#north Korea defectors

[lostinmac]

Escape (2024)

Dir. Lee Jong-pil

[yycovo]

[comradecowplant]

Goal for 2024/j113 is to convince every one of my followers who like & reblog my gay jokes and art images but never interact with the communist posts to consider the possibility that the DPRK isn't an evil comic book villian country, and if we can achive that & open our minds enough, maybe even convince you that stalwart resistance to global imperial hegemony that has survived for decades despite the world's superpowers doing everything to literally starve them out of existence is actually pretty damn cool 🇰🇵

[cactuskid99]

Yeonmi Park Tells About North Korean Life

I can't believe Kim is putting a whole nation through this 😢💔

[garudabluffs]

A North Korean refugee offers a different view of his home country from the other side of the DMZ May 3, 2024

Each year, thousands of tourists visit the demilitarized zone that separates North and South Korea. Now a North Korean defector is guiding tourists and offering his view of what it is actually like to grow up on the other side.

May 3, 2024 “It’s the worst country,” he said. “But even there, people still try to find happiness.”

"He and his mother secretly crossed the border into northeastern China, where South Korean Christian missionaries hide escapees from the police. If caught, they’d be sent back to North Korea and, according to some rights groups, could face execution.  

The missionaries offered to help them reach South Korea. But, Jun said the missionaries had one condition — they’d have to believe in God, first."

LISTEN 06:55 READ MORE Transcript https://theworld.org/stories/2024/05/03/a-north-korean-refugee-offers-a-different-view-of-his-home-country-from-the-other-side-of-the-dmz

[neyatimes]

North Korean defectors: Inside the school teaching them how to live in the outside world

Seoul, South Korea CNN  —  Before she left North Korea, the woman known as “C” had caught glimpses of life across the border through smuggled television shows. People caught with foreign materials like books and movies, which are banned in the hermit nation, can face severe punishment. But C secretly watched the South Korean shows anyway, fascinated by what she called a “different reality” than…

[radioconstructed]

⌖ TOMORROW! Interviewing a DEFECTOR from HEAVEN! Tune in to my main station!

[lostinmac]

Beyond Utopia (2023)

Dir. Madeleine Gavin

[kiemiu]

' 𝐁𝐄𝐍𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐇 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐐𝐔𝐈𝐄𝐓 ' ⟡ 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐑𝐎. + 𝐌𝐎𝐎𝐃𝐁𝐎𝐀𝐑𝐃 യ₊⋆

kang sae-byeok, early 20s ☆

older sister to kang cheol. underground street-fighter. north korea defector. professional pick-pocketer.

to get out of crippling debt, while simultaneously trying to save up enough money to bring her captured mother to south korea in hopes of reuniting her family, kang sae-byeok springs at any opportunity that can make her money, even if it's fighting in an illegal underground club for money with the code name ' viper '

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

kim y/n, 18 ౨ৎ

full-time worker at adoptive mothers orphanage. part-time baker at a nearby cafe. currently doing college courses online for nursing school.

after being informed by your adoptive mother of the sudden passing of your birth mother who was your last surviving blood relative, you pile on the additional burden of taking online courses for a science in nursing degree in hopes of finding a cure to her untimely confusing death, all while juggling the stress of a full and part time job.

beneath the quiet masterlist | ꕤ

' 𝒕𝒂𝒈𝒍𝒊𝒔𝒕 ' 📷 : @miabcuzz @twicesuuui @kissyslut @kritkalhit @st4rcs @dumbbellxo @theforestchoseme3 @wlvlurvsfimmia @genshinenjoyer @theweirdanimation @ch-3-rry @nenukkjhj @giaqnn @crack240 @pookalicious-hq @laurenkenss @sheinhamood @pooksterrr @bbynai @diorzs

[zvaigzdelasas]

2 Oct 24

[read-marx-and-lenin]

DPRK News Room has reuploaded their amazing documentary, "Loyal Citizens of Pyongyang in Seoul", after the original upload had its audio broken by a Youtube error. Here's a link to the new upload, a great excuse to watch the video again if you have already seen it, and a great chance for anyone who hasn't seen it yet to watch and learn the truth about so-called "North Korean defector" narratives spread by the US and South Korea.

[loving-n0t-heyting]

North Korea launched 720 balloons across the world’s most heavily armed border overnight Saturday, hitting South Korea with their payloads: plastic bags full of cigarette butts and other trash.

Its officials indicated that they might switch on their loudspeakers along the inter-Korean border to blare K-pop music, which the North’s leader, Kim Jong-un, has found so threatening that he once called it a “vicious cancer.”

The North has cast the floating offensive as “tit-for-tat action.” It has accused North Korean defectors living in South Korea of “scattering leaflets and various dirty things” over its border counties in recent days.

This is amazing. A nuclear power and an economic powerhouse acting as the regional outpost of a global superpower fighting like feuding franchises in a shopping mall

[strangeauthor]

look. im not gonna pretend i know what north korea is like. no one but the people living there knows. maybe it is a dictatorship. okay, maybe thats true. again, i dont know. but to completely sit here and to listen to the us propaganda, listening to a woman who's been called out by so many north koreans (even other defectors), AND to act like every citizen that still lives there is some brainwashed hivemind is beyond shitty and y'all got to stop doing it. they're people like you and me. and i shouldnt even have to say that but i keep seeing it 2024 like common sense y'all

[etirabys]

Epistemic status: unusually low endorsement. I gave up quickly on the book I'm about to talk about, and it's extra likely I'm being unfair.

I started reading a compilation of interviews of North Korean defectors. I didn't like it – the defectors seem weirdly boring and catty:

You are the first North Korean defector-resident to earn a doctorate. In 1997, 18 years after I came to the South, I became the first North Korean defector-resident to earn a doctorate in South Korea. Now, there are about 40 North Korean defector-residents with doctorates, each of whom claims to be the first – first female defector doctor, first defector pharmacist, and so on. It’s funny how everyone in the North Korean defector-resident community claims to be the first whenever they achieve something.

(I was annoyed at this guy but he's not wrong, check out this other guy)

What did you feel at that moment? It was one of those glorious moments that are rare in life. My heart swelled at the thought that I, once a poor North Korean boy who used to be teased and called an ‘idiot’, was now sitting proudly next to the US president on behalf of all North Korean people. President Trump listened intently to what us eight North Korean defectors had to say and expressed his sympathy. (...) I am the first North Korean defector-resident to ever be invited to this White House Christmas event."

The interviewer (whom I find extremely pompous) throws them softball questions about their current political activism. Like, "What is this I hear about you planning to change the name of the org you founded?" / "You were the first one to..."

The second mention of the interviewee meeting a US president in, it hit me: the book sucks (as a document addressing questions I have about North Korean life) because the interview is asking bigwigs in his relatively small (30K) defector community*. I took another look at the table of contents and over half the interviewees are currently the chairman, president, or director of some organization, usually related to NK human rights. Aided by a friendly interviewer, they are eager to describe their turning point, their moment of international fame and glory, why they founded their particular human rights group.

(The book immediately became more interesting to me qua byproduct of a exotic-to-me status game, but not enough to finish it)

Let's zoom out for a bit, because this is pretty neat. People have very different stories – there's one guy who spent ages 9-18 in a prison camp because his grandfather lost a political battle, a special ops guy who tried to assassinate the South Korean president in 1968, a guy who defected because he was upset about not getting a military promotion, kind of normal guy who lost his leg stealing coal from a moving train, and all of these people... have come together... to play the YA twitter game

(I'm sure I'm getting a skewed picture because of the interviewer's selection process, but also – how skewed? The defection process probably does select for drive.)