Name:   MrHodja - Subject:   Mr H Date:   5/31/2019 9:50:20 AM

On the surface and in a vacuum one might wonder whether certain statements or reactions are the best course of action.  But I lived among vastly different cultures, spending two years in Turkey and two and a half in Korea, as well as spending a lot of time in Italy.  I have been inside the room in Panmunjom where the accords were signed and actually stepped into North Korean territory inside that room, face to face with an armed North Korean guard on the other side of the window.  I and my family spent many hours with the Korean people, learning them and their culture.  We adopted our daughter in Seoul, in the process learning even more about the perople.  We learned among other things that Koreans are very much leader oriented.  We once attended the Yoido Full Gospel church, the largest in the world at the time, and found that none of the Koreans referred to it by its name.  Rather it is "Doctor Cho's Church". 

OK, so you might utter "BFD" but the reason I bring it all up is that it might be easy to condemn our president for dealing with Kim using kid gloves, but my knowledge of their culture and the choices he faces make me believe there is a method to his, as you might say, madness.  I withhold condemnation for his methods as long as the little dictator doesn't start throwing nukes around.  Am I dismayed that Kim apparently executed those he held responsible for the summit failure.  But it allowed him to save face (in his eyes) by getting rid of the reasons for failure, and that is paramount in their culture.  We have learned over the years that differences between cultures do not result in one being right and the other wrong, but rather they are just that, different.  It is reality and that reality is what our Prisident is dealing with.