Anwar Ibrahim was deputy prime minister of Malaysia in the 1990s. He also served as Malaysia's minister of finance. A sharp disagreement with then-Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad led to Anwar's dismissal, prosecution--many would say outright persecution--and imprisonment.

Upon regaining his freedom, Anwar took up his current role as an opposition voice. He is currently a distinguished visiting professor at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service. Since his release he has also held lectureships at St. Anthony's College (Oxford) and the School of Advanced International Studies (Johns Hopkins). He has advised the World Bank on questions of governance and accountability. Recently he was appointed honorary president of AccountAbility, a London-based organization that advocates socially responsible business practices.

This event is co-sponsored by the Southeast Asia Forum at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center and the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies.

For many Koreans, their country's "northern regions" are locked in memory and even mystery. Families that once lived in North Korea still think of their lost hometowns with longing and nostalgia. Wherever they have ended up--in South Korea, America, Europe or elsewhere--and in succeeding generations, there remains an unceasing sense of unrequited loss.

It may seem strange, but Westerners who once lived in North Korea--as missionaries, traders, and, oddly enough, refugees--also share something of these sentiments. They think of missionary childhoods, lost stakes in business, Korean friends, and the special physical qualities of the landscape as part of their own emotional experience.

Donald Clark addressed this foreign experience in his book entitled Living Dangerously in Korea: the Western Experience, 1900-1950 (EastBridge, 2003). This lecture is based on materials in the chapters that deal with foreign life in the north, particularly P'yongyang, in the gold mines in the Unsan district, and in the Russian refugee colony on the northeast coast. It is illustrated from family albums of people who lived there in the 1930s.