It was the about two days before I left for South Korea last year in June that I was packing and catching up on my podcasts via my Apple TV. One of my favorite ones, and a shame that he decided to cut his run on CNN, was the Larry King Show. As I was packing I decided to play my podcasts as background noise and images to get myself moving. I hadn’t noticed the title of the episode I was playing and when the interview began it was Lisa Ling (reporter, she used to be on The View) and her sister Laura Ling talking to Larry about Laura’s North Korea capture. A little background info: Laura was reporting in China near the North Korean border when a tour guide led her the wrong way and North Korean guards captured her and told her she had crossed into North Korean territory. Also, Lisa Ling had once been granted access to North Korea to take pictures and video of the wildlife there for an assignment, something that made the North Korean government suspicious as the family now had a history with the country. Laura was captured for some months and held in a cell when a former president came to her rescue, Bill Clinton. Kim Jong-Il had negotiated to let Laura go if Clinton would go and get her. As it turned out, Clinton was one of a scarce number of country leaders who sent his condolences to Kim Jong-Il during his father’s passing some-odd years ago. Kim Jong-Il wanted to thank Bill for his gesture and in turn return Laura to her family.
As I’m watching this intense interview and hearing Lisa and Laura talk about letters they exchanged during the capture, I must say that I gave every article of clothing I was packing a second look before placing it in the luggage. Now it’s comical, but at the moment I gave each shirt, sweater, and pair of pants the same look you give someone when they tell you that you are wrong.
It was all coincidental and decided to look at it just like that, a coincidence and not as a sign that I should keep my butt in LA. Okay, now fast forward to nine months later. I’m going to the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) that borders South and North Korea on a tour this weekend. I must say I’m really excited because hear of people going and it is right along my quest do more actually Korean things during my stay here. Well like clockwork, the Lings do it again and find a way to give me information as I’m about to embark on another Korean destination. This Monday, I came across this op-ed piece that Laura Ling wrote for the LA Times:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-ling-north-korea-20110304,0,1805224.story
To think that I come from one of the most technologically driven nations and I move to another one that compares well to it, it’s hard to think that some of the things she wrote about are actually happening at this very moment just miles away from where I am. I must say that I appreciate the work Laura and Lisa Ling do, I appreciate their experiences, and how they go about informing the world of the happenings in parts we would never know about otherwise.
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