Photos From Inside North Korea

[Ryan Ruck]

Some photos of inside North Korea on another site - Photos From Inside North Korea.

[Neue Regel]

Amazing. Excellent find of non-authorized photos.

[falcon]

Hey, just think of it the Left Commies Greens would have a field day if they could have this type of system here, no cars, the left Hollywood group could make all the film clips so we could sit and raise our arms.

Well God Bless this country for what we have, we should never loose our FREEDOMS.

God Bless

[Neue Regel]

I look at those photos and think what a sucky miserable life the average North Korean citizen has had rammed down their throat. And for what? For ego and privilage of the few at the top.

Somehow, someway, Kim and his sons need to go.

You know, when the day arrives when N & S Korea re-unite, it is going to be one wickedly brutal culture shock for N. Koreans to see just how far behind their "Beloved Leader" put them.

[wallis]

While I lived in Korea, it was a monthly "horror" story in Korean media regarding the stories of defectors coming to the South. While these folks were extremely thankful for escaping N. Korea, they were equally unhappy in South Korea. The culture shock was just too much for them.

One complaint that many of the older defectors had was the requirement by South Korea for them to make their own decisions. That might sound odd to us, since we are raised to question, try our own ways, and make our own decisions, they folks were raised not to question and to do as they were told and nothing more.

Education is another problem, since most of these defectors have the most rudimentary of education.

Getting rid of this state is going to be the biggest challenge in the 21st Century in my opinion. It's not like a cancer that has affected only a small part of the body (= the world). It's a cancer that has tendrils throughout the body, and its removal has so many ramifications attached.

I wrote this on another forum for your perusal and refutation (if any one wants):

The world has not seen this kind of state since probably the Sumer civilization. Babylon and Assyria--even Rome--tried to copy the Sumer model, but their size and diversity never equaled the type of government Sumer practiced.

Many politicians and political analysts name North Korea as a Stalinist state or just plain Communist. These labels do not adequately describe this unique state. Even under Stalin, people were happy (relatively). They didn't have to work hard; they had free medicine; okay, the bread lines were long; belonging to the Party meant a few extra priviliges. But they were not stripping trees for food or killing off everything that walked on four legs within its borders. There were the gulags and special hospitals for the "politically insane," but there was not a mass exodus of people trying to escape a horrible escalation of starvation.

Communism is a catch all term that basically describes the type of government based on Karl Marx and Lenin's philosophy. In reality, the Communist-named countries do not practice the same type of Communism.

North Korea is a god-cult state. Kim Il Sung is revered as a god. His son, Kim Jong Il, truly represents the physical form on Earth of his father. If you want to make a trinity out of this worship, then one adds "Self-reliance (Chu-jae)." Defectors have described in detail this interesting state. Prayers are actually said before meals to Kim Il Sung/Kim Jong Il. Understanding even a little bit of this god-cult goes a long ways towards understanding why the people suffer endlessly under such an oppressive existence.

When the god claims that there are forces amassing on the borders to destroy their nation, the people line up behind their god, ready to die, if necessary, to continue the state. After this missile crisis is over, the god will proclaim victory over its adversaries, and the people will sing the god's praises.

What will happen after Kim Jong Il ascends to this cult's paradise? Another god representative will be chosen. The leadership is fully aware that the state is teetering on the verge of total collapse and that it is dependent on the rest of the world for its continuance. The world complies because it knows that a total collapse of the North Korean regime and as a state will be a greater disaster than the Christmas tsunami.

In 1991-2, the South Korean government published a plan that in de facto will exercise all measures to ensure that North Korea does not collapse, even if it means that they place a puppet in Kim Jong Il's place. In the meantime, it will move like a glacier towards raising North Korea's economic status to a point where integration will not be even as disasterous as the reintegration of East and West Germany.

[Sean Osborne]

"The world has not seen this kind of state since probably the Sumer civilization."

Wallis,

I think the world has seen this kind of state since the days of Sumer.

It was the Islamic Caliphate and it's attempting to make a comback in todays world. Every aspect of life is dicated by the Qur'an and the various Hadiths. It is more totalitarian than any mere Stalinist state could hope to impose on its people.

[wallis]

Thanks, Sean.

I was thinking more along the lines of the building of temples and using the king as a direct "son" and representative of the particular worshipped god or goddess.

[Brian Baldwin]

If AQ had their way, the world would live in such a state. A sad truth many won't open their eyes to.

[Ryan Ruck]

The only other recent civilization I can think of that came close was Imperial Japan where the emperor was god to the people.

[Ryan Ruck]

Interesting that the culture shock aspect should be brought up…

North Korean Defectors Take a Crash Course in Coping

ANSEONG, South Korea — On a sprawling campus hidden in farmland here, about 300 North Koreans are learning that, no, actually, it was not the South that started the Korean War.

And, yes, America is an ally, their re-education goes, before broaching the A B C's of capitalism, human rights and democracy. Field trips focus on how to apply for a job or use an automated teller machine. Women are shown the finer points of home decorating; men, the basic skills to fix the home boiler.

Soon after landing in South Korea, all North Korean defectors come here to the South Korean government's main resettlement center, called Hanawon, or to an annex, for a three-month crash course on life south of the demilitarized zone.

It is the first step in a long and often bewildering process of adapting to a South Korean society that has regarded them, over time, as cold war enemies, long-lost cousins or pitiable objects of curiosity. Born and reared in one of the most isolated nations, they are taught everything from the theoretical to the mundane before plunging headlong into the real world.

"When they arrive here," said the center's director general, Lee Choong Won, "they realize they've been living like frogs in a well."

Thousands have found their way into South Korea in the past half-decade — there were a total of 8,428 North Korean defectors in the South by the end of May — and they have started carving out a space for themselves in this society, though often as second-class citizens.

For South Koreans, the defectors and the resettlement center, which is about 50 miles south of Seoul, provide an indication of the enormous task ahead if they are to reunite one day with 23 million North Koreans.

To hear North Koreans tell it, South Korea is bewildering precisely because it is at once familiar and alien. The South and North share a common language, but in half a century of division, South Koreans have adopted so many foreign words that the newcomers spend hours learning the language spoken in the South.

"Only after 10 years did I understand how the South Korean society works," said Lee Joon Ho, 41, who arrived in South Korea in 1993, before the current wave of defectors.

"In North Korea, if you were loyal to the system, you were provided a job and housing, and your needs were met," added Mr. Lee, who has held so many jobs in the South that his friends have nicknamed him MacGyver, after the resourceful television character. "But here in South Korea, individuals have to take responsibility and create their own system."

The North Koreans arrive at the center here after a month in the custody of the National Intelligence Service. No road signs point to the center, which is surrounded by fences and is well guarded. Center officials tend to shun publicity, partly for security reasons, partly because South Korea does not want to be seen helping people the North considers traitors.

Officials provided a rare glimpse of the center, though they did not allow current students or teachers to be interviewed. Graduates interviewed separately in Seoul, however, said that not even such an intense course could prepare them for the gap between the northern and southern sides of the Korean peninsula.

Here in his office, Mr. Lee, the center's director, recalled ancient times when the Korean peninsula was divided into three kingdoms.

"There were exchanges among the three kingdoms, but in the last 50 years, there was no interaction between the South and North, and the North developed its own unique culture," he said, glancing occasionally at a closed-circuit television that showed a classroom of women, dressed in red uniforms, learning about psychology and the differences between logical and intuitive people.

About 6,900 North Koreans have graduated from the center since it was established in 1999. To accommodate the increasing number of arrivals, new dormitories and classrooms are scheduled to be built next to the seven redbrick buildings.

Very few defectors came to South Korea until the mid-1990's, when famine in the North sent many refugees into China. Since then, as a network of South Korean evangelical Christian missionaries and smugglers has established itself in China, the numbers have sharply risen, with more than 1,000 defectors coming to South Korea every year since 2002. Today, defectors already in the South routinely get their relatives out of the North, provided they have the money.

Although China is a stopping point for defectors, South Korea is still the only country to have taken in large numbers of North Koreans; the United States, for example, began accepting its first refugees from the North only in May.

Graduates of the three-month resettlement program receive a $20,000 stipend and are provided with low-cost public housing. They are also entitled to welfare benefits in case of unemployment and cash incentives for job training.

Out in the real world, many defectors who have come here with unrealistically high expectations find out that they are prepared for only the most menial of jobs. Many move from one part-time job to another.

Many companies say they simply do not hire North Koreans, said Lee Chul Min, a defector who is an official at NKD, the Association of North Korean Defectors, a private organization in Seoul that helps defectors.

"If a North Korean worker makes a mistake, it's generalized to all North Koreans," Mr. Lee said, adding that the North Korean identity itself becomes a handicap here.

Even defectors who have succeeded professionally in the South say the realization that they were considered second-class citizens was a psychological blow.

For Joo Sung Ha, 31, a reporter for Dong-A Ilbo, a major daily newspaper, the realization came soon after he fled the North and entered China. A South Korean businessman there, he said, treated him with contempt after learning that he was from the North.

"He was just a small businessman without even a university degree," said Mr. Joo, who said he had graduated from Kim Il Sung University in Pyongyang, North Korea's capital, with a degree in Chinese and English. "Back in North Korea, I was an elite. So it was difficult to be condescended to by someone like him."

"A South Korean university professor may go to the United States and work in a grocery store," he said, explaining that North Koreans find it hard to accept such a fall in status here. "It's probably easier to face discrimination from someone who has round eyes and who is of a different race."

More often, the discrimination or offense is unintentional, North Koreans acknowledge. South Koreans will offer them copious amounts of food on the assumption they must be hungry or ask them whether they have ever tried a basic food.

"Even my co-workers ask me questions like whether we're allowed to date in North Korea," said a 36-year-old defector employed in food delivery. The defector, who asked that his name not be used, arrived in South Korea last year and was able to get his wife and two children out of the North and to South Korea in April after paying smugglers $10,000.

Like many defectors, he felt complex, sometimes contradictory, desires to assert his roots and to be considered part of South Korea.

"When people ask me whether I'm an ethnic Korean from China because of my accent, not only do I feel discriminated against, I feel disillusioned," he said, repeating a common complaint.

Kim Sun Hwa, a South Korean who is director of the government-sponsored Gong Neung Welfare Center in northeast Seoul, a district where more than 700 defectors live, said many defectors, especially the young, coped with discrimination by trying to hide their North Korean roots.

One 37-year-old defector who had lost his North Korean accent did not hide his origins at work, a large auto parts maker. In fact, the Chinese he had learned during his three years of hiding in China now helped him in doing business with Chinese partners.

But his South Korean wife's parents had initially objected to their marriage because he is North Korean. They relented only after her father had a stroke and then decided that he wanted to see his daughter settled in a marriage as soon as possible. Today, his wife still hides his roots from their friends.

"One part of me says it's convenient," he said of his wife's decision. "Another part of me is sad. I know there's no advantage in telling everyone I'm North Korean, but it's who I am."

[wallis]

I considered Japan as well, even monarchial China. But the people managed to "wall them off" in their little "cities." They were not so much direct all the affairs of state but allowed "representatives" to handle state affairs, internal and external.

A comment on Fox News piqued my interest: how much damage to Kim Jong Il would have to absorb from his own military if he backs down from firing the missile.

When Kim assumed the mantle from his father, there was a bit of news that he did not get along well with the military. A few seniors retired, and Kim quickly replaced them with younger comrades that were fairly close to him. For a while, it appeared that he had smoothed relations with the military, probably providing the leaders with some "cookies" that kept them happy.

Then there was another little tidbit of news that has been more or less glossed over whereby Kim is grooming his son to take over the leadership of North Korea. I am speculating that military leaders are not happy with the continuing dynasty.

Should Kim back down in the face of a concerted opposition from its neighbors without being able to show that he negotiated any concessions, then the question of his immediate future might move to the front burner regarding North Korea's future.