Hey all!
I'm running for Student Body President at Harvard Kennedy School with my dear friend Maggie Williams, who is running for Executive Vice President. Check us out at bit.ly/JM4HKS and at https://www.facebook.com/VoteJieunAndMaggie
Me and some of my friends at the Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il statues in Pyongyang, the first stop on our tour in North Korea.
During my recent trip to North Korea that I co-organized for 24 Harvard classmates and friends, one particularly memorable moment took place at the DMZ from the DPRK’s side, where I saw both the North Korean and South Korean flags straddling the 38th parallel. I carefully struck up a conversation with a North Korean military officer in his mid-50s. At first, he scowled and demanded that I, a Korean-speaking American, stand away from him. I kept near him, pretending that I had no wiggle room amidst the dozens of fellow tourists who were also at the DMZ.
After his military colleagues cleared the area, the officer casually covered his mouth with a folder, looked away from me, and in a low voice started asking me questions about my life in America. After all, he couldn’t have his colleagues see him be so friendly with a foreigner, much less an ethnic Korean American. He asked me what life was like in America, what my parents did, and how I learned to speak Korean in America. His questions were rooted in sheer, nonjudgmental curiosity. For ten minutes, we stood by each other in a crowd while looking in opposite directions, and carried this clandestine conversation in Korean while having both of our mouths covered.
After telling me that he full-heartedly wishes that the two Koreas reunify so that all Korean people, hanminjok, can live together in peace, he asked me:
“Do I look like your father?”
I didn’t really know what he was asking, so when I asked him to ask his question again, he said:
“Well, I know that we’re hanminjok, but I’m curious if I look like a Korean man in the United States. Am I as tall as him? Same face?”
I choked back tears, and made some joke about how handsome the military officer was. The man was significantly shorter, thinner, and had much darker skin than my father. I was standing in front of the flesh and blood that was the result of a divided country, 60 years later, in human form. My father could have easily been born in North Korea, but was born 35 miles south of the DMZ, and his fate could not have been more different than of the man I was standing in front of.
A rush of military officers headed our way, which abruptly ended our guarded conversation. The officer shoved me out of the way and barked at me to not stand so close. I tried to wave goodbye, but he ignored me. I’m pretty sure that he was acting like so because he was in the company of his colleagues. When it was time for my group to get back on the bus, I caught his eye and winked. Without smiling, he winked back.
I flew into the Kingdom of Bahrain from Doha this morning. This small island country along the Persian Gulf with a population of about 1.2 million (which includes about 600,000 non-Bahrainis who work in the country) is rich in its history, culture, and recent political events. Like Qatar, this Muslim country is observing Ramadan, so food and drink is strictly forbidden in public places until 6:30PM, when iftar starts. When iftar started, I walked around the Manama (the capital city) in the humid 98 degrees weather. I cabbed over to the souq, and snapped a few photos in between browsing goods and chatting with store owners.
Throughout my cab rides, I asked the taxi drivers about their thoughts on the recent protests that took place in Bahrain as part of the Arab Spring, and they all had very bold opinions about the King and his royal family. Though I won’t go into details of the conversation here, I will say that all three drivers I met will attend the protest tomorrow at 5PM in Manama.
Afterwards, I headed to one of the newest buildings, the Bahrain City Center, and people-watched while having coffee and trying to stay awake along with the rest of the city. Every day, I’m amazed at how people are able to celebrate the breaking of fast, and socialize into early morning, and then go to work the day after. I’m trying my best to keep up!
I started off my travels to the Gulf countries a few days ago, starting off in Dubai (I will write more about Dubai on my second visit to UAE next week), and landed in Doha, Qatar. I felt the rush of the city’s rapid development all around me, especially as the country prepares to host the FIFA World Cup in 2022.
Due to Ramadan, it’s illegal to eat/drink/smoke in public between sunrise until sunset (Iftar is at 6:30PM in Doha), so the daytime was very slow. As predicted, I couldn’t find a single café outside my hotel, so I went over to the W Hotel to spend my afternoon there. Right when Iftar started, the city woke up and all the shops, restaurants, and markets lit up. I headed straight to the Souq Waqif and spent hours there, weaving through the alley ways, speaking to shop owners, and buying little trinkets for my family. Here are a few shots I got from the evening.
One of the shop owners turned out to be one of the coolest people I’ve met all summer. This 75-year old shopkeeper had posters of a young bodybuilder around his pearl shop, and it turns out that it was him! He also used to dive for pearls, sleep on bed of nails, and broken glass. When I asked him if he had superpowers, he said yes! Some other shop owners joined our conversation and praised this man. Watch an interview of him here! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoL64-ao9dc
Afterwards, I walked along Doha Cornishe (the waterfront along the Doha Bay) for hours late at night, and felt completely safe, just as the policemen and young ladies at the Souq told me. If you’re ever in the gulf, I encourage you to visit Doha!
Countless people have helped make an unforgettable summer for me in Turkiye. Though I cannot cover everyone (that’d be impossible!), I want to call out a few friends who I am so grateful to have met (or reconnect with) this summer.
Before coming to Ankara, I was warned that it was not the most exciting city of Turkey. Leaving hesitations aside, I decided to spent two months in this city and I was pleasantly surprised by the rich history and fun times that this old city has to offer. This post will be about my adventures throughout the nooks and cranies of this city.
A U.S. diplomat I worked for in Berlin years ago is currently stationed in the U.S. Embassy in Turkey, and invited me to the U.S. Independence Day Party at US Ambassador Francis Ricciardone’s residence. Several hundred people from Ankara’s diplomatic community attended this swanky affair to celebrate our nation’s 237th birthday, including the New Orleans Jazz Band who swung by the party to perform as part of their tour throughout Europe. I was both lucky/unlucky to stand right next to the media section of the crowd, but did manage to snap a few photos. Hope your Independence Day celebrations went well!
I made my way to Istanbul again to see Merve, the beautiful sister of Emre Sargin, who was a colleague and friend from Google. She and I met up with her friends who also live in Istanbul and we drove over to Demirciköy that overlooked the Black Sea. We had some beers, and made our way to a beautiful fish restaurant where we ate and hung out until the sun set. We made our way to Bebek (a posh area in Istanbul that means “baby”) and had coffee and desserts by the water, which was the perfect finale to a day in Istanbul.
The next day, Merve and I hung out at Ba?dat Caddesi and walked along the Marmara Sea, that was dotted with local Turkish families, groups of friends, and couples in love who were playing, swimming, and sunbathing. This was one of my favorite weekends in Istanbul by far – Thank you Merve! [Note to readers: check out Merve’s blog!] http://www.kadinlarinmodasi.blogspot.com/
My classmate and co-intern Anita and I flew to Izmir to see this beautiful seaside town and to visit Ephesus. We saw the covered Bazaar, the historic synagogues, the countless bars and cafes that lined the water, and hung out amidst the general festive spirit of the families and couples that were spending their summery weekend in Izmir. Our day in Ephesus was HOT (I think it was about 103 degrees), but worth it. We wove through the ruins of this former great city composed of temples, a grand library, baths, majestic columns, and statues. We even saw a wedding photo shoot in Ephesus. The visitors in the theatre burst in applause when they saw the bride and groom! Enjoy the photos from this weekend!
Cappadocia (“the land of beautiful horses) is located in Central Anatolia, sort of in the middle of Turkey. With rich religious and historical significance, this high-traffic tourist destination was surely worth the 6-hour ride from Ankara. The sophisticated underground cities that early Christians used as hiding places, fairy chimneys, underground tunnel systems that served as defensive networks, and the unforgettable hot air balloon ride in Urgup (for which I had to wake up at 3:45AM!) that overlooked Cappadocia’s landscape made this trip a truly unique place.
Last Friday, a great new friend Ünal took me to Kugulu Park in Kizilay, Ankara to participate in an Iftar dinner. A special guest, Professor Dr. Ihsan Eliacik was also there to break fast as well (he’s the man in the blue button down being interviewed in my photos). Right at around 8:27PM, I witnessed and participated in my very first Iftar dinner with Muslim Turkish people in this park. At first, I only stood around the outskirts of the mini communal dinners since I’m not Muslim and I didn’t want to disrespect their holy event in any way. But minutes after people started to break fast and start sharing their food, people invited me and Ünal to take our shoes off, sit with them on their rugs, and eat their food together. Watching friends, family, and strangers communally break fast was a truly beautiful sight!
My world-traveller former roommate from Vienna (Latasha Wilson) who is currently a Fulbright Scholar in Turkey met me in Istanbul this past weekend, which turned out to be truly unforgettable. This city, where history meets modernity, was everything that I expected it to be — the buzzing Istiklal Street, majestic Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque, the energetic Spice Market, the sparkling lights that lined the countless side streets, and the unbelievable diversity of people who flowed throughout the veins of the city collectively makes a magical experience that understandably leaves an indelible mark on all people who grace the streets of Istanbul. It certainly did for me. As always, I had a great time people watching and captured a few moments that I absolutely loved.
Latasha and I had dinner in a beautiful restaurant on a side street off of Istiklal Street on the terrace and noticed that about a third of people in the fine establishment were eating dinner with a gas mask around their neck, placed on their head, or somewhere on the table. About thirty minutes into dinner, we heard protesters marching through the street below with whistles and drums that rhythmically complemented their chants. *Every single person* on the terrace started to clap enthusiastically, sing, chant, and yell out phrases of solidarity. An elderly woman even brought out a whistle from her purse! The cheers were cut short with a cloud of dense tear gas that covered every surface of the terrace (mind you, we were almost half a mile from Taksim Square where the heart of the protests was taking place). People put their masks on, while others grabbed napkins to cover their noses and closed their eyes shut.
A young lady about my age had brought a liquid mixture of crushed anti-acid tablets and water and started spraying it into people’s faces (including mine) to alleviate the stinging from the tear gas. After the worst was over, people broke out into cheer again! This scenario (graceful dining, punctuated by chanting passerbys and the diners breaking out into song and cheers, which was then quieted by powerful tear gas that I could actually see) repeated itself almost 15 times throughout dinner. After a long dinner, we were about to head out when our Turkish-only speaking waiter blocked us from leaving and motioned that there was too much tear gas outside so he recommended that we wait on the second floor for twenty minutes. I peered into the restaurant next door, and onto the streets below that were packed just minutes before, and this is what I saw. (Forgive me of the hazy photos…I snapped the photos through windows)
After we finally walked onto the streets, we were stuck. For every direction that we wanted to walk towards, we were told that there was either too much gas, too much police, or both. So we lingered on Istiklal street a few meters from Taksim Square where thousands of people were in gas masks, and we sprinted into side streets when the crowd ran (this happened many a times). I saw many young men selling gas masks and goggles on the street. I bought one, because it was impossible to breathe without one. I wore my sunglasses in the dark to protect my eyes, but that didn’t help after a few minutes because they were coated in opaque white after a few minutes from the tear gas.
There was so much energy in the air, and honestly, it was exciting to be right in the middle of the action in a place that seems to be the pulse of the universe these days. Some people helped us out when things got a tad too dangerous and we ended up buying a few cans of Efes Pilsner (Turkish beer), and drank it on the street while talking politics with our new friends.
The morning after, I walked around Taksim Square, which was clear of the protesters from the night before. I may have snapped too many photos of the square, because a policeman came up to my friend and asked in Turkish who I was, and why I was taking so many photos. After my friend calmly answered back in Turkish that I was just a nice American tourist with no political interest. Still skeptical, the policeman stared at me for the longest one minute of my life, and said in perfect English, ‘Welcome to Turkey.’
I walked over to the Anitkabir (Ataturk Mausoleum) today to spend some time learning about Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the leader of the Turkish War of Independence, and the founder and first President of the Republic of Turkey. Most of the other visitors were Turkish citizens, and I was struck by how much quiet reverence people had for the leader, the museum, and towards each other. A few minutes before entering the museum, I saw a student protest at a large intersection, and of course, snapped a quick photo.
Here are some photos (and a cool video about the soldiers’ rotation) from my day here.
After my visit to Anitkabir, I walked around the city, and found myself in Kizilay (I promise it was on accident), and got there literally 5 minutes after the riot police sprayed tear gas on the protestors who I stood next to last night. I walked down the streets to find a taxi, and tears automatically streamed down my burning eyes because of the thick tear gas in the air. I saw young girls and boys crying from having had tear gas sprayed directly into their face. My cab driver had tears streaming down his face because of the spray as well. Not too sure if he was able to see clearly, I hopped in, and made my way back to my guest house.
I arrived in Ankara, Turkey a few days ago, and I’ve been having a blast so far. It’s an extraordinarily clean, modern, and welcoming city with attractive young people who smoke, drink, hang out, and have a good time. Anita is here with me for the same internship, and am stoked to have a friend here! [By the way, a lot of my readers complained that my posts were too text-heavy, so I’ll try my best to post more photos!]
I was invited to be someone’s plus-one to a Turkish wedding, so I happily attended. It was so fun! During the wedding, my friend leaned over and whispered to me, “aside from you, everyone here is Muslim.” His comment aside, I couldn’t have felt more welcomed. Everyone was in good spirits, and the DJ played a combination of American pop music (including Pitbull!), Alawite traditional songs, and Turkish folk music throughout the night. It was so nice to see the groom unable to stop smiling throughout the evening. Congratulations, Alev and Bayram!
After the wedding, my friend (anonymous government official) and I snacked on the veggie, nook, that we bought from a street vendor and walked over to A?gabat Street (7th Street in Ankara), which is a really popular street around here with tons of shops, cafes, bars, and businesses.
While having Efes Pilsen (a Turkish beer) and grilled meatballs, a peaceful protest walked past us, and my friend was able to capture part of this on my camera. The cafe instantly put on a national song in support of the peaceful protest.
After drinks, we headed over to Kizilay, where we happened to come across a huge peaceful protest with an estimated 7,000-10,000 protesters. People were chanting, singing, and generally in good spirits. (Sorry, I was filming on my tippy-toes, and so the video is a tad shaky)
It was a wonderful, spirited evening and learned a ton from my new friends here in Ankara. Stay tuned for more!
This frightening week in Boston started with bombings at the Boston Marathon. There was a fatal shooting at MIT last night, and (at the time of writing this post) there is an ongoing manhunt for a suspect who has been fleeing from the police after a shooting at 102 Garden Street (really close to my undergraduate dorm) and throwing out grenades from his hijacked car. Last night around midnight, police urged Cambridge and Boston residents to stay indoors. My friends and I went to sleep with police sirens going on for hours. We’re under citywide lockdown right now, but I snuck out for a minute and this is what the Harvard Square T-Stop looked like
For those who are unfamiliar with the significance of the Boston Marathon, it’s an annual event in April that draws over half a million people in from across the United States and around the world. It’s been held since 1897 and is the world’s oldest marathon. Spectators, friends, family, doctors, students, and volunteers come out to support the runners in this annual marathon that’s held on Patriots’ Day, the third Monday of April. Around 3PM on Monday, two bombs went off close to the finish line, killing 3 people and severely injuring close to 200 people. The youngest was 8-year-old Martin Richard. Other victims were Lingzi Lu, 23, and Krystle Campbell, 29.
As most of you did, I combed through online news, tweets, and commentaries that predicted the cowards’ motives, backgrounds, and political goals. This week’s tragedies sparked ongoing discussions centered on definitions of terrorism, cowardice, failing morality of the United States, and even immigration.
In the midst of all these conversations, I read numerous stories about the kindness that people showed towards Bostonians, some of which I want to highlight here. The lesson I learned from this week’s tragedies is: good will always prevail. Human beings are innately good, altruistic creatures, and good will always overpower the bad. The heart of a runner in Boston beats exactly in the same way as the heart of a runner in Belgrade does (see photo below of a Serbian runner). Mothers who lose their children to bombings in Boston experience the same gut-wrenching pain that Afghani mothers who experience the same loss do. The blood of a stranger can save another stranger’s life. We’re all the same.
And messages of love from friends around the world:
In my course called "Causes and Consequences of Civil War" with Professor Dara Cohen, we're analyzing research and studies for why mass violence and genocide happens. In our exploration of this highly consequential question, we recently watched Dartmouth Professor Ben Valentino's Ted Talk called "When Bad Men Combine: Understanding the Causes of Mass Violence" who spoke about some causes for mass violence and genocide. He strongly argues against ethnic hatred being a sufficient explanation for mass violence. Cross-national statistical studies reveal that our measures of ethnic differences in societies do not strongly correlate with whether or not a country experiences mass killings and violence.
What he argues for is that mass violence is much easier to carry out than we think. The more we study mass killings, we see that the killings are carried out by shockingly small numbers of people in a society. Generally, we see no more than 1-2% of the male population in a society who carry out these mass killings. [Note: In the United States, 5% of our male population is either incarcerated or on probation.] He states a few examples:
How can such small groups cause so much trouble, so much bloodshed? What bad men need from people like us is not our participation or sympathy for their work, their work being slaughtering people. All they need is for us to stand aside and let their work happen. This is where everyday hatreds /stereotypes enter the equation. Professor Valentino states that, "although the hatreds are not enough for people to rise up and kill our neighbors, theyre MORE than enough to prevent us from rising up to protect our nehgibors from the small groups of determined bad men who do the killings in these kinds of killings."
Professor Valentino titled his talk after the wise words of Irish-English statesman Edmund Burke, which I urge you to contemplate: "When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle." We each have this power to associate with one another.
The Divided Families Film team and I launched our Kickstarter campaign as our final fundraising push to raise $20,000 to finish our film project. Here is the link to our campaign:Divided Families Film Kickstarter campaign
You can learn more about our project below:
Divided Families Film Facebook Page
We will run our campaign from February 26 until March 26, and the way Kickstarter works is, if we hit our $20,000 goal, then great — we get to use all the dollars towards our project. If we receive pledges that add up to anything less than our $20,000 goal, we don’t get to keep anything. We need all of your support (and your donations will be tax deductible)!
Help us reach our goal and finish the film soon!
Please let me know if you have any questions.
On November 19th, 2012, our North Korea Study Group at HKS hosted Mr. Shin Dong Hyuk to be a guest speaker for over 225 students, professors, and community members. For over an hour, Mr. Shin shared stories and lessons from being born and raised for 23 years in a North Korean total-control zone concentration camp. In this post, I will share with you the stories that he shared with us that night. I've added links to articles, a new book, and new film about his life at the end of this post as well.
Mr. Shin was born in Camp 14, a North Korean total-control zone political prison camp, just 50 miles north of Pyongyang, the country's capital city. Estimated to have been built in 1959, the camp's purpose is to imprison North Koreans deemed to be politically unreliable, classified as the "irredeemables," and exploit them of hard labor until their deaths. Whether a prisoner is born into, or sentenced to, this camp, one is destined to die in the camp. There is no hope for release.
Prison guards, on their own accord, pick productive inmates and reward them by permitting them to spend a few evenings together. Mr. Shin likened this prison marriage to a forced mating between a pair of beasts in heat in a zoo. Offspring of these marriages are born in the absence of hospitals, nurses, OBGYN doctors, or conditions that are remotely sanitary. Later on in the speech, Mr. Shin said there is only one freedom in this camp, which is the freedom to be born. A child is permitted to depend on her mother only when inside the womb. Once a child exits the womb, she must survive on her own. The first thing a baby sees upon opening her eyes is armed prison guards. Since infancy, a baby is trained to know, and know only, the prison camp regulations. The worst crime a prisoner could commit was to attempt to flee the camp. This was ingrained in his mind and body since childhood.
In addition to the camp regulations, he was taught simple arithmetic, and how to read and write. Mr. Shin and the other children raised in the camp were not even deemed worthy of learning about the regime's royal family. After all, they were destined to provide slave labor until their deaths in the camp. He never heard of Kim Il-Sung, or Kim Jong-Il during the 23 years he lived in Camp 14. Only after escaping the camp and reaching free lands did he learn that what he experienced—a life stripped of every freedom and basic human right—was a harrowing aberration of human existence.
He said to the crowd, "What you think is so horrific was so normal for me in the camp. It was absolutely normal to see public executions and casually watch beatings of prisoners that led to their deaths." He recalled one of his earliest memories; at the age of 5 or 6, he went to a public execution, which all camp prisoners were required to attend. He was so curious as to why thousands of people were gathering, so he elbowed his way to the front of the crowd. He vividly remembers falling backwards from the shock of the sounds of bullets spraying the prisoner.
There were two executions annually, one in March and the other in November. Each event comprised one to three cursed protagonists. With the exception of some rare special occasion, all inmates were required to attend and watch the executions of their fellow prisoners. The goal of these camp events was to scare other inmates from "straying."
Mr. Shin recalls not flinching or shedding a tear when his mother and brother were executed. Mr. Shin even sat in the front row of the audience. Not crying at executions was not only normal, but was also the acceptable response. When Shin overheard his mother and brother planning to escape the camp, he instinctively responded by finding the nearest guard and repeating to him what he had overheard. (Readers, remember that attempting to flee the camp is the worst crime an inmate could commit.) Shin knew that the punishment for NOT turning in an inmate who was planning to escape was the murder of the overhearer's entire family, himself included.
Shin was taken to a secret underground prison inside the camp, and was extensively tortured for days to extract more information from him. The guards wanted to make sure he was telling the truth, and that he was not co-plotting with them. Tortures included having lit charcoals under his back while being hung from his four limbs, and having thick metal hooks pierced through his groin to keep him from writhing. Mr. Shin said he called his biological parents "Mom" and "Dad" only because these were arbitrary terms designated to these people. He never had a concept of family, filial piety, or any sense of love and obligation.
Mr. Shin says that his story could be "nothing, compared to the experiences of other inmates. Compared to theirs, my suffering is nothing." He recalls one time, he dropped a heavy machine while working, and a guard sliced part of his finger off as casual punishment. Mr. Shin said, that he could've had an arm or a leg cut off. Or even have been killed. He shared with us that he was "grateful that I could survive and talk to you today and merely have a finger severed." He felt deeply grateful that he didn't die from the extensive tortures he experienced, and has been living in a free world for six years since his escape.
In 2010, he met with an ICC member in London who said that she had no way to help Shin because she had no evidence to help people in North Korean camps. Mr. Shin said that he heard the same sentiment from many people.
"Where is the evidence of your story?"
At this point of the lecture, Mr. Shin flipped through a few Power point photos that showed millions of emaciated corpses in massive graves at various Nazi concentration camps, and rows of skulls that formerly belonged to over 2 million people who were exterminated by the Khmer Rouge in killing fields. Mr. Shin said, with the evidence of dead bodies, the ICC punished Nazi leaders and Khmer Rouge ringleaders. "We think of Cambodian killing fields as history that took place forty long years ago. 'Never again,' we think."
He pleaded, "We're mistaken!
"If we have such evidence from North Korea, I wouldn't be standing before you today." So many people cried throughout the world when seeing the photos taken of those killed throughout Europe, Kosovo, Cambodia, and other places. Must we wait for polished photos in nice, published reports from the UN to circulate until we act? My activism is NOT to induce tears for the dead, but to save the dying and keep them alive."
"What can you do to help?" Shin asked the audience. "I want to share my heart tonight and ask you to please save North Korean people before such massive evidence will ever exist. Heart-wrenching photos do not change dictators. The genocides and massive killings that happened 60, 40, 20 years ago is not mere history. It is happening today, and will continue to happen until we bring change.
Readers, check out some photos from that night. Also if you’re interested in learning more about his story, please check out the following links:
[BOOK] Escape from Camp 14:One Man's Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West
[Interview] Anderson Cooper interviews Shin Dong Hyuk
[clip with Anderson Cooper] One of my favorite foods now: In-N-Out burgers from California
[Google Tech Talk] Born and Raised in a Concentration Camp
Shin Dong Hyuk and me after the event
After the talk, we took him a mini surprise birthday celebration. It was his 30th birthday that day, and his first birthday cake. After blowing out the candle, he said “I’m happy.” When someone asked him what he meant by “happy,” he said, “it’s something you say when your face feels it ought to smile.”
Shin Dong-Hyuk’s birthday cake! (Dong is his first name)
On October 5, 2012, the North Korea Study Group at HKS hosted Ms. Kim Young Soon, a former celebrated dancer in North Korea. In her 2008 book entitled “I was Sung Hye-rim’s Friend,” Ms. Kim described her ordeal at the hands of Kim Jong-Il, whom she never met. In an excerpt of the book, she wrote, “I was sent to Yodeok prison camp because I knew Kim Jong Il was with Sung Hye-rim. Even Kim Il-sung was not aware of Kim Jong Il’s relationship with Sung. Kim Jong Il, a would-be No.1 leader of the republic, was in a relationship with a (once) married woman would be a huge scandal, and Kim Jong Il tried to keep the highest security.”
In this blog post, I will write about what Ms. Kim shared with her audience members at our event last month. Ms. Kim and her family were part of the North Korean elite because her ancestors were anti-Japanese fighters when Korea was colonized by Japan in the early twentieth century. She was sentenced to Yodok political prison camp for 9 years. Her crime? She was school friends with Sung Hye-Rim, a famous North Korean actress who became a secret consort of Kim Jong-Il, and bore Kim Jong-Nam, the Dear Leader’s eldest son.
Ms. Kim and Ms. Sung were classmates and friends from high school throughout college. One day, Ms. Sung told Ms. Kim that she was invited to Chamber #5, a residence reserved for the regime’s ruling clan. After the state made the connection that Ms. Kim’s friendship with Ms. Sung led to a civilian knowing too much of the Dear Leader’s private affairs, Ms. Kim and her entire family were sentenced to Yodok political prison camp. In the camp, Ms. Kim’s husband was ratted out for an alleged crime by an inmate, and he was taken to the total-control zone portion of Yodok. Her entire family—parents, three sons, one daughter, and husband–passed away in the camp. Ms. Kim, along with numerous defectors, argue that Yodok and the other North Korean concentration camps have been modeled after Auschwitz under Kim Il-Sung’s reign.
North Korean civilians are sentenced to Yodok camp with zero knowledge of their crimes. They don’t know if they committed a crime –and if so, the nature of the crime–, or if they were sentenced due to the guilt-by-association policy. If the latter, whose crime are they associated with? Guilt-by-association is an antiquated policy that was employed during Korea’s Chosun Dynasty in order to cut off the seeds of the next generation of criminals. North Korea is the only regime that exercises this policy today. It was only ten years after being released from Yodok that Ms. Kim was told why she landed in the prison camp.
Political prisoners ate anything that “flew, crawled, or grew in the field.” While in the camp, Ms. Kim witnessed mothers desperately try everything to keep their emaciated children alive. One common ‘medicinal’ practice was to cut open a pregnant rat to harvest its fetuses, roast the tiny creatures, and feed this to sick human babies in the camp. This was believed to cure human diseases. On multiple occasions, she–along with the other estimated 200,000 concentration camp prisoners–were forced to watch public executions of camp prisoners who were caught while trying to escape the prison.
After speaking about Yodok, Ms. Kim spoke more broadly about the regime. By the 1980s, Kim Il-Sung’s leadership had purged all factious groups. The fall of the Soviet Union—on whom North Korea had been heavily dependent for economic support—devastated North Korea’s public distribution system. Years later, one domestic campaign to showcase the power of its regime widely circulated the movie, The Titanic, among its citizens. The regime declared that the sinking of the ship on April 15, 1912 was symbolic of the fall of evil capitalism and the rise of the Sun of North Korea.
Despite the regime’s attempt to demonize the United States by blaming the U.S. for all its own misfortunes, and calling it a wolf that can never turn into a pure sheep, it continues to pay its elites in $ USD.
She then spoke of the luxury that shrouds the ruling family. Among the numerous mansions that exist for the elite, Mansion #72 is Kim Il-Sung’s mansion. All rice that enters these mansions is called Rice #1. Rice #2 is the name designated for emergency rice for war. Every article of clothing for the Kim family is specially designed for the members. She gave several anecdotes of the extremely fresh, large, and exotic seafood that were sent into Pyongyang daily with special government funds. If the seafood delivery food trains were to ever be late, the supervisor of the train would be killed immediately. As one could imagine, these trains were never late. Ms. Kim knew Mr. Han, the supervisor of Train #8 and #9. He was a master of the sea surrounding North Korea, and he was responsible for delivering goods to the Kim family.
Kim Il-Sung had told Kim Jong-Il that the successor must concentrate on keeping the party and military officials appeased. Do not “waste time on the economy,” Ms. Kim quoted the Dear Leader. She claims that Kim Il-Sung argued that a reformed (and presumably a more open) economy would inevitably lead to the country’s demise and the successor’s death.
Despite Ms. Kim’s ardent hope for reunification, she understands that this is not possible in the near future with North Korea pointing 15,000 artillery units at South Korea.
She escaped North Korea on February 1, 2001 and entered South Korea in November of 2003. She serves as the vice president of the Seoul-based group Committee for the Democratization of North Korea.
For more information about Ms. Kim Young Soon, please read this Reuters article.
Throughout our event, Ms. Kim repeatedly encouraged her audience members to watch ‘Yodok Stories,’ a controversial theater play that chronicles the experiences of several North Korean survivors of this political prison camp. This documentary captures the play and interviews of defectors who helped create the play. Please watch this — Ms. Kim tells you so! The actual movie link: http://www.yodokfilm.com
Here is an interview that a report for Radio Free Asia conducted with Ms. Kim
As always, please do not hesitate to reach out with questions or comments.
Back in July, I organized the North Korean panel at Google’s conference on Illicit Networks in Westlake, California. Ranging from the regime’s elite party members to the country’s forgotten orphans, ten North Korean defectors flew in from Seoul to join us at the INFO conference. Each shared parts of his/her extraordinary story of survival and excruciatingly painful quest for freedom. Their experiences, individually and collectively, is a testament to the invincibility of human resilience and spirit. I had the opportunity to work with this team of ten for the seven months leading up to the conference–from arranging flight tickets (which was a nightmare) to crafting the North Korean panel and lab. I wish I could share every detail of this unforgettable team of ten. Since no one has the time for that, I will share some paraphrased stories and personal take-aways from the four days I spent with this team in Westlake Village, California.
Paralyzing fear of North Korean spies
Only after the conference ended did I learn that some men doubled up in their hotel rooms out of extreme fear that there were North Korean spies at the conference to kidnap or kill them. One night, a pair of men took turns staying up and keeping guard of the windows and room door, just in case. Hyeon kept asking me for floor plans of the Four Seasons hotel because he wanted to memorize the exits for each floor in case he had to escape from spies. These men were not watching for anyone in particular; they were scared to death of any spy sent from the regime.
Border guard who defected
Hyeon was a border guard (about 5 feet 4 inches tall) who was trained to shoot to kill North Koreans attempting to escape into China. (Defection is a highly treasonous crime that warrants sentences to prison camps or execution. Relatives are also punished per the state’s guilt-by-association policy.) He used to let some defectors pass when no guard was watching, an act that put his family at risk. A close friend once begged for Hyeon to let a poor orphan pass into China. Even after heated arguments with his wife, who insisted that her husband not engage in a bribeless illicit act, Hyeon let the defector pass. Months after, Hyeon defected himself. He crossed the Tumen River, and for ten full minutes, he sobbed for the first time, feeling unbearably guilty for betraying his country. A year later, he sent for his wife and four year-old son, both of whom live with him in Seoul now.
The orphan that Hyeon let pass into China is “Paul,” who also joined us at INFO. Check out one of my previous posts where I wrote extensively about my chat with “Paul.”
Free as nature
On the second night of the conference, the 250 participants sat at assigned tables for dinner. Against a beautiful backdrop of mountains, trees, and a constructed waterfall, I sat next to Mrs. Choe, a former elite party member who bragged about being overweight while living in Pyongyang to show off that she used to be part of the wealthy elite class (she now runs a small restaurant in Seoul). She constantly scanned the sea of well-dressed and happy people around her, and for the first time, she let her cold guard down. She tearfully told me, “People here remind me of nature. Just like the trees, wind, and water, people here behave so freely. They laugh whenever they want, can eat and wear whatever they want, and say whatever they want. I even heard someone joking about Obama’s ears! I would love for my former 250 employees at my clothing factory in North Korea to experience such freedom. Some of my employees had to choose which child to feed at night because of the constant scarcity of food.”
Pool and Politics
After dinner each night, some people would head into the hotel bar and hang out. Around midnight, I saw two separate games of pool going on; one among North Koreans, and another with a more diverse group of players. I suggested that they merge teams, and for the next hour or so, I saw North Korean defectors, a former Ugandan child soldier and an American diplomat play a game of pool, laughing, drinking, and betting with one another, all the while having no idea what the other person was saying, yet having one hell of a time. While watching that boisterous game, I thought of just how arbitrary political boundaries and consequent ethnicities are. The handsome brunette U.S. diplomat happened to be born in a free country, where kids don’t see corpses of political prisoners carted around villages to scare people from defecting, which is what his pool teammates from North Korea were all too familiar with. The five foot-three 29 year-old North Korean who shared pool tips with his new Ugandan friend shared photos of their wife and girlfriend, and without sharing a single word in common, they were able to connect over unconditionally loving another human being.
Why do Americans care?
Throughout the conference, some of the North Koreans repeatedly asked people, especially American men (who they are trained to hate), “why do you care about North Korea and our people?” Everyone’s answer was the same: “because we’re all equally human, and since North Koreans happen to be born under difficult circumstances, we want to do what we can to share what we have and simply help.” People were utterly stunned by this answer. The very people who they thought killed and ate Korean babies, indiscriminately raped women, and were waging war on North Korea were saying that they thought North Koreans were equal to Americans, and they were interested in listening to their stories and doing what they could to help. This was absolutely shocking to this team.
Per the panelists’ request, we agreed to have the North Korea panel off the record. The lab, however, was based on Mr. Heung-Kwang Kim’s organization North Korea Intellectual Solidarity, which he is quite public about. If you’d like more information about these particular ten participants, please do not hesitate to reach out to me.