Dear Leader: My Escape from North Korea is a book published in 2014 and written by Jang Jin-Sung, a man who previously lived in North Korea but managed to escape. A powerful, riveting read that clearly demonstrates the fanaticism of North Korea and the cruelty enforced by the Kim dynasty on the vast majority of its people, Dear Leader is a fantastic book that should be read by all.
Jin-Sung was a poet who finished a poem that was viewed as a masterpiece by Kim Jong-il. To reward him, Kim Jong-il made him one of his “Admitted,” which gives him privileges like not being targeted by the secret police (who have the power to send almost anyone to a gulag) and offered a stable job and some degree of luxury. He met Kim Jong-il himself: he was awoken in the night by police who brought him in the darkness to a place where Kim Jong-il was. Jin-Sung was very surprised to see that Kim Jong-il was a human being, seeing that the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) brainwashed and indoctrinated all its citizens into thinking that he was a living deity who didn't even have to use the restroom. When he met Kim Jong-il, Kim congratulated him, saying that he loved his poem, but not without pranking him: he laughed that he knew someone else had written it for him, and that he was going to put him to death. Terrified, Jin-Sung was quickly told it was a joke. He sumptuously dined with a few other important North Koreans (government officials) and the fanaticism of North Korea is quickly made evident: when Kim Jong-il began crying during a dancing show (probably crocodile tears), everyone followed, including Jin-Sung, as he knew that if he didn't, he could be arrested and executed. Jin-Sung then speaks of the deprivation and starvation the DPRK put its people through: “When food distribution centers started shutting their doors and the number of people absconding from work to find food increased like a virus, the party slogan ‘If you survive a thousand miles of suffering, there will be ten thousand miles of happiness’ was introduced. The state of food emergency was officially referred to as the ‘Arduous March’ and the population was urged to follow the example set by our General, at the forefront of the struggle. As evidence, the song ‘The Rice Balls of the General’ was played over and over again on television. The song’s lyrics claimed that the Dear Leader was traveling hundreds of miles around the country each day to offer support to his people, all while sustained by just one rice ball. Before the Arduous March, television broadcasts had only ever shown the smile of our Leader, as he led us towards a socialist victory. So when they saw the tears of our divine Dear Leader for the first time on television, people began to cry spontaneously, uncontrollably, and en masse.” (xxii). Jin-Sung writes that one reason the Kim dynasty is a dictatorship (aside from its absolute control over the military) is that they have a monopoly over the cultural identity of North Koreans, as every publication had to go through them. In his own words, “he monopolized the media and the arts as a crucial part of his ambit of absolute power. This is why every single writer in North Korea produces works according to a chain of command that begins with the Writers’ Union Central Committee of the Party’s Propaganda and Agitation Department. Anyone who composes a work that has not been assigned to the writer through this chain of command is by definition guilty of treason. All written works in North Korea must be initiated in response to a specific request from the Workers’ Party … The role of a North Korean writer, in each set task, is to create the best articulation of the assigned idea according to a combination of aesthetic requirements determined in advance and in consultation with the Workers’ Party. It is not the job of a writer to articulate new ideas or to experiment with aesthetics on his or her own whim. There are no novels, histories, or biographies that have not been commissioned and then ratified by the ruling Kim.” (3-4). When it came to authors, there were ranks and categories: some of them would write novels, while others would generate lyric and epic poetry. As expected, all of these works glorified the Kims and the supposedly glorious revolution that formed North Korea. That is, “The epic genre of Kim Jong-il poetry in particular was restricted to just six poets, who were also the poets laureate of North Korea. At the age of twenty-eight, in 1999, I became the youngest of this tiny elite of court poets. Based on age and experience alone, I had accomplished the impossible. Unlike my fellow poets, however, I was also an employee of the United Front Department-a job that allowed me entry into a world completely unknown to most ordinary North Koreans, where I was given access not only to state secrets, but to a world that lay far beyond the mandate of the Workers’ Party.” (5). To be more specific, his job in the unit consisted of inflicting psychological warfare (using propaganda) towards South Korea. As he wrote pieces, his identity was changed to that of a South Korean to trick potential readers to favor North Korea. As for North Korea’s view of South Korea, it viewed it as a puppet state controlled and lied to by a weak leader who in turn was the pet of the United States. Ironically, the room Jin-Sung worked in held the number 101 (think of Room 101 in Orwell’s 1984), and those who worked in the United Front Department were expected to learn of the outside world while remaining fanatics. Jin-Sung and the others working there received foreign-aid packages, as it was deemed necessary by Kim Jong-il to have them receive foreign goods in order for them to understand foreign nations. As expected, much of the propaganda produced by the United Front Department was extremely toxic: the Titanic sank on April 15, 1912, which was, coincidentally, the birthday of Kim Il-sung. The United Front Department stated that this was symbolic: as the West falls, North Korea rises. When the North Korean people were notified of this idea (and others), they were given newspapers to read. These newspapers made them think that foreigners wrote the articles glorifying North Korea: they never would imagine that they were produced in Office 101 in Pyongyang itself: everything they knew was a lie. “Isolated from the outside world, it’s not surprising that they believed that the people of the world, including South Koreans, admired our country’s strong leadership and many achievements.” (13).
The poem that Jin-Sung wrote for Kim Jong-un was titled “Spring Rests on the Gun Barrel of the Lord,” and it reads as follows: “So this is the Gun / that in the hands of an inferior man / can only commit murder, / but, when wielded by a great man, / can overcome anything. / As history has shown, / war and carnage belong / to the weak. / General Kim Jong-il, / the General alone, / is Lord of the Gun, / Lord of Justice, / Lord of Peace, / Lord of Unification. / Ah, the true leader of the Korean people!” When it comes to being one of the Admitted, Jin-Sung describes: “My entry into this circle changed the course of my life in the way that winning the lottery might do in a capitalist nation. My career ahead was full of opportunities from which I could cherry-pick as I chose. But most importantly, my new status guaranteed a privilege of immunity that was powerful beyond imagination: not even the highest authorities of the DPRK could investigate, prosecute, or harm one of the Admitted. The only way prosecution could possibly occur was for the crime to be treason and for the Organization and Guidance Department to receive explicit permission from Kim Jong-il himself. Nobody wanted to push too far and risk the ill will of the General himself, so such a process was rarely pursued … The criteria were strict and the circle small … Kim Jong-il had personally to request your presence and spend time with you behind closed doors for more than twenty minutes.” (19). Kim Il-sung died on July 8, 1994. Jin-Sung asked for permission to go to his hometown to see his friends and family before writing a poem that glorifies Kim Il-sung, a request that was speedily granted. He then recollects his past: he was extremely impressed with a book he got his hands on, Collected Works of Lord Byron (it should be noted that books in North Korea are frequently published in only 100 copies to prevent them from spreading ideas among the people). Jin-Sung then states that the DPRK, by controlling language, could influence thought, hearkening back to Orwell’s 1984: “In North Korea, the institutional control of thought begins with the consolidation of language, a policy designed to unify the private and public spheres of thought. In order for the realms of individual expression to adhere to a shared ideology, the party’s Propaganda and Agitation Department sets strict boundaries for the written and spoken word. No North Korean literary work may deviate from the legal framework of Kim Jong-il’s ‘Juche Art Theory,’ printed in several volumes, which sets the conditions under which socialist art can exist. The authority of thought which monitors and enforces this theory, through the penalty of prison camp for all those who are responsible for letting a deviant work slip through the net, is the National Literary Deliberation Committee.” (33). Jin-Sung became interested in poetry when he was able to have a famous poet, Kim Sang-o, become his mentor. Before joining the UFD, Kim Jong-il made him the arts writer of the Chosun Central Broadcasting Committee in the Propaganda and Agitation Department: “In North Korea, there is only one television channel. Central TV is broadcast from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. on weekdays and from 10 a.m. on Sundays. In my new role as arts writer, I was responsible for curating North Korean poetry and helped with presenting poetry in a format suitable for television.” (39). However, he eventually joined the UFD when the First Deputy Director Im Tong-ok, informed by Kim Jong-il that the department’s performance when it came to writing poems had taken a turn for the worse, sought him out. Jin-Sung moves back to going back to his hometown. He returned via train, and he notes that natural disasters were common in North Korea, though they weren’t the main problem: there really was only one railway (built by the Japanese when Korea was a colony, which was a sore topic for many), making transportation extremely ineffective. Furthermore, one needs a travel pass in order to move around in North Korea. After arriving in his hometown, he saw poverty and misery: there was not only famine, but a lack of clean water. People had literally starved to death, hence the existence of a Corpse Division which was responsible for moving the dead bodies somewhere else. In his own words, “The Corpse Division had a loaded rickshaw, on top of which some empty sacks were laid. Six bare and skeletal feet poked out from beneath these in oddly assorted directions. For the first split second, I did not understand what I was seeing, but as soon as I realized these empty sacks were human bodies, I grew nauseous and retched. I trembled with angry regret for having looked too closely. I had heard rumors that when the Public Distribution System [the only place where people could get food during the famine] collapsed, corpses could be seen on the streets in some provinces. But I had never thought to see it happen in my own hometown … everyone I saw looked old and exhausted.” (49).
To drive home the true horrendousness of the situation, Jin-Sung describes in even more detail: “The life had been drained out of my townsfolk and there was no comfort from seeing any of their faces again. When I met Soon-yong from next door-I used to have a crush on her from next door-I used to have a crush on her and she was always my play wife in our childhood games of marriage-she had become a disfigured old woman. As soon as our eyes met, she withdrew her gaze and hung her head, revealing her thin, bare neck; another sign of her impoverished state. Myung-chul, once famous for his strength and envied by all the other boys in town, had turned into nothing but skin and bones. Their prematurely darkened, cadaverous skin, and the deep zigzagging wrinkles on their faces were a silent testament to the years of starvation they had endured. When I asked after some neighbors I could not see in the crowd, the matter-of-fact reply was that each one of them had starved to death. The shock of it felt like a blow to the head.” (50-1). Another one of Jin-Sung’s neighbors, “Grandfather Apple Tree Cottage,” had gone insane: his daughter ran away from home, leaving his granddaughter alone (tip of advice: don’t have kids if you’re going to run away with someone else and leave them behind to fend for themselves). The granddaughter’s father then died, causing the grandfather to have to look after her. However, a thief came one night and stole all the apples from the tree. Distraught, the girl hung herself. Outraged, the grandfather cut down the tree and went insane, threatening that he’ll eat the thief when he finds him. When he ate dinner with the family of his friends, he was horrified to see that they had barely anything to eat: “Young-nam’s mother … proudly explained how she was able to offer me, her guest, a half-full bowl of rice-she had stashed away ten grains of rice at every meal. In addition to the rice, there was a small dish of salted cabbage and pickled anchovies … When I asked how long it had taken to save up the rice, she replied, ‘Three months.’ I could not believe that they were eating rice by the grain, instead of in servings.” (52). He took out some bottles of wine (given to him by Kim Jong-il himself) and meat, shocking them. When he left his hometown, he saw messages that prescribed death for even minor offenses: “The walls on either side of the marketplace entrance were plastered with black-lettered slogans instead of the usual prices of goods. ‘Death by Firing Squad to Those Who Disobey Traffic Rules!,’ ‘Death by Firing Squad to Those Who Hoard Food!,’ ‘Death by Firing Squad to Those Who Waste Electricity!,’ ‘Death by Firing Squad to Those Who Cut Military Communications Lines!,’ ‘Death by Firing Squad to Those Who Hoard State Resources!,’ ‘Death by Firing Squad to Those Who Spread Foreign Culture!,’ ‘Death by Firing Squad to Those Who Gossip!’” (56). Jin-Sung then witnessed a public execution: in North Korea, public executions were supposed to be ways for the average person to “learn” some moral lesson from the atrocity. Young-nam told Jin-Sung that such executions would occur roughly once a week, and would always happen in the market square in order to have a large crowd spectate. Jin-Sung details, “soldiers rushed in from all directions to surround the square, herding us into the center with the butts of their rifles. There was chaos everywhere. It made me flinch that the prisoner, led in by two soldiers, was dressed not in prison uniform but in everyday clothes. It felt like a deliberate message to the townsfolk that any of them could be in his position; that it didn't take a criminal mind to suffer this fate. The man’s eyes were full of terror as he scanned the scene around him from beneath his sagging eyelids and bony sockets. There was blood around his lips. For him, this truly was hell on earth, and his fellow men must have seemed as frightening as demons. The People’s Trial was over in less than five minutes. It was not really a trial. A military officer merely read out his judgment. The prisoner’s crime was declared to be the theft of one sack of rice … ‘Death by firing squad!’ As soon as the judge pronounced his sentence, one of the two soldiers who was restraining the prisoner shoved something into his mouth in a swift, practiced motion. It was a V-shaped spring that expanded once it was put inside the mouth, preventing the prisoner from speaking intelligibly. The prisoner made sounds but there was no human noise, only whimpering. This device had been officially sanctioned for use at public executions so that a prisoner could not utter rebellious sentiments in the final moments of his life before it was taken from him … When the soldiers blew their whistles and yelled for the crowd to disperse, the people didn't react, and began murmuring among themselves … I could catch what was being said … The man riddled with bullets for stealing rice had been a starving farmer. Even someone who worked the land could not find enough to eat.” (58-9).
After arriving back at Pyongyang, Jin-Sung was tortured by his awareness of the cruelties of the Kim regime and of the suffering of others. Guilty for having lived off the misery of others, he thought of escaping, and wrote poems expressing his sorrow in privacy (another poet whose personal poems had been somehow attained was sent to a gulag). One of his colleagues, Young-min, accidentally lost a newspaper: he knew that he could be severely punished for doing so, as he basically caused a security breach that was viewed as treason. He came to Jin-Sung during the night, and they decided to escape from North Korea as soon as possible: “There was no point in wasting time once we had confirmed our decision, and we began to plan our next steps. We agreed to turn up for work as usual in the morning. Luckily, as we had established, the bag that Young-min had mislaid contained no direct personal identification linking it to him, so long as I kept my wits about me, I could buy some time … We would make our way north during this time. The only way out of the country was to cross the border into China, as it was impossible to cross the DMZ into South Korea. A travel pass could be obtained from a former classmate at Kim Il-sung University, who worked in Pyongyang at a cross-border trading company. He was always in need of money, and a decent bribe would sort him out. By a stroke of good fortune, we found that there was a 9:00 p.m. train scheduled to leave Pyongyang the next day towards the border region. If we were to get on this train, we must pretend everything was normal until the time came for us to leave. After planning these things, I hurried to pack my bag. As I would have to go to the train station straight from work, we decided that Young-min would take my rucksack. He could leave work in the afternoon. I stuffed into my rucksack everything I could think of. I did not forget my secret manuscript of poetry. It was my voice, and I would take it out of the country with me.” (72). Jin-Sung felt guilt and fear: he was afraid that if we were to successfully escape, the DPRK would severely punish his family. When he went to work, he had a stroke of luck: he lied that he had an eye infection (he wore sunglasses, as he didn't want people to feel suspicious at his sore and red eyes) and was told by his supervisor he could leave momentarily to see a doctor. He utilized the opportunity to go to a friend who offered special travel passes, and bought one for himself and Young-min. When he went back to the building, he found three secret police (who specialized in torturing high officials and possessed licenses to issue executions on the spot) who accurately found out that he had accidentally left a borrowed book outside of the UFD, which counted as treason. Jin-Sung lied, saying that it must’ve slipped out of his briefcase. He was left alone for the moment due to his status as one of the Admitted, but was informed to come clean as quickly as possible. He escaped that night with Young-min, and when they reached the border, they found that they could escape by crossing a frozen river. However, they were quickly seized by soldiers. Fortunately for them, the power lines were out (North Korea’s electricity, as expected, is very sporadic), causing the police to believe they were officials sent from Pyongyang to check on how things were going. Jin-Sung then gave the soldiers “a bottle of expensive Western cognac and six packets of Marlboro cigarettes. There is nothing more precious to a North Korean soldier than alcohol and cigarettes. While cash served well in a bribe, cigarettes were a more prestigious commodity, especially if they were a foreign brand.” (90). They stayed in the military station for the night, and when the morning came, they decided to risk their lives by running across the frozen Tumen River. They succeeded yet again: while they were spotted by North Korean soldiers, they survived their escapade.
After finding themselves in Chinese territory, Jin-Sung and Young-min quickly paid for a man (a farmer named Chang-yong) to help them get to a safer area (China is an ally of North Korea, and might cooperate by bringing them back to North Korea, where they could be executed or sent to a gulag - China also doesn’t allow defectors from North Korea in their territory, and has soldiers check on travelers to make sure that the rule is followed). Escorted by the farmer, they went to the Chinese city of Yanji. However, they didn't have a place to stay, so Chang-yong decided to help them further by notifying his mother-in-law that they’ll be staying for the night. When they stayed in the house of Chang-yong’s mother-in-law, Jin-Sung noted that her home was better than the vast majority of North Koreans despite it not having too much. Furthermore, Chang-yong’s mother-in-law was quite friendly towards them, but became fearful when she got a phone call that notified that two North Korean defectors could be around the area and were murderers: Chang-yong clarified that important North Korean defectors are usually labeled murderers by North Korea, and he asked Jin-Sung and Young-min for their previous occupations. After they confessed, he believed them, and was notified by his wife that the Chinese police had gotten his mother’s address and were on their way to their location: they had to leave. They proceeded to hide in a shed owned by Chang-yong’s mother-in-law, and the police almost found them: only Chang-yong succeeded in distracting them and making them leave. One night, soldiers showed up at the shed, and Jin-Sung and Young-min both escaped: they were lucky once again, as a cow appeared near Jin-Sung, and he hid himself behind it. While they survived, their rucksack (with all their money) had been confiscated, causing Jin-Sung to lie to Chang-yong, telling him that he still had all the money. They went back to Chang-yong’s mother’s house, and were told by Chang-yong to live in the mountains for the time being. Taking blankets with them, they spent the night with each other for company: “That night, Young-min and I shared our deepest secrets with each other like lovers. Our first crushes, recollections from childhood, the family we had left behind; as if painting the sky above with the colors of our memories, even the smallest recollection held significance … The conversation turned to the North Korean regime. Ours was a system that would rather have us convicted as murderers and killed than permit us to abandon it, let alone stand in its way. The taste of bile from the pit of my stomach let me know that until now, I had not merely spent my life living within the borders of North Korea, but had been imprisoned behind them.” (124). Jin-Sung goes back to recollecting the past: he states that in the autumn of 1999, he was one of the few people chosen to write a history of Kim Il-sung that was merely a compilation of propaganda, as it was supposed to depict him as a living god and hero who, through his direct guerilla efforts, ended the Japanese domination of Korea (Kim Il-sung’s birthdate was also made the first year of the North Korean calendar): Kim Jong-il’s “plan was to establish a history of Kim Il-sung that would consolidate and underpin the basis of Korean identity in alignment with the legacy of Kim Il-sung, rather than with a shared race, language, or culture … We would need to master that secret history before we could reshape-or distort-it to achieve Kim Jong-il’s purpose. North Korea asserts that Japan’s defeat in 1945 is the direct result of Kim Il-sung’s achievement as a guerrilla leader in the anti-Japanese resistance. The Korean War, which was actually suspended by an armistice, is declared as Kim Il-sung’s outright victory over US imperialism. Even the history of the Cold War is taught in North Korea as a Communist history that revolved around the efforts of Kim Il-sung … One reason why North Korea is unable to pursue reform and open itself more to the world is that this would risk exposing core dogmas of the state as mere fabrications. Kim Jong-il decided that under no circumstances should any potentially harmful source material dealing with Kim Il-sung’s past be made available to the public. He had therefore assigned the task to UFD cadres, who already held the highest security clearances in the nation due to the sensitive nature of their policy and intelligence work.” (127).
Kim Jong-il rose to power by flattering his father while secretly organizing supporters who wanted him as the next Supreme Leader. That is, he gained control of the five spheres of influence present in the OGD (Organization and Guidance Department, the executive branch of the Workers’ Party). In Jin-Sung’s own words, “The first was the OGD’s exclusive right to allocate positions of departmental director level and above in the core institutions. Also, in the military, generals in the key regiments were directly appointed by the OGD. The second was the OGD’s absolute right to ‘Party guidance,’ which allowed it to intervene in every administrative task carried out at any level. It did this by strictly monitoring regional and departmental party secretaries, and through a network of isolated cell-like structures. The result was that its military arm could summon any of North Korea’s highest-ranking generals to grovel and be humiliated, while its foreign affairs arm exercised the same authority over cadres who maintained contact with the outside world, such as diplomats or businessmen. The third was the OGD’s absolute surveillance powers, which allowed it to monitor, purge or banish any cadre. The structure of this section was extremely compartmentalized yet centralized, designed to uphold and facilitate Kim Jong-il’s rule by terror. North Korea’s secret police, the Ministry of State Security, reported directly to this section of the OGD. The fourth was the department’s absolute right to ratify and sanction policies. All institutions in North Korea had to route their proposals through the OGD’s reporting section in order to be authorized by Kim Jong-il before they became valid. The fifth was the OGD’s responsibility for the protection of and catering for Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il. This meant overseeing all concerns pertaining to the Kims, as well as the procurement of luxury goods and operation of the Guards Command.” (134-5). After learning of this, Jin-Sung became terrified: he knew that Kim Jong-il wasn’t the benevolent leader he was made out to be, seeing that “while Kim Jong-il’s legitimacy might have been based on hereditary succession from father to son in terms of the official narrative, in reality it had involved usurpation by son against father. Kim Jong-il had consolidated power by wresting it away from his father instead of receiving it from him. I became terrified by the knowledge that the Dear Leader was neither compassionate nor divine, and had acquired his power by acts of terror, betrayal, and revenge.” (135). When Kim Jong-il became the ruler, he began a purge of North Korean officials. When it comes to the true measurement of power in North Korea, it’s not measured by government positions: the closer you are to Kim Jong-il, the higher up the hierarchy you are. “In other words, supporters of Kim Il-sung might be given prestigious official posts, but actual powers were restricted to Kim Jong-il’s own associates. A cross-shaped system with two power structures emerged, whereby publicly high-ranking positions and Kim Jong-il’s delegation of actual power were never vested in a single person. For example, Park Ui-chun, the foreign minister, was nothing but a straw man, while First Deputy Minister Kang Sok-ju held the real power in international affairs. This discrepancy between the hidden and surface structures allowed Kim Jong-il to maintain a system of control that could not be understood or manipulated by any outsider.” (138). When it comes to the brainwashing of North Korea’s camps, they are very effective in that brutality and physical punishment are used as disincentives for resistance. In the years leading up to his death, Kim Il-sung had no power left: while the cult he and his son manufactured viewed him as a god, his son was the one who actually held all the power. When he finally died, his request to be buried at Mount Daesung Revolutionary Martyrs’ Memorial (where his allies in guerilla warfare were buried) was ignored, seeing how Kim Jong-il “thought that if Kim Il-sung’s body were laid to rest at this location, the authority of his father’s revolutionary comrades would be seen to be reasserted, which might in turn threaten his own power because he had once taken away theirs … Kim Il-sung, denied his last wish of being buried next to his supporters, was mummified in the Mount Keumsu Memorial Palace-spending his afterlife as a propaganda icon used to legitimize Kim Jong-il’s hereditary succession.” (141).
Chang-yong’s nephew, Mr. Shin, arrived to help them, and took them to a safe place to live: Jin-Sung remarks that China looked fantastic to them, as hot water was available to most people, an almost unimaginable luxury in North Korea. He then writes of how North Korea kidnaps teenagers in order to brainwash them - this wasn’t very successful due to the fact that said teenagers generally remembered their previous lives. Furthermore, some North Korean women were sent abroad to intentionally become pregnant with the children of men of different skin colors: “Their children were born in North Korea with different-colored skin to the rest of their countrymen, and the rest of their lives were to be spent in strict apartheid. Their health is looked after by Office 915 of the party’s Strategic Command, which treats only inter-Korean operatives. Everything else they need in life is arranged directly by the most powerful entity in North Korea, the Party’s Organization and Guidance Department.” (157). Kim Jong-il tried to maintain his reputation and to demand war reparations from Japan at the summit of 2002: however, this turned out to be a disaster, as the Japanese diplomats refused to converse with him unless he publicly apologizes for kidnapping Japanese citizens. In the end, he gave in, but in North Korea they said he only “acknowledged” the problem - they alleged that he didn't “apologize” for it. In Jin-Sung’s own words, “In the end, the summit of September 2002 that culminated in Kim Jong-il’s apology was a disaster for him in every way possible. As the extraordinary news [the kidnappings] spread throughout Japan and beyond, both the 11.4 billion dollars in aid, and the Jochongryon that functioned as an outpost and foreign currency safe in Japan for North Korea, came to be at risk. Kim Jong-il allowed five kidnapped Japanese to visit their homeland as a gesture of goodwill, but that didn't help. Adding insult to injury, the five refused to return to North Korea. Kim Jong-il was enraged, and insisted that there would be no further summits with Japan during his lifetime unless Japan paid him the foreign currency he demanded. He reaffirmed the rule that ‘Diplomacy is a counter-intelligence operation’ and removed from the foreign ministry the right to diplomatic involvement on any issue connected with the kidnappings, returning control of these matters to the UFD.” (160). Jin-Sung was then notified in detail of the fate of Korean defectors: women are known as “pigs” and are priced and sold according to their age and appearance (showing that humanity is rotten and capable of the most disgusting acts) to various people. Some of these women are married to males who can’t find wives due to their being disabled, and some people go so far to shackle the women they bought to prevent them from escaping. When it comes to North Korean men, they are either caught wandering around or successfully arrive in South Korea due to the fact that they have money. “Even as I listened, I doubted what I was hearing, and could not believe it was true … to think that these ‘wives’ were kept shackled-I was shaken by the idea that foreign men could treat our woman in this way. I was even angrier at the brokers who made money from this. But most of all, I felt disgust for Kim Jong-il, who didn't seem to be humiliated at all by what he had reduced his nation’s women to, or to care enough to intervene.” (165). Soon a girl entered the house: she was only sixteen and had a baby. She then reveals that when she escaped from North Korea she was only fourteen, and was captured by some brokers. She was sold to a middle-aged man: when he tried to rape her, she resisted, and his mother and sister held her down while he forced her to copulate with him. Her baby was born disabled: it was blind and was going to live the rest of its life that way. Unfortunately, there were many terrible stories that followed the same format: “dark children” was the name given to children born to North Korean women and the Chinese men who bought and used them. Since they don’t “belong” to either nation, they spend their time roaming the streets. Another survivor stated that North Korea was so corrupt and poor that you could tell by their handcuffs: before captured North Korean defectors are sent back, the Chinese shackles on them are switched for North Korean ones: while Chinese handcuffs are relatively new and clean, North Korean handcuffs are old and filthy. A survivor testified to the following: “‘They got all of us women together, took off our clothes and groped inside our vaginas with their fingers. You know, looking for hidden money and stuff. Pregnant women are treated like animals. There was a woman who was seven months pregnant among us when I was caught. Saying that she had bastard Chinese seed in her, the North Korean officers kicked her on the stomach over and over until she passed out. She died. ‘And when you go to prison after processing, that’s when you really want to kill yourself. They keep you awake for days and beat you, and interrogate you to find out whether you might have intended to go to South Korea or the United States. If they suspect you of either, you’re sent to a proper prison camp, instead of being sent to an ordinary labor camp to serve a three-year sentence. But even there, it’s hard to make it through without suffering permanent disability … I couldn’t face it. So I swallowed a hairpin to kill myself. The bastards took me to the hospital, where I overheard somebody say that someone as strong-willed as me would definitely have had South Korea as my destination and, as soon as I recovered, I should be sent for a six-month pretrial confinement. ‘At night, when the surveillance was slack, I managed to escape and cross the river again. Even now, I can’t believe it. They had cut my stomach open to take the hairpin out and sewed it back up, and although the wound opened again, I didn't feel any pain. Really, no pain at all.’” (171).
Young-min admitted that his father was the administrator director of the Scrutiny, which was a massive purge that occurred to find scapegoats to blame for the famine that lasted from 1994-8 (which could have killed millions of North Koreans - the number isn’t clearly defined due to a lack of sources and the secrecy surrounding it). The purge reached such a level that the agricultural secretary, Seo Gwan-hui, was put to death (he was stoned to death by an angry crowd). Other powerful figures were also executed: it is estimated that almost 20,000 cadres (including those who were retired) were either put to death or sent to gulags (the number of victims was possibly much more - 20,000 was the number given by the DPRK, thereby making the estimate very conservative). That is, when a person is purged, their family can be expected to be sent to gulags as well: the three-generation rule is a law that tries to deter crime in North Korea that states that if a single person is punished, the entirety of their family will also face punishment. Young-min’s father (named Hwang Jin-thaek) was arrested during the purge due to his criticism of the Party. Although he was eventually released, he died soon after: “Young-min said that when he looked into his father’s open but lifeless eyes, he cried not in mourning, but because of the injustice of it all. His father had known only loyalty to the party; yet in his final moments, he had to fix his eyes on a blank ceiling, unable to gaze at his loved ones.” (175-6). To save face, Kim Jong-il released many victims of the Scrutiny from the gulags. To maximize the theatrical effect, he ordered them to be notified of this in public so that everyone can see their “gratitude”: “In order to maximize the effect of their joy when they found they had regained their lives, he ordered that prisoners should not be informed of their release until they were in a party lecture hall where an audience could witness their genuine joy. But this tactic backfired appallingly, and the party halls became instead public courts testifying against despotism. Wretched prisoners were brought by truck from the camps and pushed into the hall; and even when Supreme Commander Kim Jong-il’s release order was out, they thought it might be a cruel prelude to execution. One person pleaded for his life; another coughed blood and passed out, thinking that he was going to be killed. Several were actually executed because they cursed Kim Jong-il before the audience in the party hall … Some spouses, who had escaped condemnation when their husband or wife was sentenced but were forcibly divorced, had already remarried; others had committed suicide. Some victims returned to find their homes and possessions reassigned to others and ended up on the streets. Kim Jong-il then issued an order for regional party committees to provide temporary housing for them, and also to offer rice and cooking oil. The party’s Propaganda and Agitation Department used this as evidence to instigate mass propaganda campaigns describing Kim Jong-il’s leadership as ‘all-embracing of the people, like the heavens,’ moving on from the previous slogan of ‘strong leadership.’” (177). Jin-Sung then states that because North Korea is still technically at war with South Korea and America, they state that humanitarian aid is “spoils of war” to boost morale. Jin-Sung and Young-min eventually left for the countryside. Fortunately, they encountered some human kindness when an old man gave them food and advice: he told them that the Chinese police were looking for them, and that they alleged they had committed murder. He also encouraged them to split up, as they can be easily spotted, made all the worse by the fact that people everywhere knew that the two defectors were supposedly traveling with each other. The old man wrote them a letter of recommendation to a pastor of a church: when they went there, the pastor was gone, and a person serving as a replacement screamed for them to get out, seeing that the pastor was arrested once for helping North Korean defectors, not to mention that refugees like them were putting the church in danger. He then began hitting Young-min, causing Jin-Sung to escape with him. After roaming the streets for a few days in an attempt to find a way to leave for South Korea, Young-min bought a blade so that he can kill himself if he is arrested by the authorities. They agreed to split up and decided that they’ll meet at a certain tree in the morning if they can’t find shelter.
Jin-Sung didn't find a place to sleep, causing him to be so desperate that he went back to the house of the old man who had helped him prior. The old man, staying true to his generosity, gave him food, and apologized for sending him and Young-min to the church. The next day, he called Mr. Shin: Mr. Shin informed him that he needed to leave due to the authorities, and that Young-min had come to him two days prior. Young-min had tried to contact his cousin yet again (when he tried the first time, it ended in utter failure, as his cousin believed that he had in fact committed murder). He also got a call from Chang-yong’s wife: apparently, he had been arrested by the authorities - they also claimed that they had captured him and Young-min. Learning of this, Jin-Sung thanked the old man for his hospitality and left the house, meeting Mr. Shin at Yanji Station to receive one hundred US dollars/eight hundred Yuan (he told Chang-yong’s wife that he would promise not to betray her husband if he’s caught so long as she gives him one hundred dollars to help him with his escape). Jin-Sung got on a bus and went towards Shenyang. Upon getting there, he was flabbergasted at the scenery: in North Korea electricity was mostly allotted to statues of the Kims, and the only art that existed were those that paid homage to them. However, in China, it was different: electricity seemed to be everywhere, and free artistic expression seemed to exist. He called the Southern Korean embassy only to be notified that he has to go to Beijing to receive their help (in the form of vias). With little money, he begged people on the streets in Korean for money: after hours, he managed to talk to a girl whose father helped people in North Korea. She then gave him a place to stay for two consecutive nights (a motel). She even bought him some food, and told him that she was engaged, causing him to recollect that in North Korea, the only relationship that was perceived as important was one’s loyalty to the Kims: “Unconditional love was reserved exclusively for Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il, whose portraits were always displayed on the badge that everyone wore. To place another human above them in any way would be to reduce them to second priority. Strange as it may seem to outsiders, it was unthinkable to us that we should love anyone more than Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il. I had lived my life according to the totalitarian lexicon of a self-serving despot, who encroached on our most intimate emotions in order to steal them away from the individual.” (229). The girl who helped him showed up the next morning and talked to him: she asked him about the starvation in North Korea (including cases of cannibalism). He tells her that he saw a mother selling her daughter to buy some food, as she had no money: she hung a placard around her daughter’s neck that states that she'll be sold for one hundred won. When people noticed them, they became disgusted by her behavior. It later turned out that the girl’s father had died of hunger, and when people became cursing in rage and spite at the mother, the girl spoke in defense of her, telling them to leave her alone. All in all, “The deaf woman had a waxy look about her, as if she had already become a corpse, and there seemed to be no blood in her skeletal hands. The sleeves of her shirt and her trouser bottoms were thickly padded, patched over many times. The immaculate stitching was pathetic evidence of one human being’s defiant struggle against poverty.” (235). A security guard eventually came, and yelled at the woman for acting like a capitalist, seeing how she was supposedly selling her daughter for money. The crowd, angry, mocked him. Knowing that he can’t punish everyone in the square, he threatened to punish the mother for defying socialism. However, a first lieutenant came and showed some sympathy by offering to raise the girl as his own: he said that since he got his food from the state (seeing how he’s in the military), he can probably keep her alive. After receiving one hundred won from the first lieutenant, the woman bought some bread and fed some to her daughter, crying in shame that she had failed her and could give her nothing but the bread she was currently holding.
Jin-Sung stayed in the area for some more time: he had learned the piano when he was young (a massive privilege in North Korea) and helped a young boy (the son of the woman’s uncle) who had emotional issues learn how to play properly (he used a knife to break his toys, clearly demonstrating who was in charge). Jin-Sung then told the family of the woman who helped him of North Korea’s strange relationship with China: although North Korea had ideological reasons to loathe America, it also despised China to a great degree. This was due to the fact that China was supposed to be a socialist economy: however, it really wasn’t, seeing how it manufactured for profit. Another reason North Korea hates China is that China does much business not only with Americans, but the South Koreans (who are frequently viewed as traitors), thereby threatening the stability of North Korea (as North Koreans are constantly brainwashed into believing that they’re living a great life - this is due to blocking information coming from the outside world). Yet another major justification North Korea has for resenting China is the fact that it depended on it greatly to stay afloat, clearly showing that it wasn’t self-reliant at all: North Korea makes a habit out of looking towards China for economic help (ex. food supplies). It is quite possible that if China broke off all connections with North Korea, North Korea would fall, seeing that its economy is both inefficient and incapable of self-sufficiency (due to the fact that people are living in fear and the existence of a paranoid dictator who’s fine with his countrymen starving to death). This is supported by the fact that once Kim Jong-il was so angry at China in 2002 that he ordered North Korean businesses to stop their transactions with it immediately: his command was repealed after only three months, seeing that North Korea needed China for its very existence. In another incident, “‘When our General was summoned to Beijing in January 2001, he had no choice but to make the trip again. They made him and the rest of the delegation wait outside the city for days even though they’d sent the invitation in the first place. Eventually, our General had no choice but to grovel and go on a tour of Shanghai’s Pudong special economic zone, declaring his ‘admiration’ for China’s economic reform. Then the media all reported the trip as a demonstration of our General’s interest in Chinese-style reforms … Our Great General went once to the Chinese Embassy full of bluster, but was dragged off to China twice as a punishment.’” (264). Jin-Sung then narrates the blunders of the DPRK: “because everything in North Korea ran according to a centralized system, you couldn’t go out for a meal just because you wanted to. Even Pyongyang's famous ‘Okryugwan’ cold-noodle restaurant shut at 8 p.m., and you couldn’t just pay with cash. To enter the restaurant you needed a special coupon issued as a privilege by the Light Industry Section of the Workers’ Party. This coupon system first appeared around 1992, when food rations began to shrink. The system was introduced in an attempt to uphold the integrity of state-determined prices, which were the pride of North Korea’s Socialism. But from 1994 onwards, by which point the ration distribution system had completely collapsed, many of the state-run shops and restaurants that accepted special coupons and state prices began to close down. As prices determined by market forces took hold in the economy and overrode the prices set by the state, the notion that a state salary could support one’s livelihood was undermined. The average monthly salary of around 150 North Korean won became so worthless that it could not feed one person for even a day, let alone for a whole month. Unable to provide for its people, the party had no choice but to turn a blind eye to illegal trade and the markets that popped up all over the country. But as this ‘grey’ economy quickly mushroomed and ordinary North Koreans stopped turning up for their state jobs in order to fend for themselves, the situation became a black hole that sucked in the Party’s ability to retain control over its people.” (273). To deal with the issue, North Korea introduced the “7.1 Measures,” which increased the average state salary from 150 to 2,000 won. However, the 7.1 Measures were inadequate, seeing how while salaries rose, market prices were forced to go down, causing massive inflation. Ultimately, “As prices spiked along with the rise in salary, an average monthly income from the state could buy just five eggs. The party could only finally impose some form of control over the markets by legalizing some of them, charging rent, and restricting opening times.” (274). While Jin-Sung stayed with the woman harboring him for quite some time, the child (who was most likely a psychopath and sadist - he had previously sexually assaulted the woman by groping her and tearing off her bra) reported him to the authorities, and went so far as to help them identify him. The woman and her fiancé bought Jin-Sung some time to escape: he was able to get away, though barely. When he called Mr. Shin, he was told that Young-min had died: he had committed suicide when he was captured by the authorities. That is, “‘When we met, the man was too distressed to speak. Then he broke down in tears, telling me that his nephew had died, and that it had been a terrible end. He said that Young-min was taken away in a car by the Chinese authorities, and they were driving over a mountain pass when he apparently asked to relieve himself by the side of the road. He used the opportunity to kill himself by jumping off the rock face. Young-min had been on the streets for a week before he was caught near the house. The uncle was asked to identify his body, which he did.’” (291).
Jin-Sung finally escaped North Korea when a sympathetic shopowner gave him the money to go to Beijing. Once there, he contacted an embassy with South Korean spies that helped him get to South Korea. Once he was there, he began crying tears of joy: he never could’ve thought he would’ve honestly made it. He became a South Korean citizen, and spent some time informing people of North Korea and doing research on it. He also spent much of his time writing poetry: his first publication, I Sell My Daughter for 100 Won, became a best-seller. He then recollects his escape and the danger associated with it: “After crossing the Tumen River, I fled from the Chinese and North Korean authorities for thirty-five days. It was little more than a month of my life, yet the pain of that experience was akin to giving birth. And why shouldn’t it be painful? Freedom is freely given to anyone born in a free land, but others have to risk their lives for it. In a free nation, freedom is a word that may be all too common and hollow in meaning; but my friend Young-min jumped from a rock face dreaming of it.” (311-2). Jin-Sung recollects that North Korea still stands and continues to brainwash its citizens, a complete abomination of humanity’s potential. Jin-Sung writes that he’s very grateful to have freedom, and he states that the OGD is truly the main thing keeping North Korea together, as well as the most prominent entity in North Korea: “Just as the OGD’s connection with Kim Jong-il’s secret rise to power remains obscured, so its absolute authority is veiled by its operational secrecy. The world believes Kim Jong-il’s succession was enabled by Kim Il-sung; but Kim Jong-il could not have obtained power without the OGD, and neither could Kim Jong-un remain in power without it. Through its meticulous and absolute control over personnel vetting and surveillance, not even the military-let alone any individual within the armed forces-can hold power away from the OGD. The situation is no different in the fields of authorized commerce or diplomacy. Moreover, the OGD not only runs North Korea’s secret police and prison camps through the Ministry of State Security, it commands the ruling Kim’s bodyguards and, as discussed elsewhere in this book, all policy proposals are routed through it.” (316-7). The book ends with the following declaration: “Many approaches to the regime focus on its being the agent of possible reform. They therefore pursue sanctions towards it on the one hand, or use diplomacy, official exchanges, and investment on the other. Yet the unleashing of unregulated market forces from below, which have amplified the flow of unofficial exchanges, has weakened the OGD’s totalitarian grip more than anything else in history has done. North Korea might be ruled by a threatening regime as far as the outside world is concerned, but within the country itself, the regime no longer determines the price of a single egg. We must keep this reality in mind-along with the reality of power in North Korea-as we look to its future: while the OGD will not compromise on control of its own accord, its authority will diminish as long as livelihoods and opportunities lie in areas beyond its grasp. We must place our faith in the people of North Korea, not in the system that imprisons them.” (317).
Personal thoughts:
Dear Leader: My Escape from North Korea is an immensely impressive text, seeing the experiences and insights of the author. Jin-Sung clearly describes the history and intricacies of North Korea and its government’s organization, clearly demonstrating its relationship with its people and the outside world. Dear Leader also effectively illustrates the dangers of totalitarianism and despots, as well as the importance of the media and language: as Orwell warned in his 1984 and Animal Farm, those who control communication and education can largely manipulate the future (though they still have no guarantee of maintaining the act forever, as everything falls apart sooner or later). Dear Leader not only manages to convey Jin-Sung’s own experiences, but those of other refugees as well, seen in the various anecdotes of those who had escaped and those still trapped within North Korea, informing the audience that they should never take their freedom for granted. I highly recommend Dear Leader: My Escape from North Korea to anyone interested in resourcefulness, totalitarianism, humanity’s potential, changes and continuities over time, and the nature of power.
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