North Korea News Podcast by NK News - Gabe Segoine: How ‘surfing diplomacy’ made waves in North Korea

Episode Date: December 18, 2025

Gabe Segoine, the founder of the first surfing program in North Korea and the Christian nongovernmental organization Love North Korea Ministries, joins the podcast to discuss his experience searching for waves off the isolated country’s coast and providing humanitarian aid for its people. He recalls his experience at the Chinese airport en route to North […]

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We have a first-time guest on the show, and that is Gabe Sagoin, founder of Love North Korea Ministries, or LNKM, and author of the 2018 book Surfing North Korea and Other Stories from Inside. Over nearly two decades, Gabe made repeated visits to the DPRK, to run small humanitarian projects, cultural exchanges, and even a surfing program, as the book suggests. Gabe, welcome on the show. Thank you for having me. Gabe, you've been to North Korea 19 times in total and even brought your daughters once. Most people never even go at all.

So what made you think, I can actually build relationships in this system? And what did you see on trip one that convinced you to return 18 more times? My first trip was in 2007. That was for humanitarian aid work through a Korean NGO. I was going at that point with Haywe-Dongpo, which is the overseas Korean compatriot department, so you have to go through a Korean to do that. That was kind of the door that I had to go inside. So I was able to see the country get an idea and a feel for what their needs were,

and that kind of led to the next steps of humanitarian aid. So it was really seeing the need and wanting to go back and be able to us. fill some of those needs in the country. And ultimately starting your own organization? Correct. Well, I did start my own organization in South Korea. It was not registered early. We ended up registering it later, but that was in order to be able to handle contributions and whatnot and give tax receipts and all that kind of stuff. Now, is there surfing in North Korea? There is now. There was not surfing prior to 2014. The first trip, actually where there was a focus on serving was 2012, but we were not able to catch waves on that trip, unfortunately. The first time that I know of, then anybody

went with the intent of surfing and catching waves was in 2014. And you brought in your own surfboards? We did bring in surfboards, yes. Did that get some funny looks at the Cordial air check encounter at Beijing? We did have some problems at the airport in Beijing. However, it was more of the Chinese. They didn't know what the wax was. So they had assumed it was some sort of explosive, like a plastic explosive. We literally had to get the wax out and take a lighter and melt it to prove that it was wax. Wow. Okay. That was for the Chinese, you say, the Chinese customs authorities. The Chinese customs authorities. And when was your last trip to North Korea? My last trip to North Korea was in 2017 August. I led the last big surfing tour there

and the largest group of Americans prior to the travel ban coming down from the Trump administration, the first Trump administration. And is that why you haven't been back since then because of the Trump administration's travel ban? That was the first reason for not going back. However, I was able to get the U.S. special validation passport. So I do have approval from the U.S. to go back. The problem has been since COVID and the North Korean shutdown that they haven't been really inviting people back in to the extent that they were prior to COVID. Okay. All right. So let's get into a bit more detail there. So you founded LNKM, loved North Korean ministries, and framed it around humanitarian engagement rather than advocacy. What was your core hypothesis? What did you think

ordinary kindness could accomplish in a highly controlled state like North Korea? Well, advocacy is important. However, you can't really mix the two humanitarian aid in advocacy. I wanted to be able to go into North Korea and engage with the people. So humanitarian aid was the avenue that seemed most logical to do that. We wanted to go in and be able to engage with average North Korean people. And as an American, I wanted to be able to attempt, at least, to show a different face of Americans that may be what they had heard of. When you first presented your proposals to North Korean counterparts, what did they tell you was acceptable and possible and what was clearly off limits. I went in with the first

intention to do green energy and I thought that like solar panels and like solar panels and whatnot maybe not wind farms more in the line of solar. I was interested in that and that was a way in because it somewhat matches with their Juche's self-reliance ideology. So I thought that was a good way to approach them. I didn't end up doing much in the way of solar project. but that was the avenue in. When I approached them with other projects, it's very much asking them what they need and responding to that,

not necessarily going into North Korea and saying, hey, I'd like to do this or that, but more, what are the needs, how can we be of assistance? So looking back, which of your early hopes were realized and which were perhaps a little bit idealistic? Definitely the solar was idealistic. It was something that I thought was going to be

a lot easier to do than it turned out to be. And it turns out low tech is more appropriate for North Korea in many instances, especially in the countryside. We ended up doing hand crank lanterns instead of solar because that was a much more appropriate kind of technology to take into the country. So that was something that we were able to do. We ended up sending in through various different organizations over 10,000 lamps into North Korea. That was something that we were able to accomplish that I was very happy with. Since then, there's been an explosion. in solar panel usage in North Korea on a small, you know, sort of a house-to-house scale, has that happened more organically rather than through development aid or overseas aid?

I don't think it happened through development aid, if anything, it happened through Chinese business where they were bringing in those kinds of products into the country and making them affordable and not for the average North Koreans or maybe people who are a little above average on the income level to be able to afford that kind of technology. It sounds like a sort of a supply and demand, almost an organic sort of a form of grassroots capitalism that brought in solar panels to North Korea. Well, we have to understand that during the famine of the 90s, the marketplace really started to become a thing in North Korea, and that grew and grew and grew to the point where people

that were in the marketplace were able to make money and then able to afford that kind of technology. Okay, let's talk about surfing in a militarized country. So in 20, wait, it was the 2012 was the first trip that was focusing on surfing, but you couldn't catch any waves. So the first real surf camp was 2014, is that right? That's right. Okay, and that was the first U.S., sorry, the first DPRK surf camp on the east coast of North Korea, together with a group called Surf the Nations.

Serving the Nations. Surfing the nation, bigger pardon. And the Korea's own Korea International Tourism Company, or KITC, which runs, well, oversees all the tourism efforts in the North Korea. How did you persuade a security first state to let foreigners and North Koreans share a beach and a sport? Very much the prior sports events that took place in North Korea, particularly basketball, starting with, I believe it was in 2012, a gentleman that was here in South Korea took a team into North Korea, Luke Eli, was his name. That opened the door for the Harlem Globetrotters the following year, and that was the trip that, as we all know, His name is escaping me.

Dennis Rodman. I don't know how that could escape me, but Dennis Rodman was on that trip, and that opened the door for him to go the following year. And, of course, that event was kind of a political disaster for him, unfortunately. But those events opened the door for us to be able to approach with surfing because they had been open to other sports. So I think I have to give credit to the Harlem Globetrotters, Luke Eli, and even the final trip that Rodman had made with the basketball team,

because that did very much help us to be able to open that door. Now, much of the DPRK coastline is restricted or off limits, not only to foreigners, but also to civilians, because of military activity and presence. What were the red lines that the North Koreans enforced during your surf trips there? Well, there are very few beaches where foreigners are actually able to go. So when you're driving along the coast,

you might see a beach where there's waves, which we did in 2012, and we were asking them to stop. And they said, no, we cannot stop. There's a barbed wire fence there that's a military-controlled beach. So they take you to the very limited, selected beaches where foreigners are able to go, and then there's a space between two posts maybe along the beach where you can surf in those areas. And that's it. Outside of those zones, we're just simply not allowed to go.

Do you remember the names of those beaches that you're allowed to go to? Shijong Beach is one, and that's about halfway between Wansan and Gunggang Mountain. There's also Wansan Bay has a foreigners beach as well. Also near the new Kalman Resort? Actually, no, it's more inside Wansan, inside the actual main part of the city. Now, there might be something in the new resort area that is new that I was not able to see as that's a new development. And then in nearby Humhung, there are two beaches that they allowed us to go to. One was a hotel that's more of a low-end, hostile kind of a hotel, and one is a very high-end,

a five-star kind of hotel that is very much reserved for the elite of the country. Now, when you're paddling out, were there restrictions on how far you could go out? None that were actually given to us. obviously you don't want to be lost at sea in North Korea, so I think a little bit of common sense would have to be used as far as stay where the waves are and stay where the North Korean authorities can see you. Otherwise, you don't want to have a situation

where a foreigner is presumed lost at sea. No. I'm just wondering, was there any concern, did you experience any concern from your North Korean partners that if you go out too far, you might see something outside the polls that you're not supposed to see? Not as far as paddling out into the water. That was more the restrictions to at the end of the beach, where we wouldn't want to go past a certain zone, which did take place in 2012, where a couple of our photographers walked down past the end of the sand and ended up in a military-controlled cave and were asked to then delete their photos. Now, what concretely did the North Korean hosts tell you they wanted to get from surfing?

Was it tourism revenue, good publicity, or a controlled people-to-people encounter? Well, we build it with the idea that they could increase their tourism revenue. That was the kind of carrot that we used, and that was the major driver behind it for KITC. And I think that worked to some extent, not only with us, but other people had gone into North Korea and as surfers gone with KITC, and we trained the North Korea KITC tour guides to be able to be surf tour guides. So that was the real reason behind they're accepting it. So certainly I think the revenue side would be the most important driver for that, for them. And did the North Koreans that you took on the surf camps that they take to it? Oh, they loved it. They're really natural surfers.

I think Koreans are just naturally athletic for the most part. So they took to it very quickly. Very few people had a hard time and couldn't stand up. I think there was one time the bus driver, he was an elderly gentleman, we put him on a buggy board, and he had a great time. He couldn't stand up on the surfboards, but we pushed him on the boogie board and a huge smile on his face. So tell us about the concept of surfing diplomacy. Serving diplomacy is very much in line with the idea of ping pong diplomacy that the U.S. used with China. And the idea is to engage using sports. And it's something that goes beyond

politics. Surfing in particular is an interesting sport because it's not a team sport. It's a sport where everybody can have fun together. So it's not us competing against them, say, as the basketball teams or soccer or any other team sports. So it very much levels the playing field to where it doesn't quite matter who you are, the waves don't care. You might be a high-level official from Pyongyang and you're serving next to a kid whose mom works at the hotel and you're both standing up riding the waves together and

they're high-fiving each other, and that wouldn't never happen on the shore. So it's not just about us engaging with them, but even allowing the walls between the people of North Korea to be broken down. Now, when all those walls are broken down between us and them, then we're able to have a kind of conversation and a relationship that maybe you couldn't have otherwise. Now, I'm not an expert on the history of ping pong diplomacy between the U.S. and China, but my recollection is that the ping pong diplomacy was not divorced from the political diplomacy, The two were happening at the same time and in tandem with each other.

Now, if you only have the sports diplomacy, but without the state-to-state relations, I don't know, does that limit how far the sports diplomacy can go? Absolutely, and without the political side, there is a limitation. Our intent was to show what was possible. Okay. So our hope was that the political side would take note and then maybe think about engaging further with sports diplomacy. Now, when you wrote your book, Surfing North Korea in 2018, What were you hoping that running surf camps could grow into or achieve?

Well, when I wrote the book, it was actually after the travel ban had come down from the Trump administration. So I was cut off from doing North Korea work as far as directly. I had indirect work still going on. I thought that was a good time maybe to write a book about my experiences in North Korea with the hope that it would get attention from the political realm. and maybe they would think more about that possibility. Did you get any outreach from the U.S. government at the time or later on? Never did get any outreach from the U.S. government.

I don't know if they know the book exists. I know I sent it to people, and whether they received it and read it, I have no idea. Did you send it to Steve Began? No, I actually sent it to Mike Pence. Ah, Mike Penn, okay. But no word back. No word back. Do you believe that surfing is still happening among your partners in North Korea, the people you took out there?

I have no way of knowing how to answer that question. I would hope so. I think that they enjoyed it enough that at least post-COVID when tourism began running, they're doing tours now, that tourists that would come in that would have been interested in that, they would still have the capacity to run those and still have the people. I believe there are still people in KATC who can surf and who would want to go out again. Yeah, there may be Russian groups doing North Korean surfing now. There could be. I kind of pay attention to what's going on at least on YouTube when folks post videos about their experiences in North Korea. I haven't seen anything as far as surfing goes since they restarted their tourism. Now, in your book, you also write about drilling clean water wells in the DPRK. Now, why did you prioritize that and how did you select the locations that you went to? I prioritize that because clean water is a need in North Korea. It's the basis for all good health. in my opinion, if you don't have clean water, then all of the health issues are going to be multiplied. So when you address that, you're helping the whole stream of health from the ground

up, basically. So that was the idea is to help to address some of the clean water needs that would then help address the health needs. How we went about approaching where to drill wells, It was at first based on my partnerships with other humanitarian aid organizations and offering them assistance in doing that. And then that kind of morphed into working with the North Korean government and asking them, where do you want us to go and we will go and drill the wells for you? Now, over the last 25 years, I've heard of, and in some cases met many international development aid and humanitarian organizations and NGOs that have carried out water. and sanitation and hygiene or wash projects in North Korea. Now, a critical person might say that the North Korean government could, in fact, drill those wells itself if it made them a priority, but it lets foreigners do it and spend their money and energy so that Pyongyang can

focus on other things, like potentially missiles or providing a good lifestyle to Kim Jong-un and his inner circle. How do you answer that? Well, that certainly was the argument from the first Trump administration, State Department. Hey, they are supposed to provide clean water for their people, so why should we allow you to go do that? My counter-argument was that the definition in North Korea of clean water is different from our definition of clean water. Their definition is an undeveloped world definition, where if it looks clean, it is clean, but it's not necessarily the case that that water is sufficiently clean. Do you think that definition also holds true in Pyongyang for the people who live there?

I would imagine, yes, though they might have better. access to cleaner water than, say, somebody out in the countryside that has to go get it from a stream or a river or a hand-dug well. So it's very much a matter of what access do you have to clean water, where we could go in and drill wells that go down in an aquifer and then test that water and show them that it was clean. Then the idea was to track the health issues in that community and see if the clean water was actually helping their overall health improve. And we were unable to really track the way we wanted to, but that was the idea. So I had to go to the UN Korea desk and make my argument in order to get the permission

from the U.S. government to restart our well drilling projects. They understood that argument and accepted it. and not too long after I visited the UN Korea desk, not only were we able to get the permission from the U.S. government to restart our work, but other organizations were also able to restart wash projects. So given all the different groups that have done wash projects over the last quarter century, do you think that that Western definition of what clean water is has started to take hold in North Korea?

That's very difficult to say. I would hope so. I would hope that the North Korean government would take it as an important. point to make sure that the water that people have is clean and that the water they're drinking isn't to cause further health problems. How confident were you about monitoring and community use after you left to make sure that the water went for the people and purposes that you'd intended? Well, the water, any well that is drilled in North Korea is going to end up being used for the North Korean people in one form or fashion or the other. So I was very confident it that the water would be used by North Grand people. How do we monitor that after we're gone?

That presented a lot of difficulties. Because you couldn't go back? Well, sometimes you can't actually reenter a village once you're done. So how are you going to go back and monitor the health of that village? Yeah. It's sometimes it's just an impossible task. Did you give any training to the locals to keep the well going? I mean, I don't know what the kind of equipment is there. Are there things that need replacement or repair after? a certain period of time? What we said was if there were issues that they could contact their local authorities and they would then contact us and we could return. So, for example, if a submersible water pump went out and they were in need of a replacement, then there was a

channel for them to get us back there to replace it. And were you ever called back to replace something? Not to my knowledge. Okay. Your book came out of that window when summits and inter-Korean projects look possible, you know, after the reposchement of the Winter Olympics of 2018, when inter-Korean engagement stalled the next year in 2019, how did you read that from your side? We were hopeful that things would restart and that the dialogue between North Korea and the United States would help. It turned out not, they didn't turn out the way we wanted, but at that point in time, we were hopeful that things would restart and we would be able to re-engage North Korea at the level that we had prior. Of course, then 2019, and COVID comes around

and changes everything. In your book, you write that the North Koreans seem to be quite charmed by your Korean-American daughters, who you brought along on, was it one trip? Yes. One trip. How did they react? My daughters are all bilingual, and they don't look Korean. They look more American than Korean, though they're half-Korean. And the fact that they looked Caucasian but spoke Korean so well was the thing that really grabbed the North Koreans. And they gave my wife a lot of credit for teaching the kids Korean. Your wife is born in South Korea? My wife is born in South Korea. She has a U.S. citizenship, so she was able to go. My youngest daughter, Hope, had her hair dyed red for a TV show that

she was on here in South Korea on KBS Kids. So she's this Caucasian-looking girl with this bright red hair who speaks Korean. And that was a really interesting thing to the North Koreans. Now, since then, from, I think it's, oh gosh, it's almost exactly two years ago now in late 23, Kim Jong-un has said that he's no longer interested in peaceful unification and is even called South Koreans, members of another race and an enemy country. Now, if that's the official line now, do you think that a family such as yours would be once again received as warmly as before if you went back? Hard to say. I would hope so. The idea of unification wasn't necessarily tied to our visiting. There was the idea that we're welcoming, especially my wife, back to the

motherland as a prodigal, so to speak. So I'm not sure that the idea of unification somewhat going away in North Korea would have much of an impact on that. Now, are we welcome back? That's a different question entirely. Well, exactly, because aid groups, whether large or small, still haven't really been invited back after the COVID closure, but on the other hand, Russian tourists and armed traders are. What does that tell you about the current DPRK hierarchy of priorities? It's definitely not on Western relations. Their priority is not to restart that and have Western tourist dollars or Western aid coming in. They seem to be very clear on the fact that they're not interested in any of that. At this point, we'll see what happens in the future.

If North Korea stays in this current, sort of more hostile to the West, leaning towards Russia posture, are you still hopeful for a future for engagement that your model has? I'm hopeful. I'm always hopeful. I think talking is better than pointing guns at each other, or shooting each other for sure. So when I hear Trump saying that he would love to talk to Kim Jong-un again, and Kim Jong-un responding that he's also open, that does give me hope, will have. have to wait and see how that ends up happening or if it ends up happening. And then obviously we

want to see more progress in the talks than what happened previously. If North Korea would have sent word to you tomorrow, would you make plans to go back with your wife and daughters on the same terms as your last visit? Yeah, I'm not sure if my wife and daughters would want to go back, but I certainly would be willing to go tomorrow. They haven't expressed their opinion either way yet. Well, generally speaking, what has come down from the North Korean government is that, Caucasian white Americans that had done work previously in North Korea aren't really welcome back at this point in time. So I'm not anticipating that I'm going to get that call tomorrow. But again, if I were to get it, I would want to go. Now, having written my book, I don't know how

the response is from the North Grand side on that. I've never actually heard from them on it. I'm quite sure they have gotten it and read it, what their opinion is of it. I have no idea and how that would impact a trip into North Korea would also be an unknown. I want to talk a bit about sanctions and access and unintended consequence. Since 2016, the United Nations and many states have tightened sanctions to constrain the leadership of North Korea. How, in practice, did those measures affect small-scale projects like yours in terms of permits or banking and shipping equipment and even bringing in surfboards? Well, the bringing in surfboards fell under sports equipment, which was a sanction item.

So officially, we couldn't give anything to the North Grants as Americans. So those were left by non-Americans from countries that were non-sanctioned. So we want to be very careful about that. As far as the sanctions regime, it really complicated work for small NGOs. especially U.S.-based NGOs, because we had to jump through all of the hoops with the U.S. State Department, the Treasury Department, and then the U.N., get all of those ducks in a row before we could even consider moving forward with our projects. So there was a serious tightening. Also, as far as Treasury Department in the U.S. and paperwork and tracking all the money spent, that was

very different than it was under the License 5 prior to all of that sanctions package. prior to that, we were able to pretty much do whatever we wanted, and nobody seemed to care. As long as we weren't doing something that was extremely illegal, obviously, there were some sanctions as far as we couldn't engage with sanctioned entities in North Korean and whatnot, which was kind of hard because when you think about it, your North Korean government, you're going to be dealing with somebody at some point who's likely under the sanctions, but as long as we weren't doing anything overly illegal, it was pretty much all accepted. Then The sanctions package came down and we had all of these hoops to jump through.

The biggest issue was transferring money. That was the biggest issue for every single NGO all the way up to the U.N. The solution ended up being pretty much hand-carrying cash for every NGO, no matter what level, whether they're a U.S.-based or a U.N., the only solution was to hand-carry cash into North Korea because even though you had all of the banking ducks in a row, the banks just simply wouldn't touch it. I've also heard that transporting items containing metal into North Korea was very difficult to the extent that some NGOs complained that they couldn't ship buckets from China into North Korea because the buckets had metal handles or ship other care packages that contain nail clippers, for example,

or tuberculosis isolation wards because the doors had metal handles and hinges. We didn't seem to have a problem getting the pipes and pumps and other items for well drilling from China into North Korea. Because that was before 2017, right? No, actually post-2017. We were able to drill wells into, well into COVID. In fact, until they ran out of supplies, the North Koreans were drilling wells. They were doing it for you.

Yeah, the team that we had. there. So it might have had something to do with the border crossing being into the Rasaun zone was a little bit less under the microscope. That's where you were doing most of the work in the Rasson special economic area. Exactly. So when you're coming from the other side into what things destined for Pianong, that might have been a different story. Do you think that some sanctions should be adjusted for humanitarian work or do carve outs create loopholes for, well, that the North Korean government can exploit? I think that carve-outs for humanitarian aid, even though they may be exploited, is a good thing because it allows humanitarians to actually go in and

do the work of helping the people of North Korea directly. I think that should always be the priority. So from your perspective, do sanctions hurt ordinary people more than the elite, or is that too simplistic? Absolutely, they hurt ordinary people. In any situation in any country, the rich people are always going to be okay. It's always the poor people who get hurt. So when you consider even the travel ban from the Trump administration banning humanitarian from going into North Korea, who are you really hurting? You're certainly not hurting the elite. You're hurting the people whom we were helping with clean water and medicine. Those are the average North Koreans. Now these people, we need to understand they didn't choose to be born in the country

they were born in, they just simply are there, and they need our assistance. And so having that take place where we were banned from traveling into North Korea to provide that assistance was a hurtful thing to me personally, because that kind of work that was so important was just simply cut off. Are there other or alternative tools or mechanisms that you could suggest that might help to convince the North Korean government to change this behavior? That's a hard question to answer. because if we look at the history of it, nothing seems to have worked. It's really tough.

Because we have a government there that sole focus is on survival. And so anything you do has to be keeping that in mind. Their question is, how does it benefit us? How does it keep our country stable and or improving our country? So any type of method you're going to use

to engage North Korea, it has to keep that in mind. When we approach it with the denuclearization issue saying you have to denuclearize first, obviously that's going to be a non-starter for them from their side. They've said as much repeatedly. So how do we engage with the country that that's their position? It takes creative ideas and minds. That's where we wanted to use the sports diplomacy to really open up a door of something different. And our hope was that the human-to-human engagement would impact the political realm, of course. Again, we didn't really see that happen. Now, I want to talk a bit about faith and North Korea. Now, your organization is openly Christian. What did being Christian look like inside North Korea for you? Was it purely

humanitarian service, or did you hope for quiet witness? Well, we have to understand that North Korea isn't a country that has freedom of religion as we understand it in South Korea or the United States or any Western country that has that value. They say they have freedom of religion in so much as you have the freedom to believe whatever you want, you just can't really talk about it. My response when that was explained to me was always that's not really freedom of religion, is it? To which they didn't really have an answer. Now, we were able to go into North Korea as Christians freely. I always framed it as we have a different ideology than they have. They like the term ideology, so we frame things in terms

that they can accept. So being a Christian, I have a different ideology. As long as I respect them as people and respect the fact that they have a different ideology, they're fine. Now, can we openly spread our Christian faith in North Korea? No, we have no freedom to do that whatsoever. We were able to bring Bibles into North Korea as long as we brought them back out. So they were for your personal use. For personal use, if we were to have left a Bible, as we've seen in the past, we're a person. and had tried to leave a Bible and was detained in North Korea. Even to the extent where we would, at the customs going out of North Korea,

they would actually check the pages of the Bible to make sure nothing was ripped out. So it was a very controlled. It's a painstaking search. Yeah. I mean, they would rifle through them. They wouldn't, not detailed, but kind of rifled through it and making sure that none of the pages were ripped out. Not every single time, but I have had it happen to me. So it's a very strictly controlled country in terms of freedom of religion, how we understand it.

And so you have to kind of be creative on how you are able to engage with North Koreans. The thing that I found to work the best is to open up a dialogue between a North Korean, usually typically a tour guide, and ask them what they believe. And they're more than happy to share about their ideology. But what that does is it creates a two-way street where they're more than like, more likely than not, going to respond by what do you believe? Now, understanding that the North Grand Tour guys are trained to deal with Westerners and they understand what our Christian beliefs are and how to respond, still we can have the conversation. But it's very much them opening the question and

not us asking them. And not only are they trained, but also they get weekly reinforcement sessions to the Saturday study and self-criticism sessions. I've not been a part of those, but that's what I understand. Now you write in your book about Korea's Christian heritage and history. So where, in your view, does today's North Korea fit into God's plan when religious freedom has been suppressed for 80 years? Well, that's a hard question to answer because we don't know the extent to which Christianity still exists in North Korea. We hear rumors of underground Christianity in North Korea, and I would imagine that it's a very difficult thing to practice in a country that has the strict limits on religious freedom as they do.

I had a guest on a couple of times, Eric Foley from Voice of the Martyrs Korea, talk about exactly that. They do have their propaganda churches in Pyongyang, which I've been to. They have a version of the North Korean Bible, which was commissioned by Kim Il-sung at the request of Korean overseas pastors who had been visiting the country and visited the church that, Chilgo Church that Kim Il-sung had built in honor of his mother. There was no Bible, and as the story I heard goes from one of the pastors, they wrote Kim Il-sung a letter and said, if this is a church, you need a Bible, and he commissioned that version of the Bible that you can find in those

churches in Pyongyang. But it's beyond that, there's really not much of a way that we can confirm any sort of Christianity outside of those churches in North Korea. Did you ever feel that you and your group was being tolerated by the North Korean government because faith-based groups tend to be predictable and apolitical? What I found is that the North Koreans appreciated the faith-based groups because we always come back. A lot of the secular NGOs, humanitarian organizations that left the country never came back because of the difficulties of operating there. But faith-based organizations were the ones that continually entered the country, continually did the projects to benefit the people. So the response we got from the North Koreans was that they

very much appreciated us because we always come back. And so there was a little bit of a difference there in their mind between the secular organizations and the faith-based organizations that it actually made a difference. Now, some critics would say that the kind of engagement that you and other groups carry out is well-intentioned but structurally helpful to the North Korean system, to the government. What's the strongest version of that critique and which part do you accept? Do we care about people? That's the base question. Do we care about people who are suffering? Are we going to say that because the North Korean government has a system that we disagree with, that the people aren't important? That would be my argument. I think we need to help people.

As a Christian, I'm called to love God and love people. That's the base core value of Christianity that we're supposed to love our neighbor and who are our neighbors are the North Koreans not our neighbors? And so as a Christian, I feel that that's the motivation to go into a country that has a government that has an ideology

I disagree with, but with the idea of helping the people in practical ways, just to show them God's love. Are there safeguards that can be put in place to avoid becoming a photo op or having humanitarian aid used for PR purposes in North Korean state media? North Korea is going to do what North Korea does.

We understand that when we go in. There are certain things that there are boxes that are drawn around you, and you need to operate within those boxes in order to be able to operate in the country. Religious ideas can't be, we can't promote those. That's one box. It's very clear. We can't go off on our own, typically, in North Korea. you're very much controlled as far as your itinerary, you have minders.

So we have to stay within those constraints. And then understanding that the North Koreans, if they are going to accept our assistance and they are then going to use that as propaganda for their own people, we're still able to assist the people in a practical way. Personally, I don't care who gets the credit. I just want the people to get helped. Is there any project that you would not do again? with hindsight, it helped or legitimized the wrong people?

No. All my projects, I think, were very beneficial to directly to the North Korean people. As far as the aid projects, the rice, the medicine, the clean water, the lanterns. The cultural exchange, sports surfing, all of that, I think you can make arguments whether that was beneficial or not. Would I go surfing again in North Korea and take another team into North Korea? absolutely, because I don't want to give up on that idea. From your book, it's clear that you don't favor the idea of regime change for North Korea

from without. What's your realistic theory of change for North Korea in the future? Would it be some sort of incremental opening or elite learning and changing minds or values passing from person to person? Or maybe North Korea becoming like a version of the United Kingdom where you've got a kingdom, but there's a democracy beneath that that runs the show. Hard to say what's going to happen. I believe that dialogue and entering the country, whether it be from the United States or any international engagement with North Korea, is beneficial

for the North Koreans, especially the Pyong elite, to gain a better understanding of how the world works, how business works, how engagement with the outside world needs to be changed from their side in order to see a dramatic improvement in their country. I think you have to use carrots in order to get them to see it. And unfortunately, we haven't gotten to a point where any of those carrots have made a huge difference. It's not something that I think we should give up on, though. I believe the North Korean government and the leadership wants to be engaged with the international community. It's just a matter of how do we go about doing that and leading them in a way or not leading, but what's the word I'm trying to think of. I'm also trying to be sensitive to

how I use my words because I also want to go back to North Korea. So what I say here on this podcast might make a difference. So do you think, I mean, you mentioned carrots. Do you think only carrots with no sticks or threats of sticks? Well, it's interesting because they, when When Trump said my nuclear button is bigger than your nuclear button, they actually really respected that. So the North Korea- Yeah, they told me. They said, oh, we totally respect Trump.

They respect power. So we need to think about engaging North Korea from that position as well, that they respect power, they respect authority. That's everything to them. When you think about the way that the average North Korea thinks about their government, it's with respect to the authority, right? So that's very much in their mindset. So there can be sticks, but what kind of sticks, I guess, is the question.

Do you see signs from your 19 trips that North Koreans themselves will become the agents of some sort of future change? Not at all. Can you tell a bit more about what you actually observed? So the typical North Korean is educated by their country, cradle to grave, with their education system and their propaganda. I can use propaganda because North Koreans use it. they, you know, when they show you their propaganda, they say, do you like our propaganda? And as I discovered when I was last there, they don't have a separate word for public relations. It is all propaganda.

It's all propaganda. So the typical North Koreans educated underneath that system of propaganda. So I don't see any mechanism for the North Korean people to have any other mindset other than to hold their government in high regard. Anybody who thought differently probably already left. So I don't see the North Korean people uprising or anything like that in the future. Well, okay. Uprising is, of course, the most drastic form of being an agent for change, but there may be other revenues there. Are you thinking that maybe some sort of change in North Creek would have to happen through an act of guard?

Well, I'm not sure. I think what we observed, at least I observed it until my final trip in 2017, and I've heard from others, was that the market was live and active in North Korea. So the market economy seemed to have really taken over as far as the way people were able to purchase goods and food. The food distribution system just, it had collapsed. I don't know if they were able to restart that during COVID and make that system work again

or if it's still a market economy for the most part. But I think the markets were the thing that were the main driver of change in North Korea, Because when the Ajumah, the Korean mom, starts a business to feed her family and that business grows, and then she all of a sudden has money to do things like buy a solar panel or take her friends to Mahjigong Ski Resort for day skiing, which we observed. Oh, that's something that locals do too, is it? Yeah, there were Korean business women from Wansan who had a group of her friends and they were day skiing. How far is Mascheng from Wonson?

Not too far. I'd say within an hour. So they presumably had their own vehicles or some sort of access to it? Presumably. We didn't talk directly to these people, but this was what was explained to us by our KITC representatives. Oh yeah, they're business women from Monson. Okay, interesting. So the market economy seemed to have been the major driver for a change in North Korea. I think if we wanted to really see changes in North Korea, we'd encourage that. Looking forward, if sanctions stay tight and if borders stay mostly closed and North Korea leans harder on China and Russia than in other places. What space remains

for groups and projects like your own? That's very much up to the North Koreans, what they'll allow us to do. If they believe they are stable and things are going well for them and people don't need outside assistance, then there's not going to be much room at all. If something happens to where it causes them to reopen that door and say we have a space for you, then I think many organizations are willing to go back. It's just, it's up to them. Are you still currently in contact one way or another with your partners in North Korea? Not directly. I had one person in Beijing that I was in contact with up until they got sent home after COVID. They were trapped in Beijing for the whole duration of COVID. And after that person left, whoever their replacement was

has not contacted me. I know that some other groups of even during COVID even had webinar successfully with North Koreans based in Pyongyang, they would use a room in the foreign ministry to do a video call and things like that. So I'm just wondering, is the reason that you're not currently in contact with your partners because they're choosing on their side not to reach out? That's quite a possibility. I'm not sure because I am a Caucasian American and they might have been told don't have relations. I certainly don't have an answer to that question from their side. I know there were other groups such as the Pust Pianong University of Science and Technology that was, they were able to continue on doing training via video link. I think they've reopened the

campus now. I believe they've sent new teachers in since COVID, right? Yeah, I believe so. So it wasn't a matter of technology not working. It was very much a matter of the North Koreans cutting off the communications from their side. What would you tell a younger version of you, a humanitarian or a mission-minded person who wants to go to North Korea today. What attitude should they take? What illusion should they drop? How should they prepare? Don't be too idealistic and believe you can change the world on your own. That's, I think, my, that was one thing I had in my mind was that, well, I'm going to be part of seeing unification happen in 10 years. And it was a very idealistic positive goal, which didn't happen. So really go in with the idea that you're part of a process

with a lot of other people that are doing their best to see things improve in the country and make, build good relationships and build partnerships with other organizations and don't reinvent the wheel thinking that, oh, well, I need to do this here when somebody's already doing that same thing. Give them space, go somewhere else and do it. There's a lot of that that took place over the years of humanitarian aid from the famine up until COVID, and why reinvent the wheel? Why go do something that somebody else is doing? A partner with people, resource them, and have that network that can have a much broader impact rather than saying, oh, I have to build a name or a banner of a logo and make it all about your organization.

It's very much, we're all on the same side, and we should be working together. of the problem that I see from my perspective is that it seems to be in North Korea's interest to keep groups from exchanging information too much. So part of the reason why there are so many organizations going in there and effectively reinventing the wheel or creating overlap and redundancies in areas is because people don't know what the other groups are doing because North Korea tries to keep everyone siloized. And even within its own system, you know, you've got these various silos within the North Korean government that are not encouraged to communicate with each other and that each group has a sort of a territorial attitude towards

those foreign humanitarian aid organizations that it works with. And so there's very little information being crossed, exchange on a horizontal manner. Well, I would say that's the case inside North Korea, outside of North Korea, the international NGOs very much shared information with each other. That's not something the North Grants could control. Now, as long as they know of each other, but the smaller ones don't always know about the other ones. Pretty much, it's a really small world, humanitarian aid in North Korea. So I think the international aid community very much tried, for the most part. I'm not going to say everybody tried, but most of the people tried to engage with other

organizations to find out what they were doing and how we didn't step on each other's toes or avoid stepping on each other's toes. Now, were there other organizations that were not part of the international? group process that kind of went in and tried to build their own thing and have their stamp of approval on everything. Yeah. And those folks, God bless them, they did the best they could, but they weren't necessarily going in with the idea of, hey, let's partner, let's network, let's use the networks that are available to have a broader impact. And that just, unfortunately, was the case. I wonder, coming back to surfing North Creek, if you could

finish off with an anecdote, something at a moment that you remember that really sticks with you after all these years, something, you know, an image that you're very fond of that doesn't let you go? Well, I can tell you the story that I told in my book where we had two North Korean young 20-something gentlemen who appeared to be military and they approached the KITC folks and asked if they could try surfing. This is just on the beach, isn't it? On the beach, yeah. So they were there, but you didn't know they were going to be there?

We didn't know who they were. Right. What we did with the KITC tour guides was we trained them how to teach other people how to surf. Because we couldn't necessarily pull somebody off the beach, but if somebody approached the North Korean tour guides, they could do it. And so we had them do the training. And then we're in the water pushing these guys on surfboards and sharing. them on. So one of these young men learned to surf, and so we're pushing him, and he walks up to one of

my team members, who's from San Diego in U.S., and he spoke a little bit of English, very limited. But he went up to my friend, Anthony, and said, where are you from? Anthony responded, I'm American. Now, this young man has been told his whole life that Americans hate him, want to kill him, destroy his country. And so here's an American in the water with him at the beach sharing surfing. And so this was very shocking. So he kind of moved away and continued to surf. And I was observing him thinking about what's going on. A second time he walked up to Anthony and said, where are you from? Anthony said, I'm American. Friend. Anthony asked me, what's the Korean word for friend? So I said, chingu. So he said, American, chingu. And this young man was just, again, taking it back.

He was very shocked. So he kept surfing. We kept cheering him on. And he's just thinking. And I would imagine in his mind wondering how this is all possible. Finally, he comes back to Anthony, gives the surfboard back and says, thank you. It's nice to meet you. Now, that might be a very small thing in most people's minds, but for a North Korean military-aged young man to have that kind of engagement with an American is an unusual thing. And for him to leave it with a positive idea in his mind, I think it was a very important thing. A hopeful story and a nice way to end our interview today. Thank you very much, Gabe Sagan, for coming on the NK News podcast. Sure thing. Thank you for having me.

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that's shop.nkenews.org. Ladies and gentlemen, that brings us to the end of our podcast episode for today. Our thanks go to Brian Betts and Alana Hill for facilitating this episode and to our post-recording producer genius Gabby Magnuson who cuts out all the extraneous noises, awkward silences, bodily functions and fixes the audio levels. Thank you and listen again next time. Thank you.