Category: Personal

Having decided that I need to get a better grounding in the history of East and Central Asia’s major players, I just bought China: A New History, by John King Fairbank and Merle Goldman; A History of Japan, by R. H. P. Mason and J.G. Caiger; and Russia and the Russians: A History, by Geoffrey Hosking. My plan is to read about a given era in China and Japan, then read about it in Ki-Baik Lee’s A New History of Korea, thus getting an overall sense of East Asian history and a clearer understanding of what outside events Korean history is developing against. (The Russian history I can tackle later.)

For much of the year, the UN is out of session, so I don’t really have any speechwriting duties. I have a great deal of free time that I can spend however I want — writing a novel, say, or blogging — and I try to devote at least a portion of that time to doing research in relevant areas. Right now, for example, I’m reading Ki-baik Lee’s A New History of Korea. At other times, I’ve put some effort into learning a little Korean, read books on the UN, read through the latest issue of Foreign Affairs, read a bunch of speeches on Security Council reform.

But I do have more immediate duties. Sometimes the tasks have a political flavor, like looking up books on Afghanistan for Ambassador Chun (though these were to send to his son, who’s stationed there). Often, though, my role is just to help the Mission officers to negotiate the confusions of American life. Yesterday, for example, Young and I went through an auto insurance form for one of the officers. Or the other day, one of the officers called me into his office to ask me about breaking his lease in New Jersey and was very reassured when I told him that the worst they could possibly do to him was sue him for the two months’ rent he was getting out of — and that was an unlikely possibility, considering that he’s leaving his apartment to go to Iraq.

And then there are the diplomatic confusions, as when one of the ambassadors had to respond to a Christmas card but wasn’t sure who it was from. His secretary came into our office wielding a card with stripes of black, yellow and red across one corner; a complicated coat of arms involving a bird, a gazelle-looking thing and an African shield with a drum on it; and an inscrutable signature, followed by “DPR.” Looking at our trusty world map with all the flags on it, we worked out that the only countries with the right colors on their flags, in the right order, were Belgium and Uganda, and I couldn’t believe Belgium would have African stuff on its coat of arms (or its Christmas card), considering its unsavory history there. Then I Googled “Uganda coat of arms” and found that indeed, the card was from Uganda. Next came figuring out who the DPR (deputy permanent representative) was. This time Young worked it out, referring to our “Blue Book” of all the UN missions and their senior staffs.

So this is what I do when I’m not writing speeches.

A friend of mine recently decribed the oil-for-food scandal as feeling to him a bit like Whitewater in the early days: the sheer volume of accusations makes it feel like there must be something going on, but it’s nearly impossible to get a handle on just who is accused of what sort of wrongdoing.

Now Slate provides a helpful guide to who did what. Note the conclusion:

The program did save lives: Average daily calorie intake nearly doubled in Iraq from 1996 to 2002. And Saddam never reconstituted the nuclear weapons program that was the ostensible reason for last year’s invasion. The greatest tragedy of the oil-for-food program may be that, for all its Byzantine corruption, we never realized just how effective it was.

From the November/December 2004 issue of Foreign Affairs:

ERRATUM
“Saving Iraq From Its Oil,” an essay published in the July/August issue, included Kyrgyzstan on a list of “less-developed countries with significant oil and natural gas resources.” Kyrgyzstan does not have abundant oil or natural gas resources.

What Kyrgyzstan does have is a predominantly agricultural economy, a per capita income of $330 , and trouble with Uzbekistan.

Oh, and a smattering of Koreans. (And no, I don’t know what they mean when they say that the Republic of Korea’s embassy has provided “fiction worth $15,000.” Maybe a few very good short stories?)

Across the street from the Korean Mission, where I work, is (or rather, was) the United States Mission. I remember noticing it when I first came to work here last summer: a building clad in a complicated concrete latticework that was probably forward-thinking in the 1950s, but that looked like it had been neglected ever since. It seemed to express our attitude toward the UN itself: excited at first, then contemptuous and tight-fisted.

Now that building is being torn down, to be replaced with a new structure on the same spot. It’s been an ongoing project across the street, sometimes fascinating to watch, occasionally terrifying, as when the big flatbed trucks arrived to offload gigantic dumpsters, which came crashing onto the street and stopped rolling just inches from a parked pickup truck.

I’m very much hoping that because the site was already built, they won’t need to do any pile driving. That would suck.

Yesterday I was engaged in some of the routine business of office life: scrounging around in the well-stocked seventh-floor kitchen for spoons and stir sticks to bring up to our kitchen on the ninth floor. It’s the sort of thing that needs to happen, but that you always look sort of dumb doing.

Spoons and stir sticks in hand, I headed for the elevator, where Sara (note: some names will be changed in this blog, including this one), one of the secretaries, was also waiting. When the elevator doors slid open, there was Ambassador Kim (no name change there — he’s the top man and everyone knows it) standing in the back, looking grim as usual, with a couple of senior diplomats flanking him. Rather than stepping into the elevator, Sara just stood there, and I followed her lead. I wasn’t sure what the deal was, but I figured I should probably show whatever deference she was showing.

I haven’t felt the need to be all that deferential to most of the diplomats here. They seem to see me as something like them, or at least on the level of the lowest-ranked diplomats. They talk policy with me and respect my work — it is, after all, their words that I shape — so I’m not treated like the secretaries and administrators. (Another key difference is that I’m a man; Korean culture is still quite sexist, and there are only two female officers at the mission, whereas all the secretaries are women.) With the ambassadors — that is, with the deputy permanent representatives — I’m more deferential, but not particularly more than I would be in the office of a VP at a company, although I try to lay on what little Korean etiquette I know: give things with two hands, bow, throw out a polite-formal greeting in Korean when I think of it.

But Ambassador Kim is different. Everyone shows him a great deal of respect, and in ways that feel fundamentally different from the respect that is shown to, say, the CEO of a major American company. I’d be careful and respectful around a CEO, but I wouldn’t bow low and scurry ahead of him to open doors, as the Koreans tend to for Ambassador Kim. When I see the ambassador, I try to behave as respectfully as possible, but I simply lack the set of skills required to do the whole deference thing correctly. I think I’d find it easier to approach the Queen of England correctly.

I have yet to exchange more than a very few words with Ambassador Kim. I once entered his office to hand over a copy of a speech I had written for him — his version is printed in larger type so that it is easier to read at lectern distance — and I believe he grunted at me. But I didn’t work with him on the speech. That was all done through the intermediary of a Counsellor. (You can see the rank structure here.) I have no idea what kind of a man Ambassador Kim is, or whether he’s as dour as he looks. We’re supposed to have lunch with him soon, but it has yet to be scheduled. I’m curious, though, and hope I get a chance to learn more about him soon.