qui tacet consentire videtur

Part 2/Teil zwei! (St Gallen, Switzerland)

It looks like I get to see the French-speaking side of Switzerland this time:

On behalf of Dr. Hans Blix, it is my great pleasure to thank you for participating in the Students for A Nuclear Weapons-Free World competition. The expert Panel of Judges, chaired by The Hon. Douglas Roche, was composed of people from all regions of the world. They assessed your contribution to be outstanding and to merit one of the 15 prizes. Please accept our wholehearted congratulations!

Read the rest of this entry »

Selling the American dream? (Shibuya, Tokyo)

James Zumwalt, Director of the Office of Japanese Affairs at the State Department came to Columbia to give us an update on US-Japan relations, hosted by Robert Immerman-sensei at the Weatherhead Institute. He was speaking on the record, so it wasn’t really all that exciting, but there were a few gems I took away.

Read the rest of this entry »

(Eden Center, Arlington VA - a.k.a. last remaining territory of the old South Vietnam republic) America needs more culinary diversity.

How do you define diversity? There is no logical end to diversity, since there are an infinite number of criteria by which people differ, but some definitions are more important than others in achieving some degree of proportional representation of whichever constituencies are defined. Some definitions are broadly accepted as bad or problematic definitions: ethnicity. Some definitions are difficult to employ in practice: means-tested income. Some definitions depend on the winds of fashion and political correctness: gender, sexual orientation. Some definitions are somehow very unpopular: political orientation. Some definitions are absurd in one aspect but are perfectly acceptable in another. I focus on one particular definition, which seems legitimate: diversity of worldview.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’m going to Switzerland.

On behalf of the International Students’ Committee (ISC), we would like to cordially thank you for your excellent contribution to this year’s St. Gallen Wings of Excellence Award. We are very delighted about the challenge you have undertaken when working on the topic “Global Capitalism - Local Values”. In the past few weeks the jury has thoroughly evaluated the around 1,000 entries in order to choose those 200 students who will be invited to the 38th St. Gallen Symposium.

Read the rest of this entry »

So it’s confirmed, I’m going to Tokyo, and they have posted the full text of the essay online if you care to read it. Although they liked my essay, they didn’t like it enough:

Read the rest of this entry »

My love of anime, combined with my interest in Japanese business, has finally paid off, and I might have the opportunity to visit Tokyo in January.

We would like to express our gratitude to you for submitting your essay to the JFTC Essay Competition 2007. After a strict screening of all the essays, we have selected your essay, “Gundamnomics: Transforming Corporate Japan for the Challenges of Global Capitalism” as a candidate for an award. The final result is scheduled to be announced on Friday, December 14, and the winners will be notified directly. The Awarding Ceremony and our New Year’s Reception will be held from 16:30 to 19:00 on January 9, 2008 at Hotel New Otani, Tokyo, Japan.

Read the rest of this entry »

I wish I were a gundam meister.

The new Sunrise adaptation of Gundam Wing – Gundam 00 (pronounced double-oh) – is my most awaited series each week. It isn’t just the high-definition animation quality or the giant space robots that make it so wonderful, but its presentation of current affairs and contemporary issues through the lens of science fiction. I examine Gundam 00 through the lens of international relations theory.

Read the rest of this entry »

Rüdiger Frank from the University of Vienna came to Weatherhead to talk about North Korea’s transition to a market economy. Frank was a visiting scholar at Columbia from 2002-03 and I read a few of his papers written during that time in preparation for my term paper. Charles Armstrong introduced him as the ‘last product of East Germany’s Korea Studies program’, as he was an exchange student at Kim Il Sung daehakgyo in 1991, just after the reunification of Germany - which I suppose is when the exchanges ended. He talked a bit about his life as an exchange student, apparently it was mostly “drinking a lot of johnny walker mixed with coke” and getting on the nerves of the authorities. Also, he says NK beer tastes better than Hite, but that isn’t saying much. He also had hilarious stories about life under communism in East Germany and how the waiters were really rude because their jobs were secure and how people fed pigs subsidized bread because it was cheaper than feed. He is a powerpoint genius and I wish he was still teaching at Columbia!

Read the rest of this entry »

Is 978-2-940401-00-0. Which means I now have a Chicago-style journal citation in addition to a newspaper citation to my name.

Read the rest of this entry »

I attended Ambassador Kim Hyun-Chong’s (ROK perm rep to the UN, previously trade minister) talk today at Weatherhead. Charles Armstrong (director of Korean studies at the institute) was hosting, and his predecessor Samuel Kim made an appearance. It wasn’t very well publicized outside of the grad student circles (I wish I had more grad school friends), so it was held in the institute 9th floor lounge, with about 20-30 people attending, mostly graduate students and external visitors. Amb. Kim is a Columbia alum (law school) and great speaker, although a little less diplomatic than I expected - he’s funny in a sardonic way and doesn’t smile that much, and he had some strong words on the topic.

Read the rest of this entry »