30,000 Elephants in the Room

The Korean unification flag (above) will be used as the two Koreas march together at the opening ceremonies of the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea.

There is no country in the world better than North Korea at theatrics and spectacle. And there is perhaps no better stage than the Winter Olympics for the North to display its chops.

Last year the country was wrapped up in a worldwide performance as they launched ICBMs and tested a nuclear weapon, much to the ire of their neighbors and other global powers. But this year North Korea seems to be changing course. After a year of provocations, comes a charm offensive and an offer to field a joint team under one flag at the 2018 Winter Olympics.

But even as the theatrics of the Olympics will warm hearts and provide North Korea a platform to soften its image, over 30,000 North Korean defectors living in South Korea will be watching. Their presence will tell a darker story behind the theatrics.

North Korea’s attempts at smoothing over the past two years with their Olympic delegation, which will include an “Army of Beauties.” This “army” is a cheering squad comprised of 230 attractive, tall North Korean women from elite universities.

It is clear that North Korea is trying to send a message through these women. It is an attempt to show the world that all is well within its borders, that the North Korean people are well fed, healthy and beautiful.

The two Koreas will also send a unified delegation during the opening ceremonies under one flag. They’ll field a joint women’s ice hockey team. There will no doubt be other signs of unity between the two countries that will indeed be heart warming.

For over 30,000 North Korean refugees watching this global performance, there will be a different tale to tell of their homeland, North Korea. Many have spoken out against their former country in a damning UN report, which details in amazing consistency the gruesome methods of torture that the regime employs.

In the thousands of interviews and interactions I have had with North Korean refugees, people have told me of death, cannibalism and the hellscape that North Korea has become.

It will, without a doubt, be an emotional moment when the two countries enter the Olympic arena under one flag. But such images should not overshadow the truth present in the lives of over 30,000 defectors who have fled desperately for their lives. Perhaps they, with us, can witness the union of the Koreas in this year’s Olympics, beyond its theatrics, and look forward to a day when peace and harmony will extend beyond a single, international event.

North Korean labor in Russia

A North Korean worker walks through the building site.

In a report published Tuesday, there are an estimated 50,000 North Korean workers in Russia, living clandestinely on construction sites as "slave-like labor" to send meager funds home to their families. 

The US State Department has focused on this ex-patriate community in their most recent sanctions in an effort to reduce economic support for Kim Jong Un and the totalitarian state's nuclear program. 

However, with Russian diplomats weighing in on the effectiveness of sanctions and toeing the line between international condemnation and acting as the "crucial lifeline" to North Korea, the workers in Russia will continue building for now. 

Read more here: http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/15/europe/russia-north-korea-labor-intl/index.html

North and South unite for the Olympics

In anticipation of the Winter Olympic Games opening on Feb. 9, North Korea has sent delegations to the demilitarized zone at Panmunjom for discussions on how to unite the peninsula for the games. 

The South Korean Unification Ministry has led talks primarily around coordination of the musicians and entertainment groups. However, officials in Seoul, Washington, and Pyongyang have expressed hopes for peace talks. 

Read more here: http://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-north-korea-olympics-20180115-story.html

Music is Contagious

Children of North Korean women learning new songs at our annual retreat.

What is the value of a song to a child? How can one song affect her life?

We taught a child of a North Korean refugee a simple song at a retreat this summer. It’s a Christian song about how God can help us in times of trouble. A young child who learned this song, Esther, seemed to take to the music and lyrics at the retreat.

Last year we were able to host a retreat with many of the refugees in our network. The purpose of this retreat is to provide Christian counseling and support to address the trauma that North Korean refugees have endured. During this retreat is a smaller retreat, which is for the children of these refugees. This is where Esther was able to learn this song.

When we made a follow-up visit to Esther’s family this fall, we were surprised that, not only did Esther retain the music, she continued singing it after the retreat. She loved it so much that she taught the song to the children in her neighborhood.

We think this is symbolic of the love and care that we show to the refugees when we see them. The support and the services that we provide for these people never just ends with them.

We have seen time and time again that refugees share the money they receive from Crossing Borders with others in their community. They bring other refugees into their communities. They help each other in times of need.

It is like a song that Esther could not help but share with the community around her.

Inside the Ministry of Unification:

In the background of the Demilitarized Zone, behind the wires and fencing are two countries, two sides, two telephones and one talk to barter peace in the peninsula that has been split since their ceasefire in 1953. 

The Unification Ministry of South Korea, employing hundreds of analysts and specialists and with a $1.02B budget, has worked to approach peace through many dimensions: military, culture, education, etc. 

However, despite a two-year hiatus between the two countries' telephone hotline, the ministry is facing an "intractable" task: garnering unity among brothers who look increasingly different from one another. Among younger generations, unity is less popular than among those who remember a single country peninsula.  

Read more here: http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/06/asia/south-korea-unification-ministry-intl/index.html

China prepares refugee camps amid growing tensions in North Korea

A propaganda slogan and portraits of former North Korean leader Kim Jong Il (R) and his father and founder of North Korea Kim Il Sung (L) are seen in a North Korean village on the banks of the Tumen river, which is seen from the Chinese side in Tumen, China, January 7, 2016. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon

Despite a long history of refugee policy reporting any North Koreans back to almost certain imprisonment or death, China is now constructing refugee camps along

The camps, located in provinces nearby China’s iconic but porous border with North Korea – the Tumen River – are expected to house thousands of migrants.

The construction, amid increasing volatility and international pressure in the region, represents a shift in policy for the long-time ally of the hermit kingdom.

Though officials from Changbai County declined to comment, the leaked documents from state-owned telecommunications company China Mobile document inspections of internet connectivity.

“Because the situation on the China-North Korea border has intensified lately, Changbai County government plans to set up five refugee sites in Changbai,” China Mobile said in the document.

Generosity is Contagious

North Korean refugee women at one of their gatherings.

Crossing Borders has been a witness to the power of community. We believe that no one person can positively change the lives of North Korean refugees more than themselves. This has shown itself to be true over and over again in the lives of the refugees in our network.

This fall, a woman in one of our communities had a son whose shoes were badly worn. He is currently in seventh grade and is extremely active. His shoes bore the burden of this activity. His soles were almost worn right through.

When North Korean women are sold to Chinese men, they are usually sold to the poorest of the poor. They are sold to men with very low social and economic standing who otherwise could not find a wife for themselves.

All of the women in our network live in abject poverty with few resources within the family and even fewer that are entrusted to them by their families, which is why this mother could not afford shoes for her son.

North Korean refugees are all running from an even deeper state of poverty. By enduring one of the worst modern-day famines, many North Korean women have been conditioned to take what they can and give only when it has a direct benefit for themselves.

“Normally, these women only know how to steal or grab everything quickly before others,” one of our field workers stated in a recent report.

This is why it was such an amazing occurrence to see this community of about 10 women come together to experience the joy of giving by pooling their money together to purchase shoes for this boy.

Generosity is contagious. Refugees who have received the generosity of so many from the US and around the world and are beginning to return it back to their communities. This was evident when a group of community members worked to restore the sight of a blind refugee last year.  Or when a North Korean refugee who escaped to China, mobilized a clothing drive for the refugee women still in China, as chronicled in our latest annual report.

Many of you reading this give so that these women can meet and have a life outside of fear. What you are giving them is much more. You are giving them the will to care for others.

Defectors with Chinese papers face obstacles in South Korea

Kim Seok-cheol with a photograph from 1981 in which he is flanked by two friends in Sariwon, North Korea. Credit Jean Chung for The New York Times

Though the path to entry into South Korea and official refugee status often passes through China, for those who have papers designating them Chinese citizens, the end destination is often blocked.

Kim Seok Cheol, a 52-year-old man who escaped with his family over three decades ago, has been stuck in a country he only intended to stay in temporarily. 

“I never felt I truly belonged in China,” Mr. Kim said. “Chinese was still a foreign language to me. And I had to give gifts, like expensive bottles of liquor, to officials who could cause trouble for me by exposing that I was a North Korean.”

Because of Kim's Chinese passport and nationality -- obtained through a bribe his father orchestrated -- the South Korean government does not accept Kim's claims of being a defector. 

The status afforded to all North Korean defectors as citizens of the Korean Peninsula, as decreed in the Southern neighbor's constitution, is withheld for those with Chinese papers--even if they're fake. 

read the full story here: 

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/09/world/asia/north-korean-defector-south-korea-kim-seok-cheol.html

Smartphones in North Korea are used as “Weapons of Mass Surveillance”

The country that is infamously closed off and inundates state-run media with propaganda now has smartphones.

However, rather than representing unfettered access to news, outside information and facilitation of an underground network, the network of smartphones and a limited intranet is being distributed—and closely monitored—by the North Korean government itself.

Similarly to how they are viewed in the West, the “Arirang Touch” phones, modeled closely after iPhones, are status symbols among citizens. They are also monitored around the clock for usage and surveillance via censorship, spyware software and even random stops by passing police.

Read the full story here: https://www.wsj.com/articles/north-koreans-get-smartphones-and-the-regime-keeps-tabs-1512556200

North Korean soldier defects, crossing DMZ

Surveillance video shows a North Korean defector running to the border with South Korea on Nov. 13. U.N. Command / via EPA

Though most North Korean defectors will choose the clandestine path of escaping through the Chinese border, last week a soldier fled across the heavily militarized DMZ at Panmunjom. 

Shot and chased until he reached the safety of the South Korean side of the border, the soldier suffered internal injuries and was later transferred to a hospital for surgery. 

Human rights activists have published reports of the soldier's health and speculation surrounding his reasons for defection. In the meantime, the United Nations has been focusing on the violations of the Korean armistice agreement from 1953. 

The U.N. command said the North violated the armistice by "one, firing weapons across the [Military Demarcation Line], and two, by actually crossing the MDL temporarily."

A U.N. Command statement said officials notified the North's military of these violations and requested a meeting to discuss the investigation results and measures to prevent future such violations.

Read the full story and watch the footage here: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/north-korea-violated-war-armistice-firing-defector-u-n-command-n823186

Get Ready for #givingtuesday!

This #givingtuesday we are looking to raise $2,000 to pay for one safehouse for North Korean refugees in 2018.

This safehouse will act as a central hub for most of the refugees in our network. They will use this house to hide from the Chinese police, flee from abusive husbands or to meet and make plans on how to support one another.

Over the past five years, Crossing Borders has greatly expanded our network. In 2014, we had 13 North Korean refugees in our network. As of the writing of this post, we have 139 women. Thanks to your generosity, our budget increased almost three times from $120k to $300k in 5 years.

The math is simple, the more money that we raise, the greater our capacity to help North Korean refugees is. You can contribute to our safehouse project until Monday, December 4 at midnight, so please be generous and consider making a gift. Click here and select “Safehouse”

Any funds raised above $2,000 will roll over to pay for the following year’s rent. If this program ends, funds will be placed in our general fund.

There are many ways to give. Donate directly (one time or monthly recurring) and you can also give through your Amazon shopping via Smile

North Korean Community in Japan

Why North Korea has children's schools in Japan Follow Johnny to stay up to date on Vox Borders: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/johnnywharris Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/johnnyharrisvox Last week's episode: https://youtu.be/Wx_2SVm9Jgo My dispatch about Japan's rising right-wing nationalism: https://youtu.be/IHJsoCAREsg Original Music by Rare Henderson: https://www.rarehenderson.com/audio The six Vox Borders documentaries, presented by lululemon, are publishing weekly on Tuesdays.

Lesser-known by outsiders, the community in Japan called the "Chongryon" is composed of Korean minorities who identify with North Korea. 

Ethnically Korean but brought over during Japanese occupation of the peninsula, the 150,000 people claiming North Korea as both their promised land and benefactors are often discriminated against in Japan. 

The cycle of discrimination leading to increased loyalty to the Kim regime and insulation is often repeated but has more recently escalated to issues of safety. 

The Vox Borders documentary above delves into this unknown community and the fine line between cultural barriers versus physical borders.

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."