Volume 10 | Issue 25 | Number 1 | Article ID 3771 | Jun 17, 2012 The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus
North Koreans in South Korea: In Search of Their Humanity 韓国の北朝鮮人−−人間性を求めて
Sonia Ryang
and present my own interpretation. Following that, I shall discuss a connection—or, more North Koreans in South Korea: In precisely, the lack thereof—that exists between Search of Their Humanity these films and the current situation that North Koreans in South Korea face. Sonia Ryang Humanizing North Koreans on the Screen It is well known that tens of thousands of North Koreans have left their country to wander Referring to the feature films Shiri and Joint around China and vicinity, and if fortunate, to Security Area, historian Michael Robinson settle elsewhere, notably in South Korea. Most wrote: “For the first time, North Koreans were arrive via Southeast Asia or Mongolia,presented as human beings […] a huge first frequently aided by a South Korean Christian step away from the master narrative of the missionary organization. This scenario has Cold War” (2005: 28). Korean film scholars been recognized in the new millennium as, and agreed, with Kyung Hyun Kim writing: “In the I speak with caution, a pattern. With caution, popular media of South Korea, North Koreans because after all, there cannot be a pattern for have been transformed from despicable refugees or exiles to leave, travel, and settle, as enemies into characters worthy of redemption” their existence is inherently unsettling. This (2010). Jinhee Choi concurs: “[W]ith the arrival article highlights one such instance—North of a civilian government in the early 1990s, Koreans who reach South Korea. I do so by North Koreans have been portrayed [in movies] contrasting the representation of Northin a more humane manner, devoid of anti- Koreans on South Korea’s silver screen, or Communist sentiment” (2010: 38). Choi dubs more precisely, the transformation of such the two films Shiri and Joint Security Area representation, on the one hand, and the actual Korean blockbusters. Both were produced by fate of former North Koreans who reach South directors belonging to the 386 Korea. In the following I re-visit two South generation—those born in the 1960s (the “6”) Korean movies Shiri (1999) and Joint Security who were in their thirties (the “3”) during the Area (2000), both of which represented North democracy movement of the 1980s (the “8”). Koreans in new ways and received critical Choi connects their personal trajectories, acclaim as well as academic attention. While including their participation in Korea’s pro- much has been said about these two, it is not democracy movement, with a production style what has been said that is important, but how it that resists Hollywood domination (Choi 2010: has been said, in connection with whom and at Ch.1). what historical juncture. In this regard, there is a perception gap between North Koreans Released in 1999, two years into the Kim Dae depicted in film and North Korean neighbors Jung administration at a time when South who live next door. I shall first draw Shiri and Korea was struggling to recover from the 1997 Joint Security Area to the reader’s attention IMF Crisis, Shiri (director Kang Je-gyu) is a
1 10 | 25 | 1 APJ | JF love story between North Korean spy Yi Through her romantic involvement with Yu, the Myeong-hyeon and South Korean secret agent South Korean agent, Myeong-hyeon succeeds Yu Jeong-won. The true identity of the former in installing mini aquaria in the South Korean character is Yi Bang-hui, a notorious assassin intelligence headquarters. (The reference to responsible for the deaths of numerous key fish becomes important, as I shall show below.) South Korean government and military personnel. The movie begins with a scene in North Korean intelligence has recently which South Korean secret agents have long obtained information about the South Korean ago lost track of the whereabouts of Yi Bang- scientific invention of an odorless and highly hui. The viewer is to learn that Bang-hui has effective liquid explosive known as CTX. In flown to Japan to undergo plastic surgery and order to steal this substance, Bang-hui resumes take on a new identity as Yi Myeong-hyeon who her assassination activities. owns a pet fish store. As Myeong-hyeon pursues her mission from her North Korean Unlike Bang-hui, who is a ruthless precision headquarters, she comes up with the ingenious killer, Myeong-hyeon is vulnerable and idea of implanting microphone listening devices emotional. Yet, when Myeong-hyeon puts on into aquarium fish and sneaking them into her wig and leather coat, she becomes Bang- South Korean intelligence headquarters. hui, the skilled assassin. Myeong-hyeon’s deep involvement with Yu eventually gets in the way, however. For example, on one occasion Bang- hui clearly avoids killing Yu, despite his being well within range. Yu’s partner, Lee, becomes suspicious. He first suspects Yu himself and steadily uncovers the truth, initially by discovering the listening devices inside the aquarium fish and then by tracing their source to Myeong-hyeon and identifying her as Yi Bang-hui. In agony, Lee tells her that his partner Yu truly loves her. The viewer is given a hint that Myeong-hyeon loves Yu too, yet she remains silent. Yi Myeong-hyeon with her fish tank The movie ends in a stadium, where North Korean agents are attempting to use the CTX they have stolen from the South Korean scientists to kill tens of thousands of people. Yu and other agents try to prevent this from happening. During their skirmish with the North Koreans, Lee is killed. Yu nevertheless succeeds in locating the bomb. When Yu catches up with the North Korean agents, Myeong-hyeon appears in front of him. Thus, Yu has to shoot Myeong-hyeon, the woman he loves. Myeong-hyeon dies, staring at Yu with wide eyes, her face covered in streams of blood. According to Jinhee Choi, Shiri cost just Yi Bang-hui taking aim $3 million to produce, while its gross profits
2 10 | 25 | 1 APJ | JF totaled $26.5 million (Choi 2010: 31). It sold Bridge of No Return. One night, Su-hyeok two million tickets in the space of two months, decides to cross the bridge. Shocked, yet eventually attracting 6.2 million box office pleased, O and Jeong warmly receive him. Their viewers (Russell 2008: 51). nightly visitation ritual begins.
The theater release ofJoint Security Area One night, their party takes an eerie turn. (hereafter, JSA; directed by Chan-wook Park) in Another North Korean officer notices music 2000 was preceded that summer by the historic coming from the guardhouse and opens the first meeting between North Korean leader Kim door. Panic follows: Everyone except O loses Jong Il and South Korean President Kim Dae his cool and shoots indiscriminately, setting off Jung in Pyongyang. Reflecting the tone of Kim the alarm system. During the crossfire, the Dae Jung’s Sunshine Policy, under which South North Korean officer who opened the door and Korea adopted a lenient and more open stance Pvt. Jeong are killed. Su-hyeok crawls back to toward North Korea, JSA was a popular culture the southern side as southern soldiers prepare counterpart to the government’s appeal to the for an emergency, and is accepted as a hero north. JSA shows two young South Korean who resisted enemy fire. This scene comes at soldiers crossing over to the northern side of the beginning of the story, and the movie takes the Joint Security Area by walking over a the form of a retrospective investigation into narrow concrete bridge known as the Bridge of what happened that night near the Bridge of No Return. This bridge, featured in the opening No Return. Throughout the movie, a few scene of the movie and more or less haunting contradictory versions of the night’s events are the entire drama, is both a reminder of the given, depending on who is interrogated, but by physical proximity, indeed, contiguity of the the end, the viewer has learnt exactly what territories of North and South Korea, and also took place. of the power of Cold War ideology, which prevents anyone from performing a simple act What is important about this film is not, such as walking a few feet to the other side of a however, its detective story element. Rather, it bridge—yet this is exactly what happens in JSA. is the way in which it seeks to allow viewers see into the minds of Su-hyeok and Sgt. O. As In the movie, Sgt. Lee Su-hyeok, a young South the investigation progresses, Su-hyeok is Korean soldier whose period of service is soon preoccupied with one concern—how to protect to end, happens to befriend a North Korean Sgt. O from punishment by the North Korean soldier, Sgt. O. The background to their People’s Army. Su-hyeok has become deeply meeting is indicative of the precariousness of attached to O, calling himhyeong or older national partition itself. When Su-hyeok strays brother and admiring his personal qualities. Su- from his unit during a border patrol, his foot hyeok must therefore stick with his original becomes caught in a wire connected to a mine. story that they are strangers, or indeed, Su-hyeok is in a desperate situation. At this enemies. Yet, when O appears in front of Su- point, the North Korean Sgt. O and his partner, hyeok at the joint interrogation session, Su- Pvt. Jeong, walk past. They recognize each hyeok cannot contain his tears; he is other as soldiers from the North and South overwhelmed by his concern for O and his pain respectively. After exchanging a few words, the at having to give up their friendship. Seeing Su- panicked Su-hyeok bursts into tears, crying for hyeok cry, O, who cares deeply for him, stands help. Sgt. O succeeds in detaching Su-hyeok’s up and begins calling him South Korean scum foot from the wire. From this point, a friendship and beating him in order to show the begins to develop between the two. Initially, investigators that they are enemies, just as the they throw letters to each other across the rules of national partition dictate, and to
3 10 | 25 | 1 APJ | JF prevent him from remaining a target of often sexually harassed; contemporary South suspicion. Su-hyeok, understanding this, cries Korean feminism is critical of this [see Jeon even harder. After this encounter, Su-hyeok 2008].) In this sense, it is also interesting to learns that it was his bullets that killed Pvt. view Sgt. O as an idealized version of the North Jeong, his other North Korean friend. This Korean male—in some ways, a more attractive crushes him, leading him to commit suicide by revolutionary than the one so often depicted in shooting himself in the mouth at the end of the North Korean films. Masculine, determined, movie. JSA attracted more than 5.8 million and committed, yet humorous, caring, and viewers (Russell 2008: 63). attractive—these are the ideal features of the male revolutionary leader or fighter figure adored by the 386 generation.
While each reflects the ideals of this generation, in my view the two movies display subtle, yet important differences, particularly in the manner in which they invite, or more precisely, demand, viewers to assume either the position of witness (as inShiri ) or participant (as in JSA) in a ritual of communion. These two positions of engagement will become relevant when we look at North Korean refugees that are being settled in South Korea today.
Witness and Participant Film scholars often groupShiri and JSA together (Kim 2010; Kim, K. 2004). This is Giorgio Agamben writes of the witness: understandable, since they were the first two box office hits that effectively introduced an idealized North Korean figure who resonated In Greek the word for witness is with the romantic image of North Korea held by martis, martyr. The first Church the 386 generation of student activists. For Fathers coined the word martirium example, combined in the character of Myeong- from martis to indicate the death hyeon are many of the ideal characteristics of a of persecuted Christians, who thus woman with a cause adored by males of the bore witness to their faith.[…] 386 generation: strength, beauty, vulnerability, [T]he concepts of “witnessing” and extreme ability and skill, focus, and feminine “martyrdom” can be linked in two sensitivity. Needless to say, contradictions are ways. The first concerns the Greek involved: Here is a woman at once sensitive to term itself, derived as it is from the lives such as those of little pet fish, while at the verb meaning “to remember.” The same time an assassin with deadly accuracy; a survivor’s vocation is to remember; woman who is beautiful and knows how to he cannot not remember.[…] please men, yet can also act with determination. (This type of idealization of a The second point of connection is “revolutionary” female figure had no place in even more profound, more the context of the actual student movement of instructive.[…] The Church Fathers the 1980s where women were reduced to were confronted by heretical “coffee-makers” and “ramen cooks” and were groups that rejected martyrdom
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because, in their eyes, it According to Agamben’s reading of Levi, constituted a wholly senseless martyrdom needs to be experienced; yet, if death (perire sine causa).[…] The experienced, one should already be dead and, doctrine of martyrdom […] justifies therefore, unable to leave one’s testimony as the scandal of a meaningless witness. Levi survived Auschwitz—by his death, of an execution that could “prevarications or abilities or good luck”—yet only appear as absurd. Confronted his survival itself disqualifies him as a true with the spectacle of a death that witness, rendering his words as proxy for those was apparently sine causa, [a of the dead, those who have seen the bottom, reference to the Bible] made it those for whom the self died before the body, possible to interpret martyrdom as and those who did not have the language to tell a divine command and, thus, to and retell their stories of extreme abjection, find a reason for the irrational absurdity, meaningless death, and the (2002: 26-27). unimaginable reality of the concentration camps.
Here, Agamben is reflecting on his close At the same time, not to tell the stories of the reading of the accounts of Primo Levi, an camp is too painful for the survivor—and it Auschwitz survivor who inscribed his memories would not be right, either. For, that would be to of Auschwitz in diverse writings but was confer “the prestige of the mystical” on the ambivalent or even averse to thinking of extermination that occurred in the camps, himself as a witness since, in his view, the true according to Agamben, who recalls one critical witnesses were those who had died in the response to his article on concentration camps camp. Levi wrote: that claimed his article ruined the unsayable character of Auschwitz; unsayable due to its extreme atrocity, which challenges human I must repeat: we, the survivors, comprehension. “But why unsayable?” writes are not the true witnesses […] We Agamben, “Why confer on extermination the survivors are not only an exiguous prestige of the mystical?” (2002: 32). The but also an anomalous minority: we irrational violence and deaths that took place in are those who by their the concentration camps challenge the ability prevarications or abilities or good of language. Yet, not to tell, not to write about luck did not touch bottom. Those the camps risks turning the absurdity and who did so, those who saw the extremity that prevailed in them into something Gorgon, have not returned to tell sacred. Thus, in order to avoid conferring “the about it or have returned mute […] prestige of the mystical” on what took place in Even if they had paper and pen, the camps, proxy witnesses that are survivors the drowned [in the camp] would of the camps—such as Levi—must continue not have testified because their telling the story. death had begun before that of their body. Weeks and months Who are the witnesses in Shiri? And to what do before being snuffed out, they had they bear witness? Anyone who has seen the already lost the ability to observe, movie will recall the scene in which an to remember, to compare and employee at South Korean intelligence express themselves. We speak in headquarters is going around collecting the their stead, by proxy (Levi 1989: little aquariums attached to each analyst’s 83-84). work booth. The employee, in a rather lethargic
5 10 | 25 | 1 APJ | JF and monotonous voice, repeatedly chants that they have no language; when they open their today is Wednesday and the little fish need to mouths, only bubbles come out. So, who should have their tank water changed. There is also tell the story on behalf of the silent fish—and the scene in which Myeong-hyeon and Yu are what will that story be? taking refuge from the rain as they make their way back from the opera. They find themselves The film compels the viewer to bear witness on in front of a fish tank installed on the wall of a behalf of the silent fish that see everything building. And, toward the end, there is the from beginning to end. What the fish see is the scene in which Yu’s partner Lee uncovers story of a woman who has seen the bottom, in Myeong-hyeon’s true identity as the notorious the words of Levi: “Even if they had paper and assassin Bang-hui in Myeong-hyeon’s own pet pen, the drowned [in the camp] would not have fish store, in front of fish tanks lined up on the testified because their death had begun before shop floor. Fish are the witnesses to this story, that of their body. Weeks and months before a story of the determination of a North Korean being snuffed out, they had already lost the spy and killer, her love, and her death. Fish are ability to observe, to remember, to compare also the witnesses to another story, the story of and express themselves” (Levi 1989: 83-84). Yi the love of a South Korean intelligence agent, Myeong-hyeon, the North Korean assassin, is a his friendship, his faith, and his loss. The plot, drowned fish, an impossibility or an anomaly in which the liquid explosive CTX which North (since fish cannot drown). Here, it is important Korean agents have stolen from South Korean to remember Shiri’s opening scene depicting a scientists is said to be just like water—odorless North Korean special unit in training. Faceless and colorless—is an additional point of interest behind identical uniforms, men and women alongside the symbolic role of fish, as if to train in sweat and blood, stabbing and beating suggest that our silent witnesses can also to death people presumed to be prisoners and survive in this deadly substance, only to perish criminals who have been brought to them to when the South Korean capital is destroyed by serve as training fodder. As they stab people, a North Korean plot. blood splashes everywhere, including onto the faces of the men and women of the special unit, The references to water can also be linked to covering their eyes and mouths. The men and the theme of national partition. Recall the Imjin women do not speak in an ordinary sense, as if River, which flows across the DMZ from North having lost the language; the only words they Korea to South Korea, a river sung about with utter are formulaic slogans pledging eternal envy by both North and South Koreans, as it is loyalty to the fatherland, North Korea. They able to flow freely across the Militaryhave lost the power of language and the ability Demarcation Line. Myeong-hyeon herself is a to express themselves—as human beings. In fish: Her codename is swiri, the name of a reference to the views of Agamben and the freshwater fish (leading one to poetically sensitivities of Levi noted above, they are imagine a scene of swiri swimming across the drowned; they have died before their bodies Imjin River) that is also the title of thedied. movie—the translated version having taken on the more English-friendly spelling of Shiri. With Suppose a North Korean assassin such as Yi Myeong-hyeon’s death, her fish lose the person Myeong-hyeon really existed. She would come that cared for them. Without her, they will die from the family of a party cadre, her father sooner or later. In the film, Myeong-hyeon possibly also having been a spy, having died or gives a pair of love fish, kissingurami, to her been killed during an espionage mission. She lover, Yu, asking him to take good care of them. would have been given special training from an The two kissingurami may have survived, but early age, learning foreign languages,
6 10 | 25 | 1 APJ | JF mastering the chemistry of explosives,colorless substance which would have thoroughly familiarizing herself with diverse devastated South Korea. The bridge simply kinds of poisonous substances, developing a connects North and South. It is just that no one proficient knowledge of South Korean culture is supposed to cross it. When a transgression is and South Korean variants of the Korean committed, the time-space continuum in the language, and becoming a master shooter. Her Joint Security Area is reconfigured: The night mission would have taken over her personal becomes a time of reverie, liberation, and existence. By the time she was ready for an mutual discovery, while the pretense of assignment, she would no longer be innational partition is maintained during the day. possession of her self. Then, perhapsJust like during a festival or carnival, when unexpectedly, she would fall in love; of all normally prohibited acts become permissible, people, falling in love with a South Korean Su-hyeok’s and Sgt. O’s nights are marked by intelligence agent who may well end up as one the exchange of hitherto prohibited elements: of her assassination targets. This is where the emotions, cares, smiles, friendship, love, and story of espionage becomes derailed. Even fish mutual respect—things that northern soldiers do not know what love will do to a person who and southern soldiers are never supposed to has lost her self—does it lead her to recover exchange. her humanity or is love a cloak of some sort, a means by which she may better penetrate her The viewer watching this realizes that the more target? Myeong-hyeon does not talk about this Su-hyeok and Sgt. O recognize each other’s anywhere in the film. Without leaving words humanity, the more difficult it becomes for describing her true feelings, she perishes at the them to quit. How are they going to manage hands of the man she loves. Just as Levi’s their exit? The end of the ritual is sobering. If a recognition that being a survivor does not make ritual surrounds its participants with a him a witness, the viewer realizes that having formulaic set of rules, also presenting them watched the story of Myeong-hyeon’s love does with an otherworldly experience, its end is not make him or her into a witness, since the marked by a departure from the radically testimony of a viewer will never be that of altered order and a return to the ordinary. Myeong-hyeon. There is no reliable orAfterwards, however, the participants realize verifiable testimony relating to her love, her they have gone through a transformation—how humanity. Yet, just as Levi assigned himself the profound this transformation is depends on the mission of speaking on behalf of the perished participants and their degree of involvement. witnesses of Auschwitz, the viewer finishes the The after-effects of ritual take Su-hyeok and film with a sense of responsibility—aSgt. O in quite different directions: The former responsibility to remember and tell the story of is unable to bear the burden of having entered Myeong-hyeon and the many other North into a friendship with a North Korean soldier, Koreans like her. ending up shooting another North Korean soldier and committing suicide; the latter, as JSA is different. To begin with, the Bridge of No far as the viewer can see, successfully protects Return symbolizes contiguity between North the former from possible suspicion and, and South: Whereas fish and water work to therefore, is able to carry on living. evoke the penetrability of the impenetrable, this bridge directly shows that the two, north Nevertheless, has not O undergone a and south, are separate, yet connectable. There transformation too? Faking “enemy” fire, O is no need to use fish cunningly implanted with shoots at a fellow officer, enabling Su-hyeok to listening devices and no need to bring in a make a safe return across the bridge. This kind water-like substance like CTX, the odorless of behavior would not be acceptable according
7 10 | 25 | 1 APJ | JF to North Korean ideals of integrity, yet O, a bridge, the one that had seen the other seasoned soldier, gets away with it, simply side—this is none other than martyrdom, the because he has come to love Su-hyeok more sacrifice of a man whose life could otherwise than he loves his own comrades. Responsibility have been saved. After Su-hyeok shoots himself for having met the other, known the other, by firing a gun down his throat, his body lies in registered him as a fellow human and a fellow a pool of blood, the deep red liquid quietly Korean, and loved him, rests as squarely on O’s spreading under his head and shoulders. This shoulders as on those of Su-hyeok. One way or scene assails the unguarded, as viewers are not another, O will learn of Su-hyeok’s suicide. He quite prepared for it: JSA could have concluded will remember and bear witness to Su-hyeok’s with a happy ending, with both Su-hyeok and O life, as Su-hyeok has lost his ability tosurviving. The spreading blood almost feels as communicate using language. The manner of if it is about to touch the viewer, overflowing Su-hyeok’s suicide—shooting himself in the from the screen and implicating the viewer as mouth, the gun pointed down his throat—is an accomplice in this act of sacrifice. extremely indicative: It deprives Su-hyeok of his voice, ensuring that his vocal chords are The viewer leaves the film unable to shrug off destroyed and cancelling out any possibility national partition as just an accident of history; that he will retain access to language and instead, he or she is filled with the urge to do become a witness. By contrast, Sgt. O retains something—even if only something infinitesimal both the voice and the will to tell the story and insignificant—after having participated in when the appropriate time comes, in order to the nightly ritual that cost Su-hyeok and others speak on behalf of the dead. Thus, in contrast their lives. It is uncanny to remember that the to Shiri, where the witnesses are silent, Korean translation of the word “joint,” voiceless fish, JSA gives the audience a witness gongdong, can also be translated as in the figure of Sgt. O. “communal,” reminding us of communion; as such, it would not be off the mark to think of Having stayed the course through Su-hyeok’s the film Joint Security Area as an attempt at and O’s journey of mutual discovery, the viewer presenting a communion—albeit an ephemeral is faced with the need to exit from it when the one—between the North and the South, movie comes to an end, just as O and Su-hyeok although the ritual of communion in the end is had to exit their ritual, each according to aborted. different methods and different paths. In other words, the viewer must come back to ordinary Acting as a witness to the national tragedy reality, having participated in a nightly ritual of created by the absurdity of partition and prohibited friendship. How does the viewer participating in a ritual that defies the partition achieve this? By becoming someone who has in an unconventional way—these are stances experienced a transformation. Thisthat the films Shiri and JSA create. The effect is transformation is primarily the result of Su- significant in that, under the post-totalitarian, hyeok’s sacrifice: The logic of the story is that neo-liberal government, in a society where his death could have been avoided, because he military dictatorship is no longer perceived as a had been accepted as a hero by the South possibility, the consumers of popular visual Korean military due to O’s last minute strategy cultural products demand a positionality with of faking enemy crossfire. His suicide,respect to the nation’s past, present, and therefore, can be viewed as an example of future. These are the effects that the recent martyrdom—as shown by Agamben, ahumanization of North Koreans in the South meaningless death, or at least, an unnecessary Korean movie theatre have on South Korean one. The death of the one that had crossed the viewers. However, as I shall argue in the
8 10 | 25 | 1 APJ | JF following, once these consumers are faced with North Korean refugees have also exhibited real North Koreans, specifically with North shifting patterns of movement. During the Korean refugees who have been settled (or are 1990s, when North Korea was experiencing trying to settle) in South Korea, their political famine and serious food shortages, massive engagement vanishes; for these former North numbers of people crossed the Chinese border. Koreans look nothing like Yi Myeong-hyeon or In recent years, however, there has been a Sgt. O. Faced with the reality of having to slowing of border-crossing activity following a accept their poor Northern brethren, sections forty-six percent increase in migrants during of South Korean society assume positions that 2006 (“S. Korea” 2009). This change has been are almost the polar opposite of those of attributed by some to the introduction of witness and participant, their positions veering informal market activities in North Korea, a toward those of disinterested bystanders at slight easing in the food supply situation, as best and xenophobes at worst. well as the effects of Chinese crackdowns. It is also possible to note that women refugees The Other North Koreans outnumber men. Since 2002, more North Korean women than men have settled in South In November 2010, South Korea welcomed its Korea. While women accounted for fifty-five twenty-thousandth North Korean refugee—a percent of North Korean migrants to South forty-one-year-old mother with her two sons. Korea in 2002, the figure had risen to sixty-six The number of refugees from the north has percent by 2008 and seventy-seven percent by increased markedly since the beginning of the 2009 (Yi 2010: 280). Women frequently bring new millennium, reaching 23,000 in 2012. their children with them. Moreover, growing There have been ten thousand arrivals since numbers of children are arriving in South 2007 alone (Branigan 2010). Beyond these Korea unaccompanied by an adult relative (Jo & figures, there is little reliable data allowing us Kim 2009: 24-25, 218-219). Typically, they take to grasp just how many North Koreans have the Southeast Asian route, traveling from fled their country, mostly to China, but more northern China to Burma, and crossing the recently to Mongolia and countries inMekong on their way to Thailand, where they Southeast Asia. As of 2002, an independent make contact with human rights agencies if report estimated that 100,000 to 300,000 they are lucky. By contrast, hundreds of refugees were living outside North Korea (Ko, children have been detained and held by Chung, & Oh 2004: 68). In 2006, the US State government authorities in Thailand (“North Department estimated the number to be Koreans” 2009). between 30,000 and 50,000, which UNHCR also uses as a working figure (Mergesson, For North Koreans who have been resettled in Chanlett-Avery, & Bruno 2007: 4). South South Korea, whose number currently stands at Korean NGOs generally use 100,000 as a base 23,000, resettlement is not easy; far from line (Jo & Kim 2009: 18). The numbers feeling as though they have been repatriated to fluctuate, and it is difficult to determine the another motherland, they are typically made to scale and location of North Korean refugees. feel estranged, ostracized, and alienated. Their Many are repeat migrants, entering and exiting stories remind us of the profound differences North Korea. Others live in hiding, with the and cleavages consolidated by the sixty-five- largest number to be found in China. This year partition of the peninsula. In this section, makes it particularly challenging to estimate we shall look at how North Koreans are treated their number, given that China does not after their arrival in South Korea, in contrast to recognize them as refugees. their representation in recent movies.
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Once accepted by South Korea, former North These figures included an initial settlement Koreans receive significant governmentallowance, a follow-up payment, and housing support. During the first three months they are subsidies. As of 2005, each North Korean adult housed at Hanawon, a government-operated received close to $1,800 per month for six to rehabilitation facility, where they undergo a twelve months as a job-training subsidy (Jo & crash course in South Korea’s domestic social, Kim 2009: 39). For the first six months after political, economic, and cultural patterns, as leaving Hanawon, each migrant receives well as learning about the world beyond the around $400 per month toward living expenses. Korean peninsula. Established in 1999, If they fail to secure employment during this Hanawon offers programs that can be broadly period, payments can be extended (Kang 2010). divided into two components: socio-cultural In addition, after leaving Hanawon, they are adaptation and vocational training. In addition, the facility offers psychological evaluation, assigned social workers and helpers, in some counseling, and other forms of therapeutic cases (high-profile North Korean defectors), support. School-age children used to be sent to even personal security guards to shield them nearby schools, with Hanawon providing from possible North Korean retaliation. The support; in 2009, a school opened inside annual total of government funds paid to North Hanawon, offering education based on the idea Korean migrants was a little over $2 million in of age-appropriate adaptation (Korean Minjok 2006 for 160 persons, $900,000 for 583 Leadership Academy 2009). persons in 2007, and $2.14 million for 1,141 persons in 2008 (Jo & Kim 2009: 39). In 2009, the government spent $5.6 million on subsidies to employers to encourage them to hire refugees, as well as $1.8 million on college education subsidies for them and their children. Meanwhile, operating costs for Hanawon in 2010 totaled $77.4 million (Lee 2010). With the increase in the number of migrants in recent years, Hanawon extended its facilities to three other locations in the Seoul area, and is able to accommodate nine hundred persons at one time (Jo & Kim 2009: 32).
Hanawon Center
Upon completion of the rehabilitation program (entirely at government expense, including room and board), migrants are given support funds to help cover costs associated with housing, job training, education, and so on, as they start new lives in South Korea. As of 2007, settlement support was set at $17,000 per individual, increasing to $42,000 for a family of six and $45,500 for a family of seven or more.
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Teens and young adults from North Korea behind in North Korea and continue sending attend class at Hangyeore school inmoney to them drawn from their meager Anseong, 2010 incomes, often by illegal means, further increasing their hardship in South Korea.
Nevertheless, despite this commitment from Researchers and specialists studying migrants the South Korean government, many refugees report low levels of self-esteem, a general experience difficulties. Once outside ofsense of pessimism, high incidence of poor Hanawon, many become bewildered and health, especially mental health, and feelings of overwhelmed by feelings of being marginalized being marginalized, excluded, and treated with and discriminated against. A survey ofbias in South Korean society. The number of literature and news reports shows that many patients receiving psychological treatment at feel fear and uncertainty about their futures in the hospital designated by Hanawon for this South Korea while continuing to be plagued by purpose rose from 110 in 2007 to a staggering a sense of guilt at having left family members 7,467 during the first eight months of 2010 behind. Other factors contribute to a worsening (“We Must” 2010). Children and young adults in their mental state, such as their high level of are the victims of the most direct expressions unemployment, experiences of prejudice, and of prejudice and ridicule at the schools and play differences in socio-cultural norms and values. groups they attend. Some sixty-two percent of A 1998 survey of migrants who had entered North Korean students try to hide their origins South Korea since 1990 found anfor fear of being bullied by their classmates unemployment rate of 39.2 percent (Jo & Kim (“We Must” 2010). Although they have 2009: 77), while a 2003 survey of migrants who successfully entered South Korea, many North had entered South Korea since 1993 found an Korean minors are quickly evaluated as even higher rate, 41.5 percent (Yi et al. 2003: undereducated, with up to twenty-four percent 26-33). Even when they do secure employment, having received no formal education. As of this is often only temporary, with many2004, only 6.6 percent of high school age frequently changing workplaces and holding migrants were attending high school, only 49.1 insecure jobs, such as day laborer. In a 2008 percent of middle school age migrants were study, 67.8 percent of the North Korean enrolled in middle school, and only 85.7 migrants surveyed had held their jobs for less percent of elementary school age were than one year, and 60.2 percent expressed attending elementary school (Jeon & Jo 2009: discontent that their incomes were111-112). Of these, 12.8 percent of young adult substantially lower than they had expected migrants dropped out of regular school in 2004 (Jeon et al. 2009: 128). Many refugees carry (Choi, Park, & Joung 2010: 140). Specifically, debts incurred to brokers and others who eight out of sixty-four North Korean middle helped them move from China to a third school students dropped out of school in 2004; country, such as Mongolia or Thailand, where the figure was eleven out of sixty in 2005 (Jeon they could apply for asylum at a South Korean & Jo 2009: 112). embassy or consulate. Fees for such services typically range from $2,000 to $3,000 per person (Lankov 2010). Some pay more—one refugee who entered South Korea in 2005 paid smugglers $10,000 (Onishi 2006), while another source cites smuggling fees ranging from $5,500 to $6,000 (Harden 2009). Many of these refugees have left family members
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and having food on the table were always a problem in North Korea, but leaving that aside, there was never such intense competition as we encounter in the South,” one such student said (UNHCR 2007). Other children even wish to go back to North Korea, because they find South Korean children cold and deceptive, and impossible to befriend (Jeon & Jo 2009: 132-135; see Koh & Baek 2002). According to one researcher, North Korean children are disappointed by how little interest South Korean children have toward North Korea (Min 2001: 247-248; see also Jeon & Jo 2009).
Refugee children at Hanawon It is important to register that the complex nature of prejudicial treatment meted out to North Korean migrants reflects South Korean When asked why they did not like South Korean society’s own moral ambiguities. For example, schools, North Korean children responded that South Koreans are critical of North Korean they got teased for being shorter and smaller migrants who are unwilling to take up so-called than South Korean children, for speaking with 3D occupations: dirty, dangerous, and difficult a northern accent, for not keeping up with jobs (Suh 2002:76). Behind such criticism lies recent fads, and for being unsophisticated. the logic that these are the kinds of jobs North They voiced discontent that their pride was Korean refugees deserve, the assumption being hurt whenever the subject of North Korea arose that they should consider themselves fortunate in the classroom, and mentioned that teachers even to be alive, accompanied by feelings of were indifferent to them, even when they were disbelief that they dare to shun this type of bullied by South Korean classmates (Jeon & Jo work. Another factor encouraging disdain 2009: 132-133). Based on reporting byRadio toward migrants is the assumption in some Free Asia, UNHCR Refworld notes that their sectors of South Korean society that migrants lack of academic background in North Korea as expect permanent financial support. In well as their years of wandering in China and Southeast Asia led many North Korean children addition, the fact that many have left their and young adults to be placed in much younger families behind and betrayed their country is grade classes than those attended by their seen as a sign of a personality defect and a lack South Korean age peers, with seventeen or of moral integrity (see Jeon 2000). Such eighteen-year-olds frequently being placed in assumptions place weaker members of the elementary schools (UNHCR 2007). In one such refugee population in an even more vulnerable case, in 2002, a seventeen-year-old youth who position. For example, a young woman working had migrated to South Korea alone was placed part-time as a waitress at a restaurant to help in the sixth grade of an elementary school; her parents pay her school fees is often before long, he dropped out, passing through a approached by customers who assume that she series of unstable jobs before ending up being is available for prostitution due to her killed in a motorcycle accident one year after “culturally inferior marker as a North Korean arriving in South Korea (Chung 2009). In their defector” and the associated assumption that isolation and marginalization, they oftenshe would do almost anything in order to get a reminisce about North Korea: “Getting around little more money (Yi 2010: 283).
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A random sample of five hundred South Korean one scene, Su-hyeok, suggests that he defect to citizens included in a survey conducted in 2008 the south. O flatly refuses, declaring that he revealed South Koreans to be unsympathetic would prefer to contribute to making his and guarded toward North Koreans when fatherland, North Korea, as strong and asked specific questions, such as “How would appealing as South Korea. This North Korean you feel about your children befriending a man, who refuses to cross over, is filled with refugee youth?” or “How would you feel about dignity; North Koreans who have crossed over employing a North Korean?” The survey’s to the South, on the other hand, are portrayed findings substantiate the fact that few South as unworthy of respect. This judgment appears Korean citizens are willing to becometo underpin current views held toward North personally involved with refugees (Rhee 2008). Korean refugees in South Korea. They are seen as parasites, an unwelcome burden, and a group of unwanted sojourners Banishment of North Koreans who drain South Korea’s welfare system (Herskovitz 2007). North Korean refugees are not a new phenomenon in South Korea, and their number Furthermore, whenever North-South relations today is small compared with the millions of worsen, refugees are made to feel defensive or North Koreans who fled American air raids and even personally endangered. Consider the crossed the 38th parallel to become refugees aftermath of the sinking of the South Korean during the US-Korean War. Individuals submarine, the Cheonan, in March 2010, in sporadically attempted crossings of the DMZ which forty-six sailors died. With the South after the 1953 armistice—many losing their Korean government and the press charging lives in the process—in order to escape North North Korea with attacking the submarine Korea. During the Cold War, without provocation, many refugees feltdefectors—especially those with high profiles, ostracized at their places of work and in their such as scientists participating in conferences neighborhoods and were even made to feel in Eastern Europe, former diplomats, personally responsible for the incident. A well- government officials, and military known refugee art troupe had seven out of its officers—received heroes’ welcomes in South nine performance contracts cancelled, while in Korea. For example, a Korean People’s Army some districts, migrants informed each other pilot who defected in a MiG-19 fighter jet in not to take certain routes after dark in light of 1983 received a red carpet welcome and 1.2 rumors that some individuals were planning billion Korean won (approximately $11.5 revenge attacks (“Talbukjarago” 2010). Again, million), a sum that was 480 times greater than following the November 2010 artillery attack the average annual South Korean income at the by the North Korean military on Yeongpyeong time (Chung 2009: 8). A small but steady Island, in which two South Korean civilians and succession of such high profile cases followed, two soldiers were killed, many refugees were including the 1997 defection of Hwang Jang- made to feel ashamed and responsible. One yeop, former President of Kim Il Sung refugee remarked: “I’m terrified thinking of University in Pyongyang and the mastermind how I’m going to live in South Korea in the behind the creation of North Korea’s Juche future” (“The Distance” 2010). Ideology. It is important, however, to note that such cases constitute an extreme minority of Let us recall the character of Sgt. O, the main migrants (Yoon 2001: 1). North Korean protagonist in the movie JSA discussed above—an affable individual,As Cold War tensions began to wane in Korea deserving admiration for his great integrity. In (although, in contrast to Eastern Europe, still
13 10 | 25 | 1 APJ | JF keenly felt), refugees from other sectors of based on their commodity value and seeing North Korean society began to emerge—the fluctuations in this value as a reflection of poor, the starved, the unskilled, and the changes in the political needs of South Korea in minimally educated. Byung-Ho Chung refers to the context of global politics is helpful in them as the “New Settlers” (Chung 2009). understanding their position within (or outside) Predominantly arriving in South Korea after the boundaries of humanity in South Korea 2005, these New Settlers differ from earlier today. It is ironic to find North Korean refugees defectors, whose life histories and childhoods so heavily dependent on government subsidies often became the subject of publications that and welfare at a time when prevailing neo- were translated into many different languages, liberal social norms in South Korea require self- serving as an extremely effective propaganda sufficient, independent persons to be tool for the South Korean state (e.g. Kang financially self-supporting. In this sense, being 2001; Kang 2007). a burden on society, and lacking even some form of birth right, places North Korean In the eyes of many South Koreans, however, refugees in an extremely ambiguous position: the New Settlers have little to offer. Especially they are not quite foreigners, in that they are now, as more North Korean women and classified as Koreans, members of the same children reach South Korea, many South ethnic group as South Koreans; yet neither are Koreans view them as an increased burden on they quite South Korean nationals, in that they tax payers. Moreover, North Korea is no longer behave unconventionally, fail to adapt to South of very great interest to South Koreans. Korean norms, and long remain dependent on Specifically, South Koreans today are no longer the contributions of South Koreans. Their interested in the possibility of nationalexistence runs counter to the prevailing neo- reunification; reunification figures prominently liberal ethic in South Korea, because they do neither in their daily lives nor in their visions of not contribute toward society’s wealth on the the future. During the years of militaryone hand and are unable to assume dictatorship, a period characterized by severe responsibility for their own well-being on the Cold War tensions, and right up until the late other. Not only do they fail to obtain and hold 1980s, anti-government student and labor jobs, but many do not stay in school, complete movements reserved a place for the discourse high school or college courses, become rich or of reunification. As a focus of hope and as a successful, and become proper South Koreans kind of utopian notion, this discourse provided by participating in a competitive social momentum for anti-government, anti-American environment. political action. Today, under a civilian government, the passion of South Koreans From a slightly different angle, I would across the political spectrum no longercharacterize the state of North Korean concerns reunification. Rather, monetary gain, refugees or immigrants in South Korea today as material success, financial security, andone that is racialized. Recall that refugee improvement of status and looks, are much children are ridiculed for being short and more urgent concerns for most Koreans. having poorer physique. In South Korea, the Accordingly, the value of North Koreanmaintenance and improvement of one’s defectors has fallen, even as the cost of their appearance often involves costly interventions, maintenance has risen. such as cosmetic and plastic surgery (Na Im 2010). At a minimum, it requires the regular My use of language commonly associated with purchase of cosmetic and grooming-related the market—terms such as value and cost—is products, adherence to regular bathing habits, deliberate. For, adopting a view of refugees and maintenance of a healthy diet and life-
14 10 | 25 | 1 APJ | JF style. South Korean sensitivity regarding height are comfortably watching them in action on the is particularly striking. Many parents spend silver screen, they are worthy of attention and substantial sums on height-stretchingrespect; when North Koreans actually come to treatments, in addition to special exercise the South in an attempt to regain their programs and dietary regimes for theirhumanity, risking their safety and sometimes children, in the belief that taller individuals are even their lives, often spending years more likely to be successful (Choe 2009). The wandering across China and Southeast Asia, bullying of short children (i.e. North Korean they are met with reluctance, their membership refugees) is compounded by additional factors, within South Korean society remaining such as an unfamiliar accent, unfashionable ambiguous. For South Korea, a nation that has clothing, a less-developed physique, and skin overcome a brutal thirty-year military appearance that is the product of years of dictatorship and a terrible economic downturn, malnutrition and irregular eating. On top of all a nation that now thrives on a neo-liberal ethic of these factors is the stigma associated with of individual survival in which, in theory, being housed in segregated residential areas, a everyone strives to become richer, better- common occurrence. Social attention to the looking and more successful, a large-scale physical appearance of North Korean refugees influx of uneducated and unskilled North has the effect of inventing a “North Korean Korean refugees is an uneasy and unhappy race” in South Korea. event.
This is the beginning of a process ofIn contrast with Myeong-hyeon’s dramatic life dehumanization of North Korean refugees in and death, her love affair with a South Korean South Korea today. In stark contrast to recent intelligence agent and her love of fish, we can depictions of North Koreans in the cinema, argue that the scenes of North Korean refugees such as in the moviesShiri and JSA, real, arriving in the South are not worthy of human North Koreans that have managed to attention, so to speak. Unlike the compassion reach South Korea in search of better lives are that Sgt. O’s personality creates in the typically viewed with disdain or, at least, with audience’s mind due to his pride in being North deep ambivalence as to whether they should be Korean and his admirable commitment to his acknowledged as fellow Koreans—indeed, as country, recent North Korean refugees are fellow humans. Beautiful assassin Myeong- perceived as traitors to their own hyeon and cool, dignified Sgt. O are, as it were, country—another Korea—and often seen as examples of “other Koreans” that arelacking in integrity. They are seen, therefore, acceptable. By contrast, the poor,as likely to betray their new motherland, South malnourished, and minimally educated North Korea, as well. Far from becoming co- Korean refugees are examples of “other participants in the rituals of their lives, South Koreans” that South Koreans have a hard time Korean classmates, work colleagues, and accepting. neighbors remain indifferent toward them, at times assuming a hostile and contemptuous The emergence of two different kinds of “other attitude. It is indicative that refugees as Koreans” is a cryptic demonstration of how defectors are exempted from universal one’s humanity is no longer clear once one has compulsory military service in South Korea crossed the DMZ: As long as North Koreans are (“North Korean Defectors” 2011). Military North Koreans—be they loyal soldiers or service is unpopular in Korea and most would spies—they are humans in the context of consider themselves fortunate to be exempted. today’s post-Cold War South Korean imagery, The fact that North Korean refugees are and as long as South Korean theater audiences exempted, however, is a sign of the lack of trust
15 10 | 25 | 1 APJ | JF by the state. It is precisely because South migrants. For, in my view, North Koreans who Korea’s military dictatorship has been replaced have reached South Korea remain unlocated or by a civilian government, the nation entering unlocatable in social-scientific discourse. the ranks of neo-liberal, competitive, and capitalist nations, that national partition has Currently, an increasing number of researchers become someone else’s business. In the(particularly Western researchers) are gaining process, as bearers of this awkward reality, access to North Korean refugees in South refugees find themselves placed outside the Korea, resulting in studies on their lives, range of social and national concerns in South encompassing a wide array of genres and Korea today, while their place in the realm of topics, touching upon their stories of misery, South Korean humanity remains unclear. The their memory of famine, their painful family irony could not be clearer: North Korean saga, religious conversion, and sometimes, refugees who risked their lives to escape the small success stories in the South. It seems north face the real possibility of losing their that we have entered a new phase in bringing humanity in the south. the lives of North Korean refugees into the arena of academic and journalistic discourse, Postscript compared to, say, a decade ago (e.g. Demick 2010; Fahy 2011). This is all the more reason to I am not suggesting that shunning andask, then: Who are North Korean refugees? The discrimination against North Korean settlers increasing number of academic and journalistic are the only attitudes found in South Korea books on North Korean refugees in South today. I am personally acquainted with many Korea and elsewhere continue to consolidate individuals, especially young people, who are the image of their role as witness of something, committed to improving the new settlers’ be it disappearing totalitarianism or crafty livelihood and assisting them to re-start their survival skills. Amidst this type of lives in South Korea. Similarly, in filmrepresentation, who these North Koreans are is production, more complex, even subtlenot really explored—are they refugees and if representations of North Korean settlers in so, what is the most appropriate framework to South Korea have appeared in recent years, as assess their experiences? Or, are they in exile, seen in Dance Town, a part of Town Trilogy by in diaspora, or in displacement? Are they to Kyu-hwan Jeon (2011), which depicts the remain as carriers of the old, rather than despondent reality that North Korean refugees becoming creators of the new? Will they experience in South Korea. Yet, the fact continue to function as an “access point” to remains that too little has been done for North reveal some kinds of “truth” about North Korean refugees not only in South Korea but Korea? This process inevitably renders them elsewhere, including North Korea. Even when into the object – I hope this is borne in the North Korean re-settlers are “accepted” in minds of researchers dealing with them. At the South Korea, in the current situation, we do not same time, I wonder: Will North Koreans begin find a framework that goes beyond one- telling their own stories, will they find the dimensional definitions such as talbukja (those language to do so, that is, will they cease to be who got out of the North) or saeteomin (new the object and become the subject? settlers), which practically function as labeling, rather than providing the bearers of these A distant acquaintance in Japan told me a story labels with an enabling point of departure and of the experience of his niece. She was born to self-esteem. It must not have escaped the his cousin, a repatriate to North Korea from reader that I myself am hesitant about how Japan in the mid-1960s, and the cousin’s wife, best to categorize them, whether as refugees or also a repatriate. The niece, then eighteen
16 10 | 25 | 1 APJ | JF years of age, was traveling to a nearby town on his support and editing. a crowded bus, mostly carrying young male passengers. When she returned home after this Sonia Ryang is Professor of Anthropology and trip, she looked as if she had experienced International Studies and C. Maxwell and death. She was no longer the same woman. She Elizabeth M. Stanley Family and Korea stopped talking and refrained from eating, Foundation Chair of Korean Studies in the except the bare minimum. After many months University of Iowa. Her books include North of silence, she killed herself. With theKoreans in Japan: Language, Ideology, and fragments of information, the family learned Identity, Love in Modern Japan: Its that she was gang-raped on the bus. She was Estrangement from Self, Sex, and Society, and among some 99,000 Koreans repatriated to North Korea: Toward A Better Understanding. North Korea from Japan between 1959 and Her most recent book is Reading North Korea: 1979, most of them originating from the An Ethnological Inquiry (2012 Harvard southern provinces of Korea. Thousands of the University Press). repatriates perished in concentration camps. Their stories are yet to be told. I cite this story, Recommended citation: Sonia Ryang, "North because it reminds us of the reality that North Koreans in South Korea: In Search of Their Koreans (in or out of North Korea) do not have, Humanity," The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol 10, as it were, the language, i.e. they areIssue 25, No 1, June 18, 2012. silent—just like the fish in Shiri. In the story Sources above, the witness is dead, rendering no word available from her mouth. But unlikeShiri , Agamben, Giorgio. 2002.Remnants of there was no audience for this woman. She Auschwitz: The Witness and the Archive. New alone experienced what she had and was York: Zone Books. unable to live. At least she avoided the fate of double objectification by not having to testify to Branigan, Tania. 2010. “South Korea Reports researchers—that is to say, she avoidedHuge Rise in Defectors from the North,” interrogation about her loss of humanity. Guardian November 15, 2010. Banishment of North Koreans in South Korea needs to be referenced with the reality in which Choe, Sang-hun. 2009. “South Korea Stretches the subjects do not possess their own language, Standards for Success,”New York Times or, the moment they tell their stories, they December 23, 2009. become the objects of interrogation—the process which inevitably puts their humanity to Choi, Jinhee. 2010. The South Korean Film examination, thereby further removing it from Renaissance: Local Hitmakers, Global them. Provocateurs. Middletown, CT.: Wesleyan University Press. Acknowledgements Choi, Seul Ki, Park, Sang Min, & Joung, Hyojee. The author wishes to acknowledge that2010. “Still Life with Less: North Korean Young research funding for this article was provided Adult Defectors in South Korea Show by the Academy of Korean Studies, under the Continued Poor Nutrition and Physique,” category of Strategic Initiatives for Korean Nutrition Research and Practice 4 (2): 136-141. Studies in its 2008 Korean Studies Initiative Project (AKS-2009-DD-2002). The author also Chung, Byong-Ho. 2009. “Between Defector wishes to thank Mark Morris for his helpful and and Migrant: Identities and Strategies of North encouraging comments and Mark Selden for Koreans in South Korea,” Korean Studies 32:
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1-27. Kang, Hyun-kyung. 2010. “North Korean Defectors Feel Discriminated in South Korea,” Demick, Barbara. 2010.Nothing to Envy: Korean Sentry: Korean History & Cultural Ordinary Lives in North Korea. New York: Forum April 27, 2010. Online: here< > Spiegel and Gran. (accessed February 11, 2011).
Fahy, Sandra. 2011. “Like Two Pieces of the Kim, Kyung Hyun. 2011. Virtual Hallyu: Korean Sky: Seeing North Korea through Accounts of Cinema in the Global Era. Raleigh, NC.: Duke the Famine,” Anthropology Today 27 (5): 18-21. University Press.
Harden, Blaine. 2009. “N. Korean Defectors Ko, Sung Ho, Chung, Kiseon, & Oh, Yoo-seok. Bewildered by the South,”The Washington 2004. “North Korea Defectors: Their Life and Post April 12, 2009. Well-being after Defection,” Asian Perspective 28 (2): 65-99. Herskovitz, Jon. 2007. “Seoul Survivors Feel Second-Class Citizens,” The Standard: China’s Koh, Kelly, and Baek, Glen. 2002. “North Business Newspaper July 26, 2007. Online: Korean Defectors: A Window to a Reunified
Jo Yong-gwan and Kim Yun-yeong. 2009. Levi, Primo. 1989. The Drowned and the Saved. Talbukjawa hamkkehaneun tongil[The New York: Random House. reunification that is to be achieved together with North Korean defectors]. Seoul: Hanul. Mergesson, Rhoda, Chanlett-Avery, Emma, & Bruno, Andorra. 2007.CRS Report for Kang, Chol-hwan. 2001. The Aquariums of Congress: North Korean Refugees in China and Pyongyang. New York: Basic Books. Human Rights Issues: International Response and U.S. Policy Options. Washington, DC: Kang, Hyok. 2007. This Is Paradise! My North Congressional Research Service. Online: Korean Childhood. New York: Little, Brown.
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Min Seong-gil. 2001.Tongilgwa nambuk Suh, Jae-jean. 2002. “North Korean Defectors: cheongsonyeon [Reunification and youth of Their Adaptation and Resettlement,” East Asian North and South Koreas]. Seoul: YonseiReview 14 (3): 67-86. University Press. “Talbukjarago hamyeon Na Im Yun-gyeong. 2010. “10-dae yeoseong, gyeonggyebuteo…ilkkam kkeunkigo oemo jungsimjueuie katchida” [Teens are sinbyeonwihyeopkkaji” [When people realize imprisoned by the looks-first-ism]. In Byeon we are defectors, they suspect us first… job Hye-seon ed., 10-daeui sekseu, yukwaehan losses and personal endangerment]. 2010. seksyueolliti [Teen sex, amusing sexuality]. dongA.com April 23, 2010. Online:
“North Korean Defectors Can’t Join South “The Distance Is Large for North Korean Korea’s Army.” 2011.Public Radio Defectors Who Want to Live in South Korea.” International January 18, 2011. Online:
“S. Korea Sees 10-Percent Rise of NKYoon, In-Jin. 2001. “North Korean Diaspora: Refugees.” 2009. Korea Times January 5, 2009. North Korean Defectors Abroad and in South Online:
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