Yonhap
Lee Joon-seung
7/18/2007
A company run by the former head of Hyundai Asan Corp. said Wednesday that it will import agricultural products from North Korea that could open full-fledged overland trade with North Korea.
Acheon Global Corp. said it will import three truckloads of fernbrake, fatsia shoots and dried noodles made from buckwheat and arrowroot on Thursday.
Yonhap
Sohn Suk-joo
7/18/2007
North Korea Wednesday banned a tour of downtown Kaesong by South Koreans in an apparent protest against Seoul’s decision to scale down a Buddhist pilgrimage program to an ancient temple there, sources here said.
North Korea closed off downtown Kaesong to South Koreans in retaliation for the South’s refusal in July 2006 to allow the North to change its South Korean business partner for tours of the city. But since January, it has opened the main street of the medieval capital city to South Korean officials and tourists off and on.
On Wednesday morning, North Korean authorities did not allow some 60 Woori Bank officials to tour the heart of the city, and canceled a scheduled trip by South Korean financial supervisory officials to Kaesong the following day, according to the sources.
“According to industry sources, the North’s measure comes as a result of the South’s limiting of a pilgrimage program to Yongtong Temple,” said Kim Kyu-cheol, president of the South-North Forum, a civic group for inter-Korean economic cooperation.
The South’s Unification Ministry limited the number of pilgrimages to once a month, even though the North agreed to an unconditional number of pilgrimages to the restored temple as long as it could charge each tourist US$50.
Cheongtaejong, one of South Korea’s major Buddhist orders, also protested the decision, saying it would limit freedom of religion as many Buddhists are waiting to make a visit.
The government decision was made after North Korea requested a new deal on its tour business in 2005. The North wanted an agreement with Lotte Tours Co. despite having exclusive contract with Hyundai Asan, operator of the Mount Geumgang tours.
The South Korean government rejected the North’s request, saying the change could happen only if Hyundai Asan voluntarily pulls out of the business.
Korea Times
7/18/2007
North Korea has ceased operations of four more nuclear facilities after closing Saturday its key nuclear reactor that produces weapons-grade plutonium, the chief of the U.N. nuclear watchdog said Wednesday.
“We have verified all the five nuclear facilities have been shut down,” Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), was quoted as saying in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, by the Associated Press.
He said some of the facilities have been sealed by IAEA inspectors who are currently staying in the North to verify the shutdown and disablement of the North’s nuclear facilities.
His remark comes as a new round of six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear disarmament is set to resume in Beijing Wednesday afternoon.
The talks involving the two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia are supposed to deal with disablement of the North Korea’s nuclear facilities and the North’s declaration of all of its nuclear programs under the second phase of a February agreement.
Daily NK
Shin Joo Hyun
7/18/2007
Chosun (North Korea) Central TV, with the Local People’s Assembly representative elections ahead on the 29th of the month, reported on the 14th that a poster with the election slogan, “Let everyone vote in agreement,” has been produced.
North Korean Local People’s Assembly elections is a process of electing People’s Assembly representative at the province and the city under the direct control of the central government, and general cities, gun (county levels) and districts. At the election held in August 2003, 26,650 delegates were elected to the local People’s Assembly representative.
All elections at each unit of North Korea take place by each sole candidate coming forth and people voting for or against him or her. The nomination of candidates takes place by the elections party committee, who selects the candidates before the fact, and each level of organizations.
When the election date is publicly announced, events or meetings are held to encourage the approval votes of each People’s unit, civil organizations, or organs. Not only election slogans to encourage votes, but political slogans also emerge, such as “Let’s shine the military-first politics even more through participation of the populous.”
Mr. Lee, who defected to South Korea in 2004, said, “The National Security Agency tries to instill fear among the citizens by spreading rumors such as ‘So and so of a certain region voted in disagreement, so the entire family was banished. If one does not vote, he or she becomes special object of inspections.’ I did not know this there, but when I came here, I realized they were groundless acts of propagation to encourage approval votes.”
On the day of elections, if one enters the voting place, the citizens registration card is confirmed and people form lines to enter the voting area. Failure to participate in the voting is the same as being classified as anti-revolutionary persons.
In the case that one votes in agreement with the candidate, he or she can drop the voting paper in the voting box. Only in the case of disapproval can one enter the polling booth and mark X with a pencil. In reality, it is a public vote without the assurance of secrecy because the person in disagreement can be identified right away.
At the time of a vote of disagreement, the person is taken to the National Security Agency and undergo severe interrogations and is classified as a anti-revolutionary person, so no one dares to disagree. In the view of South Korean, we can become incensed about the fact that and ask ‘how can elections be so undemocratic?’ but to North Korea citizens, this is such a natural fact.”
As a result, North Korean elections are an election in words, but has a different dimension from our elections. In North Korea, the dimension of testing political character and understanding civilian population is much stronger than the meaning of electing representatives. In actuality, it is a political event to seize citizens.
With this year’s elections approaching, the inspections of North Korean borders and maritime has become much more strict and the issuance of permits for relocation has become more difficult. By doing so, means to restrain relocations have actually been implemented.
When elections end in the North, there is no special announcement on the result. Korean Central TV only reports the expected results in a lump, such as a 99.9% voting rate and a 100% approval rate.
Election slogans such as “Let everyone vote in agreement” cannot be abrupt to North Korean. However, such undemocratic election campaigns cannot continue forever by the North Korean authorities. When North Korean citizens realize that slogans to encourage votes of approval is the starting point for a dictatorship and anti-humanitarian politics, North Korea’s quality will change.
Korea Times
Kang Shin-who
7/17/2007
More and more universities are removing departments of North Korean studies. Since Dongguk University was the first Korean university to establish a major in North Korean studies in 1994, five other universities followed: Kwandong University in 1996, Myongji University and Korea University in 1997, Chosun University in 1998 and Sun Moon University in 1998.
However, three of the five universities no longer offer the major. Chosun University abolished the department a year after its establishment because it could not guarantee jobs for graduates. Sun Moon University will change the department to North Asian studies from next year.
Also, Kwandong University, which is located in Gangwon Province, gave up the studies last year because the school has failed to meet the admission quota over the last few years.
Although students can major in North Korean studies at Dongguk University, the school will recruit only 20 new students for the next academic year, 20 less than the previous year.
Experts say that severe competition on landing jobs has caused many universities to give up North Korean studies. Many of the major hopefuls expect that they could easily get a job at the Ministry of Unification or research institutes for North Korea, but they have not taken advantage of their major. According to a survey by the Korea Research Institute for Vocational Education and Training, only 20 percent of students majoring in North Korean studies said that they are positive about their future, but 40 percent of them said their studies have no future.
While undergraduate schools have seen a decrease in the number of North Korean major students, more graduate schools have opened the studies. Sogang University set up the program at its graduate school in 1990, Kyungnam University in 1997 and Ewha Womans University last year.
Daily NK
Kim Min Se
7/17/2007
Only six, seven years ago, drugs inside North Korea secretly circulated among a portion of the upper-level officials and the specially affluent class, such as Chinese emigrants. Opium or heroine, produced in North Korea, were sold abroad to make foreign currency.
North Korea produces and exports drugs at the national level. Events where North Korean vessels and diplomats, through drug transport or charges of sales, are prosecuted by third-party countries is common. South Korean government, in the midst of North Korea’s breakdown in foreign currency supply in 1998, has deduced at one point that foreign-currency earners through illicit drug sales and illegal activities had amassed 100 million dollars.
From year 1970, North Korea’s drug sales, which secretly began on a small-scale, by the decree of Chairperson Kim Jong Il, rose in reality as a national enterprise and began official productions. In the August of same year, Chairperson Kim named the opium seed cultivation work as “White Bellflower Business.”
Further, he bestowed the appellation, “White Bellflower Hero,” to the person who sold over 1 million dollars of drugs, and ordered, “For the acquisition of foreign currency, export opium on a large scale (information reported by the National Intelligence Service, Lee Jong Chan former Chair at the inspection of National Intelligence Service on November 6, 1998).” As for North Korea’s drug production factories, the Nanam Pharmaceutical Factory in Chongjin and Hamheung’s Heungnam Pharmaceutical Factory are well-known.
Drugs, which are costly to average civilians preoccupied with making a living, were considered as a portion of the special class’ acts of aberration. The North Korean government, besides the foreign-currency earners, strictly inspected acts of drug circulations, so one could not even dream about this as a means of making money.
After the collapse of national provisions, drug sales also increase.
However, the food shortage brought a huge change to North Korea’s drug production and circulation. When the planned-economy system, where the nation was in charge of the provisions, broke down, the citizens started doing sales for survival. In North Korea where means of making money are not abundant, the place where one can smell money is at the market.
The revitalization of the jangmadang (black market) and general markets gave citizens in the cities a certain of opportunity to make a living. Further, they learned the mentality that money is best for survival. The custom began to spread where the citizens went through thick and thin if it meant working at a money-making job. Drugs infiltrated this opening.
Drugs that are most highly circulated in North Korea are philopon and heroine. The center of philipon productions is in Hamheung, South Hamkyung.
Hamheung is considered as a chemical industry synthesis base within North Korea where companies related to the chemistry branch can be abundantly found.
The representative place is the 2.8 Vinyl Chemical Complexes. Besides this, there are Hamheung Chemical Industry College (in its 5th year), the Heungnam Fertilizer Factory, and the Heungnam Pharmaceutical Factory, which are the providers of North Korea’s top chemical researchers.
The reason why Hamheung became the main place of philopon production
The raw materials for the vinyl complex are limestones of the Ounpo Mine in Hongwon-gun and the raw materials of the Heungnam Fertilizer Factory are ramrods of Huhcheon-gun and emulsified steel of the Manduk Mine.
For this reason, many chemistry-related researchers and workers are residing in Hamheung. The problem is that after the food provisions were cut off, they turned their eyes to Philopon production when making a living became difficult.
They can produce high-quality philopon, if they just have a good laboratory and raw materials. In particular, outside demand for Philopon was explosive in early 2000, when there were no huge restraints in the North Korea-Japanese trade and when the North Korea-Chinese trade became active.
Hamheung citizen Choi Myung Gil (pseudonym) said, “In the initial stage, if the businessmen provided raw materials and funds to researchers, they made high-quality Philipon and kept half of the profit. Do poor researchers have any money? They made them because businessmen received orders from China and Japan and sold them. Also, there was nothing to fear because bribes kept the mouths of the National Security Agency and the Social Safety Agency shut. There is nothing one cannot do with money, so what kind of a researcher would crush such a money-making scheme?”
Mr. Choi said, “The cost of production of philopon is no more than 3,000 dollars per kilogram in North Korea. If one sells this, he or she can receive 6,000 dollars on the spot. Manufactured Philopon can be handed over to middlemen or if it directly enters Shinuiju and is given to dealers, it can bring in from 9,000 to 10,000 dollars.”
He said, “My friend, who worked as a researcher in the Hamheung Branch Laboratory, also lived poorly, but became wealthy overnight by making philopon. I also am benefitting from him. There are many people who have become wealthy in Hamheung by making philopon.”
Ultimately, when the North Korea-Chinese traders bring the raw materials from China, the Hamheung chemical researchers make the philopon and the merchants take these to China for sale. In this process, the Chinese crime syndicate have also intervened.
Daily NK
Kim Min Se
7/17/2007
Researcher Raphael Pearl at the U.S. Congressional Research Service (CRS) maintained that recently, the Chinese crime syndicate has interfered in North Korean drug manufacturing and deals. Through the steady appearance of the up and coming wealthy class who have amassed a lot of money through sales, a significant amount of drugs began to be circulated in China.
North Korea-Chinese businessman Kim Myung Guk (pseudonym), who is in charge of North Korean mineral exports, frequently enters Hamheung to get minerals (uranium concentrate). Presently, Mr. Kim is in Dandong, China to meet Chinese businessmen.
Mr. Kim said, “The philopon from Hamheung is the best. In Pyongyang, Shinuiju, and Chongjin, Hamheung-made philipons are the most trusted. So I frequently receive requests to deal Hamheung philopon from other businessmen.”
Mr. Kim said, “It got to the point that the Chinese government requested inspection of the Hamheung factory, so the North Korean authorities carried out partial abolition. Nowadays, there is hardly anyone among the North Korean businessmen who do not know about the fact that Hamheung is the center of drug production.”
The Chinese government, when North Korean drugs started coming in on a mass-scale, pointed out the Heungnam Pharmaceutical Factory in Hamheung as a drug production factory in North Korea and demanded the abolition of the factory.
With exports to the outside closing, the great enterprise sold in North Korea
Currently in Shinuiju, philopon made in Hamheung is being sold for 9,000 to 10,000 dollars per kilogram. Drug dealers bring these into China and resell them at three times the higher price to Chinese drug dealers.
However, foreign sales of North Korean drugs is significantly decreasing as a whole.
In recent years, PSI and other international surveillance network have been strengthened regarding North Korea’s illegal actions, so drug exports have remarkably decreased. Further, North Korea-Japan relations have become worsened, so it seems to have exerted an influence on control of North Korean drug sales.
In Dandong, Chinese-North Korean businessman Kim Jong Man (pseudonym), who does trade with North Korea, said, “North Korea, before it ceased trade with Japan due to bad relations, sold a lot to Japan. It is a well-known fact that they were sold at high prices to Japanese yakuza via regular traders.”
However, with the worsening of relations, most avenues for drug sales have been closed. Also, the Chinese government, while proclaiming an all-out war with drugs recently, have significantly intensified control and inspections.
The Chinese government has shown a strong intention to control by broadcasting live via China’s CCTV the trial process of drug criminals through recent unconventional circumstances.
Mr. Kim said, “Due to the circumstances, the significant decrease in North Korean drugs going into China, compared to a year or two ago, can be felt.” Such an atmosphere is collectively acknowledged by other businessmen.
Inevitably, since routes for foreign sales have been closed, drug sales are increasing inside North Korea recently.
If such a trend continues, the day when North Korea will become one of the handfuls in the world known for its drug production and consumption does not seem too far off.
Daily NK
Park Choel Yong
7/16/2007
In Chosun (North Korea), free dating between male and female students is prevented during middle school years and even in college. If an unmarried man and woman are walking down the street arm in arm, then they have to worry about the glare of passersby. However, marriage from dating is a gradually increasing trend, but most of the time, people marry through arranged marriages.
Before the period of the food shortage before 1990, the best husband material was males who “had joined a party, performed military service, and graduated from college.” However, since 2000, a huge shift has taken place in the mentality of people.
Lately, three levels of husbands have been common. The first level is males who are included in the following three categories: those who frequently go abroad, those attend foreign-currency earning companies, and those who have high possibility of going abroad.
The second level is those who have parents who are high-ranked leaders or come from a wealthy background. The third level is those whose parents do not have power, but as individuals, are smart enough to finish military service, join the party, are able to support themselves through college.
Males, who are not classified in these categories, select as spouses females who belong to similar categories. However, even if the classes are divided as such, males who earn a lot of money are inevitably the most popular.
The candidates for No.5 Department of the Party are special-grade women
If one looks at the basis for which brides are chosen in Pyongyang, the first level are those whose parents have power and come from an affluent family. Nowadays, there are provincial men who, thanks to the spouses’ family, who succeed by achieving the status of a Pyongyang citizen.
The second level is female college graduates, whose parents may not have authority, but the individual is smart and can make a living by herself. Of course, a woman cannot do better than graduate from Kim Il Sung University, Pyongyang Foreign Language University, or Pyongyang Medical College. Historically and now, women who graduate from the College of Education can work as a teacher is still an admirable bride material.
The third level is those whose parents do not have power, the household is not too affluent, and the woman did not graduate from college, but she has a strong will of survival so can conduct business well. In Chosun nowadays, women who cannot do business are not popular among the men.
However, above power, education level, and money, is a class which is counted as a special level of women among all the men. They are those whose appearances are superior that they are selected into the No.5 Department of the Party, or are actors, dancers, or singers. The No.5 Department’s females work as phone operators or as Gippeumjo (pleasure-givers, special entertainers just for high-ranking officials) of high-level leaders and should quit once they reach 25. Afterwards, they are acceded to the party, are married to military commanders of the Escort Bureau or party leaders, and enter married life and a house which have been prepared for them.
The No.5 Department of the Party is a division, which is charge of Kim Il Sung’s food, clothing, and shelter and every aspect of his private life.
A refined marriage of mutual exchange of vows and pouring drinks at home
Once the marriage partner is selected, the parents select the date of the engagement ceremony. There are differences by province, but as a whole, the groom’s side of the family prepare deok (rice cakes) and food on the day of the ceremony and go to the bride’s home. On engagement day, the parents choose the wedding date.
The wedding clothes do not require a large sum of money. The men wear suits and women can prepare traditional Chosun dresses.
Japanese-Koreans who have returned to Pyongyang wear Western-style wedding clothes, which are rarely seen, and marry. In the past, Chosun period receptions and wedding attires, invoking the national tradition, were popular, but recently, they have completely disappeared.
The wedding is first conducted at the bride’s house. The wedding itself is the exchange of Korean drink glasses at the feast table and after the exchange of bows, the ceremony ends by pouring the drinks to both sides of parents and giving bows. Then, on the next day, the party leaves for the groom’s house. There, the same ceremony is conducted. Three days later, food is prepared and the bribe’s house visits take place.
In big cities such as Pyongyang, large-scale weddings can take place. First of all, cars that are brought to the wedding vary. In Chosun, it is not easy to acquire cars, but people choose high-scale cars anyways. In the house of upper-level leaders, several cars are mobilized.
For wedding photos, the Mansudae Arts Theater is the Best
Post the wedding ceremony, people ride rented cars and offer flowers and take ceremonial photos at the Kim Il Sung statue. They ride the car once more and take photos at various places and of statues in Pyongyang City.
The Party Foundation Commemorative Tower, the 5.1 Stadium, the Juche Ideology Tower, etc. are the major photo sites. There are political reasons for seeking out these sites, but they are also the most-decorated facilities in Pyongyang, so the pictures come out beautifully.
When one has a wedding, they have to report the marriage, carrying citizen registration cards, within a set time at the police station of jurisdiction. The bride and the groom, at this time, have to simultaneously read aloud the wedding oath.
The wedding oath pledges devotion to Kim Jong Il and as a cell of society, diligent leadership of the family, trust and reliance on each other, and walking the single path of revolution together.
In agricultural districts, the farmers do not even properly receive crops, so since they do not have anything to eat, they do not like going to the farm to work. However, the unmarried women, once they are engaged, are freed from going to the farm to work. Once there is an engagement ceremony, the woman is classified as a housewife who can receive 300 grams of provisions per day, so they are no longer required to go out to the farms and can wholly go into selling.
Thus, the young women in rural villages do not pay too much attention to the appearance or background of the grooms and in many cases, they become engaged as soon as they meet a man. Consequently, in the rural region, 19 or 20-year old married females are common. To them, marriage, which should be built on mutual love and faith, are considered as asylums for being freed from difficult labor.
Washington Post Foreign Service
Edward Cody
7/15/2007; Page A01
Move Follows Delivery of Oil; U.N. Team to Verify Shutdown
After four years of off-and-on negotiations, North Korea said it began closing down its main nuclear reactor Saturday, shortly after receiving a first boatload of fuel oil aid.
The closure, if confirmed by U.N. inspectors, would mark the first concrete step in a carefully orchestrated denuclearization schedule that was agreed on in February, with the ultimate goal of dismantling North Korea’s nuclear weapons program in exchange for fuel and other economic aid, and increased diplomatic recognition.
More broadly, it constituted the first on-the-ground accomplishment of six-nation negotiations that have been grinding away with little progress since 2003 under Chinese sponsorship. The talks — including North and South Korea, Russia, Japan, the United States and China — are likely to resume next week in Beijing to emphasize the parties’ resolve to carry out the rest of the February agreement and eventually create a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula.
“We welcome this development and look forward to the verification and monitoring of this shutdown by the International Atomic Energy Agency team,” said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack, referring to a 10-member team of U.N. inspectors who flew into North Korea earlier Saturday.
Assistant Secretary of State Christopher R. Hill, the chief U.S. negotiator, warned reporters in Japan, where he was visiting in anticipation of the new talks, that moving forward into further denuclearization would probably prove as difficult as the previous four years of discussions. Given the track record, which includes several North Korean walkouts and long standoffs, some Asian and U.S. analysts have questioned whether North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Il, has genuinely made the strategic decision to give up nuclear weapons after so many years devoted to developing them.
The next steps, as outlined in the accord, would be for North Korea to permanently disable the reactor, a plutonium facility at Yongbyon, 60 miles northeast of Pyongyang, the capital, and to reveal the full extent of the nuclear weapons, nuclear processing plants and stored nuclear material it has accumulated. That would include an accounting of any uranium enrichment efforts, which North Korea denies it has undertaken but which the Bush administration says have been part of the country’s nuclear research.
Uranium aside, U.S. intelligence estimates have said North Korea has extracted enough plutonium from the Yongbyon facility to build as many as a dozen bombs, although it is not known how many weapons the reclusive Stalinist nation’s military has put together. Last October, while the talks were again stalled, North Korea announced it had conducted its first underground nuclear test and henceforth should be considered a nuclear-armed state.
Kim’s government has based much of its power on the military, and possession of nuclear weapons has been described in North Korean propaganda as a matter of national pride. But the thought of nuclear weapons in the hands of Kim and his aides has unsettled his Asian neighbors, including China. As a result, they have persisted in the six-party negotiations despite repeated delays and abrupt changes of position by North Korean diplomats.
North Korea’s decision to go ahead with the Yongbyon closure, for instance, came only after nearly two years of wrangling over about $25 million in North Korean accounts blocked in a Macau bank.
The funds were frozen because of U.S. Treasury Department allegations in September 2005 that they were tainted by money laundering and counterfeiting. After months of insisting the Treasury accusations were a law enforcement matter separate from the nuclear talks, the Bush administration switched positions and promised to get the money liberated, leading to February’s milestone agreement. But several months more passed while Hill struggled to find a banking system that would handle the allegedly tainted money. Ultimately, the funds were transferred out of Macau via the Federal Reserve Bank of New York into the Russian banking system and, from there, transferred into North Korean accounts in a Russian trading bank near the border with North Korea
Diplomats from the six nations have suggested that, should they be successful, the North Korean nuclear negotiations could eventually evolve into a permanent forum for East Asian security cooperation, bringing North Korea into a closer relationship with its neighbors. But as Hill did in Japan on Saturday, they acknowledge they have a long road ahead before anything like that is possible.
Saturday’s announcement, while widely applauded, essentially returned the East Asian landscape to what it was in 2002, when operations had been suspended at the Yongbyon reactor under an earlier deal put together in 1994 under the Clinton administration.
U.S. diplomats said in 2002 that North Korean representatives acknowledged a secret uranium enrichment program — something North Korea has steadfastly denied since then — and the Bush administration stopped the oil shipments that were part of the 1994 deal. In return, North Korea expelled U.N. weapons inspectors, quit the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and restarted operations at Yongbyon.
The North Korean government had made no formal announcement by early Sunday. But a diplomat at the North Korean U.N. mission, Kim Myon Gil, told the Associated Press that the reactor was shut down Saturday and its closure would soon be verified by the U.N. inspectors. The State Department said in Washington that it got official word from North Korea shortly after a South Korean ship pulled into Sonbong, a port in northeast North Korea, with a cargo of 6,200 tons of heavy fuel oil to power generators in the rickety North Korean electricity grid.”
The delivery represented a down payment on a scheduled 50,000 tons of fuel oil aid in return for shutting down the reactor. In all, the February accord promised North Korea up to 1 million tons of oil and other economic aid as it takes further denuclearization steps over the months ahead.
The accord also held out the prospect of improved relations with the United States, which has long been a goal of North Korea. In signing the accord, for instance, the Bush administration undertook to review whether it could remove North Korea from the list of countries said to sponsor terrorism and to engage in diplomatic discussions aimed at dissipating the hostility that remains more than half a century after the Korean War.
Daily NK
Park Young Nam
7/14/2007
Even in North Korea, there are special schools for the gifted and talented. In particular, talented students are selected for high schools and special education. The writer also attended a special high school while in North Korea.
I enrolled at an elementary school in `92. Since 3rd I was taught separately and received special education. Under the care of my class teacher, I studied math and nature subjects in detail until 6 o’clock at night.
After completing 4 years of elementary school, I was selected as a representative for Musan and entered Chongjin No.1 High School in April `96. No. 1 high schools are special schools for the talented and are located in Pyongyang and each province.
I arrived at Chongjin No. 1 High School to find many other students as bright as me. On top of that, these students all came from good backgrounds.
Undoubtedly, I was no different. My father worked for the People’s Committee and my mother was a doctor. At the time, my family lived an abundant life and had all the necessary electrical goods such as a TV and refrigerator.
High school days, shirking going to school
Unlike average high schools, we often missed classes and went on day trips. Again, punishment is severe at average high schools but we were not treated to harsh punishment because of our respectable backgrounds. Even if you were caught drinking alcohol on the streets and taken to the police, you were let go once you informed them that you attended “Chongjin No. 1 High School.”
Despite playing like this, I studied very hard at the end of each month in order to sit for the exams. I studied 10 days prior to each exam. During the summer, I could study a lot as the days are long, however in the winter, I couldn’t study because the sun set early and there was no electricity.
The winter was the worst as there was no central heating in the dormitories. Even if you wanted to cook rice, you couldn’t. The moment you placed a heater, which was made with twisted nicrome wire, in the socket and, the dismal light only became dimmer and if you put three of these wires into the wall socket the fuse went out. In the end, I became so frustrated that I shoved a spoon into the fuse socket only to find that it didn’t black out but operated fine.
Expelled for watching a video
That’s how I spent my days at school. Then things began to go wrong from about 4th grade.
In February `99, after I had begun 4th grade and sat for an entry exam for Pyongyang No. 1 High School. I sat for the test with the desire to go to a slightly better school but it ended in failure. At the time, I fell into misery and for a while I went around playing and my grades continued to drop.
In August `99, I went to visit a friend’s home who had come from Hoiryeong with 4 other mates. He had a TV and video player in his home. To be honest, the house had been under inspection by the National Security Agency because of this, but at the time, I didn’t even consider this. We watched three videos at that friend’s home.
I watched the old South Korean drama “Men from 8 Provinces,” and other American movies, “Titantic” and “Six Days, Seven Nights.”
I was alarmed after watching “Titantic” and “Six Days, Seven Nights.” The foreign movies were really enjoyable but what clearly remains in my memory is the thrill I had from simply watching the films. We watched the complete and unabridged version of Titanic, even the scene where the two main characters have an affair in the car. As part of the audience, I found this shocking.
While watching these characters traveling freely in the movie, I thought, why can’t we travel on boats like that and why can’t we play freely like that. It was inevitable that I felt culture shock.
However we were caught and were sent to the detention centre in early October. All 4 of my friends who watched the videos were also caught and we sat in the centre for about 10 days.
I wasn’t even sure what the crime was, but I had a feeling it was because we had watched foreign movies. Whether or not it was because we were young, we were let go after a few beatings with something like a broomstick.
After returning to school, there was no reason for us to be the centre of attention. We didn’t tell anyone where we had been but I think everyone generally knew. At the same time, my grades were really low and in the end I was expelled from school.
From expulsion until arriving in South Korea
Following that incident, I went to live with relatives in Pyongyang for 1 year.
I had a business in Pyongyang. When my mother brought clothes from China, I sold them in Pyongyang. With this money, I bought rice and then made profits by acting as an intermediary and selling the rice to Musan. Compared to Pyongyang, rice was expensive in Musan and as a result, I was able to reap in a lot of profits.
However, I couldn’t continue to do this. I felt bad living with my relatives. In the end, I returned to my home in Musan.
Having returned to Musan, I began to associate with children from the wealthy class and one day heard that they traveled in and out of China and in 2001, I crossed over to China in search of a better life.
I crossed the borders, not because I was hungry or because I was in danger. I was merely worried about my uncertain future and found living in North Korea suffocating. I yearned for a more abundant life.
Currently, I am preparing to enroll at POSTECH. However, for the 5 years since my expulsion, I have not had any opportunity to study while traveling from Pyongyang to China, then Korea. Re-starting my studies is not easy. The time I lost while defecting is such a shame.
Studying is something I had forgotten for a long time. I must acclimatize myself to an education system very different to that of North Korea. Nonetheless, I believe I will be able to do well if I try very hard.
