The Bridge: The Role of North Korean Defectors in a Unified Korea in 2045
By: Eunsook Jang
Eunsook Jang holds a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Korea University and a master’s degree in International Development from Brandeis University. A Fulbright Scholar and LiNK US Scholarship grantee, she is currently a research intern at the Hudson Institute, where her work focuses on post-conflict recovery, economic development, and human development. Her recent publications include “Slipping through the Cracks in South Korea: The Uncertain Futures for the Children of North Korean Defectors” with the Migration Policy Institute, and “Why Strengthening RFA Is a Strategic Imperative for US Policy on North Korea” in The Diplomat.
The door opens, and an elderly woman with white hair steps out. It is Emma's mother, Sun. Emma's voice fails her. She collapses into tears. Sun startles at the sound, turns toward Emma, and, in an instant, knows. It is her daughter.
"Euna!" her mother cries. The name no one had spoken aloud for thirty years. "Mom!" Emma answers, and they fall into each other’s arms.
Words fail them. They weep, touching each other's faces and hands as if to make sure the other is real. Emma feels with her palms the smaller body her mother now has, the sharp ridges of her shoulder blades, and cries harder.
"Look how you've grown," her mother manages through tears, cupping Emma's face in both hands. "You've become... a woman."
Emma pulls her closer. "Mom, I'm sorry. I left you alone." Her mother draws her in tighter, and murmurs into her hair: "You are here. You are alive. That is enough. I have missed you."
Sun had prayed to God every day for her daughter's new life, even without fully knowing religion itself.
For the first time since leaving, Emma cries in her mother's arms like a child.
And so for the next several hours, mother and daughter spend their time filling in thirty years of unshared life: how Emma met her husband Sam, how she spent each birthday without family, what it was like to settle into South Korean society.
After a while, Sun asks a kind of question Emma had not expected; a question filled with curiosity, hope, and all the images of South Korea she had imagined from afar.
“Is South Korea really like a K-drama?” Sun asks, her eyes sparkling.
"Yes, it often feels like it" Emma replies with quiet confidence. "I was able to study freely, for the life I wanted."
Sun shakes her head slowly, in something between disbelief and wonder. "To think, if you had stayed in North Korea, none of it would have been imaginable. Graduate school. A life like that. I suppose it really is a drama kind of place."
And yet not everything had felt like a drama. Settlement in South Korea had meant starting from zero: a political system unlike anything she knew, a language full of foreign words that made her feel dizzy just listening to it. She survived by studying fiercely and endured countless hours alone. It was the kind of loneliness that stayed at the back of the throat, the kind you feel when you fall ill and have no one to call, or when you achieve something and have no one to tell.
Emma takes her mother's hand. "Mom, everything will feel enormous and new at first. There will be moments when not knowing even small things makes you feel small too. But I will be there. So don't worry. We'll start this new life together."
As the words leave her mouth, she feels quietly grateful that she had gone through all of it first, knowing the path her mother is about to walk. And she finds herself already picturing it: the two of them sitting across from each other at her favorite pork belly restaurant Dwehyaji (돼야지), near Korea University, sharing a bottle of soju, talking until the night runs out. She smiles to herself at the thought.
The faces of the mentors and friends who had taught her culture and society drift through her mind, one by one, and she carries her gratitude for them again, as the sun goes down over Hyesan.
Emma falls asleep in the very spot where she slept as a child. It still feels like a dream. She closes her eyes, hoping she will not wake if it is.
Author’s note: I dedicate this piece to my father in South Korea, who has never once wavered in encouraging my studies, as if realizing through me the freedom to pursue the dreams that were taken from him. And to my mother, who remains in North Korea: This piece is my proof that your daughter has not turned away from your suffering, but is working, in her own small way, to fight against it. I hope to see you, even if only in my dreams tonight. I love and miss you beyond words.
–
Eunsook is a participant of the LiNK English Language Program (LELP), which serves to not only help North Korean defectors build confidence and skills in English, but develop their capacity as advocates for this issue. To that end, we partnered with select LELP “columnists” to write and polish personal essays through multiple rounds of external feedback and revision. Our goal is to have more North Koreans share their stories directly and lead efforts to change the narrative.
We believe the North Korean people can achieve their liberty in our lifetime.
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A Little Story about How the Media Gets North Korea Wrong
The North Korean government did not tell the people to prepare for another famine, but you probably saw headlines like this in the last week.
Here's how a mere mention of the 'arduous march' in the North Korean state media blew up and was incorrectly reproduced by media around the world in the space of a couple of days:
On March 28th, an essay by two North Koreans, Park Ok-kyoung and Choi Yoo-il, was published in the Rodong Sinmun (North Korea’s main paper). It included a passage, which roughly translates to “The road of the revolution is long and tough. There may again be times that call for chewing grass roots during an arduous march, and times that call for fighting the enemy single-handedly on a far-flung island...but we have to keep our single-minded loyalty for our dear marshal to the very end even if it costs our lives...”
The reference to the 'arduous march', the same term used to label the North Korean famine of the 1990s, caused a lot of excitement. But the term predates the 1990s famine. The original ‘arduous march’ was actually in 1938-39. It was a supposedly tough period of time that Kim Il-sung's band of guerrilla fighters had to 'march' through to victory in their fight against the Japanese occupiers. This tale credits Kim Il-sung for the defeat and is a classic 'struggle through adversity to final victory' type of story. So when times got tough in the 1990s, the official propaganda machine kicked in and framed it as a national struggle through adversity on the way to a final victory.
It was also about maintaining autonomy in the face of external threats, which was the context for this piece. The piece was meant to build up to the Party Congress in May, which is a massive political event that requires 'ideological preparation of the masses'.
So did the North Korean government tell the North Korean people to prepare to chew grass to survive another famine? Or to prepare to fight the enemy all by themselves on a far-off island? Not particularly. They basically said that the North Korean people must stick with their leader, even if things get tough, and all shall be overcome. And it also wasn't written in the name of Kim Jong-un (that would make it more of a story), but in the name of two individuals writing for the paper.
So, why did this happen?
Far too few journalists can read Korean, let alone know how to read and interpret North Korean propaganda. But there's a lot of international appetite for stories about North Korea. So once a piece like this gets out that makes sense to journalists with a peripheral awareness of North Korea, it is easy for it to bounce around the global media echo chambers, getting picked up by many outlets without any accuracy check on the interpretation.
Furthermore, the North Korean government isn’t going to come out and correct it. Here's where there is some truth in the statement "when it comes to North Korea news, anything goes." At this point it becomes something that ‘happened’ without actually happening.
On a brighter note, thanks to the deeper economic and food security resilience built up by the bottom-up marketization, private-plot farming, and linkage to the Chinese economy, a recurrence of a famine on the scale of the 1990s is extremely unlikely in North Korea now.
[Post edited on 2016-04-11 for clarity and accuracy]
