Kids, Kindness and Korea

A few years ago, I attended a talk given by a refugee from North Korea. For around 90 minutes in a small pub in Camden the audience listened, rapt, as a quietly formidable woman told us her harrowing story. Her words wove a web around the spellbound crowd, her voice conjuring a powerful picture of her life up to that moment. You could have heard a pin drop. Many of those watching shed a tear as she shared her experiences with us.

I remember like it was yesterday how I covered my face and wept when she told us that she loved the UK, because it was here that she felt happiness for the first time in her life. She had never known the feeling before, had not known it was even possible to be happy. I cried for her, and I cried for all the North Koreans still stuck in that secretive, suppressed state who may live a whole life never knowing happiness.

North Korea is often on the news. They report on the latest enormous military parade, or the latest missile launch, or the latest talks between the USA and the DPRK. They discuss whether Kim Jong-un has lost weight, or is walking with a limp, or was recently seen riding a horse. They speculate about his comings and goings, his reappearance after a few months of not being seen in public, and the vanishing of various people around him. People on Twitter make memes, or joke about “the little rocket man.”

What people don’t often talk about are the people living under the little rocket man’s brutal dictatorship, the average people like you and me just trying to live an ordinary life. Regular people are completely isolated from the outside world, contact cut off in both directions. Occasionally, a story about a defector making a daring escape will briefly flit across the 24-hour news cycle before being swallowed by the next breaking topic. What people talk about even less is what happens to refugees once they’ve successfully left the country.

The majority of North Koreans abroad live in South Korea or China. There are estimated to be around 200,000 defectors hiding in China. Sadly, they are in great danger of human trafficking, especially women, who are often auctioned off to farmers looking for wives and treated appallingly. Many escapees are able to blend into rural Chinese communities, or can disguise themselves amongst the 2 million-strong ethnic Korean population in China. If discovered, however, they will be deported back to North Korea where they face horrific punishments for themselves and their families. Therefore, many defectors will try to find a way to the Republic of Korea.

On paper, South Korea sounds like a fantastic destination for defectors. They speak the same language, have many of the same traditions and customs. By law, they are considered citizens of the ROK. There’s a well-established resettlement and adjustment plan, including a debrief with intelligence services, three months at a specialised facility to help them learn about life in South Korea, citizenship, democracy, modern society, how to use an ATM or public transport or apply for a job, and access to a dedicated community centre to assist with things like opening a bank account or purchasing a phone contract. They are given a housing benefit and settlement subsidies, as well as free education, even at universities.

However, life in the South is not at all easy. The Republic of Korea has grown exponentially in the past few decades, economically, culturally, and socially. Referred to as ‘The Miracle on the Han River’, the country went from being one of the poorest on the planet at the end of the Korean War in 1953 to becoming the world's 10th largest economy in 2021. The ideology of capitalism and consumerism in the South is completely alien to refugees from the communist North. The South is futuristic, ultramodern, and high-tech. It is close to incomprehensible and impenetrable to refugees from the North, who have lived with poverty and deprivation their whole lives.

In addition, North Koreans face a huge amount of social stigma in South Korea. They face mistrust, hostility, and discrimination from ROK citizens. Many try to lose their North Korean accent and hide their origins and background, for fear of hostile reactions from South Koreans. They find it difficult to integrate socially and make friends, and many children are bullied or ostracised in schools. Numerous refugees tell stories about the isolation they feel in South Korean society, the suspicious stares, the unkind whispers, and even outright insults.

Schooling in the North is insufficient, and most citizens are unable to complete their education. Child labour is part of life there, and children are assigned tasks such as collecting scrap paper and iron, mining, searching for rabbit burrows, and planting and harvesting crops. Children miss swathes of lessons to fulfil these tasks, and are even sent to work on farm collectives for a month or more in the middle of a semester. As they grow older, they have more labour responsibilities and miss even more school. Refugees from the North therefore have often had very little education and have no choice but to work menial jobs when they reach the South, with low pay that leaves them struggling to make ends meet.

For those who enrol in education, one of the biggest barriers they face is a lack of English language skills. Somewhat surprisingly, English is huge in South Korea. English is everywhere, on signs, in adverts, in cafes, in subway stations. Many English words have been absorbed into the Korean language, some as loan words like 컴퓨터 (keom-pyu-teo) or “computer” and some that have been transformed into a ‘Konglish’ word, like 핸드폰 (haen-deu-pon) or “handphone” which means mobile phone (or cell phone if you’re from the US). Although in theory North and South Koreans speak the same language, in reality there is a huge linguistic gap.

South Korean children study intensively at various “academies” after regular school has finished. Many will learn English with a native speaker for several hours a day, every day, at one of these academies, some from as early as kindergarten. At university, many English textbooks are used and around 1/3 of lectures are given in the English language. It is extraordinarily difficult for North Korean defectors to catch up and thrive in this education system, many having never learned English beforehand. Twice as many North Korean students will drop out of university compared to South Koreans, and the number one reason stated is the lack of English ability.

And that is where I come in. My way of fostering kindness and inclusivity in 2022 is by volunteering to tutor a North Korean defector in English. I had my interview a couple of weeks ago and soon I will schedule my first tutoring session with my new student, a young woman training to become a nurse and hoping to move to America. I know how fortunate I am to be born a native-English speaker, something which has given me so many opportunities in life. The least I can do is offer my English language, my time, and my friendship to someone who could really benefit from it.

As an ESL teacher who works with lovely but very privileged South Korean students in the aforementioned academies, I want to use this experience to promote kindness and inclusivity to the children I teach. I have students in my classes (including some about to go to university) who have said they “hate” North Koreans, that they are scary, that they are too different, that they are weird because “they don’t like K-Pop.” Well, neither do I. When it comes down to it, most people are afraid of what they don’t know, so if they can 'know' a North Korean through me, if they can see an example of somebody being kind, I hope they will feel more generous and inclusive to defectors in their society.

It’s not going to change the world, and it’s certainly not going to change North Korea, but the opportunity to help just one person improve their English and hopefully further their education is something I’m incredibly excited about. I was so moved and inspired by that courageous lady in that cosy North London pub many years ago: I never forgot her or her story, and I have been hoping and waiting for a chance to help somebody like her ever since. I hope I will make her proud.

Background and information for this piece came from:

https://www.crossingbordersnk.org/destinations-of-north-korean-defectors

https://pscore.org/our-work/

https://ngikorea.org/eng

https://www.apa.org/international/pi/2018/09/north-koreans-resettlement