Thanks to the ever-alert Aaron McKenzie, I know that I am in a PBS documentary. “Economic Freedom in Action: Changing Lives.” It is always nice to be on TV or on movie theater screens, although I rarely watch TV or frequent movie theaters.
But what I am most proud of us is not the handful of seconds that I am on screen. Rather, it is that I am the one who guided the documentary directors in the direction of focusing on North Korea. They had asked me to give them advice for a 15 minute segment on economic freedom in South Korea that was going to be part of a larger documentary.
In my response, I told them that I could help them with that, but that I had a better idea: North Koreans! I had enough contacts here that I could them find some interesting stories to choose from. They weren’t immediately convinced, I’m sure the projects had been in works for a while (raising the financing or funding, getting approval from PBS or other decision-makers). They got back to me, but it was clear that the pressure was on me to come up with some good stuff. And I did!
They loved Andrei Lankov. Only a bit of what he talked about can be shown in the documentary, but he was saying some profound things in his usual animated and no-nonsense way. He gave them clarity that filled in many gaps for them.
김정호 said some really great things to put many things in perspective from an economic viewpoint.
The North Korean businessman was courageous. He had no fear in talking about the topics. His strength caused them to bump some other stories. We wanted to be sure that he would understand that he would be featured, that his name and business would be mentioned in America. He was fine with it. We visited some of the businesses he has helped to start up. Really inspiring stories.
In particular, I enjoyed the visits to the small grocery store as well as the restaurant (the businessman insisted on paying dinner, they fed us with the most expensive things on the menu).
They also wanted to quote me in the documentary, I was delighted. I’m not a major player on North Korean issues, I tend to be a bit pragmatic with my efforts, not engaging in the big issues (nukes, six-party talks). I let them know I would be fine if they quoted me just once, briefly, so I could say I had been on PBS. What I wanted was for them to include as many of the people they had interviewed that I had booked to be in the documentary. So when you see me on screen, you see a man who is delighted that he turned the tide of this documentary to focus on North Korea and to feature some stories about North Korean refugees struggling for freedom.
It was such a great experience, so I am delighted to see the documentary will be shown in America and that a segment of it is available at the Cato Institute Website. Aaron mentioned that I was in the documentary from the 28 minute mark, I am wondering if my former colleagues at Cato thought to mention that I used to be a policy analyst at Cato.
