Skip to main content

2015-06-04 TNKR working overtime

TNKR, June 2015.

Our status at that time:

* I was working at Freedom Factory as the Director for International Relations.

* Eunkoo Lee was working full-time at the Korea Educational Development Institute, dropping into the office when possible sometimes.

* TNKR was just a project of Freedom Factory, not even yet an official organization.

* Our "office" was my desk," but we had started to claim the second desk that Eunkoo and others would share when they came into the office.

" We had just gotten our first intern.

* We had no money, at that time we began thinking that we could ask the volunteers and fans saying they love us so much if they could donate or fundraise.

* Why don't you have a more professional website?

The usual drive-by experts and commentators were asking things like:

"How do you spend your money?" My answer was first to laugh, then ask, "WHAT MONEY???"

"Why don't you do Skype?"

"Why don't you have classes at the office?"

"Why don't you expand to other cities?"

"I'd be willing to teach some, why don't you send them to me?"

"Why don't you hold parties or social gatherings for the volunteers?"

"Instead of just English, why don't you teach the refugees (fill-in-the-blank)?"

Plus, we had some conspiracy theorists and North Korea sympathizers targeting us, so much so that Freedom Factory was even named in a screed posted by the North Korea propaganda machine. Even then people were asking me if I was concerned that the North Korean government was targeting me, I would respond, "If they are, our office is so small that they may have trouble finding us."

We had started to attract some attention during 2014, but people were greatly exaggerating our strength, I guess they watch too much TV.

I had received some nice job offers back in the USA, but in Korea, I had people asking if I was a CIA agent, or part of some libertarian conspiracy, the North Korea sympathizers were targeting me, and some of the (mainly American correspondents) were asking if I was trying to be the Martin Luther King Jr of North Korea, etc.

Popular posts from this blog

Common Sense on North Korea (Korea Times, April 2, 2012)

By Casey Lartigue, Jr. As interesting as Kookmin University professor Andrei Lankov’s writings are, there is nothing quite like attending one of his lectures. He can barely restrain himself behind the podium, often pointing and waving his arms. I also enjoy his unscripted speeches, but his answers in Q&A sessions are like the difference between watching Michael Jordan shoot baskets in warm-ups and an actual game. I have finally discovered the secret behind Lankov’s consistently solid analysis about North Korea: Use common sense. At an Asan Institute conference last summer, he argued that North Korea watchers should try to understand North Korea from its perspective. Don’t most people know that you must understand the mindset of others you are dealing with? Yet, common sense in theory gets ignored politically. From the North Korean perspective, nuclear weapons are the best thing they’ve got going. They will NOT give them up easily, even if President Obama ...
Read more

Park Jin welcoming remarks to FSI (and Casey Lartigue)

  National Assembly member Park Jin makes the welcoming remarks at FSI's conference featuring North Korean diplomats. Park Jin | Greeting message to FSI and Casey Lartigue mention - YouTube
Read more

Freedom Factory Shareholder Meeting (2015-01-31)

  Re: Building something out of nothing Freedom Factory is a very small company, of which I am a shareholder.  Yesterday we had our annual shareholder meeting. Freedom Factory is allowing us to "incubate" TNKR until we can stand on our two own feet--or at least crawl on our four hands and feet. (Consumer Rights Watch is in the same position).  I owe special thanks to FF CEO 김정호. He is a "true believer" in the cause of freedom, so he is allowing both projects to grow out of FF. That's even though Freedom Factory is a small start up with the CEO, staff and supporters wondering how we are going to achieve our dreams with such a tight budget.  So when I say I am so thankful to the volunteers and donors of TNKR, it isn't just lip service. Volunteers--along with Freedom Factory, the Atlas Network, donors--are helping us to create something out of nothing, helping North Korean refugees find their own way and tell their own stories. Like the FF CEO, I also don...
Read more

2018-09-28 Not everyone at KFC cooks chickens

Most of the people who contact us at TNKR naturally want to tutor North Korean refugees. Many potential volunteers are shocked shocked shock ed to learn that they can volunteer with TNKR in other ways. I tell many of them: "Not everyone at KFC cooks chickens. There are also delivery people, accountants, marketers, personnel, and a host of other positions." Earlier this year, we began developing the TNKR Volunteer Leadership Academy. I'm still waiting for someone to take over that little project. Until then, I will continue with developing it. And be developing it, I mean telling people, "Don't write me a long business plan about what you would like to do. Just start doing it, keep me updated and in the conversations, then let's talk and update." We have had a recent influx of volunteers who want to help TNKR in other ways. Jackie Cole is now running our Instagram. She constantly surprises me with the flyers and videos she posts. I made it clear from the ...
Read more

Does a flower turn to the sun?

I tend not to address points raised by people commenting on posts. In the back-and-forth of such discussions, people sometimes say things they don't mean or take extreme positions. In other cases they are just trying to be provocative, especially when they can remain anonymous. But a discussion on Greg Mankiw's blog caught my attention. That's because a couple of the folks suggested that parents don't really have the knowledge to make decisions about the quality of schools. Between 2002-2004 I was actively involved in the fight to get school vouchers for families in DC. I often heard the argument that parents don't know how to choose between good and bad schools and that, anyway, parents had enough choices with the school system's "out-of-boundary" options and charters (that had also been opposed). Without getting too deep into the out-of-boundary program, I'll point out that Woodrow Wilson HS, considered one of the best schools in the city, recei...
Read more