A Thanksgiving Wish from Our Executive Director

A group of North Korean women and their children prepare a meal for us during one of our visits.

The following post was written by our Executive Director, Dan Chung.

I had a meal with a family who narrowly escaped North Korea as the authorities attempted to arrest them about eight years ago. In the rush to flee, they had to make the difficult decision to leave their youngest daughter behind. The three sat with me in a restaurant, father, mother and oldest daughter. None of them could eat because they were wracked with worry and guilt.

Crossing Borders has sat with North Koreans going through the worst of circumstances. Over the years I’ve learned to stay quiet and speak only when asked.

People sometimes ask me if I have trouble celebrating when I've witnessed so much sadness in the world. They’ve asked if events we host should be so ‘fun’ when the purpose is to remember those who have suffered so much.

My answer lies at the heart of the season we are about to celebrate: Thanksgiving. For through the simple act of giving thanks, we acknowledge the brokenness in this world but we also remember how blessed we are.

The first American Thanksgiving took place in 1621 in a time of immense difficulty for the Pilgrims, who had just landed on American shores one year prior.

“So, in some way, that day of Thanksgiving is also coming out of mourning,” said Kathleen Donegan, author of “Seasons of Misery: Catastrophe and Colonial Settlement in Early America.” “But we don’t think about the loss, we think about the abundance.”

Donegan is correct. When we think about Thanksgiving, we often think of the copious food and drink at the table. But the holiday was born out of sorrow and hardship.

Some of the most grateful people I have ever met are North Korean women. Women who have been robbed of everything they held precious: their families, their freedoms and their dignity. And yet, in the midst of these sorrows, they are joyful. They joke around, do impressions of each other and even their Dear Leader, sing and play games like little children. It is truly a sight to behold.

They are thankful not despite their circumstances but rather their circumstances drive them to focus on the good. From these women I am reminded that we can be truly thankful when we realize how fragile our circumstances are.

So when we feast this Thanksgiving, I hope we don’t push the uncomfortable thought of North Korean refugees and other suffering out of mind. This can only lead to guilt. I hope we hold them in our hearts so that we can truly remember how blessed we are.

"When we talk about North Korea, we forget what’s happening to its people"

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/when-we-talk-about-north-korea-we-forget-whats-happening-to-its-people

On the “Humble Opinion” segment of PBS newshour, host Judy Woodruff spoke with Min Jin Lee about North Korea and the aspect we forget about most often: its people.

As a Korean-American writer, Lee has given lectures and talks on writing, literature, and politics all throughout the US and Asia. As a novelist, Lee has written historical fiction stories about Korean families in Japan.

However, in her most recent talk, Lee delves into her personal history and connection to North Korea. She describes the journey her father made at 16, in the height of the Korean War, aboard a US refugee ship.

Imagine being 16, and because there is a war, you must leave your birthplace and never see your mother again. Imagine now knowing that she must be dead, based only on natural life expectancy, rather than on a real moment in time.

Imagine if you didn’t know that this was your last goodbye.

Lee describes the living conditions she imagines her cousin in—an authoritarian regime clamping down on freedom of movement and expression, and the dangers awaiting her in China if she should defect. Her reminder comes at a time when fears of a nuclear standoff are pervasive and analysis of Kim Jong Un are featured on international newscasts.

Lee reminds us that amid these discussions, we can keep compassion at our core:

So, when I hear about nuclear weapons, like you, I am afraid. But we can also remember the democratic values we cherish. We can learn more about how we can help. And we can have compassion for our global brothers and sisters who are trapped in a dystopian invention not of their making.

North Korean defector blogging

More than a decade after defecting from what he calls the "Animal Farm" in North Korea, Gyoon Heo has settled into university life in South Korea. 

However, upon reflecting on life from the outside looking in, he found that creating a blog was a perfect outlet: 

My father was one of those ‘traitors’ who were made examples of by the WPK during Kim Jong Il’s time. He simply disappeared one day, received no trial that I know of, and was never seen again. I do not know what happened to him or where he is. I may never even find out whether he was sent to prison or executed.

Among North Koreans it is this fear — of losing one’s country to an enemy state, one’s family to a purge, and one’s own life to ever-present danger both definable and abstract — that compels them to obey the regime.

Read more from Gyoon Heo here: https://koreaexpose.com/author/gyoon-heo/ 

North Korea's (not so) secret economy

Despite decades of shutting down commerce, media and, free speech, the Kim family dynasty has opened their doors to one of the most western concepts of all: capitalism. 

The "donju," or the black market capitalists who have bartered and smuggled their way to a small middle class, have been imprisoned in the past. But more recently, they have not only been tolerated, but trained. 

Western professors, marketers and accounting professionals have been allowed into the Hermit Kingdom to improve business.

Listen to the full NPR Podcast here

North Korea's Dollarization

Among the many changes and outside views infiltrating North Korean's historically hermit-like society, a new study gives insight into a strong economic shift: the dollarization of the economy. 

Measured by what households in NK will save away, the dollar and yuan are the two dominant currencies represented in savings and the black market, even surpassing the North Korean won. 

While the indices used to benchmark the changes in Asset and Currency Substitution are far from perfect, the changes in North Koreans and recent refugees seem to indicate that transformation is taking hold. 

For the full report, click here

Defector Dances in Defiance

Some defectors in London's suburb of New Malden struggle to find a way to contact the family they left behind in North Korea.

However, the severe punishment for those caught with smuggled information or cellphones can often leave refugees to face the harrowing path of resettlement alone. 

For Hyunjoo Kim, she turns to dance. 

Twirling to a song called "By the Love of My Lord," Kim's dance of defiance, one that could have sent her to prison in North Korea, is a symbol of her newfound freedom.

Read the full story here.

Hyunjoo Kim dances at a New Malden restaurant.

Accounts from "Camp 15"

Kang Cheol-hwan was detained in the Yodok concentration camp for 10 years

His grandparents held highly respected positions under Kim Il-Sung's rule. 

But all of that changed when their critiques of the dynastic regime sentenced two generations of the Kang family to concentration camps. 

Kang Cheol-hwan, who was only a child when he was sentenced to hard labor in the Yodok concentration camp, known as "Camp 15."

In a speech he made in South Africa, the now-defector from North Korea recounted stories of torture and horrible conditions. 

“Most never survived the experience as they were forced to sit for extended periods in cold muddy water. If they survived, their flesh was literally rotten,” he said.

Read the full story here

Refugees by the numbers

For additional context on the numbers of refugees defecting from North Korea to China and other countries, the BBC released an update on some of the statistics from the world's most closed-off country--indicating a slight decline in numbers.

In 2017 alone, (January to August) there have been 780 North Koreans who escaped to South Korea according to their Unification Ministry.

"Out of those who escaped this year, 56.9% were workers and farmers while only 3.5% were soldiers and government agents, a report by South Korea's Unification Ministry said, according to state news agency Yonhap."

For North Korean women, freedom in China can mean sex-trafficking

For many women who flee from North Korea into China, their futures are dependent upon the sex-trafficking market in China. Often sold to men who are disabled or elderly, these vulnerable women can be forced into situations that are far from the freedom they imagined.  

The South China Morning Post article features an interview with Miyoung, who was coerced into “choosing a husband” once sold to smugglers.

“[The couple] did everything to convince me that living with a Chinese man was my best choice to help my family back in North Korea,” she said. “They took me to the homes of various disabled or handicapped men in China for me to choose who I wanted to live with.

“I wept bitterly. I knew the punishment that awaited me in North Korea would be severe since I’d left without permission.”

To read the full story, click here: 

Getting Ready

"Sung" during break time at our retreat for North Korean children.

At the end of our summer retreat for the children in our network, a young man 17 years of age sat weeping in the back of a van headed back to his orphanage.

"Sung" would always volunteer to help out with whatever the counselors needed help with. He always eagerly rallied the rest of the kids and gently scolded them when they fell out of line. He organized the younger kids in skits and other activities.

Sung is an excellent student and, unlike many of the other kids in our network, will be going to an academic college to further his studies. He stands about 6 feet tall, almost a head above the rest of the children. His posture is always impeccable.

But behind his kind and capable exterior is a world of pain. Unlike so many of the orphans in our network, Sung knew his mother well. She was a North Korean refugee who was sold to his father in 1999. She is often described by Sung and those who knew her as smart and loving. When he was in grade school, she was diagnosed with liver cancer and died shortly thereafter. He has a lot of good memories of his mother.

After his mother died, things went downhill for Sung and his father. Things got so bad that his father had to send him to an orphanage. That's how we met him.

Though his life and academics turned around, Sung never fully recovered emotionally from the trauma of losing his mother. We do not know exactly why he was crying as he was leaving the retreat for the last time. But we think it was because he felt loved by the counselors and staff who took the time to visit him every year.

Though we cannot quantify this statistically or measure it in some formula, we know that children like Sung deserve the best love we can give. We pride ourselves on our ability to prepare our orphans for adulthood but we know that this means nothing if they don’t feel loved. This is our job, to prepare them and love them. We will do this for as long as God allows.

The long road to South Korea

North Korean defectors rest in a hotel room in Thailand. They will be sent to Seoul, where they will become South Korean citizens. 

(Paula Bronstein / For The Washington Post)

Instead of the short one hour and 45 minute flight from a Shenyang, China to Seoul, refugees who defect from North Korea face a much more grueling and dangerous route to safety.

Via buses, long walks over mountains, boats and hiding in the dark at border checkpoints, these refugees will journey from North Korea, through China, Laos or Vietnam, and finally Thailand, where they can request asylum and be transported to South Korea.

"I kept thinking: Imagine if I made it this far and then I got caught in Laos," a young mother said.

The article follows a group of refugees who have paid smugglers to transport them through any means possible – for the hope of a new life in South Korea. Whether it’s for new economic prospects or the fear of returning as a repatriated defector, each traveler focuses on their motivations to escape as they continue along the “underground railroad.”

Read the full Chicago Tribune story here:

Seeking to be reunited with children left behind

Jeong-ah Kim's child still in China (SBS News)

For many defectors, the danger and difficulty of escaping to China poses an impossible choice: survive and leave behind loved ones, or stay with family to face hunger and brutality together.

One woman, Ms. Kim, was smuggled and married to a Chinese farmer after 10 years in the military and malnourishment.

"Conditions in North Korea were so bad I would have half a piece of bread in the morning and the other half in the evening, and one sip of water in the morning and one at night," she told SBS News. "So eventually I decided to leave."

However, she left behind her oldest child in North Korea and her second child in China after she fled again.

Today, she has created a non-profit “Tongil Moms” that has been lobbying the UN to reunify her and other mothers with their children left behind in North Korea.

Read the full story here.

“Everyday Life” for North Koreans highlighted on NPR

NPR’s Weekend Edition featured an interview with Liberty in North Korea’s Director of Research and Strategy Sokeel Park, who touched on what the “everyday” looks like for a North Korean.

Sokeel Park

“…with so much focus on Kim Jong Un and nuclear weapons and missile launches and these kind of things, North Korea is often just seen as a security problem, as a potentially kind of crazy or irrational dictator with missiles. And often, we miss out on the story of 24 million ordinary people, just like you and I, who are living their lives in that country. And the country is changing on the inside.”

Kim goes on to cite changes in information, a basic market economy that has been established in the country, and less-effective indoctrination of the younger generations who are increasingly fleeing the country.

For the full interview and transcript, click here:

Defectors in the “Land of Freedom”

PHOTO: North Korean women gather in front of billboards of Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il. (Facebook: Michal Huniewicz)

Now resettled in South Korea, North Korean defectors Ann and Jayden, had to adapt to a new life in the “Land of Freedom.”

The two, who have strong memories of the deadly famine in the 1990s and of being cold and hungry most nights, have since been adjusting to things like internet news, fresh air and intensive university courses.

Their global program, sponsored by the Hana Foundation and the South Korean Ministry for Unification, aims to expose resettled refugees to global communities and education so they can become leaders in international relations in the Korean community.

Anne, driven by her experiences with hunger in North Korea, is studying to work in global aid and help other children who are starving through the World Food Programme.

Read the full story here.

A Reporter’s trip to North Korea

Journalist John Pomfret

Washington Post reporter and former bureau chief, John Pomfret, reflected on his trip through North Korea, organized by a Chinese tour company, and revealed insights into Chinese attitudes toward North Korea.

Woven through the pre-approved commentary and speeches from his tour guides, Pomfret notes sensing Chinese anxiety around North Korea’s collapse – which would incite both a refugee crisis and a pro-American border country following possible unification.

But among my Chinese friends and even among some officials, I get a sense of an emerging realization. North Korea is China’s problem, too. Communist Party insiders no longer view it as a convenient way to sap U.S. strength. As one of my companions observed, “No. 3 Fatty Kim’s missiles can be pointed in any direction. Even at us.”

Read his full account here:

Winning minds in North Koreas

FILE - In this Oct. 22, 2012 file photo, Park Sang Hak, a refugee from the North Korea who now runs the group Fighters for a Free North Korea from a small Seoul office, hurls anti-North Korea leaflets as police block his planned rally on a road in Paju near demilitarized zone, South Korea. In South Korea, political activists send thousands of leaflets, DVDs and flash drives every year across the border into North Korea, mostly by balloon, hoping to bring to the isolated country. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon, File)

Often called the “Hermit Kingdom,” North Korea is infamously restrictive on outside information breaching the physical and electronic barriers of its borders. Whereas state-funded propaganda is widespread, other information can be difficult to access.

However, through activist efforts to send leaflets containing news, satire, or even soap operas, air-dropped balloons have been drifting across the border into the hands of North Koreans.

"The quickest way to bring down the regime is to change people's minds," said Park Sang Hak, a refugee from the North who now runs the group Fighters for a Free North Korea from a small Seoul office, sending tens of thousands of plastic fliers across the border every year. 

Park and the other self-proclaimed warriors in the “information war” have noted that this spread of information can have small but meaningful impacts.

Lee, another activist-balloonist who prints card-sized leaflets with his contact information and how he was once “one of them,” aims to open even just a few eyes to the mythology North Koreans often hear from the ruling family.  

"Maybe one person rebels after reading the leaflets,” he said. "Maybe one person defects. I want them to decide for themselves what to do."

Scholars, however, agree with North Korean refugees who say that the information filtering through has “helped bring a wealth of changes, from new slang to changing fashions to increasing demand for consumer goods in the expanding market economy.”

Read the full story here

Despite reports of religious persecution, Christianity taking root in North Korea

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson

The US Department of State released their study on religious freedoms in the world and noted that “[North Korea] continued to deal harshly with those who engaged in almost any religious practices through executions, torture, beatings and arrests."

However, upon closer look, we also find that in spite of continued persecution of Christians under the harsh regime, there are shifts among North Koreans to seek out religion.

The Telegraph UK quotes a defector who says that North Koreans do not respect Kim Jong-Un and are “looking for something else to sustain their faith…In some places, that has led to the emergence of shamens, but the Christian church is also growing and deepening its roots there," he said.

To read about some of the stories we’ve heard from Crossing Borders initiatives to seek out, guide and aide these underground churches, click here. 

Former North Korean defector posts about life in South Korea

Following the recent news of Lim Ji-Hyun’s return to North Korea, the world watched as the household name who had denounced Kim Jong-Un just a few months earlier now spoke out against life in South Korea and urged other defectors to return.

Lim, who now goes by Jon Hye-Song in North Korea, says that she struggled in South Korea – at one time even appearing in a pornographic film to make money.

“I didn’t have a job so I couldn’t earn any money,” she said of her life in the South, “and I drank because I missed home.”

The video was posted on Uriminzokkiri (link), the Youtube channel for the North Korean ministry of inter-Korean relations.

During the 40-minute video responding to allegations of kidnap and torture. Lim said she returned of her own volition and that she was not harmed upon return.

Read the full story here.

Economic ties between China and North Korea further complicate UN talks

Beijing began refusing entry to trucks carrying tons of North Korean seafood on Tuesday.

Our post last week looked at the human rights links between China and North Korea and the long journey ahead of defectors who cross the Tuman river.

It’s important to remember that at the core of these diplomatic concerns are economic ties that link these two countries together. Reports of sanctions from China and the strong backlash from importers who rely on North Korean goods underline and complicate the calls

As calls for complete economic sanction and isolation against North Korea currently take stage amid threats of nuclear warfare, it is also important to remember that as these policies trickle down, both North Koreans and Chinese citizens suffer.  

"North Korea relies on China for about 90 percent of its foreign trade. So any move Beijing takes to restrict the flow of North Korean goods into China deals a substantial blow to Pyongyang. But because China’s economy is so intertwined with North Korea’s, it also causes hurt at home."

Read the full story here.

North Korean Refugees in China: far from freedom

North Korean soldiers in a border guard post are seen from the Chinese side in Tumen, China, January 7, 2016. 

 © 2016 Reuters

Amid current events around Kim Jung Un's threats to launch missiles and general unrest in the Korean peninsula, we are reminded of the increasingly complex nature of international relations when it comes to North Korea. 

A recent Human Rights Watch report on the Chinese government deporting 15 North Koreans has highlighted the fact that for refugees not unlike the ones who come into Crossing Borders' care are far from safe, even after crossing the border into Chinese territory. 

With an agreement to deport North Korean defectors, Chinese officials are all but ensuring punishment, political prisoner camps and "re-education."

Crossing Borders assists refugees who are in this precarious position to find shelter, education and economic support, accompanying them through the many difficulties they find once in China. One example is Ok-seo, a refugee who fled North Korea and found that though safe from immediate danger, she was still vulnerable to hard labor and prostitution. 

To read more about stories from Crossing Borders refugees who have made this journey and how you can support them, click here.