LOCAL COMMUNITY CRITICIZES KIM'S ACTIONS.

Byline: BRAD A. GREENBERG Staff Writer

On the same day a South Korean was nominated to lead the world's international peacemaking body, a North Korean defied the global community and tested a nuclear bomb.

Monday was another reminder to the 1.3 million Korean-Americans -- including a quarter of a million in Los Angeles County -- that while the prosperous South grows in global stature, the isolated North steps closer to military confrontation with its neighbors and their Western allies.

Not surprisingly, the harshest criticism from some of the thousands of Korean-Americans in the San Fernando Valley was reserved for North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.

``He's a really crazy man -- like a beast,'' Helen Moon, a 53-year-old Reseda woman who emigrated from South Korea at age 21, said while working at a women's boutique on Sherman Way. ``He's not human. He's evil.''

The declaration from the North's government in Pyongyang that it had exploded a nuclear bomb during a test was met with global condemnation -- even from the communist nation's biggest supporter, China.

The United States issued a harsh rebuke, and the United Nations Security Council discussed issuing heavy economic sanctions against the increasingly isolated and impoverished country. There were no threats of military action.

Many Korean-Americans remain worried about the North, but without the sense of ``dread'' present in most American and Japanese communities, said Timothy C. Lim, co-director of California State University, Los Angeles' Center for Korean American and Korean Studies.

``Most people understand that North Korea, despite all its bluster, is generally quite weak,'' Lim said. ``So the regime's focus on its nuclear weapons is a last-gasp effort to be taken seriously.''

There has been much tension between the North and the South since South Korea's founding in 1948. They are one people living in two dramatically different nations -- prosperity in one and poverty in the other -- similar to the lives of Germans separated by the Berlin Wall during the Soviet era.

South Korea, headquarters of Hyundai and Samsung, now boasts the 10th-largest economy in the world. Starvation is common in North Korea, which relies on international aid to feed most of its 23 million citizens.

``South Korea has made all this progress -- political progress, economic progress and progress diplomatically -- and yet the North seems to be stuck in the Cold War,'' Lim said.

The South's latest step forward was the U.N. Security Council's nomination Monday of Ban Ki-moon, South Korea's foreign minister, to become United Nations secretary-general Jan. 1.

While Koreans take great pride in Ban, they generally are ashamed by Kim, the North's self-styled ``Dear Leader.''

``We call anybody that we can't understand nuts. Maybe there is logic to this illogical person,'' said Grace Yoo, executive director of the L.A.-based Korean-American Coalition. ``North Koreans probably love their leader because they are trained to love him. The rest of us are like, `What is he doing?'''

Many expressed surprise at Kim's determination to challenge the international community and said world leaders had apparently failed to temper his quest.

``It's ridiculous,'' said Sue Hwang, 54, of Woodland Hills. ``I don't know what (North Korea was) thinking. ... Korean-Americans, we all support what the American government needs to do.''

Not all Korean-Americans interviewed Monday felt comfortable criticizing the government in Pyongyang, including a 72-year-old man who emigrated from South Korea 29 years ago. Buying a few Korean newspapers from a Reseda news rack, he said he didn't want to stir up trouble with that ``bad communist country.''

The nuclear test is expected to worsen relations between the North and the South. For years, South Korea has sought to strengthen economic and cultural ties and has contributed much financial aid.

Many Korean-Americans said they felt tricked by someone panhandling under the guise of hunger who then spent the money on something more destructive.

``All the help we gave to North Korea, they probably used it to resurge and create the bomb,'' David Lee, 74, of Reseda said before entering the Greenland Market, a Korean grocery on Sherman Way.

China also might need to cut back its food and energy assistance, which accounts for about 90 percent of North Korea's international aid.

``North Korea seems willing to take risks, that is the risk of being more and more isolated from the world, including those who have been helping it,'' said Robert A. Scalapino, founder of UC Berkeley's Institute of East Asian Studies.

When Lee, a retired real estate agent, left South Korea in 1955 to attend the University of Minnesota, his native land was war-torn and without an economic engine. From afar he watched it become ``one of the most economically prosperous in the world.''

``That is a great source of pride for Korean-Americans,'' he said.

But he added that with North Korea's nuclear development, South Korea's golden age could be waning.

``It is very horrible,'' Lee said. ``The peace in northeast Asia, particularly the Korean Peninsula, depends on non-nuclear status.''

Staff Writer Troy Anderson contributed to this report.

brad.greenberg(at)dailynews.com

[phone]

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) Mingee Park, 18, a college student, reads the front page of a local Korean newspaper about the reports of North Korea's reported nuclear test.

Damian Dovarganes/Associated Press

(2 -- color) In front of a Korean market in Reseda, Sue Hwang, 54, speaks out about the North Korean nuclear test.

Tina Burch/Staff Photographer