Anthony Kuhn
Anthony Kuhn is NPR's correspondent based in Seoul, South Korea, reporting on the Korean Peninsula, Japan, and the great diversity of Asia's countries and cultures. Before moving to Seoul in 2018, he traveled to the region to cover major stories including the North Korean nuclear crisis and the Fukushima earthquake and nuclear disaster.
Kuhn previously served two five-year stints in Beijing, China, for NPR, during which he covered major stories such as the Beijing Olympics, geopolitical jousting in the South China Sea, and the lives of Tibetans, Uighurs, and other minorities in China's borderlands.
He took a particular interest in China's rich traditional culture and its impact on the current day. He has recorded the sonic calling cards of itinerant merchants in Beijing's back alleys, and the descendants of court musicians of the Tang Dynasty. He has profiled petitioners and rights lawyers struggling for justice, and educational reformers striving to change the way Chinese think.
From 2010-2013, Kuhn was NPR's Southeast Asia correspondent, based in Jakarta, Indonesia. Among other stories, he explored Borneo and Sumatra, and witnessed the fight to preserve the biodiversity of the world's oldest forests. He also followed Myanmar's democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, as she rose from political prisoner to head of state.
Kuhn served as NPR's correspondent in London from 2004-2005, covering stories including the London subway bombings and the marriage of the Prince of Wales to the Duchess of Cornwall.
Besides his major postings, Kuhn's journalistic horizons have been expanded by various short-term assignments. These produced stories including wartime black humor in Iraq, musical diplomacy by the New York Philharmonic in Pyongyang, North Korea, a kerfuffle over the plumbing in Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Pakistani artists' struggle with religious extremism in Lahore, and the Syrian civil war's spillover into neighboring Lebanon.
Prior to joining NPR, Kuhn wrote for the Far Eastern Economic Review and freelanced for various news outlets, including the Los Angeles Times and Newsweek. He majored in French literature as an undergraduate at Washington University in St. Louis, and later did graduate work at the Johns Hopkins University-Nanjing University Center for Chinese and American studies in Nanjing.
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A few years ago, smoking was so common in Beijing that doctors, nurses and patients would even puff away in hospital hallways. Now the city is trying — again — to ban smoking indoors. It isn't easy. -
Improving Pakistan's infrastructure will be the first step in creating a network of roads, railways, pipelines and shipping lanes that stretch all the way to Europe.
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In his new book, exiled Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng tells the story of growing up blind, being beaten under house arrest and finding refuge in the American Embassy in Beijing in 2012.
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Eastern China's Rudong County began implementing the one-child policy 10 years before the rest of the nation. Now, an estimated 60 percent of the county's residents will be 60 or older by 2030. -
A U.S. company that supplies meat to fast-food chains in China has pulled all its products made by a subsidiary. An expose revealed some of the products were mishandled and had expired. -
An unusual constitutional rule stands in between Myanmar's most famous political prisoner and the presidency. And despite popular protest, an amendment, at the moment, appears unlikely. -
Charles Darwin is known as the father of evolution. But another British naturalist, Alfred Russel Wallace, played a major role in developing the theory of natural selection before fading into obscurity. A trip to what's now Sulawesi in Indonesia, and the unique animals he found there, helped form his seminal ideas.
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Whether it's pan-fried or baked into crispy snacks, the Indonesian soybean cake called tempeh is catching on in America as an alternative to meat. For the residents of Indonesia's capital, Jakarta, it's basic, everyday fare. -
Park Geun-hye's father was a military dictator who ran the country for nearly two decades. She has apologized for her father's suppression of democracy and appears to be slightly favored in Wednesday's presidential vote. -
Workers at the world's largest gold mine, located in Indonesia's remote Papua province, have gone on strike for higher pay; several people have died in clashes with police. Critics say the mine's owner, American mining conglomerate Freeport-McMoRan, operates with impunity because of powerful friends.
