Grasshopper
03-24-2005, 01:54 PM
March 24, 2005
Glimpse of World Shatters North Koreans' Illusions
By HOWARD W. FRENCH
YANJI, China - Sitting on a bare floor in a chilly one-room apartment, Lee Hae Jon and her younger sister, Hae Sun, struggled recently for words to describe their lives since they clandestinely made their way here from North Korea five years ago. Their mother married a Chinese man and disappeared from their lives without a trace. Since then, a Chinese widow of Korean descent has taken the girls into her apartment and kept them clothed and fed. But for five years, the teenage sisters have not dared to go outside in daylight for fear of being sent back to their country, or worse, trafficked as young brides or prostitutes in this booming Chinese border city.
The sisters try to teach themselves Chinese, using a couple of old textbooks and repeating phrases from television, which they watch endlessly. A crude Hula-Hoop is their only source of exercise, and each knock on the door their only excitement. They never know whether it is help from their caretaker's friends or the police coming to arrest them.
"We have no friends, and no future, nothing at all, really," said the soft-spoken older sister, Hae Jon, 17. "But if we stay here, at least we have enough to eat. In our country, we could go for days without eating."
Within months, according to an underground network of people who help support the sisters, Hae Jon may be alone. Hae Sun, a shy girl of 13, is dying of kidney cancer and is not permitted to be flown out of the country for advanced care.
The Lee sisters are part of a virtually stateless underground population of North Koreans who have crossed into China along the 877-mile border between the countries and live on the lam in this region. International refugee and human rights groups have estimated their numbers at 200,000 and growing.
The exodus of North Koreans to Jilin and Liaoning Provinces began in earnest in the waves of famine that struck North Korea in the mid-1990's, killing as many as two million people.
The refugees pose challenges for China and for North Korea. Chinese officials fear that a flood of North Koreans across their borders would not only pose a huge economic strain on the region, but could eventually stoke a territorial dispute because of historic Korean claims in the region. For North Korea, the refugees' flight to China offers a pressure valve, allowing the poor to earn desperately needed money. But it also allows them a glimpse of the richness of the outside world, and that could be destabilizing.
Some of the refugees want to migrate to other countries, particularly South Korea, which they perceive as being hugely wealthy and hospitable. Others want to disappear amid the two million ethnic Korean Chinese in this border region. But increasingly, the refugees plan to shuttle secretly back and forth between the countries, coming to China to supply their petty commerce back home, to take care of health problems or to see relatives before returning to the hardships of their homeland. All face the perils of a paperless existence that prevents them from easily traveling to a third country, renders their presence in China illegal and exposes those who return home by wading across the Tumen or Yalu Rivers to the risk of drowning, being shot by border guards or facing punishment in labor camps.
One woman who plans to keep shuttling between countries is a 42-year-old military nurse. "I am in China now, and it is just like I had heard - very developed, full of people, with everything you could ever want to buy," she said. "But I have no ID card, no residence permit. I am in a free country, but I am not free."
The woman's unit, which served in the border regions, providing her with a glimpse of the richer world beyond, was dissolved in 1997. She said she had left an 18-year-old daughter and a 16-year-old son in North Korea, and would return there, once she had earned money in China and could buy shoes and clothes to take home to sell. "Otherwise, there is just no way to make a living in my country," she said. If the former military nurse had a good idea of what life was like in China, most recent arrivals here, including many who live close to the border, said they had a vague idea of China's striking new wealth.
In interview after interview, they spoke of the huge shift in perspective they experienced upon entering China. "When I lived in Korea, I never thought my leaders were bad," said one woman in her 50's, a farmer who had brought her grown daughter to Yanji recently from her home not far from the other side of the border for treatment of an intestinal ailment. "When I got here, I learned that Chinese can travel wherever they want in the world as long as they have the money. I learned that South Korea is far richer, even than China."
"If we are so poor," she continued, "it must be because of Kim Jong Il's mistakes," she said referring to North Korea's leader. The woman said her daughter had decided to stay in China, but that she would soon return home, after illegally earning money doing piecework for a factory here.
North Korea's oppressive control of its citizens through policing and propaganda could be felt through the words of another woman. "Until the end of the 1980's, we were convinced we were the greatest country on earth, and in fact, many people still believe this," the woman said. "We've always been taught that other countries are poorer than we are. They say that South Korea is full of beggars and that people can't afford even to send their children to school."
This woman, a rural dweller in her early 40's, said she had never heard anyone blame Mr. Kim for her country's problems. On the contrary, he was "sincerely adored," she insisted, because of an all-pervasive personality cult. "If I had ever had a chance to meet him face to face, I would have been moved to tears," she said. "We really believed that wherever he went, flowers bloomed. And if he or some other high official arrived in our area and said he needed my daughter, well, we would have been honored."
Asked how they felt now, after having seen some of the outside world, each person interviewed said his or her illusions about North Korea had been shattered. "There is no way I can believe my government again," said one person who had been in China only a few weeks. "They spend all their time celebrating the leaders. There is one thing I have understood in China, and that is, as long as there is no freedom, we will never get richer."
Glimpse of World Shatters North Koreans' Illusions
By HOWARD W. FRENCH
YANJI, China - Sitting on a bare floor in a chilly one-room apartment, Lee Hae Jon and her younger sister, Hae Sun, struggled recently for words to describe their lives since they clandestinely made their way here from North Korea five years ago. Their mother married a Chinese man and disappeared from their lives without a trace. Since then, a Chinese widow of Korean descent has taken the girls into her apartment and kept them clothed and fed. But for five years, the teenage sisters have not dared to go outside in daylight for fear of being sent back to their country, or worse, trafficked as young brides or prostitutes in this booming Chinese border city.
The sisters try to teach themselves Chinese, using a couple of old textbooks and repeating phrases from television, which they watch endlessly. A crude Hula-Hoop is their only source of exercise, and each knock on the door their only excitement. They never know whether it is help from their caretaker's friends or the police coming to arrest them.
"We have no friends, and no future, nothing at all, really," said the soft-spoken older sister, Hae Jon, 17. "But if we stay here, at least we have enough to eat. In our country, we could go for days without eating."
Within months, according to an underground network of people who help support the sisters, Hae Jon may be alone. Hae Sun, a shy girl of 13, is dying of kidney cancer and is not permitted to be flown out of the country for advanced care.
The Lee sisters are part of a virtually stateless underground population of North Koreans who have crossed into China along the 877-mile border between the countries and live on the lam in this region. International refugee and human rights groups have estimated their numbers at 200,000 and growing.
The exodus of North Koreans to Jilin and Liaoning Provinces began in earnest in the waves of famine that struck North Korea in the mid-1990's, killing as many as two million people.
The refugees pose challenges for China and for North Korea. Chinese officials fear that a flood of North Koreans across their borders would not only pose a huge economic strain on the region, but could eventually stoke a territorial dispute because of historic Korean claims in the region. For North Korea, the refugees' flight to China offers a pressure valve, allowing the poor to earn desperately needed money. But it also allows them a glimpse of the richness of the outside world, and that could be destabilizing.
Some of the refugees want to migrate to other countries, particularly South Korea, which they perceive as being hugely wealthy and hospitable. Others want to disappear amid the two million ethnic Korean Chinese in this border region. But increasingly, the refugees plan to shuttle secretly back and forth between the countries, coming to China to supply their petty commerce back home, to take care of health problems or to see relatives before returning to the hardships of their homeland. All face the perils of a paperless existence that prevents them from easily traveling to a third country, renders their presence in China illegal and exposes those who return home by wading across the Tumen or Yalu Rivers to the risk of drowning, being shot by border guards or facing punishment in labor camps.
One woman who plans to keep shuttling between countries is a 42-year-old military nurse. "I am in China now, and it is just like I had heard - very developed, full of people, with everything you could ever want to buy," she said. "But I have no ID card, no residence permit. I am in a free country, but I am not free."
The woman's unit, which served in the border regions, providing her with a glimpse of the richer world beyond, was dissolved in 1997. She said she had left an 18-year-old daughter and a 16-year-old son in North Korea, and would return there, once she had earned money in China and could buy shoes and clothes to take home to sell. "Otherwise, there is just no way to make a living in my country," she said. If the former military nurse had a good idea of what life was like in China, most recent arrivals here, including many who live close to the border, said they had a vague idea of China's striking new wealth.
In interview after interview, they spoke of the huge shift in perspective they experienced upon entering China. "When I lived in Korea, I never thought my leaders were bad," said one woman in her 50's, a farmer who had brought her grown daughter to Yanji recently from her home not far from the other side of the border for treatment of an intestinal ailment. "When I got here, I learned that Chinese can travel wherever they want in the world as long as they have the money. I learned that South Korea is far richer, even than China."
"If we are so poor," she continued, "it must be because of Kim Jong Il's mistakes," she said referring to North Korea's leader. The woman said her daughter had decided to stay in China, but that she would soon return home, after illegally earning money doing piecework for a factory here.
North Korea's oppressive control of its citizens through policing and propaganda could be felt through the words of another woman. "Until the end of the 1980's, we were convinced we were the greatest country on earth, and in fact, many people still believe this," the woman said. "We've always been taught that other countries are poorer than we are. They say that South Korea is full of beggars and that people can't afford even to send their children to school."
This woman, a rural dweller in her early 40's, said she had never heard anyone blame Mr. Kim for her country's problems. On the contrary, he was "sincerely adored," she insisted, because of an all-pervasive personality cult. "If I had ever had a chance to meet him face to face, I would have been moved to tears," she said. "We really believed that wherever he went, flowers bloomed. And if he or some other high official arrived in our area and said he needed my daughter, well, we would have been honored."
Asked how they felt now, after having seen some of the outside world, each person interviewed said his or her illusions about North Korea had been shattered. "There is no way I can believe my government again," said one person who had been in China only a few weeks. "They spend all their time celebrating the leaders. There is one thing I have understood in China, and that is, as long as there is no freedom, we will never get richer."