Tudor - Ask a North Korean: Defectors Talk about Their Lives Inside the Worlds Most Secretive Nation

ASK A NORTH KOREAN

ASK A NORTH KOREAN

DEFECTORS TALK ABOUT THEIR LIVES INSIDE THE WORLDS MOST SECRETIVE NATION

Daniel Tudor
Foreword by Andrei Lankov

Translations by
Elizabeth Jae, Nara Han, Ashley Cho and Daniel Tudor

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Foreword

I f one has a look at a publication list, it becomes obvious that North Korea punches well above its weight when it comes to attracting the attention of foreign academics and journalists. Though its economic power and population are roughly similar to those of Mozambique, North Korea is well represented in English language articles and books.

However, a closer look uncovers a major problem. Most of these publications belong to one of only two major groups. First, there are numerous studies related to North Korean politicsabove all, the nuclear program and associated problems of international diplomacy. Second, there are testimony-style books, written by defectors who tell horror stories about a country that is, indeed, run by a highly repressive regime.

However, the existing literature has a number of serious gaps. First, the real daily experiences of the vast majority of the North Koreans is overlookedand these people are not in prison camps, and generally live normal, if often impoverished and regimented, existences. They tend to have the same feelings and concerns that dominate the lives of people in New York City or London, even if their environment appears to be very different.

Second, there is a remarkable shortage of North Korean voices. Studies of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc countries were once much influenced and even, sometimes, dominated by exiles from those countries; but there are very few journalists, writers and academics of North Korean origin who are prominent in the field.

There are reasons for the absence of authentic North Korean voices. Unlike the Cold War era migr community, most North Korean refugees come from the underprivileged and poorly-educated strata of North Korean society. They have no command of English (the worlds major international language), and are seldom used to expressing themselves in it.

NK News, a website I have been working with for years, has initiated a program whose task is not merely to introduce the daily lives of common North Koreans to world readers, but also to do it using the authentic voices of North Korean contributors. This is how the Ask a North Korean column came into being.

The columns concentrate on issues people seldom can read about elsewhere. When dealing with food, for instance, contributors talk about ways of cooking, tastes and table mannersnot about grain production and rice distribution policy. When they talk about the hereditary songbun caste system, they do not see it as a factor in the countrys political surveillance network, but rather as something to pay attention to while seeking a marriage partner.

This might appear trivializing to those who expect righteous invectives unmasking the human rights abuses of the regime. However, there is a simple truth: as many people who lived under authoritarian governments (including the present author) will testify, even under the most repressive of regimes life does not necessarily consist of suffering, torture and fear. Actually, and fortunately, most people live normal lives, even in bad times and bad places, and we will not be able to understand them if we do not know how their lives are.

Fortunately, the NK News Ask a North Korean project gives us a glimpse into those lives.

Introduction

I t should go without saying that although North Koreans live under a very unusual and often deeply cruel and incompetent system of rule, they are above all human beings with more or less the same desires, worries, and aims that you and I have. But it is customary to dismiss of North Koreans as brainwashed automatons or victims, whilst making little attempt to try and understand what their daily lives might be like, or what they think about the society they live in.

This is in spite of the fact that there are a huge variety of books about North Korea. In the past decade or so there has been a never-ending flow of books about the geopolitical situation; the ruling Kim dynasty; and, the dramatic escapes of defectors from North Korea.

It is difficult, however, to think of many that were written by North Koreans themselves. Even popular defector memoirs tend to be ghostwritten. The purpose of this book, then, is to allow North Koreans to speak for themselves, and give you, the reader, a true picture of North Korea straight from the horses mouth.

There is one caveat, though. The people who submitted the essays contained in this book are all defectors from North Korea. Defectors are those who were unhappy or disadvantaged enough to take the great risk of crossing the border and then making their way to South Korea from China, a country whose government often sends defectors back to the North. Their views may not always be representative of the general North Korean population.

That said, we have put together a range of writers hailing from different parts of North Korea, both female and male, young and old. Some are from elite backgrounds, and others extremely poor. This means that by reading this book, youll be exposed to quite a diverse range of opinions. If you asked a wealthy Manhattanite and a rural Arkansan to describe life in the United States, youd likely get divergent answers. The same is true of North Korea, so we thought it important to ask a wide range of people to contribute, rather than just telling you about life in North Korea through the eyes of one particular defector.