2023 in Review: My Ten Best Pieces
From covering the story of a missing Korean War veteran to pizza in Japan, here are my writing highlights of the year and a thank you to readers of Foreign Perspectives.
2023 was by far my most productive year when it came to writing.
As we reach the end of what was yet another turbulent twelve months for this spinning globe of ours, I would like to take the time to reflect upon what I was able to achieve with my words.
This year was the maiden voyage of Foreign Perspectives, a Substack which thanks to your support has achieved over 300 subscribers since I kickstarted my newsletter in May. For a publication that was started completely from scratch, I’m proud to have hit the ground running with a strong start.
Some of you have been generous enough to opt for a paid subscription, which I am beyond grateful for. Your patronage has been a major factor in me regularly updating Foreign Perspectives with in-depth articles that get deep into the woods of esoteric topics. My paid subscribers have allowed me to keep the lights on, as well as afford access to non-free research materials which go toward writing better pieces.
Going into 2024, I hope to see the continued growth of this Substack and with your help in spreading the word, I’m confident it will happen. Whether you are a free or paid subscriber, allow me to extend my utmost gratitude and appreciation as we close off the year. Foreign Perspectives would not exist without you.
For my final Substack article of 2023, I will be reposting links to ten of my favorite pieces I wrote this year both here and elsewhere with some retrospective thoughts.
Thank you so much for your support, and I hope to continue this journey into foreign territory with you all for many more years to come!
Kenneth Rowe, North Korean pilot who defected in Soviet plane, dies at 90
My first piece of 2023 was an obituary published at NK News for Kenneth Rowe, a North Korean pilot who defected to the West in the chaotic aftermath of the Korean War.
Born as No Kum-sok on Jan. 10, 1932 on the Korean Peninsula when it was part of the Japanese Empire, Rowe lived an incredible life that was symbolic of how much desire for freedom can lead people to escape from the worst situations. Finding himself in North Korea after the post-WWII division of the peninsula, he dreamed of leaving Kim Il Sung’s totalitarian communist dictatorship and eventually found his way to the United States.
Kenneth Rowe passed away at the end of 2022, but it wasn’t reported on until early January 2023. With my late father having lived through the Chinese Cultural Revolution, I related to Rowe’s story a lot and always found his life to be profoundly inspiring.
Read it here.
Shinzo Abe’s posthumous memoir sheds light on North Korea diplomacy and Trump
Shinzo Abe’s assassination in the summer of 2022 shocked the world, but the debate over his legacy both at home and abroad continues to rage on.
A posthumous memoir containing the former Japanese prime minister’s thoughts on subjects ranging from North Korea to Donald Trump was released early this year in Japan. There are some revealing insights that prove to be fascinating regardless if you agreed with Abe’s political views or not.
My Japanese language skills came in handy when I wrote a full analysis of the book for NK News in February. It remains unclear if a full English translation will come out, but until then I hope my article proves useful.
Read it here.
Ally to enemy: A Venezuelan poet’s brutal 7-year ordeal in North Korean prison
One of my aims with NK News pieces is to bring more attention to obscure aspects and individuals related to North Korea. That’s why I was glad that I had the opportunity to write about Ali Lameda, a Venezuelan poet who found himself a prisoner of the Kim regime in the 1970s.
Previously a dedicated communist who voluntarily moved to the DPRK to translate propaganda, Lameda ended up experiencing the worst of North Korea’s concentration camp system for seven years. Despite his horrific ordeal, most have forgotten about Lameda’s story and no article before mine existed which documented his life in great detail.
What happened to Ali Lameda illustrates how quickly authoritarian regimes can turn against even their most loyal supporters.
Read it here.
A Georgia town lays a Korean War veteran to rest, over 70 years after his death
Despite the enormous human cost of the Korean War and the geopolitical implications it still has, most Americans today know very little about it. The conflict is often dubbed "The Forgotten War,” but even more sadly lost to time are the hundreds of American soldiers whose remains were never recovered.
The family of Luther Herschel Story, however, finally received closure decades later in 2023 after the U.S. government successfully identified his remains and laid him to rest in Americus, Georgia. Story was killed in action on Sept. 1, 1950 while saving the lives of his fellow soldiers against approaching North Korean forces, which he later received a posthumous Medal of Honor for.
I was able to track down Story’s niece and closest surviving relative Judy Wade, who was kind enough to provide me with important insights for this NK News feature.
Read it here.
Revisiting "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles"
My time as social media editor for NK News came to a close in mid-2023 (though I remain a freelance article contributor), which is around the time I decided to officially launch Foreign Perspectives. I uploaded a few pieces in May, but my article on The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles published the following month was my first long-form Substack feature and provided the template for later deep-dives.
It’s no secret that I strongly disliked Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (which you can also read my full thoughts on here), but that disappointment largely stemmed from the fact The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles television series showed how much better further adventures around the character could be. Yet despite being a labor of love from George Lucas and a beautifully-made expansive story that fleshed out the origins of Indiana Jones, Chronicles is seldom discussed today.
I extensively researched the premise, history, lore, and extended media around this criminally overlooked series in an attempt to give it the recognition it deserves. If I convinced even one person to check out The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, this piece will have achieved its purpose.
Read it here.
No, "Metal Gear Solid" Doesn't Need a Content Warning
One of my greatest passions is appreciating and understanding art, especially when it comes to important works from the past. Many still debate whether or not video games count as art, but regardless of what side you fall on, there is little doubt that they are now media just as culturally important as films and novels.
Hideo Kojima’s Metal Gear series finally returned in 2023 via a new collection that brought the original trilogy of Solid games to modern platforms, but with a jarring developer-imposed message warning of “outdated expressions and themes.”
My opinion piece published on this Substack argued for why such content advisories are completely unnecessary for Metal Gear and ironically go against the core ideas of the games. It ended up being one of my most-viewed articles on Foreign Perspectives, and I intend to write more op-eds on similar topics in 2024.
Read it here.
The Search for 9/11 Lost Media
If there was one topic that fascinated me which bordered on obsession this year, it was the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. I spent most of the summer reading as many books and watching as many documentaries on 9/11 as I could in order to better understand what is still probably the most monumental event of the 21st century.
But where did the interest come from? From my other obsession: lost media. Despite often being called the most photographed event in American history, there is no footage of what went on inside the towers above the impact sites, while some of the more gruesome photos and videos taken on that day remain locked away in government vaults.
While smartphones and social media allow us to see events like the war in Ukraine in real time, their absence in 2001 meant that much of what happened during 9/11 remains up to the imagination. My Substack article dove into what lost media possibly exists and the ethical questions around releasing it to the public. One of my best works from this year.
Read it here.
Turning pizza Japanese
One of my proudest achievements of 2023 was landing a regular freelance gig with The Spectator, the world’s oldest magazine still in publication. My friend Ross Anderson (who also runs a Substack that I highly recommend) became Life Editor at the world edition of the publication, and I’m now in a position where most of what I pitch gets accepted thanks to him.
In one of my first pieces, I wrote a feature on the history of pizza in Japan. Most don’t associate the dish with the Land of the Rising Sun, but my piece argued for a second look at some of the unique offerings available here. It also was published in the October 2023 print edition of The Spectator World, meaning that the work of yours truly is now being read from newsstands and fine bookstores everywhere. I’ll be taking my Pulitzer now.
Read it here.
When Theodore Roosevelt Almost Died in the Jungles of Brazil
At over 8,000 words, my piece on Theodore Roosevelt’s post-presidential trip to the jungles of Brazil which nearly killed him was easily the longest and most-researched thing I did this year. That unfortunately did not translate into very high views compared to my shorter pieces, but I remain proud of it nonetheless.
While the U.S. has never had a president like T.R. in the century since his death, I think his time spent outside of the White House is endlessly more fascinating. We’re talking about a man who did everything from leading the Rough Riders on the battlefields of Cuba against the Spanish Army to going on a lavish African safari where he catalogued hundreds of flora and fauna.
Yet Roosevelt’s voyage to the Amazon jungle in 1913-14 to chart an unknown river is often regulated to just a footnote, and most Americans have no idea how close he came to death. The other half of this incredible story revolves around Colonel Cândido Rondon, a figure pivotal to Brazilian history who I wanted to bring more attention to.
While many associate me with articles related to Japan and North Korea, Foreign Perspectives is intended to take readers on a trip across the world through covering a wide variety of topics. This lengthy piece on Theodore Roosevelt is probably the best representation of that goal, and I hope you’ll give it a look. Grab a snack for the ride.
Read it here.
The Americans who defected to North Korea
There are plenty more pieces I would have liked to include in this retrospective, but since ten is a nice round number, I’ll leave you with my latest article for The Spectator which was published online this month and will be in the January 2024 print issue (again, where’s that Pulitzer!?).
While North Korea took a backseat in global headlines this year compared to events unfolding in Ukraine and Gaza, one of the top stories related to the hermit kingdom was the curious case of U.S. Army soldier Travis King and his unexpected defection across the DMZ.
Those less familiar with North Korean history were baffled at King’s hair-brained decision to flee into the most totalitarian country on earth, but he was actually far from the first to do so. While the 23-year-old was later deported to the U.S. with relative speed, previous American soldiers who defected to the DPRK ended up spending years and sometimes even decades as propaganda tools of the Kim regime.
I ended up writing this piece for The Spectator because my friend James Fretwell already covered this subject before I did at NK News, but either way I’m glad that more will learn of these forgotten Cold War tales.
Read it here.
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