The Most Dangerous Contraband in North Korea Isn’t a Weapon. It’s a Wish.
By: Jihyun Kang
Growing up in North Korea, Jihyun took inspiration from the smuggled South Korean dramas she watched to create her own unique clothing. After reaching freedom in 2010, she has continued to pursue her interests in fashion and culture as a catalyst for change. She runs several business ventures, practices fine art under the name “Da Gyeol,” and works with the Ministry of Unification as an advisor. She’s pursuing her Masters in Entrepreneurship, Dept. of Future Science & Technology Business, at Korea University.
I grew up in North Korea, and at fifteen, I encountered a Westerner for the first time at the top of Mount Paektu. He stood over 190 centimeters tall with a thick beard, wearing ripped jeans and a frayed T-shirt. In North Korea, worn-out clothing was a symbol of deprivation. Yet my father whispered, "He is wearing that for style." With that single remark, the worldview I had been taught, began, the first time, to crack. And I thought: I want to dress like that, too.
Fashion is more than clothing. It is the moment when individual desire moves faster than collective command. People follow taste before ideology, and express themselves through what they wear long before any political declaration.
A state can enforce a dress code, but it cannot manufacture desire. That is why North Korea's fear of blue jeans was not irrational—it was the regime recognizing, however dimly, that something it could not control was already growing.
Clayton Christensen, a professor at Harvard Business School, argued that transformation always begins at the margins—in forms so crude and insignificant that those in power dismiss them entirely. Christensen built his theory around corporations, but the logic applies to any system that holds a monopoly over its people, including a state. North Korea's regime was so focused on maintaining ideological control at the centre that it ignored what was happening at the bottom.
That bottom was the jangmadang—the spontaneous, bottom-up market ecosystem created by ordinary people to survive after the collapse of North Korea's state-led distribution system. When that system imploded during the Arduous March—a famine in the mid-1990s that killed hundreds of thousands—people built informal markets out of sheer necessity: not revolution, not ideology, but survival. Yet by 2018, a CSIS study found 436 officially recognized markets operating across the country. What began as a desperate improvisation had quietly become the infrastructure keeping North Koreans alive.
These markets did not merely sell food. They became conduits for Chinese clothing, USB drives loaded with South Korean dramas, and glimpses of a world no one had taught them existed. When a system ignores what people actually want, the market finds the gap.
The act of choosing—what to eat, what to wear, what to watch—may seem trivial. But a person who has tasted choice cannot fully return to obedience.
The jangmadang was the first place where North Koreans learned they could survive without the state. That desire did not stay underground—it surfaced. People began wearing jeans, dyeing their hair, and pulling on T-shirts printed with foreign letters. The regime could no longer ignore it. Authorities branded jeans and Western fashion as 'anti-socialist infiltrations' and deployed street patrols. Teenagers caught in these sweeps were sent to re-education camps; in severe cases, their names and home addresses were read aloud on state broadcasts as public shaming (Radio Free Asia).
In 2024, state-run Korean Central Television went so far as to blur the jeans worn by British TV presenter Alan Titchmarsh during a broadcast. The ruling party's official newspaper, the Rodong Sinmun, warned that a country could 'become vulnerable and eventually collapse like a damp wall' if it failed to preserve its own way of life (Newsweek, May 2021).
Regulations cannot extinguish human desire; they only raise the price of the forbidden. This is the inflection point Christensen identified: by the time an incumbent recognizes the threat, it is already too late.
To date, more than 34,000 North Koreans have resettled in South Korea (South Korean Ministry of Unification, 2024). At the start of each of those journeys, there was something like my pair of jeans—not ideology, but desire; not a declaration, but a taste; not revolution, but the market.
No government in history has ever successfully suppressed the human impulse to trade, to choose, to want more. Not the Soviet Union. Not Cuba. Not Mao's China. North Korea will not be the exception.
–
Jihyun 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.
Opportunities like LELP invest in the people building that future now. Help more North Koreans find their voice, reach their goals, and lead change on this issue.
39 North Koreans Now Free | Liberty In North Korea’s 2024 Annual Report
We’re excited to share LiNK’s 2024 Annual Report — a celebration of the work we accomplished together in 2024, and as a movement over the past two decades.
Read the full 2024 Annual Report here
2024 Impact Highlights
Our Work Towards Liberty in North Korea
- Refugee Rescues & Resettlement Support: Helping North Korean refugees reach safety and freedom, and gain stability and independence during the first years of their new lives.
- Empowering Resettled North Koreans: Working with resettled North Korean refugees to support their success and develop their capacity as agents of change.
- Increasing Information Access for North Koreans: Researching, innovating, and developing initiatives to empower North Korean people inside the country with greater access to information and technology.
- Changing the Narrative on North Korea: Focusing on the stories of the North Korean people and mobilizing a global movement of support for this issue.
Note from our CEO
North Korean Refugee Rescues & Resettlement Support
LiNK is one of the few groups that still operates in the underground railroad, forever changed by the effects of the pandemic. Our field team continues to navigate a more difficult operating environment, amidst increased restrictions and surveillance in China.
In 2024, we’re grateful to have welcomed 39 North Korean refugees and their children to freedom. As we regain momentum with rescues, our team is committed to finding ways to make rescue missions safer, reduce costs, and diversify our routes to build up the resilience of our networks.
Once North Korean refugees begin their new lives, LiNK journeys alongside them through this crucial period of transition. Whether this looks like financial assistance, home visits, or connecting people to resources and services, we help ensure a smoother, more successful resettlement experience.
- 39 rescued
- 35 newly resettled
- 140 supported
Empowering Resettled North Koreans
When North Korea is finally free, North Korean people themselves will be the ones to determine the future of their country.
As we work towards that day, LiNK invests in building the capacity of North Koreans to succeed in resettlement, reach their goals, and lead change. We identify current challenges in the defector community and develop programs to address gaps in career, education, and skill-building opportunities.
As North Koreans become leaders on campus, in their workplaces, and in their communities, it also develops their potential as agents of change on this issue. We’re already seeing the next generation of North Koreans spearheading progress with their unique talents — writers sharing their stories with global audiences, tech-savvy engineers developing information access strategies, entrepreneurs creating more opportunities for North Koreans in business, and activists speaking about North Korean human rights at the highest forums of international policy and diplomacy.
- 208 empowered through our programs
Increasing Information Access for North Koreans
North Korea is one of the most physically and digitally isolated countries in the world. By controlling what North Koreans see and hear through propaganda, the regime disempowers them from making informed choices or scrutinizing the government. Increasing the people’s access to outside information and technology is therefore one of the most effective ways to accelerate forces of change and opening.
LiNK’s Information Access Programs (formerly known as Labs) explores this opportunity with three key areas of impact — creating and curating content tailored to the interests of North Koreans, developing technologies with built-in security to protect users, and devising strategies to increase the flow of information into North Korea.
In 2024, we grew our small Information Access Programs (IAP) team and laid the foundation for ambitious expansion in 2025.
- 2 technology projects
- 1 digital security research project
- 52 North Korean defector collaborators
- 4 media features broadcast into North Korea (via Radio Free Asia and Voice of America)
As always, we are limited in what we can share publicly to protect end users, partners, and the projects themselves.
Changing the Narrative on North Korea
For decades, North Korea has been defined by dictators, politics, and security threats. Media outlets often perpetuate the narrative of a distant and hopeless country, playing right into what the regime wants — to stymie change and distract from the real story, the North Korean people.
LiNK empowers North Koreans to redefine and humanize this issue through their stories. We partner with them to create original media, as well as work with international media outlets to foster a people-centered approach to reporting.
Today, we see a broader narrative on North Korea that highlights forces of change and invites international audiences to join us in taking action. North Koreans themselves are now leading the charge, creating their own documentaries, books, digital media, and art to rewrite the future of North Korea — one where every man, woman, and child is free.
- 11,586,504 reached online
- 2,923 reached in-person
20 Years of Impact on the North Korea Issue
- 1,382 North Korean refugees rescued
- 1,245 resettled in South Korea
- 37 resettled in the U.S.
- 1,101 empowered through our programs
- 46.6 million people reached online
- 350,000+ people reached in-person
- 1,273 total media mentions
- 1000+ LiNK Teams worldwide
"I am sending my congratulations to LiNK on its 20th anniversary. Few groups have done as much for North Koreans… Its long history is remarkable: many people have been discouraged by the lack of spectacular success, while LiNK has continued its operations, doing what was possible, often on a small scale. Such persistence is rare and commendable.
Most likely, North Korea will remain a challenge for a long time, and its people will need all kinds of support, including the assistance LiNK is providing. I wish LiNK continued success in its important work.”
– Andrei Lankov, historian, professor of Korean Studies at Kookmin University, author of The Real North Korea
