These escaped YouTubers speak up for common North Koreans

North Koreans in South Korea ~ "Each time the regime tests a rocket, I get the question ‘why are you doing that?’ I don’t know, I am North Korean, not North Korea.”

Text and pictures: Ole Chavannes Translated from Dutch publication in NRC 6-11-2019 Reading time: 7 minutes

“Many North Koreans have tuberculosis. When I arrived in South Korea I received medication and recovered after three months. I didn't even know this medicine existed!”, says a hip Korean YouTuber in the video ‘Top 5 things North Korean found shocking in South Korea’. The video has been viewed more than 1.4 million times since June and received 18,000 thumbs up and 700 down.

Nara Kang and Pak Yusung record a vlog

The maker of the vlog is Nara Kang (22). She studies at the drama academy in Seoul, South Korea, but she is becoming an internet celebrity fast. She has millions of YouTube views and a fan club that calls her ‘princess Nara’ on Instagram.

Five years ago her life looked very different. She lived in the North Korean capital Pyongyang and had a relatively good life, she claims. Her mother had already fled to South Korea and it was always her plan to go as soon as she was strong enough for the dangerous escape. “I had to swim across a river to China. The border guards fired at me, but luckily I was not hit. It was so scary,” Kang says modestly in a cafe in Seoul.

25 million people live in North Korea, but the world knows only one. Kim Jong-un always manages to keep the focus on the nuclear threat, away from the unprecedented harsh repression of the population. A group of young refugees from North Korea in Seoul wants to break that focus, with social media as a weapon. These YouTubers are the face of a new generation of defected North Koreans, who are fed up with the one-sided image of North Korea and the discrimination they suffer in South Korea.

“I make daily videos about life in North Korea. My message to viewers here in South Korea is that North Koreans are just people. Many people have prejudices. They think that North Koreans cannot be trusted and actually have horns growing out of their heads.”

Getting out of a time machine
Around 30,000 defected North Koreans currently live in South Korea. "That number is steadily increasing," says Sokeel Park, director of the American-South Korean NGO ‘Liberty in North Korea’ (LiNK). "We help people escape to South Korea or the US.”

LiNK assists the refugees with their integration in ultramodern South Korea. "Nowhere else in the world there is a greater difference between two neighbouring countries, both in terms of freedom and wealth. Refugees often say that it feels like they are stepping out of a time machine.”

Sokeel Park, ROK director of LiNK

North Koreans who have fled undergo a compulsory integration process upon arrival and are subsequently issued with a passport, allowance and accommodation. Psychosocial support is offered by NGOs such as LiNK. Park: “They have to learn to discover their own identity in this totally different society. Freedom sounds nice, but you also have to learn how to apply it.”

The average income of North Koreans in South Korea remains far below the national average. Sokeel explains: “In a democratic and capitalist society you have to make choices and plan your career. After six months we link a refugee to South Korean volunteers, who  help them look for a job. In this way they gradually become part of society and can take matters into their own hands, but it remains very difficult.”

Many North Koreans who have fled to the South are looked at with envy back home, despite reports such as that of North Korean mother, Sung Ok-han, and her six-year-old son, who were recently found dead in an apartment in Seoul, having starved to death, presumably due to a lack of money. 

The original article in Dutch daily NRC Handelsblad on 6-11-2019 page 8+9

Vlogger Kang wants to reach South Koreans with her videos. "I hope I can remove stigmas through social media so that we – the so-called defectors  – are better accepted in this society. Often we are seen only as benefit recipients, but North Koreans can work extremely hard." Just like about forty other North Korean millennials, Kang is seriously tubing you. In particular, they receive a lot of questions from South Korean viewers about practical matters such as schooling and the price of rice in North Korea.

‘Deport all North Koreans’
They receive as many compliments as negative reactions. “Aren't you afraid of your safety now that you are becoming so well-known on the internet as a North Korean?”, asks a viewer in the comments under one of Kang's videos. Below that someone answers: "She is not an escaped army officer, so they have no reason to execute her”. Reactions like ‘deport all North Koreans’ are common, followed by angry reactions. The YouTubers create a spontaneous and lively intercultural debate, which at the same time helps emancipate a growing group of refugee Koreans.

Kang's YouTube buddy Pak Yusung (29), with whom she regularly records videos for their YonTongTV channel, shares her ambition to inform South Koreans. “I want to tell the world about North Koreans. There are so many misunderstandings and weird ideas about us. Each time the regime tests a rocket, I get the question ‘why are you doing that?' I don’t know, I'm North Korean, not North Korea! I get a lot of positive responses, especially when I criticise the regime. When I say something positive about North Korea, it is mostly angry reactions, like ‘You are all liars.’”

Yusung came to South Korea in 2008 and is not only a YouTuber, but also a film and documentary maker. "When I was still living in North Korea my father, a trader, often brought home South Korean DVDs, which he had bought in China. Late in the evening with the curtains closed, I watched them over and over again.”

Was his image of South Korea correct when he arrived here? Laughing loudly: “No, of course not! I thought everyone was super rich and had perfect skin, as we see in all soap series.”

While Kang hopes to inspire other refugees through her videos, her thinking goes beyond that: "Who knows if there will ever be a reunification of both Koreas; if so then I could also reach young people in the North. Most people there have to work six days a week, in agriculture or in factories. That's why I would like to bring them some cheer, but also I could tell them how life really is here in South Korea.” 

Yusung vlogs for YonTongTV

Yusung shares this ideal. "I would like to tell North Koreans back home, what freedom really means here. That you can really choose your own job and that you also have the freedom to resign. I would mainly tell them how best to integrate but also and how much stress and competition there is.” 

The Unification Media Group (UMG) already reaches out to North Koreans, via a daily short-wave radio broadcast of three hours. Listening to it is strictly forbidden, so it is broadcast in the evening, in order that people can secretly tune in at home. UMG chairman Lee Kwang Baek: "We produce news and information about democracy. Our cautious estimate is that we reach around 3% of the population.” 

Lee Kwang Baek chairman UMG

A shortage of everything
Millennials currently make up about a third of the North Korean population. They are known as the Jangmadang generation, named after illegal markets - jangmadang in Korean. This generation was born in the 1990s, when the famine caused official distribution networks to break down. Since then everything has been in short supply. These illegal markets allow ordinary people to just keep their heads above water.
 
Kwang Baek: "The people who have been born since then have a completely different mindset than older generations. They are fully aware that their government is dysfunctional. South Korean DVDs and USB thumb drives are also traded in these illegal markets. For example, all Jangmadang know that South Korea is enormously developed and free, even though state television keeps telling them how poor and chaotic the South is. As the Jangmadang generation grows, the balance of power can switch.”

Teng Go, another popular vlogger, has just uploaded his new vlog, entitled "Why is Kim Jong-un so fat?" The thumbs up keep popping up. “People’s ideas about our country are usually reduced to the General and his rockets, but there are also so many good things to say about North Korea, we have great writers and painters. Our nature is beautiful and we have an old and rich culture. I also talk about that on my channel.” Teng Go is his online profile name. He is a YouTuber of 32 with a friendly face and a hip cap. “All the news about North Korea here only comes to the South Korean people by a narrow digital screen, but the reality is so much wider.”

Teng Go’s channel generated 1,6 million views

He fled from North to South Korea seventeen years ago after a traumatic experience. He was in love with a girl at school. When she did not come to class for a few days, he went to her house and found her, starved to death. Shortly after he fled with his father. “I kept my mouth shut for ten years, it was too much to handle. Now I am not silent anymore.” A few years ago he started his own video channel. “My goal is to criticise human rights violations and the autocratic regime. I can't bear the fact my friends are still having such a bad time, while I'm so free here.” 

Deliver pizzas
He can't make enough to live through his channel, so every other day, he does jobs such as delivering pizzas. Teng Go’s provocative topics spark a lot of discussion. His best-viewed video ‘Top 3: What's Better in North Korea?’ has already logged over 4,500 responses. Teng Go vlogs ironicly: “Air quality is the best; there are no cars and no factories, so you are almost starving, but there is clean air.”

“I mix serious messages with humor. That is the best way to raise questions about all those North Korean stereotypes, but of course I also get negative reactions such as ‘you are a defector, so keep your mouth shut’ or ‘I hope you will be poisoned.’” How to deal with that? “Of course that hurt at first, but my skin has got thicker. I now realise it would be worse if there were no responses. That's why I never react negatively, but stay super friendly. A few of those ‘haters' have totally turned and are now my most loyal fans.”