Trinity bonenkai dinner on Tuesday 16 December 2025 at 7:30pm in Tokyo
Ambassador Ra Jong Yil (Trinity 1967) will speak on “The Dragon and the Beauty – Why a political scientist writes fairy tale stories” (in person in Tokyo only, not on zoom)
- 7:30pm – 8:00pm Ambassador Ra Jong Yil: “The Dragon and the Beauty – Why a political scientist writes fairy tale stories”
- 8:00pm – 10pm dinner
- 10:15pm – nijikai
Registration and prepayment before Tuesday 9 December 2025. I will send location and pre-payment details to those who register.
Ambassador Ra Jong Yil (Trinity 1967)
Ambassador Ra Jong Yil graduated with a PhD from Trinity, and held a long list of leadership positions in the South-Korean government, including National Security Advisor to President Roh Moohyun, a ministerial position, deputy director of the South Korean National Intelligence Service, Ambassador to the UK and to Japan, and President of Woosuk University (a private University with about 8000 students). He is University Distinguished Professor at Gachon University.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ra_Jong-yil
He is Honorary Fellow of Clare Hall Cambridge
Ambassador Ra Jong-Yil donated the “Ra Jong-Yil Distinguished Lecture in Korean Studies” to the University of Cambridge, Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies
https://www.ames.cam.ac.uk/whats-on/ra-jong-yil-distinguished-lecture
Ambassador Ra has written a long list of books, including
- a book on successions in DPRK’s leadership, book review in The Telegraph https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/northkorea/12117599/Kim-Jong-uns-father-wanted-to-end-hereditary-rule-top-spy-reveals.html
- Road to Hanoi (Co-authored, Korean), 2022
- The Life and Death of a Terrorist (Japanese), 2021
- ある北朝鮮テロリストの生と死 証言・ラングーン事件 (集英社新書)
- https://www.amazon.co.jp/ある北朝鮮テロリストの生と死-証言・ラングーン事件-集英社新書-羅鍾一-ebook/dp/B095S7YTZP/
- book review in the New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/24/world/asia/forgotten-killer-among-the-korean-erased.html?_r=0
- Discovery of Korea (co-authored, Korean), 2021
- Unhappy Presidents of Korea (co-authored, Korean), 2020
- Inside North Korea’s Theocracy (English), 2019
- The World and Korean War (Korean), 2019
- Our Beautiful Country (Chinese), 2019
- Dynasty of Purge (Japanese), 2017
- and fairy tales and many other books and publications
To register:
All Trinity College Cambridge Fellows, students, alumni or members living in or visiting Japan are more than welcome to join us. To register, or for any enquiries contact us here: