Roh: I Am a Positive Person

The President-elect of South Korea is a pragmatic man. As a young military officer, he wore a small brown identification tag with his name inscribed in English as NO. It was the most common pronunciation of his surname. Quickly, however, the unpropitious English meaning of no got to him. Using a less frequent but acceptable pronunciation, No Tae Woo became Roh Tae Woo. Said Roh: "N-o is negative, and I am a positive person. So I prefer R-o-h." He will need that kind of flexibility to lead his country on the still bumpy path toward democracy.

Roh Tae Woo was born...

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