Since it's by far the most interesting thing that's happened in the last 2 months, I'll kick it off with the North Korean talk. First some facts about North Korea: there are an estimated 40% of children that are malnourished, about 200,000 political prisoners, most of the aid that comes into the country is sold for profit rather then rationed off as it should be, and public executions are a very really part of everyday life. The North Korean Economy is made up of three equal parts: aid, exports, and crime. At the beginning of the talk we were urged to think of North Korea as a criminal enterprise with a rigid, top down government headed by a godfather or godmother figure.
"Ms. Kim" escaped to South Korea about 3 months ago now. The reason I use quotations around her name is because she couldn't give her real one. She stressed multiply times throughout the talk that should the North Korean government learn she has escaped, they would essentially murder any and all known living relatives. Her story is truly heart breaking. Her life so far has consisted of oppression, great loss, famine and terror. Even though she spoke only in Korean you could feel her pain in the way she sobbed and sniffled through what she had prepared. She described what it was like to live through a famine, to see her father, who had always worked hard, continue to be beat down by the government only to be diagnosed with lung cancer after losing his job. Her mother and sister have disappeared as they attempted to travel to China to ask relatives for help as her father neared death. And after the cancer finally did kill her father, Ms. Kim found herself along in the most feared country in the world. It was time to flee. She couldn't tell us much about her escape route as it's still used by many, but essentially she crossed the river into China and hid in the mountains for about 2 weeks before she successfully made it into South Korea.
Aside from the obvious, here are some things that I found the most interesting:
1. Ms. Kim is undoubtedly an incredibly strong women who was able to acquire enough knowledge and courage to understand that there was no life worth continuing in North Korea and flee. And not only that, but after she had been here for only 2 months she shared her story with an audience of foreigners- a group of people who look physically different then anythings she's ever known. What else can I say but, What a woman! But really, between the censorship, the oppression, the personal loss and life that has been nothing but incredibly difficult, where does that strength come from?
2. During the question and answer time, she was asked: what is the best way to help North Korean's? If we had the opportunity to advise our government on this, what would should we say? The answer: although aid makes up 1/3 of the North Korean economy, it doesn't make it's way to the majority of the citizens like it should (no surprise there). Therefore, rather then continuing to spend aid in the usual monetary or food form, what really makes a difference is media that's smuggled into the country. Given North Korean media control and the unfathomable amount of censorship in the county, smuggled media is the only way for North Koreans to discover that a world beyond what they know exists. And it is due to this media that Ms. Kim was motivated to escape.
3. I'm not sure South Korean's care at all. This thought might be unfair and totally off base, but one of the first things I noticed as I found a seat on floor of the small lecture room was that the audience consisted of about 98% foreigners. I counted maybe 5 Korean's there. When I or my friends ask our co-teachers or other South Korean's about North Korea they brush it off like "so what else is new". Remember in April when news programs around the world were reporting that North Korea was set to attempt a new missile launch, which the US believed was an attempt to test ballistic missiles? Well this was hardly news here in South Korea, in fact, I'm not sure it made the news at all. I only learned about it because of facebook. It seems that South Korea hardly feels threatened by North Korea....and they share a border with them!
It's really hard to describe what this experience was like and I know I hardly did it justice, but I hope this gives you a taste. On to more uplifting experiences.
We spent the 4th celebrating on the beach... as if we would celebrate anywhere else. And our night (and my stomach) was filled with pizza and apple pie from Costco, Budweiser from Family Mart, and complete with over sized roman candles and sparklers. We celebrated the 4th in true American style. Last weekend I headed to the city of the Boryeong for Mud Fest. This is pretty much exactly how it sounds, a festival where everyone gets really muddy. We spent the afternoon running around the festival, getting dirty, and washing it all in the ocean. Now I'm back in school, and it's the last week of the semester before Summer camps start next week. Then just two short weeks of English camps and then it's finally vacation time! And I'm counting the days....
