A day at the FSI office (2022-12-13)

FSI co-founder Eunkoo Lee is in charge of FSI's schedule. That means we have many meetings when I don’t schedule to be out of the office.

* 7 am, Zoom call about a non-FSI project. I am a co-founder of tFSI but I am engaged in some activities outside of FSI.

* 10 am, Zoom call about a possible FSI event in June with Ivy League students.

* 10:30 am, Meeting at the FSI office with visitors from the USA. They bought 10 copies of Greenlight to Freedom directly from FSI. We had a great conversation about the meeting last week. They have a better understanding of FSI and asked if we were a 501(c)3 based in the USA.

* 11:00 a.m., I sent an update to volunteers joining this Sunday's orientation sessions.

* 11:15 am, Meeting with a North Korean refugee who is joining FSI as a speaker. She showed the draft of her speech. Her husband had said the speech didn't make sense, which I confirmed in a more gentle way. I took her speech apart and showed her three different approaches to the same speech. I avoid taking over speeches, I see my role as getting them prepared to engage in self-learning and also partnering with mentors rather than looking to them as Gods.

* 12:00 noon, lunch.

* 1 pm, I followed up with a Seoul City official about being named a Seoul Honorary Citizen.

* 1:30 pm, Eunkoo Lee hounded me to handle another institutional matter in the USA. When it involves money Eunkoo never forgets.

* 2:00 pm, Meeting with a North Korean refugee who has joined FSI as a speaker. She was blown away by this first mentoring session, she said it taught her how to look at her speech in a new way.

* 3:00 pm, An Inspector from the Seoul City Government visited the office to inspect FSI. Accepting government money also means getting inspected by government authorities. Support FSI so we can remain an independent organization.

* 5:00 pm, Meeting with a North Korean refugee who is joining us after 8 years of knowing us. I met him in 2014 when he was still a high school student. At last, he is joining us!

* 5:50 pm, Eunkoo followed up about payments and collections. If you owe FSI money, just send it. Eunkoo will find you eventually. And she sends out FSI's payments on time and often ahead of time.

* 6:00 pm, I viewed and approved the sketch video from Mr. Hwang's trip to Imjingak.

* 6:15 pm, Meeting with a South Korean who is a best-selling author and made it clear he is a big fan of FSI.

Let's not shake hands (Korea Times, July 2, 2014) by Casey Lartigue, Jr.

Let's not shake hands By Casey Lartigue, Jr. While there are many things that I love about Korea, there are two things that drive me crazy. One is that, in my observation, most Korean men don't wash their hands after using the bathroom. I know some people get defensive about non-Koreans commenting in a negative way about Korean culture and life, that they want to attack the messenger and the messenger's native country. So I will start by clearly stating that many men in America don't wash their hands either. According to the Website Stop Handshaking , while 92 percent of adults in America say they wash their hands in public restrooms, an observational study of 6,076 adults sponsored by the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) found that only 66 percent of men actually washed their hands in public restrooms (88 percent of women did so). As an aside, I am curious how they "observed" that many peopl...

Radio, Harvard

I'll be a guest on XM 169 The Power this morning from 10:15 a.m. EST. I'll be talking about teaching English abroad. I'll be interviewed by Brian Higgins of MYB Talk . I sang last night for about five hours with friends but I'm sure my voice will be fine. Tuesday, I'll be interviewed by a Harvard University representative who wants my input on a new doctoral program for education leaders . It is a collaboration between the Harvard Graduate School of Education, the Harvard Business School and the Harvard Kennedy School. Some folks at the Booker Rising site are (again) reminding me that I'm not as smart as I think I am. CJL

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

Mentoring while Black (Korea Times 2/16/2023)

Mentoring while Black by Casey Lartigue Jr. February 16, 2023 www.patreon.com/caseylartigue

North Korean defector seeks justice (Korea Times)

It was international news when 12 North Korean waitresses and a male manager who worked at a restaurant operated by the North Korean regime in China arrived in South Korea in 2016. The waitresses have mostly maintained a low profile. There have been numerous accusations and assertions, with some saying the waitresses didn't want to escape, some accused the Park Geun-hye administration of playing politics by releasing details of the case, etc., etc., etc. My blog at the Korea Times today features an exclusive interview with one of the former North Korean waitresses who filed a criminal case against the former manager. You can read about it here on the Korea Times website. https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/opinion/2023/02/728_345165.html Keep in mind that there are many more facts to the case and that it is much deeper than this brief excerpt of her comments. She also shared legal documents that I shared with the Korea Times well in advance to give them time to review t...

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