My Lunch With Ms. Jung

From a short distance the stand of trees all look similar. The wind stirs and the young spring leaves all rustle in unison. It seems like one voice. But get closer. You can make out a lilac tree hidden from view. It has those lovely purple flowers. And that unique scent finds its way to you. It causes you to say, "My goodness, you are lovely aren't you?"

Somehow Jung Su Min's* presence in the Daegu area found its way to me. She had briefly been a student at an area English academy. Then, another area professor told me about her and he helped me track her down.

Su Min, 30, recently escaped from North Korea. She told no one about her plans. She left a note for her mother. Her father, working for an administrative branch of the DRPK army, died shortly after her departure. I had many questions, but I knew I had to put them aside for the moment.

She agreed to meet me for lunch. Students were coming and going, strutting their latest styles, distracted by their smart phones. I did notice one woman sitting alone off to the side on a bench under some trees. She was wearing a long billowy white dress and red heels looking a bit like she stepped out of the 1980s. In a sense, she had.

We walked together through a forested area near her campus. We went to a restaurant off the beaten path, one where we could talk without the jarring din of Korean music.

Her face held many stories. It spoke too, of beautiful simplicity. Her make-up was minimal. Her face was round, like many of the faces I saw during my visit to North Korea last summer. As the side dishes were brought to us, she moved the small bowls and plates around the table. Her hands looked strong, her fingers plain and rough, utilitarian, almost ignored--far different from the manicured, attention-seeking fingers of most female Korean students.

Cosmopolitan women of Pyongyang

Su Min, in her steady but basic English, told me that the route of her escape took her through China, Laos, and then, into Thailand. There she found access to South Korea. I imagined that she had gone through a lengthy screening and interrogation process here, but she said it only consisted of completing forms for several hours. Where do you live I asked? How do you survive financially? What do you do? Questions asked in rapid succession.

Thailand is generally the next-to-last destination of North Koreans escaping through China. Many Koreans surrender themselves to the Thai police soon after they across the border. Over the past ten years the number of North Korean defectors coming to South Korea has averaged 2,170 a year, 70% of them women.

I quickly realized I wasn't "just" sitting with a North Korean defector. I was having lunch with a woman of clarity, of strong convictions. She is a woman fully 10 years older than most of my students. Unlike those students, she is not distracted by the lure of commercials, the incessant marketing and the expensive brands that intoxicate most young Koreans. She was here to learn, to gain knowledge, fully appreciative of her opportunities, of her new found freedom.

Woman walking with friend in Pyongyang

Su Min lives alone, she told me. She earns her income. The South Korean government pays her to speak, to tell her story at gatherings of soldiers and at prisons. While the government has helped her find her way to her university, she lacks many of the resources her South Korean counterparts typically use to jumpstart their careers.

South Koreans traditionally rely on three sets of "connections" to get access to jobs and secure their careers: Hyak yun (학연), school contacts, Jee yun (지연), social and geographical contacts, and Hyul yun (혈연), family and generational contacts. Su Min, having left her family in North Korea, by definition, starts at a severe disadvantage in terms of all three types of connections. So, she wants to focus on her studies at the university and to gain as much knowledge as possible as she begins her career and life journey in South Korea.

She is able to be in occasional touch with her mother; a complicated process involving Chinese cell phone connections. Surprisingly, she is able to provide her mother with financial support. She saves up money she earns and though secretive and expensive connections through China, her cash finds its way to her mom. The process, however, is very expensive. She pays a 30% fee for each transaction.

I asked Su Min about her future plans. I expected to hear some vague ideas about "fitting in" and quietly assimilating into society here in South Korea. But Su Min looked at me confidently and told me she has both 5 and 10 year plans. "I want to be a politician here in South Korea," she told me proudly. I was impressed with her assertiveness, but surely, her courage and mettle is what helped her to find her way safely out of North Korea, across China and ultimately, to the seat across the table from me here in South Korea.

I had one last question, one that has gnawed at me through the many books and articles I have read about North Korea. It had puzzled me during my conversations with both North Koreans and the people who do business there. I asked Su Min if most North Koreans know the basic truth, that their leaders are fabricating reality, and that there is a wider world of freedom existing just past their border. "Yes, they know," she said. "But it's too dangerous to speak about it."

As we walked back to her campus it became clear to me just how special this young woman was. There are indeed many trees in the forest all rustling in unison. But this young lady, I thought, answers to a breeze all her own. This one, I said to myself, is going to make history. 

Author's note: *Jung Su Min is not her real name. Her name was changed to protect her privacy. Other aspects of her story, for example her major and her university, have been omitted to help preserve her anonymity.

North Korea Unplugged: Kim Il-sung Slept Here, 2nd in a series

Though there are many stops on the North Korean tour, one thing is remarkably consistent. At each venue, whether it's a factory, historic place, or university, when the local tourist guide gets passed the baton to speak to the group, she always focuses on one theme: When did Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il, or more recently, Kim Jung-un, visit the place?, What words of wisdom did he impart?, and what artifacts from his visit remain on display in perpetuity, for all to see and admire?

On the Spot Guidance
The leaders are exceedingly brilliant. Their expertise is broad and deep. Their wisdom is admired far and wide. During Kim Il-sung's visit to the Wonsan Agricultural University, for example, he told school officials that they should begin to grow bananas in their university greenhouse. Done! We are directed to the exact spot where the Eternal Leader stood when he made that pronouncement. We are shown a black and white photo of the Eternal Leader surrounded by admiring students. In a glass case we observe a chair upon which he sat while visiting the university.

In her book, Nothing to Envy, Barbara Demick noted "Father and son were experts in absolutely everything, be it geology or farming." One day Kim Jung-il "decreed that the country should switch from rice to potatoes for its staple food; the next he would decide that raising ostriches was the cure for North Korea's food shortage. The country lurched from one harebrained scheme to another." Demick refers to this dynamic as "on the spot guidance."

At all the stops on our tour, this is what our North Korean hosts always assumed we most wanted to hear about. And this "dance" continued from venue to venue. Kim Il-sung's "wisdom" was invariably offered as the talking centerpiece. Salient questions were often brushed aside. When I asked one of our guides about the black "sleeves" I noticed near the tops of telephone poles in the countryside, he said he didn't know what they were. Later, doing my own research, I learned the sleeves, with exposed nails, were placed there during the famines of the 90's. It seems starving North Koreans would climb the poles and steal the copper wiring to sell on the black market for food. Was the "Kim Il-sung slept here routine" genuine national pride, or had it become an obligatory story line--a safe way to get through another day in a failed state?

Visiting Wonsan Agricultural University

Photo showing the Eternal Leader, Kim Il-sung, meeting with admiring
university students decades ago. During the visit, he instructed
school officials to grow bananas in the university greenhouse

Red triangle marks the exact spot where Kim Il-sung stood
when he gave his "on the spot guidance" to the university

University students in uniforms head to class
 as tour members pass in opposite direction

Students mingle in front of mural depicting North Korean leaders
standing in fields of grain

My guide couldn't explain the black "sleeves" I noticed on
telephone poles in the countryside. Later I learned they were
placed there to prevent the theft of copper wiring
during the famines of the 1990's.

North Korea: Unwrapping the Mystery Inside the Enigma

The U.S. State Department’s bulletin of May 21^st was unambiguous. It strongly recommended against travel by Americans to North Korea. This warning was based on several recent and worrisome incidents; the arrests of two U.S. citizens, one apparently after asking for asylum, the second for allegedly leaving a bible in his hotel room. Yet another American was serving a sentence in a North Korean labor camp. He still is.

It is not easy to sit on the fence when it comes to North Korea, also known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). Its leaders have been characterized as ruthless, its policies and actions interpreted as reckless.  It’s universally seen as an international pariah--a rogue state like no other. In his January 2002 State of the Union Address, President George W. Bush, famously labeled North Korea (along with Iran and Iraq) as one of three countries comprising the “Axis of Evil.”

We flew on Russian-made Air Koryo jets between Beijing and Pyongyang

Visiting North Korea had long been on my bucket list. I felt that I needed to experience this secretive and vexing place for myself. Once I discovered that U.S. citizens could, in fact, legally visit North Korea going through China, I signed myself up.  Our tour originated in Beijing, only a two-hour flight from my residence in South Korea where I teach English at a large private university. Koryo Tours, a British outfit, scheduled a mandatory briefing session, in their Beijing office, the day before we departed on our 8-day tour of North Korea. We listened intently to their recommended “Do’s,” and mostly, “Don’ts.” Don’t stray from the group at any time. No photos of soldiers or military installations. Don’t ask our North Korean tour guides challenging political questions that might be interpreted as insults to the leadership there. Suddenly, this adventure was becoming uncomfortably real.

Koryo Tours Office in Beijing, where we met for a pre-tour briefing

Our Russian-built plane landed in Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital of 3.5 million, clearly the showcase of the country. The many photos of Pyongyang I had seen suggested a dark gray metropolis, devoid of color, with wide empty streets, its citizens, drab and humorless. Pyongyang, also known as the City of Monuments with its seemingly endless parade of statues, museums and edifices that honor the State, does lack both the vibrancy and excitement of its South Korean counterpart, Seoul. But it’s a city that somehow seems to make due in spite of endless obstacles, including an inferior infrastructure, and regular power outages. When the lights go out, no one misses a beat. Its subway, bus and trolley systems make impressive use of antiquated vehicles from the 70’s, 80’s, even the 60’s—most imported from former Eastern bloc countries.

View of the capital city, Pyongyang, from the 36th floor of our hotel

Our tour covered a wide swath of the southern half of the country and included a visit to Panmunjoem, along the DMZ, and the nearby historic city of Kaesong, where 120 South Korean-built and managed factories provide employment to over 53,000 North Korean workers.  Having previously visited the DMZ from the South Korean side, I was surprised by how low key and non-bellicose the North Korean soldiers were. In fact, I struck up a conversation with an officer who led our tour there. He was cordial and posed for photos with a number of us on the tour. Such informality never happens with their more serious South Korean army counterparts.

A soldier, Mr. Park, led our tour of Panmunjeon, at the DMZ. He was
surprisingly cordial and genuinely curious about my connections to South Korea.

I was impressed by the general friendliness of the North Koreans we encountered everywhere we visited. They are very much like the South Koreans I have come to know and respect for their earnestness, generosity and diligence. North Koreans seem to genuinely love their country and they are a very proud lot.  However, that should not come as a surprise.

The control of information by the State is complete and unrelenting, and has been since Kim Ill Sung came to power in 1945.  Authoritarian leadership, handed down through 3 consecutive generations of the Kim dynasty, now resides with 30-year old Kim Jung Un. North Korean newspapers, TV broadcasts, schools, billboards, banners, even public loud speakers, extoll praise for the country while spewing forth propaganda against the enemy, usually in the personage of the venomous Americans.

The ubiquitous statues of Kim Il Sung
and Kim Jung Il

The “elephant in the room,” is the network of prison camps long revealed by satellite imagery and confirmed by the few individuals fortunate enough to have made it out alive. Most recently, Shin Dong-hyuk, author of “Escape from Camp 14,” described the almost unimaginable brutality of the camps. It’s in these camps where 3 generations of family members are banished for crimes committed against the State. All North Koreans belong to neighborhood watchdog groups, comprised of 25-50 families.  Known as inminban, they are led by hardened middle-aged women who keep tabs on everyone and everything, cementing the foundation of the enterprise of fear run by Kim Jung Un and his minions. Everyone on the tour is aware of these camps. But, we avoid the topic for fear that just talking about them would put our guides at serious personal risk.

Our tour stops included a fertilizer manufacturing plant in Hamhung, an agricultural university in Wonsan, both cities along the east coast of the Korean peninsula, and a historic residence of a former king. At each site, we are greeted by a lovely hostess wearing the traditional and colorful Korean clothing called a hanbok. The story they tell us is always the same. We’re made aware when either Kim Ill Sung, Kim Jung Ill or Kim Jung Un visited the site and the amazing wisdom or expertise they imparted while there. Pictures of the visit are shown and the chair, pen or desk that they used, invariably have become sacred items.

Fertilizer factory in Hamhung with 1950's era equipment and rotary phone

Every North Korean wears a pin picturing one or both of the former leaders on a red background. Just as predictably, their framed photos are carefully placed visibly high on a wall in every family’s residence. Patriotism, devotion and obedience, at least publicly, appear to run wide and deep. They fill the spaces between everything, like mortar, securing the bricks of the State.

Manager of Pyongyang trolley maintenance yard wears badge with leaders'
photos--as does every citizen in the DPRK

Where does genuine loyalty begin? Where does it end? In what places does fear reside? It’s nearly impossible to discern in this place of cartoon-like images and monuments on steroids. During a radio address in 1939, Winston Churchill uttered these now memorable words. Russia, he said, “is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” North Korea, its people, and its exploits, to this day, remains more of a mystery than Russia ever was.

Tour guide heads back to Juche Tower after giving tour

Photo credits:
Koryo Jet photo courtesy of Wikipedia
All other photos by Steve Schuit