Chang Chun Choi, 75, shows off his website. Choi taught himself to build websites six years ago and has posted online video letters to North Korea for divided families. (Sang-jin Kim, Reporter, Joongang Daily)

Six years ago, Chang Chun Choi set up his own website (kwebtv.net) for Korean-American divided families and posted a list of names and videos Americans in Los Angeles searching for family members in the Kyonggi Province of North Korea. Mr Choi, who was born in North Korea, had hoped to provide a small measure of comfort to grieving family members who longed for reunions.

"After the war, our family left behind my aunt in Kaesong. If she were alive today, she'd be over 90 years old... We are living in the Internet age. I had no other option but to turn to the internet. My hope in publishing these lists of divided family members on the web was so that North Korean leaders would know that we existed. Perhaps they would help us find our relatives."

But Mr Choi found that gathering a list of divided family members would not be as easy as he expected. Under the Bush administration, relations between the US and North Korea worsened. This led many families in America to fear that their attempts to find relatives in North Korea would lead to their North Korean families being disadvantaged or persecuted if North Korean authorities knew of their ties to the US.

Mr. Choi began uploading names one or two at a time on his website. After six years, he has collected over 300 names of Americans in the Los Angeles area. Among them are Mr. Moo-ho Lee (76 years old, South Pyongan Province), Mr. Man-hwa Lim (75 years old, North Pyongan Province), Ms. Soon Ae Lee (71 years old, Kyonggi Province), Mr. Won-hoe Koo (77 years old, Kyonggi Province), Ms Soon-ok Huh (83 years old, from North Pyongan Province). These five people have also uploaded video letters online. (They can be viewed here: http://www.kwebtv.net/Eugenebell/saemsori.htm)

Mr Choi explained why he thought video letters were so effective. "One person telling his own story in his own words" he said, "is much more emotionally moving than a list of 100 names."

Earlier this year, Mr. Choi heard of the Saemsori Project to be headed by the Eugene Bell Foundation, a humanitarian aid organization that has worked in North Korea for the past decade. He was delighted to hear that there would be a new group dedicated to helping American citizens reunite with their families in North Korea and sent them an email. He received a response welcoming his help in gathering the stories of divided families.

Through Mr. Choi's help, Fox News and PBS (KCET) were able to interview several of the senior citizens featured on his website. Both TV stations broadcasted prime-time features on the Saemsori project, which told the story of the pain of Korean-American divided families to the mainstream American public.

In his previous professional life, Mr. Choi was also a journalist. During the Korean War, Mr. Choi fled south and served as a captain in the South Korean army's engineer corp. After the war, Mr Choi worked for seven years as a photojournalist in the UN command headquarters. Before he fled south, Mr Choi was a war correspondent embedded in the front lines of the war. He came to the US in 1976 with his family. In 1984 he set up KBC-TV in San Francisco, and broadcasted a daily show for the Korean-American community.

Currently, Mr Choi works as an apartment manager of a 5-unit building; he is also a licensed hypnotist and president of the LA-area Kyonggi Province Association.

Mr. Choi maintains over 10 websites, including that for the local association of Korean-Americans from North Korea. He is a familiar sight in Koreatown, often lugging a heavy broadcast video camera to capture local events and people to upload onto his website.

"I'm not young anymore, and this is very tiring work. But divided family members in their 70s and 80s don't have any more time left. This is our last chance for family reunions. The Saemsori effort is now my effort, and I will do all that I can as a volunteer for divided families."


Sae-hee Roh, Reporter, Joongang Daily

May 04, 2006 (Translated from Korean. Original article available below)
http://www.joongangusa.com/asp/article.asp?sv=la&src=metr&cont=metr50&typ=1&aid=20060503190108200250