At almost every book talk I give, one question I keep getting: What do Koreans think of your book? (By which they mean both Koreas.)
I can’t speak for how they feel about my book in Pyongyang—I’m still waiting for the North Korean state media denunciation—but I do know that copies have made it into the hands of their officials, so there’s still a chance, I suppose.
As for the South Koreans, I can now say with some relief that the response has been pretty awesome. Phew!
Presenting the book in Seoul is obviously special. It’s where I first conceived of the project and where I did most of the research and writing (the past seven years in Beijing having mostly been for editing, cutting, polishing, more cutting).
And while all the talks in South Korea were special, some were more special than others.
For a decade, I’ve looked forward to being able to present KOREAN MESSIAH at the Royal Asiatic Society’s Korea Branch, which is still going strong more than 125 years after its founding by many of the very missionaries who populate the opening chapters of the book: James Gale, Homer Hulbert, Horace Underwood, Henry Appenzeller. (If only they could have joined us for the late-night fried chicken and beer.)
Speaking to the Seoul Foreign Correspondents’ Club and bringing KOREAN MESSIAH with me to an expertly staged three-day retreat by the Korea Risk Group crew—two of the leading outposts of Pyongyang-watching in the South—reminded me of just how much I’ve missed the company of fellow Kim-obsessed oddballs.
But perhaps the most rewarding part of presenting the book in South Korea is getting to hear directly from the many North Korean escapees who now live south of the thirty-eighth parallel. Few are more prominent than T’ae Yŏng-ho (태영호), Pyongyang’s deputy ambassador to the U.K. until his defection to the South in August 2016, almost exactly a decade ago.
I wrote the Wall Street Journal news story on the day that T’ae defected—but until Thursday, I hadn’t had a chance to shake his hand and introduce myself. I wish I had spoken with him before publishing KOREAN MESSIAH, because, as he put it to me, few things were more striking for someone raised as a loyal Kimilsungist than to encounter for the first time the very Christian message that Kim Il Sung himself was raised in.
And few moments have been as surreal as having T’ae—now a Christian—commandeer one of my book talks to underscore just how deep the parallels ran, in a hotel lobby just a short drive from the DMZ.
“After repentance for one hour, all of them go to the hall and start exactly the similar ceremony as Christian churches,” T’ae said. “When you go into the church, we all say, ‘Glory to the leader!’ (sings) ‘Yonggwang, yonggwang!’ It’s exactly the same in the churches—‘Glory to the Lord,’ right? And once we all sit together, this is the time for the party secretary to read what Kim Il Sung said in the book. It’s just like the pastor’s quote from the Bible.”
Amen, brother.