news - personally - I have had in the past three weeks. For someone covering North Korea, it is almost excruciating to sit and wait, wondering day after day when the big news would break. Weekend plans, dinner plans and party invitations had to be turned down so that I could be prepared with a clear sober mind to start churning out news. Those are the drawback of being a foreign correspondent on the other side of the time zone.

The international community has been exceptionally wary of this rocket, concluding that it is actually a long-range missile, not a satellite for "peaceful scientific purposes," as the North Koreans have called it. Here in Seoul, the talk of the town is that there is no way the North Koreans could have the technology to put up an experimental communications satellite. And why would they need a communications satellite in the first place? They don’t even have power to turn on what limited number of television sets they have.

But now, some local South Korean media are questioning the "accusations." What if it actually is a satellite?

North Korea has taken unprecedented steps to emphasize and perhaps clarify its intentions. It has joined the Outer Space Treaty, notified the International Maritime Organization and informed the International Civil Aviation Organization. Quoting anonymous sources with "close access to North Korean intelligence," Yonhap News Agency noted that not only did North Koreans state the dates but also the scope of latitude and longitude to the east of the Korean peninsula. Is this a sign of a new North Korea dutifully taking steps as a member of the international community?

No matter what, if it does succeed and if it indeed turns out to be a satellite, Kim Jong-Il would be catching two birds with one stone. He would be saying "I told you so" and at the same time, given that a satellite and a missile use similar technology, creating enough fear among the international community. The suspected long-range missile is known to have capability to reach as far as the West Coast of United States. But what the Dear Leader really wants at the end of the day, many analysts here say, is to nail a one-on-one negotiating deal with President Obama.

March 12, 2009 in Joohee Cho | Permalink | User Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

Jet-Setting Heir to North Korean Throne Speaks

January 27, 2009 7:14 AM

By JOOHEE CHO, Reporter, ABC News Seoul

The Japanese media’s obsession with North Korea amazes me. Today, I was channel surfing at a remote hot spring resort room in Kinugawa Onsen and came across NTV's daily evening magazine show called "Real Time." It was airing an interview with the North Korean leader's eldest son, Kim Jong Nam, followed by an exclusive hidden-camera report on the communist country's black market.

As a reporter covering the Korean peninsula for the past 15 years, I was half surprised and admittedly half envious over their luck at getting those two currently-most-wanted stories on camera. The world is eagerly watching and guessing as to when the famine-struck country might collapse, as well as who will succeed the "Dear Leader" Kim Jong Il, who is old and reportedly ill.

So, grasping every sense of what little Japanese I could understand, here's what I saw on NTV. They caught Kim Jong Nam in Beijing, wearing a black down jacket with matching black Ray-Ban-style sunglasses. Surrounded by about a dozen reporters, he spoke in broken but comprehensible English.

Asked about his father's health, he replied that he cannot say anything because that kind of information is a "state secret." A follow-up question: do you want to be the successor? He answered with a shrug. "That is too early to tell. My father will decide when he decides... but personally I'm not interested at all."

As he tried to walk away, reporters continued to fire questions at him. "Do you speak Japanese?" "Do you like Japan?" (Obviously, these reporters were Japanese.) Kim's answer: "No, but I think Japan is clean and economically interesting." Another reporter asked a question in Japanese. With a smirk, Kim replied, "I told you I don't speak Japanese. I speak English and French."

When another reporter asked whether he wants to travel to Japan, my first journalistic instinct was that that was the end of the interview, since we ask sensitive questions last. Kim Jong Nam was kicked out of Japan in 2001 for trying to enter the country with a fake Dominican passport. He has said he wanted to visit Tokyo Disneyland.

Surprisingly, Kim was not upset; rather, he seemed to enjoy the attention. He simply gave a silent laugh and said, "I cannot travel to Japan since that day a few years ago."

Kim got in a taxi, alone. It was odd to see the Dear Leader's eldest son without a North Korean diplomat or an official escorting him in a limousine, which, after all, gives weight to the theory that he is an outcast at the moment because of his western lifestyle and his birth background.

He was born to a woman whom his father fell in love with, against the late founder Kim Il Sung's approval. She was married to another man at the time. Naturally, Kim Jong Nam's mother was never officially recognized as the first lady, which makes him a child out of wedlock.

NTV cameras followed Kim's taxi to the hotel. They caught up to him in the hotel lobby, this time without his sunglasses: chubby face and double chin, in striking similarity to his father's younger days. He said he was lucky because he can travel freely around the world. Asked whether his father approves, he replied, "Of course. I won't be able to travel without his permission."

While Kim hops around the world, NTV's next report was on the starving people of his country. Shot with a hidden camera inside a North Korean town, the visuals were simply appalling. Children were wandering around the market scavenging for leftover food from trash. One boy was lying down on the roadside, too weak and sick to get up, but people were passing by as if he was not there. The cameraman went back to that spot three days later only to find him still there.

In another scene shot late at night, the cameraman -- whose accent was North Korean -- talked to three young boys shivering in the cold hunched together in the woods. They were orphaned after their parents died of hunger.

North Korea's famine is nothing new. But what was new caught on camera was the vibrant black market. Street vendors sold color TVs, DVDs, cassette recorders, electronic rice makers, and even food mixers.

Next to those shops were lines of young women sitting on plastic chairs holding up cardboards with lists of items they could sell. Most were electronic goods, clothing, shampoo and hair conditioner, and skin care products.

Men with rickshaws wooed customers, offering delivery service. In the outskirts of that main market were older women crouched on the ground selling vegetables. Later, a policeman showed up to chase them away. Selling and buying without government license, especially in the black market, is heavily punished in North Korea.

At the end of the show one thought reverberated in my mind: where humans live, everybody will find a way to make a living, somehow. But those children... in the dark, in the cold...who will help them?

The World's Most High-Tech Nation

December 24, 2008 9:40 AM

By JOOHEE CHO, Digital Reporter, ABC News Seoul

If there ever is an "Easy Tech Adaptation for Dummies" book, I’d be the first one to grab it. Living in the most wired country in the world is quite a struggle for people with technology phobia like me. I’m not talking new gadgets or software that are released every few months or years. I’m talking almost every day learning how to use new functions on my mobile phone or keeping up to date with new ways to communicate.

Today, I joined the tech-savvy generation’s new thing: T-mobile money, only to find myself all frustrated because the whole concept is too good to be true and way too complex. It is a prepaid smart card that is embedded into your mobile’s SIM card, which works as a wallet, navigator or personalized weather forecaster. It even tells you how crowded -- not with car traffic but with human traffic -- certain places are so that you can avoid holiday shopping at those spots!

My new quest started when I encountered the Salvation Army last week. Next to the traditional red kettle with bell-ringing Santa-costumed volunteers, Korean Salvation Army showcased the new "digital donation screens" for which you simply flash your mobile phone onto a screen. It remotely deducts 80 cents from your T-money, so no more excuses for having no change in the pocket to spare for the poor. As I stood there watching, the generation gap was clear. The older ones dropped cash into the kettle; the younger ones proudly walked up and flashed their mobile phones. I certainly did not want to place myself in the former category.

Then I realized having ignored all those aggressive advertisements everywhere in the city on T-money, T-life, T-story, T-service, T-whatever...that, with a mobile phone market penetration rate of 93.6 percent as of last month, the big T was surely embedded into every aspect of Koreans’ daily lives.

As I get in the elevator every morning to work, three things I habitually double check in the bag are my two mobile phones – one for private use and the other for work – and my BlackBerry used only for internal ABC News e-mail. And now with the T-mobile money installed, those are all I need to get through the day.

For taxis, tolls, parking fees, theater tickets, and even a cup of tea at convenient stores, I simply flash my mobile phone onto the T-money counter.

Searching for a restaurant, SK Communications’ portal service Nate lists five popular Italian bistros within a certain range of a designated neighborhood, complete with reviews and sometimes menus on my mobile screen.

T-service then turns into a navigator. You can even specify whether you’re driving, taking the subway or walking. It will navigate you accordingly, avoiding crowded routes.

To pay bills or transfer funds, I also use the mobile service that directly links into my Shinhan Bank system. The tiny screen shows the status of the foreign exchange rate that has been so volatile since the financial crisis. At the click of a button on my phone, I can sell dollars right when the Korean won seems to be at the bottom.

Same goes with trading stocks on the mobile phone. One of my golfing buddies does that out in the field while checking distance to the pin, also calculated by his mobile golf service.

At a hospital waiting room the other day, I met a girl in her teen’s intently watching a music video of the latest hit song "Nobody" on her phone, over and over again. She was memorizing the moves, but it was too difficult. She grumbled, then downloaded a how-to choreography video program in less than 30 seconds.

Personally, I find the best use of my mobile is as a portable TV. I can watch all the terrestrial networks on the 2x1.6-inch screen with clear digital quality, anywhere in the city and even on the highways.

Soon to debut on the market early next year is the new digital vending machine that lets you can download a two-hour movie or an episode of "Desperate Housewives" in 10 seconds on the mobile phone.

All this is possible because Korea is considered a world leader in 3G mobile technology. At 95 percent, its broadband penetration in homes, including wireless broadband, is the world’s highest. Japan and Finland follow the lead, and at 57 percent, the United States ranks 15th.

Why is Adultery So Popular in South Korea?

December 19, 2008 6:51 AM

By JOOHEE CHO, ABC News Digital Reporter, Seoul

Extra-marital affairs are nothing new in South Korea. In an online survey last year by monthly women's magazine Woman Sense, 79 percent of married men and 15.5 percent of married women in their 30s and 40s admitted adultery.

The pervasiveness is reflected in mass media. A usual climax for popular primetime TV dramas involves a scene where a wife hires a private detective to shadow her suspicious husband, and then asks policemen to break into a hotel room while her husband is in bed with a young lover.

Adultery is a crime by law in Korea. To file a lawsuit, the plaintiff must submit proof such as photos or videos of actual sexual intercourse. Bed sheets or tissue papers with semen samples collected by witnessing policemen are also strong evidence. And it does not matter how rich and famous the spouse may be, because monetary sanctions are not prescribed to criminal adultery. By law the sentence is up to two years in jail.

Yes, it is a messy business.

But ironically having affairs is seen in a different light in Korea. In fact, my married Korean friends openly talk about girlfriends or boyfriends, moreso of "wanting" a lover rather than confessing to an ongoing relationship. But conceptually an affair is more often considered a rebelliously courageous and romantic act than a morally despicable betrayal. That is assuming that the would-be lovers in question are dutifully playing their roles as husbands and wives -- making money to support the family, taking care of the kids and spending time with the in-laws.

All but having sex with your spouse, because that falls into a different category, according to my cynical girlfriends. Nearly 30 percent of married couples said they are "sexless" – defined as having intercourse less than a few times a year – in a nationwide poll carried out this year by the Korea Institute for Sexology.

When famous Korean actress Ok So-ri was accused last year by her celebrity husband of having an affair with a singer, the public was stunned; first, because they had masqueraded as a happy family with lovey-dovey interviews and photo shoots, and second, because she openly announced at a news conference that she and her husband had sex only 10 times in their 11 years of marriage.

That was not a good excuse for an affair, at least in the eyes of legal authorities. She ended up this week with a suspended jail sentence, with two years of probation.

As the nation watched the tit-for-tat, ugly battle between the two, adultery has become a popular subject of table talk in parties and gatherings. The actress had challenged the 55-year legislation with a petition to abolish the law, but the constitutional court in October rejected it. She had argued that it is an infringement upon individual rights to sexual choice.

But 50.6 percent of Koreans support the law, citing monogamy and the need to protect women, according to a survey earlier this year.

Progressives argue that the ban on adultery must stay but should be reformed so that it is dealt with in a divorce court, not a criminal court. That way, the adulterer would have the option to pay for his or her deeds through a fine instead of jail time.

“The current law is outdated and far from reflecting reality,” said Cho Kuk, professor of law at Seoul National University. Since one is required to file for divorce before accusing one’s spouse of adultery, he reasons, the marriage's termination is already prefigured, and the law becomes only a means of seeking revenge against the spouse, rather than a way to keep families from falling apart.

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December 19, 2008 in Joohee Cho | Permalink | User Comments (20) | TrackBack (0)

North Korea: A Journalistic Predicament

October 29, 2008 12:52 PM

By Joohee Cho, ABC News Seoul, South Korea

There is probably nothing more frustrating for a reporter than covering a country that you cannot actually visit. Instead of firsthand interaction the reporter is forced to rely on third-party recollections, propaganda and academic analysts as news sources. That has been precisely my predicament for the last 13 years while trying to cover North Korea from South Korea.

Aside from my rare half-dozen trips to the most reclusive state in the world, I’ve found that figuring out what’s going on in that hollow, gray nation is an endless guessing game. Take Kim Jong Il, North Korea’s leader, for example. For the last few weeks rumors have circulated about his health. Even today South Korean newspaper Dong-a Ilbo claims that Kim has suffered a "serious setback," citing an unnamed official who says that he has been hospitalized.

There has been even more extreme conjecture in the past. In September, Japanese professor Toshimitsu Shigemura from the well-respected Waseda University published a book saying that Kim had died in the autumn of 2003. Shigemura claimed that the world had been fooled by a series of stand-ins who appeared at official state events. In May, a Korean Internet news Web site reported that Kim had been assassinated while traveling along a highway. Last year, rumors of Kim’s illness also circulated after a Japanese newspaper reported that six German doctors had visited Pyongyang.

The big question: Who churns out these bits and pieces of information? Most of the time, it is the small-size media from South Korea, China or Japan, citing anonymous sources: “close North Korean watchers,” “government officials,” “residents near the North Korean border” or “sources close to Pyongyang.” And these reports are only the beginning of a bizarre hoopla.

In the age of the Internet, the original report is immediately quoted by other local media platforms. And then, the international wires such as The Associated Press or Reuters diligently pick up the story citing “local media reports.” Once it’s out there in the global community, the anonymously sourced information becomes an almost fact and is picked up by other international print or TV media.

The original report often travels full circle when the local media that began the cycle run a follow-up story citing international media claims. Eventually this sourcing circus turns a rumor into legitimate information.

Until North Korea opens up, this hoopla will not end. At times, the governments of South Korea, Japan, the United States or China officially announce that they believe some of the North Korean rumors are untrue, but even they do not cite a reliable source. But unless we, the journalists, witness with our own eyes the status of the almighty Kim, this guessing game will go on and on.

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