I thought that she was middle aged woman in her 40's. You are right. She might be in her late 20's or early 30's. If her husband who was killed back in 2002 was ROKN Junior Petty Officer, then he was about in his mid 20's and she might be little younger than him.

Excellent comment. Like I said I know nothing about the Korean community in NYC and your reasoning makes a lot of sense.

As a Korean-American, allow me to make some presumptions… While I do agree that most Korean-American communities tend to be conservative and anti-NK, however, there is another demographic to the Korean-American community which hasn't been discussed: university students (both undergraduate & graduate). While not really US citizens, Korean students are still considered part of the KA community in many aspects. I attended college in NYC a few years back and had many friends & acquaintances who were young to middle-aged college students. Having been born & raised in Korea for all their young lives, most of them shared the same left-wing ideals (i.e. pro-Sunshine Policy, kick US troops out) that would make Roh Moo Hyun proud. In fact, some of them refused to go back to Korea because they would have to serve in the army. In any case, if she actually lived in Manhattan (she would have to if she worked in Chinatown), the vast majority of the Korean demographic living there are young university students. Usually the conservative Korean-American families live outside of Manhattan (Long Island, Fort Lee NJ) and commute into the city to work.

Another presumption would be her age. I'm guessing she's at least in her mid 20's to 30's. Most Koreans socially mingle within their own age group. Knowing certain aspects of Korean society, she would probably not be quick to tell older Koreans about her hardships in Korea. She would instead, try to make some friends and acquaintances within her age group and eventually reveal her hardships. Manhattan would certainly be the ideal place to meet Koreans within her own age. Additionally, her limited English skills upon arrival would make it hard for her to get around limiting her to the Korean enclave on 32nd Street.

Hope all this makes sense.

As usual there is probably more to the story that we don’t know about, but the bottom line is that an American veterans group has established a public memorial in Mass. while no public memorial exists in Korea. Why do American Korean War veterans care more about ROK servicemembers who died defending their country than the Koeran government? That is the big question.