Introduction: Please read this first!

Welcome to my website. I hope you find it of use and interest; better yet, enjoy it.

I should explain that it's been under construction for over a year, and is still far from complete. This delay is entirely my own fault - although it's tempting also to blame Kim Jong-il, whose antics have been keeping me very busy (and in work) of late.

Rather than have this drag on indefinitely, it seemed best now to launch it without further delay, and hopefully fill in the gaps later. So here you have it, warts and all.

In this initial version, the site is largely devoted to my work on Korea. The "Life" section will be expanded in due course, life permitting. But I've made a start with some limericks, haiku, and musings on music and the meaning of life.

Also, since the bulk of the work on the site was done as much as a year ago already, please bear in mind that references to "recent" may now (March 2003) no longer be as recent as all that. Thus the "Just lately, for instance" page, under Work, is actually a year old now. Sorry. But I hope it may still serve as a guide to the kind of work I do.

To be honest, I also had second thoughts on whether I really wanted a website at all, or why. Much of this reads as if I'm touting for business; yet in truth I have plenty of work as it is, and if anything would like to cut down. Still, I'm open to suggestions.

More existentially: I crave privacy, and have in some sense spent the last decade or so in flight from the big bad world, or at least trying to keep it at bay. Thus it feels weird and contradictory to expose and flaunt oneself like this to every stranger on the planet.

If I nonetheless take the plunge, it's probably because at my age one starts to reflect. Also, there are things I would like to share on the life and creative side, in due course.

Sincere thanks to webmaster Ross Holloway for his skill, toil, and patience. The one thing you absolutely must read on this site is his dad Andrew Holloway's book about the year he spent in Pyongyang: an invaluable primary document.

Otherwise, please roam and enjoy. And please work and pray for peace in Korea.

Aidan Foster-Carter 22 March, 2003