
                         THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
                 Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, June 23, 1994                    TAG: 9406230467 
SECTION: FRONT                     PAGE: A11    EDITION: FINAL  
SOURCE: By PATRICIA HUANG, STAFF WRITER 
DATELINE: 940623                                 LENGTH: NORFOLK

LOCAL KOREANS UNCERTAIN ABOUT UPCOMING NORTH-SOUTH SUMMIT

{LEAD} Like other South Korean immigrants, Michael Oh has always been suspicious of North Korea.

For nearly half a century since the Korean War, the North has sporadically offered hope of peace and compromise, Oh said, only to yank it away again.

{REST} This week, in a step toward defusing tensions, North and South Korea began preparations for their first summit meeting.

But while some local Korean-Americans say they aren't getting their hopes up just yet, Oh said he can't help but feel excited.

``The history of North and South Korea has been based on mistrust. But we have to put those suspicions aside because this is a historical meeting,'' said Oh, 53. ``We have to make a breakthrough. This is already very historic . . . for those two leaders to sit together at the same table.''

Presidents of the two Koreas have not met since the division of their peninsula in 1945. Lower-level talks have been held on and off since the 1970s to little avail.

``Many of us still have brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers in Korea,'' said Oh, former president of the Korean American Association of Tidewater. ``We are scared about the developing situation there.''

Past summit proposals between the two countries have failed to materialize, causing many Koreans to remain skeptical.

ODU professor Kae H. Chung, the Korean American Association's current president, said he's keeping a ``wait and see'' attitude.

``I don't really have high hopes because of the pattern of behavior of the North Koreans,'' said Chung, who recently returned from a three-week study tour of a South Korean university in Daegu, a city south of Seoul. ``They always give hope, and the hope is never realized.''

Oh, a Norfolk clothing store owner, acknowledges that efforts to ease tensions between the two nations could fail again.

But until the summit scheduled for Aug. 15 - a day that both Koreas celebrate as the anniversary of liberation from years of Japanese domination - Oh will be praying that North and South ``talk of co-prosperity.''

``One Korea is the dream of all Koreans,'' he said. ``North Koreans adopted communism and we adopted democracy . . . but we share everything together - one ancestor, one language, one blood.'' by CNB