New Beginnings: A Conversation with Hae Jung & Sue
Hae Jung is very familiar with loss and grief: Her mother passed away when she was a teenager, after she grew up and got married, her husband died, and three years after that, her father starved to death. Life became unbearably difficult for Hae Jung after the death of her father. With no family left and no resources to survive on, she escaped to China in search of a better life.
Hae Jung was arrested twice during her 14 years in China, but was able to evade repatriation on both occasions. Still, she lived with constant anxiety that she would be caught and sent back, and her Chinese-born daughter, Sue, grew up fearing for her mother’s life.
Seeing the devastating effects that living in hiding had on her daughter, she escaped with Sue to South Korea. Together, they made it safely through LiNK’s networks, a journey which was funded by UT Austin's Rescue Team, just before Sue’s 8th birthday.
Now safely resettled in South Korea, Sue is attending school and Hae Jung is working as a salesperson at a mobile phone company. Hae Jung also volunteers at a local welfare center to aid people with disabilities by cooking for them and cleaning their houses and helps out at her daughter’s school as a crossing guard with other parents.
Our resettlement coordinators, Jihyun and Anna, recently met up with Hae Jung and Sue to see how they’ve been doing.
While cutting up some fruit to serve, Hae Jung began to talk about what it's been like to live in freedom...
Hae Jung: Even nowadays, more than two years after I resettled in South Korea, I still pinch myself to see if this is real—that I’m free, that I live in South Korea. Although there are difficulties here, too, especially for people like me who still don’t know a lot about this society, I always try to think that I can overcome those difficulties. If I already think it is impossible to overcome, I can never overcome anything.
Jihyun: What advice would you give to a friend who just arrived in ROK?
Hae Jung: Try to learn as much technology as possible to facilitate your adjustment to this society (especially knowing how to use computers and the Internet is so necessary). You have to experience new things on your own instead of only listening to other people’s experiences. And, go to college if you are young enough.
No matter where you go, you will always face difficulties, conflicts with other people due to different cultures and customs. Some people will look down on you and you will make mistakes because you are not used to this society. Although South Koreans don’t have to adjust to this society the way resettled North Koreans do, they also deal with similar things in life. We are not that different. Try to find people you can open your heart to, share your struggles with, and laugh about the struggles with them.
Don’t be afraid of difficult things or interpersonal conflicts. Try to remember what you went through in North Korea, where you were not treated as human beings, then it will give you different perspectives on how to approach difficulties you may have.
Jihyun gave Sue a wooden pen, which she was very excited to receive, with the UT Austin crest carved into it. The pen is a gift from Julian, a former member of the UT Austin Rescue Team who now interns at LiNK HQ. Hae Jung and Sue have met Julian twice in South Korea.
Jihyun showed Hae Jung and Sue a video of Julian saying hi and telling them about what he’s doing at LiNK HQ as an intern. Hae Jung was so happy to see Julian that she actually waved and said "Hi!” twice while watching it.
Jihyun to Sue: How do you like school these days?
Sue: It’s alway fun!
Jihyun: What is your favorite subject?
Sue: “Math”
Jihyun to Sue: What are you thankful for this year?
Sue: What do you mean?
Jihyun: Well, for example, you could be thankful because you had a summer break this year, haha. You also saw Julian from the UT Austin Rescue Team again and you got to study with your tutor through our ETCE Program earlier this year. And...ah, your fractured wrist healed well and fast, too! So is there anything you are particularly thankful for, which happened this year?
Sue: “Aren’t we thankful for just the fact that we have life?”
Jihyun to Hae Jung: How do you and Sue spend time together?
Hae Jung: I try to spend as much time as possible with my daughter. We often go to the park in our apartment complex to have mom and daughter time by walking and exercising together. Sometimes we do karaoke, too. When I went to karaoke with my daughter for the first time, I was surprised to see her sing and dance to a lot of South Korean pop songs. I was like, ‘when did you learn all that?’. I realized that kids adjust faster than adults. You know, she already has a South Korean accent.
Jihyun: What kind of difficulties did you face in North Korea?
Hae Jung: Things were so difficult during the famine in the 90s, especially after the public distribution system collapsed in 1994. One time, after starving for so many days, my father and I started moving around to different towns with salt and matches to find tree roots and bark. Whenever we found tree roots and bark, we cooked them with salt and ate them. We had to do that to survive until wild, edible greens started growing in June, so we could eat the greens instead of tree roots and bark. In July and August, I got to save some greens so I could sell them at the illegal marketplaces. However, sometimes my greens even got taken away by the police whenever they cracked down on the illegal marketplaces.
Very sadly, during the famine, I lost many of my family members. I still remember the very moment when I saw my father dying of starvation while crying for corn soup and tofu that he really wanted to eat. I was also very close to starving to death. I weighed as little as 55 pounds, which was not even a half of my normal weight of 119 pounds. If my friend hadn’t brought me some kernels, I would’ve died of starvation like my father.
In order to survive during the terrible famine, the people, including myself, started eating mice, but they were so hard to catch. You might think it sounds so gross, but when you are starving for so long, your mind gets so focused on finding anything edible—and how you can skin and cook them. Whenever I caught a mouse and cooked it, it smelled strong so people living on the same block noticed the smell and could tell someone near them was cooking mouse meat. Starving kids near my house were crying because they smelled it. I tried to share the meat with those kids as much as possible, but sometimes I couldn’t because I was starving, too, and didn’t have enough to share.
Jihyun: What are some difficulties you’ve faced since resettling?
Hae Jung: When I first came to South Korea, I had a hard time understanding expressions and words that South Koreans use. Because of that, I had difficulty communicating with people at work when I was working as a caretaker and waitress.
Jihyun: What is it like living in freedom in South Korea?
Hae Jung: It is very convenient thanks to more technology. Before I left North Korea in the late 90s, in my town there was only one TV in every five households and the TV had only one channel. Now in South Korea, however, every house has at least one TV and it has so many different channels. Also, almost every household has a computer and uses the Internet.
I think the Internet makes my life so much easier. If I want to listen to my favorite songs or look up information, I just have to move my fingers.
I feel so much freedom in many parts of my life. I love that people don’t bother you as long as you don’t bother them or break the law. I also think that the freedom makes people not only more equal to one another but also more friendly to each other.
I love being able to learn new things here.
When I got my ID, after coming to South Korea, I was happy. I felt like I had become a human being again (because I lived illegally in China for so long, always hiding and being afraid of getting caught). When I was in North Korea and China, I felt like I was an animal like a dog or a pig. Since I live as a human being here with freedom, I am proud of myself and even compliment myself for living like a human, which I longed for in North Korea and China.
Freedom also enables me to be healthy since I don’t have to do a lot of physically hard labor that a lot of people still do in North Korea these days due to lack of technology and infrastructure.
Jihyun: What hopes do you have for Sue?
Hae Jung: Of course, like any other mom in the world, I want her to be successful in life. I hope she will go to a good university, study overseas, get a good job, and prosper in many ways. I know that is just my wish. It is out of my control and it depends on how much she tries/her effort.
The most important thing for me is that Sue will grow well—healthy and happy. I want to be there for my daughter whenever she needs me. I want to be positive to her all the time so I can be a good role model and influence her to also take on a positive outlook on life.
Also I want to continue telling her to appreciate what she has and to care for others who are underprivileged and have disabilities. I want her to know that we have to give back to the society because we’ve received so much from people like LiNK’s staff and supporters.
You can help more North Korean refugees escape China and resettle in a safe country here.
SONGBUN | Social Class in a Socialist Paradise
The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.
Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes...
The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with class antagonisms. It has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones.
So begins Chapter 1 of The Communist Manifesto, written by Marx and Engels and published in 1848. If we take the last paragraph, and change a couple of labels, it perfectly describes North Korea today:
The North Korean society that has sprouted from the ruins of the division of Korea and the Korean War has not done away with class antagonisms. It has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones.
In fact, the North Korean regime has established 3 new classes divided into 51 categories, and has created what is widely recognized as the most oppressive society in the world. Maybe Marx rests easier now that his portrait no longer adorns Kim Il-sung Square in Pyongyang; it was taken down before Kim Il-sung’s centenary celebrations in April. The North Korean regime has been extremely intentional at creating and enforcing social classes based on political loyalty and this system, known as songbun (성분), is key to understanding North Korean society as a whole and specifically and the system of oppression which the ruling elite uses to maintain political control. So a new report on Songbun by our colleagues at HRNK, Marked for Life, is a great addition to the literature on NK.
The report describes songbun as a state-directed system of discrimination based on hereditary classes determined by perceived loyalty to the regime. It decides your prospects in almost every area of life, including education, occupation, military service, Party membership, treatment by the criminal justice system, housing, medical treatment, marriage, and even food supply. The individual has no control over this system, their songbun being decided by their family line, making it analogous to discrimination along racial lines. The whole system can be described as a political apartheid, reminiscent of the racial apartheid in South Africa that attracted such international criticism until it ended with the election of Nelson Mandela.
CREATION OF SONGBUN
The songbun system was devised in the early years after the formation of North Korea out of a motivation to protect the Kim regime by isolating and controlling perceived internal political threats. It did this by categorizing every single North Korean resident according to how politically safe or risky they might be. The key factors considered were your ancestors’ socioeconomic background at the time of liberation (1945), their activities during the Korean War (1950-1953), and whether you had relatives in South Korea or China (being connected to the outside world is bad for your songbun).
North Koreans were split into three broad classes:
- Core (핵심), 28% of the population. Includes professional revolutionaries, descendants of ‘war heroes’ who died working or fighting for the North, peasants or those from peasant families.
- Wavering (동요), 45%. Includes people who had previously lived in South Korea or China, those with relatives who went to the South, families of small-scale merchants, intellectuals, practitioners of superstition, etc.
- Hostile (적대), 27%. Includes descendants of landlords, capitalists, religious people, political prisoners, those who had assisted South Korean forces during the Korean War, or were otherwise judged anti-Party or associated with external powers.
The regime keeps a file on every single person above the age of 17 (before that age your details were registered on your parent’s file), and an incredible amount of work goes into creating and regularly updating these records. The data is now managed using the software system “Faithful Servant 2.0.” This digitization makes it easier for authorities to access any citizen’s songbun file from any Ministry of Public Security computer terminal from provincial to county levels.
EFFECTS OF SONGBUN
Songbun is deeply entrenched in North Korean society and affects nearly all aspects of a North Korean’s life, including (see HRNK’s full report for further details):
Occupation:
In NK, you do not choose your job. The regime chooses it for you, and it is heavily influenced by your songbun. Simply put, if you have low songbun, you will be put into gruelling manual work, whereas if you have high songbun, you might expect a relatively cushy Party cadre position. There is no element of meritocracy here and ability does not factor in much, meaning that it is quite possible that more able workers are placed in less important roles while less able workers are given positions of responsibility. This failure to efficiently utilize their national talent-pool is yet another reason why North Korea’s state-controlled economy struggles so much.
Education:
Again, this is not meritocratic. If your parents have good songbun, then you are allowed to progress. Otherwise, no matter how hard you study, you will not advance academically. As you can imagine, this can cause resentment (although that resentment is sometimes aimed at the parents, not the regime). This system also ensures that “elites play together.” Those with good songbun go through the same schools and the same colleges, and they network within this pool for their future mutual benefit. Those with bad songbun are of course denied such opportunities. The importance of personal connections in North Korean society compounds the importance of songbun.
Family:
Knowing the importance of keeping a clean record in NK society, parents impress on their children the importance of not doing anything to step outside the Party line, as it would affect the whole family. The importance of songbun also means it is one of the most important factors to consider when finding a spouse. If you marry someone of lower songbun you and your children will lose out, so people tend to marry within their songbun level, as indicated by the occupation and status of their partner’s family. (Note that these phenomena are not unique to North Korea, as people tend to marry within their own social class in other countries too. What is unique in North Korea is how this is being played out within a class system which has been systematically created according to the interests of the ruling elite.)
Internal Exile:
For decades, the regime has systematically exiled tens to hundreds of thousands of low-songbun political undesirables to isolated and unfavourable mountainous areas in the northeast of North Korea. Here they have been forced into hard labour, subject to tighter controls, excluded from population centres, and effectively removed as a potential political threat. It could be argued that the regime has not only tried to cut off the outside world but is now increasingly cutting off Pyongyang from its outer provinces, leaving those who are judged as potential political threats isolated and with no way to demonstrate their frustration without risk of complete elimination.
Food:
Songbun has a huge effect on a North Korean citizen’s food supply. Particularly at times of scarcity, the distribution of food and resources has been concentrated to the higher songbun levels - Pyongyang and central regime institutions (Party, government and military). This was particularly noticeable during the famine of the 1990s and the chronic food shortages that have blighted the people ever since. When the state-economy collapsed and there were not enough provisions to go round, the regime stopped providing food to the politically undesirable northeast regions, so the famine hit those regions the hardest. It has been reported that as many as 30% of the population died in the worst affected regions, particularly North Hamgyeong Province. It should come as no surprise then that around 60% of North Korean refugees who have made it to South Korea are also from that province. An issue for another post is how this demonstrates the inextricable linkage between human rights and humanitarian / economic issues in North Korea. Understanding songbun should call us to question the wisdom of distinguishing between “economic migrants” and “political refugees” when it comes to this population.
Medical Care:
The public health system all but collapsed in the 1990s, but special treatment is still available for elites in Pyongyang. People of lower songbun cannot access these facilities, even if they have independent wealth, and the best they can hope for is to buy medicine on the black market.
In short, songbun institutionalizes the dominance of the ruling elite and their descendants over all other groups in society, and as this system has been implemented over several decades, the privileges of the core class have grown while the others suffered.The operation of this system is not at all transparent but people are generally aware of it, although they may not know details, including of their own songbun. Quite a few of the North Korean refugees that I have interviewed about their songbun have not been very sure about their own level. People of higher songbun are better aware of the system, and one gentleman that I interviewed jokingly half-boasted to me that his family was “totally red, the core of the core.” To him it was clear that he had good songbun because so many of his relatives held positions of responsibility within regime institutions, and some members of his family had also been granted considerable educational opportunities.
It is worth noting that while it is extremely difficult to improve your songbun, you can easily drop levels if you get in trouble through committing criminal or political offenses, or fail to cooperate with regime officials, or if a family member gets into such trouble. The implementation of songbun therefore creates considerable fear and forces people to obey the regime, and in reality it is an effective tool used by the regime to maintain control and power.
As we might expect, the changes inside North Korea over the last 15 years have affected the implementation of this system, albeit without being able to overturn it. The interaction between marketization and songbun (both mitigating and exacerbating effects), songbun’s effect on anti-regime sentiment, and the extent to which the songbun system can constrain change in North Korea will be covered in the next blog post…
SOKEEL J. PARK | Research & Policy Analyst
