Author: Daniel Youngwon

An art director, designer, educator, musician, and sad Knicks fan. He occasionally likes to travel and take photos.

A Family’s History

I was told this. My grandfather was born when the shadow of colonial occupation still cast upon the peninsula. He came from somewhat respectable stock, one that afforded him the means to pursue education. Education gave him the ambition to leave his home for Seoul, where he would find an opportunity in the logistics business. That ambition […]

Market Forces

If you look carefully enough in the alleyways of North Korean cities, you’ll find individual vendors and even, perhaps, the bigger jangmadangs (black markets). It is here where people exchange a variety of goods, from rice and roasted sweet potatoes to cosmetics and South Korean movies to heating fuel. This is not something the regime will admit openly, […]

American Movies

A tap on my shoulder woke me up. I rubbed my eyes and looked out the window, only to find the same monotonous stretch of mountains that had first lulled me to sleep. We were still on the potholed-ridden roads of the Pyongyang-Wonsan highway. “Why’d you wake me up?” I said to Park, the young North […]