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There is something known among North Korea watchers as the “Columbus syndrome” or the “Columbus complex”. In the words of Aidan Foster-Carter:
“Stumbling on North Korea for the first time, not a few people - awestruck, disgusted, or just plain open-mouthed - seem fondly to imagine themselves as Star Trek's Captain Kirk: piloting the Starship Enterprise to land in Pyongyang, surely this planet's final frontier. Or maybe Christopher Columbus is a better parallel. As we all learned in school, Columbus discovered America. That claim now comes heavily qualified: America already existed and was inhabited. Vikings got there before Columbus, who didn't even know where he was; he thought he'd hit India. For all concerned, it was a fateful - for some, a fatal - encounter.”
Well, I’ve devoted a lot of bandwidth to Dennis Rodman, too much some might say, but I recently discovered his Leif Ericson in the form of Luke Elie. The son of missionaries who grew up in South Korea, last year he led a team consisting of Americans coaching basketball in Asia to Pyongyang where the largely self-financed group put on a low-key clinic. Some footage can be seen via either the CNN website--which includes footage of the group's visit to the USS Pueblo--or the Koryo Tours video below.
Christopher Columbus was financially backed by the King and Queen of Spain and, despite unintentionally blundering into the Western hemisphere while in search of India, ended up with a country and numerous cities named after him. Leif Ericson, in contrast, left nothing and is largely forgotten. It would be a cruel reprise of history if this more recent L.E. likewise faded into obscurity, while the better financed Ambassador R stumbled into posterity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2azrg_pJ-Xg&list=UU_YPmwUIwN8Ir5EH0DUwq…
