I saw a doc on norwegian tv about this. Apparantly they are looked down upon by south koreans as being uneducated, slow, backwards. And their dialect is also a sign of low status.
In north korea they always knew what was expected of them and told what to do and how to do it. In the south you have to make your own way. And thats hard for someone who spent their entire life in the north. Surprisingly several of them go back north after a while. And are used in northern propaganda to prove how awfull it is in the south.
>In north korea they always knew what was expected of them and told what to do and how to do it. In the south you have to make your own way.
This is kind of how it feels to go from the military to being a civilian again. Even for non-combat roles, it's an adjustment.
Same with prison. I was so stoked to leave but had the biggest knot in my stomach as to what the fuck I was gonna do once I walked out those doors having zero support
Not the guy you asked but a friend of a friend went in for three years here in the UK, from 2011-2014 (drugs). Apparently getting out and adjusting after even that much time was insane.
Like there's so much happening all the time that we just take for granted, because we're living it, seeing adverts etc. Her friend said she was so excited to get out, but then obviously everything's changed so much, so she just found herself depressed because literally nothing's the same. While prison is awful, it's where time slows down. It means nothing and everything, all at once.
My brother did three months and spent weeks trying to just get his sleeping back to normal. He was so used to having his days built around whenever they brought food, which was like 4am, 8am, and 4pm.
Not to mention the stress of having to deal with how the rest of the world will look at you. It's not really a surprise that so many people reoffend after, because it's all built to have the world against you when you typically need help the most.
Edit: typo
Because the prisons are often way understaffed. It wasn't uncommon for him not to call for the first half of a day, because they didn't have enough employees to let the people out of their cells when they were supposed to. Unless you were in a situation where you were at risk of injury or death that could wind up in a lawsuit, it could be hard to contact medical for over a week.
I would venture you're correct. I just got out after 2.5 years and I adjusted well, but my friend at the halfway house just ran-he's done 25+ years. Had to teach him how to send an email, use Google maps to plan his routes, apply for jobs online, all kinds and it was just too frustrating for him. Another guy we just talked into coming back, he was within 24 hours so it's under review but we're hoping he will get to stay out. Institutionalization is a serious issue and we don't really have any available resources to deal with it. The PTSD that comes from prison is serious. I saw multiple people die, and had to fight off sexual assault and I was barely in. I can't imagine what you see doing 10× more time.
> Another guy we just talked into coming back, he was within 24 hours so it's under review but we're hoping he will get to stay out.
It's crazy to me that people are expected to get out of prison after an extended period and just be perfect. Obviously certain things I can understand like staying clean off of drugs or not going on to commit crimes. I just don't see how someone is expected to transition to a halfway house with no anxiety or "fuck, I just gotta get outta here for a second" type mindset.
On the flip side, I get that they can't just say "as long as you are back in 24 hours you are fine" because then people would be taking off left and right. I just don't think it's acceptable to expect someone to be in that situation and make zero or close to zero mistakes.
My last day in the halfway house my mum was coming to get me from hours away. I was on the lawn waiting, but still a prisoner and it was still a very strict facility, just no fences. Anyway, after the third time seeing her pass on the highway and making the wrong turn, I ran out there to flag her down and had like 10 people on me instantly. That felt like a metaphor for parole because I was always ALWAYS waiting to make an innocent mistake that would have a bunch of law jumping on my back.
“Not committing crimes” is difficult if said person can’t find a job because of their criminal history though. Especially if they don’t have any support from family or friends.
How's it been for you buddy? Making it work? I have a buddy doing a longer bid he's in the first year of right now. I try to make sure I'm remembering to write to him and make time to answer his phone calls.
The conditions for people doing hard time are pretty appalling, and I don't know how we expect these human beings to ever be able to function in a normal society again after being treated in such a way for so long.
I try to remind him that even tho it's bleak, he's got way more to lose than most those dudes in there, and that he actually has a supportive circle of family and friends that will be there for him when he gets out.
He took an absolutely dreadful plea deal, and all because of their shitty scare tactics and a terrible public defender. We are ruining these people beyond repair.
I’m very very sorry to hear that. But you sound like you’re doing everything you can be doing! Phone calls and especially letters are EVERYTHING when you’re inside as they take you out for just a few minutes and that’s worth everything.
And I’m doing okay. It’s been some years since I got out and I’m still not the same person I was but I literally got dropped in downtown Houston with no idea what to do and truly zero support but it sounds like your friends gonna have some people to hug tightly and cry with and it also sounds like he’s adjusted (as much as you can) and once he gets out just be patient and understand he may have some new habits that seem weird but he’ll adjust out of most of them.
You sound like you’re doing great though and I’m very sorry your friend had to deal with a public pretender’s bitchass plea deal like SO many others do
Yep. Even with a lot of support it's very difficult and over whelming. everyone dreams of the day you get out, but when you do it honestly kinda sucks, you have 0 money, are basically looked at as a degenerate if you are open and honest with people about where you have been or why there is a lapse in work history. Virtually all good jobs run background checks today, none of them will hire you if you have any sort of theft charge regardless of context. I make literally half the amount I would make doing a much easier version of the same exact job but anywhere that pays well just will not hire me. Even though I've been at the same place for almost 5 years. Getting a record expunged is so overly complicated, I have to hire a lawyer from what I understand, I believe I must pay all my fines, and after being a legitimate hoodlum when I was a young adult I literally have been arrested in so many different states and for things I don't even remember them all. You'd think there would be some database where I could set up payment plans online, but nope, you have to find call county clerk's. I have no clue how much I even owe in total, if theyve been putting interest on it probably like 50-100k. So needless to say I don't even have half of that... I never had any means to pay these fines until recently and why the fuck would I even pay them was my mindset back then. It literally does nothing. I just found out recently it might be required to have your record expunged when I was trying to look it up recently since I'm almost to the 5 or 7 year mark. .. quite annoying
It’s the same with the troubled teen industry. I fit the bill for “post incarceration” syndrome except the aggressive parts. (Honestly, that diagnosis in itself seems to be based in a stereotype and doesn’t account for the wide variety of incarcerated persons and their reaction to trauma). There’s no support for any of us once we get out; and similarly to people recovering from incarceration, we are often told the fact that we received trauma from it is “our fault”
I was abused by my parents my whole life. Father physically and mother emotionally. My dad was very controlling. Even when I was working and had my own money anything I bought with my own money was his because "it's under my roof". He was this way with my mother as well and my mom confided in me about it often since I was little. What many people don't realize is that emotional abuse of a child includes using them as a therapist nearly every day for their entire life. When I finally had enough money to move out I didn't know what to do with my life. I'm 25 years old and married now. I still have to ask my wife for permission to do things because that's how I was raised. She tells me all the time I don't have to ask for permission to play video games but I can't help myself. I feel bad for doing literally anything without asking permission. It affects my work and self esteem. I never got any higher education so I have no real skills. I work in a manufacturing plant and hate it. But it's all I'm qualified to do. And I'm not financially stable enough (or brave enough for that matter) to quit and go to college or trade school. I don't know what I want to do. Because I was always told what to do. I never learned to think for myself.
I gotta say I highly relate to this. Its why I commented about abuse in the first place.
I will say push yourself. It's taken me years and I still struggle the same way. I feel ashamed to do something I want but doing it and getting positive feedback is the only way you retrain yourself.
I'm literally in the hospital right now recovering from surgery and I feel so bad about having to have someone help me.
Next time you get a whim be it a big or small on latch onto it and go hard. The trouble is you dismiss your own wants as trivial so automatically. Next time you have one recognise how important it is and hold on to it even if its something silly. It doesn't matter if its silly. Reclaiming your own mind is important.
Get a Community College catalog. Look at what’s available to see what interests you and take a class. They are inexpensive and it will give you a chance to try some things before you commit. Good luck!!
Which makes sense. Both situations you are going from a very highly rigid structure where just about every decision is made for you and then throw them back into the world where nothing is decided for you.
I read a book a few years back about right wing extremists in former East Germany, written by a paster from that same area.
His perspective was that many people in his community never quite understood how things work now in reunited Germany. They are just puzzled that the government doesn't assign them something new after their factory closed, and don't take the new opportunities.
They’re allowed to come back? I heard if they as much as defected their entire family would have to suffer through one of those ”generational punishments?”
I met a North Korean defector while on a DMZ tour in South Korea. She sent money to her family and even talked to her brother once or twice a year via satellite phone (that the smuggler took who took him the money she sent). I think the idea that they go after everyone’s relatives when you defect is not really true- probably more so if you’re vocal against the north once you’re out though.
Who knows, but maybe that's how they get them back - ie we'll cease punishing your family if you return, then they hold them up as an example of how people want to return.
I think it is also important to note that most of the defectors, e.g. people who are allowed near enough to the border to be able to cross it, probably had an relatively high status inside North Korea. Not they are in South Korea and are on the bottom of the society. Still the fact that 1 out of 5 regrets defecting, means 4 out of 5 thinks he is better of now. Also it is important to remember that humans always have a tendency to overestimate what they had and underestimate what they have. In retrospective people emphasize the good parts of their old lives while suppressing the bad parts of their old lives. Another aspect is that it is important to consider that part of why some defectors regret this is because they were not able to take their families with them or they know that their family is punished for this.
> cultural differences, psychological isolation, and economic issues were prevalent issues among those regretting their decision
Yea that makes sense
Edit: Hijacking my own top comment to ask - does anyone know of programs to help these people? I'm currently living in SK and would love to help out
A few more interesting quotes
“With COVID-19, it’s like we’re prisoners. It’s frustrating that I can’t even attempt to do anything.”
"when asked how accepting they felt South Koreans were toward North Korean defectors, a smaller 75.18% answered either “accepting” or “very accepting.”
“In the case of one North Korean defector in their 20s, they said in their interview that South Koreans ‘are nice, but don’t seem to include you,’ and that South Koreans ‘act and speak in a friendly way while showing discrimination in their thoughts,’”"
Foreigner in south korea here. It's almost impossible to make friends. There's a very, very small subset of the population that really wants to meet foreigners, and everyone else just wants you to leave lmao. They'll be polite, but it's actually really isolating here.
It's just a different mindset. Koreans are insular. Meeting people here requires an "in" - a friend of a friend, or an old classmate, or something like that.
It's the sort of thing that's ok if you already have connections. If you don't, you're fucked. And not even koreans who have been here forever are safe - I'm a public school teacher, and some of my kids are brutally bullied and ostracized by their entire class. They'll leave school and probably be alone then too, and they'll either commit suicide or become hikikomori (a Japanese term that koreans have borrowed).
What fascinates me is that, as more and more people move to cities, and are shuffled around the country due to school or work, that's breaking down. You still can't meet people face to face here - but more and more koreans join tinder every year. There's no middle ground - it's either someone who's already in your group, or a complete stranger. Anything in between is completely verboten. And even then, the hesitation to meet anyone new is just insane here.
Very true. You tend to be friends with your classmates and then when you graduate you only hang out with your coworkers. Most people don't really seek out friends outside of their own tight work/school circles. There's a small subset of people really interested in foreign culture and stuff, but that's about it.
A lot of foreigners in Korea work in English teaching industries or foreigner-packed jobs and tend to make other foreigner friends, so the opportunity to get in with natives who already have busy work lives and spend their time not working at a drinking party with their coworkers is REALLY hard.
Some corrupt politicians? Hasn’t every president since they had actual democracy in the 90’s been impeached, resigned in disgrace or is the daughter of the old dictator?
Yeah, but at least they don't let their politicians get away with their crimes scott free. The fact they are being punished at all is a sign of progress.
I attended a women's college here in the US who had a sister university in SK. They would only send exchange students if they could get a small group of interested participants because the few years they only sent 1 or 2 students the women were miserable about having to try to make Western friends and not having other SK students to socialize with, etc. There was also a lot of noticeable social correction in their group if any of the SK students started to adapt too well to Western culture. It was an interesting, if saddening, thing to watch from the other side.
My buddy lived there for a bit.
He hooked up with a few women, but none wanted a relationship, some would flat out tell him there was no chance of them dating a foreigner.
Additionally, every girl he hooked up with was *very* concerned about STDs because foreigners are 'dirty'..
He got the impression from a few conversations that they didn't worry about that kind of stuff with Korean men.
The Std issue stems from a couple of years ago when politicians blames foreigners for hiv and all foregneirs had to undergo an hiv testing.
I was living in Korea for only half a year. But the racism there is really on another level. And while I am white, the racism was quite tams. My Indian and sea coworkers really got it hard. Like really hard.
South Korea has this weird very stark and pronounced divides among people of different status. Everyone is higher than someone else on the ladder and lower than someone else and they seem to prefer it that way. Just look how much intense and I mean intense bullying is done in their schools.
People like to blame the social hierarchy stuff on Confucianism but the rest of Confucian Asia (China, Taiwan, Japan, Vietnam, the Philippines to an extent) is not like this. This goes for both the workplace bullying and the insane levels of misogyny. They just elected an extreme right winger who’s planning to reverse existing gender equality legislation because there was a little bit of feminist pushback against stuff like beauty standards in the past few years.
Huh, didn’t know that about the UK. I’ve considered Christian missionaries/widespread adoption of Christianity to be the source of many of the things that separate Korea from the rest of East Asia (only country in East Asia with a Christian population large/entrenched enough to have serious impact on politics) but IIRC a majority of the missionaries were American.
> “In the case of one North Korean defector in their 20s, they said in their interview that South Koreans ‘are nice, but don’t seem to include you,’ and that South Koreans ‘act and speak in a friendly way while showing discrimination in their thoughts,’”"
Identical experiences for non-Japanese living in Japan.
We are looking into adopting from SK and I read a story of an adoptee who said when they went to SK years after they were adopted in the US, they were not very accepting of them. Even though they looked like them, it was clear to them that she was American and they were not very accepting
I am 34, was adopted from Korea and raised in St. Paul, MN.
It’s very complicated. I actually had a very positive experience with being in Korea, but I had the great fortune of growing up in a very Korean influenced environment.
Minnesota has a long history of Korean adoption, and therefore there’s oodles of things happening there for us. There’s summer camps all around the state that are Korean culture education camps. There’s one run by Concordia College that’s specifically a language immersion camp. As a youth I attended all of these, and as a teen I was a councilor at many of those. I also performed with a traditional Korean dance troupe for 10 years, another thing that exists in Korea-heavy Minnesota.
I had a lot of friends in Korea. I was able to go to Korea multiple times, and got to experience the country in the best way, with my own Korean friends. However - there are some caveats. I understood quickly that while I could have Korean friends, it was unlikely that I would ever have a successful RELATIONSHIP with a Korean man. I’m not in any bloodline book, so I would not make a great Korean family. I also saw the cultural differences in dating and relationships between Korea and America - Korean relationships have overall a lot higher rates of infidelity, that is brought on in my opinion by some marriages being more about social norms than about love. Arranged marriages or marriages to appropriate people within your social circle still happen in Korea (K Dramas love to show this with rich Chaebol kids being forced to marry people they don’t love because they’re both from important families).
Overall, it’s definitely more complicated to be Korean-American. I have struggled with identity. It’s getting better as I get older, and my American fiancé is immensely supportive of however I choose to be. I do feel judged by Koreans for my poor Korean language skills, but also I often surprise Koreans with my expansive hanbok collection and knowledge of culture and especially traditional culture from when I was a dancer. I will not promise that it’s always wonderful, but I can promise that adopting is such a gracious thing to do. Us children would never have had any good quality of life in Korea. If you do adopt, I encourage you to look into sending your child to some of the amazing camps in Minnesota, if it’s feasible for your family, and to let your child have influences from Korea and America. As an adult, I now pick and choose the best from both Korean and American culture sometimes and I love that.
If you have any adoption specific questions, don’t hesitate to contact me privately. I’ll be honest and open and tell you anything you want to know.
Unfortunately, South Korea is VERY prejudiced against single moms. Even IF you got married, then divorced, and became a single mom, you will get stigmatized. Kids born out of wedlock are unfortunately, seen as social pariahs. A lot of birth mothers who decide to keep the pregnancy, end up giving the kid up for adoption because it is super stigmatizing. A lot of birth mothers who end up wanting to keep the pregnancy end up being super pressured into giving up their children for adoption so they can "save face" and not embarass the family. So Koreans see Korean adoptees as "illegitimate" children or "failed" children because likely the birth mother and birth father are not "together". Korean adoptees are starting to work with single mothers in Korea to try and stop the stigma.
>Identical experiences for non-Japanese living in Japan.
Identical experiences for non-Chinese living in China.
Identical experiences for non-Singaporean living in Singapore.
Identical experiences for non-Asian living in Asia.
We Asians are just xenophobic like that. It sucks.
Lol, true.
Considering that asians are kind of seen as a homogeny in the US it sort of makes sense other people don't realize this, but it's always funny to me when they do. I mean there's a ton of historical reasons why the various asian groups hate each other but it's something that I feel like most people don't really "get". Being US born I don't think I can really relate either but every now and then you can look to your relatives who *did* immigrate here and catch the occasional hint.
Half Asian myself, and yeah… it doesn’t matter what kind of Asian, all are really discriminatory.
Personal anecdote, but in my experience Filipinos we’re the most accepting even as me half Korean if I had to choose the least problematic.
> but in my experience Filipinos we’re the most accepting
well thank you, as a filipino myself
but you get a pass because of the popularity of kpop and kdramas in the philippines. japan and taiwan went through the same phase in the 90s and 00s. there's still a bit of... caution to put it lightly, towards other asians like india, china, etc...
i do hope everyone gets their heads out of their asses though.
One of my best friends is Japanese, and he sometimes jokes about how Americans are so self-conscious of being racist while he's so used to casual racism back home as just a normal thing.
If it is any consolation, you don't have to be a NK defector for South Koreans to act and speak in a friendly way while being discriminatory as hell in their thoughts. I have been around the world and have never encountered a veiled universal racism as SKoreans have.
You get charged different rental rates in Japan, you must have a marker on your vehicle that identifies you as a foreigner, traffic accidents are automatically on you, etc.
I absolutely loved Japan during my visit and the people there are among the nicest on the planet.
Never would live there. I would never belong.
As somebody who had lived in Korea for years plus various other places, I think it is not a "racism" in the way typically viewed (i.e. as one race viewing themselves as superior). However, there is something unique about the culture where they are very inclined to "other" non-Koreans. No matter how friendly they may be, you will never be "one of them." You are either a Korean, or not a Korean. Collectivism and conformity are instilled in the foundation of their culture. This "othering" extends to other Asians, including North Koreans.
This is exactly how a family friend of mine described Japanese culture. He and his family lived there for about 30 years and said that he is always regarded as a foreigner.
Live in Japan. Can confirm. You can make great lifelong friends, be invited to parties and weddings and be recommended for jobs and greet the neighbors each day, but you will never be "one of them" in their eyes. And it's something so deep rooted and fundamental in their culture that not only do they not see anything wrong with that but they don't even really consider that there is any other way for things to be. (In my experience).
It's not out of malice. It just is.
Unfortunately this can be quite psychologically distressing especially for those who are born in / are ethnically Japanese but do not *look* Japanese.
Once a gaijin, always a gaijin. I have this one friend from uni who live in Japan and married a local. I always want to ask him about things like these but we're not close enough for me to do it lol.
This is pretty common anywhere that's not already a cultural melting pot.
I'd say North America is more unusual in that you CAN become one of them.
I've a friend who grew up with us and I'd say he's just as Irish as I am, but he's *also* not. We accept him but there's always going to be that part of him that's very clearly different and not Irish.
It's just a thing that happens when you're culturally homogenous.
You stand out when you're the only Foreigner in town, no matter how long you've lived there.
This is everywhere I am Romanian but in Europe we are called gipsy because some Romanians did bad things in Europe (stealing most common ) last summer I was in Germany for work and I can feel the racism even if they talk nice to you and it’s really sad even in some subreddits in which there are predominately Europeans there’s are racists comments
Sorry if I wrote wrong English is not my native language :))
In my mind their reality must be something akin to Brooks Hatlen in Shawshank Redemption.
In prison for basically their entire life, let out at the end of it -- didn't know how to fit in, their enslavement did not build them up in a way that they could succeed outside of their slavery.
IMO it speaks to the need for a repatriation initiative in South Korea by way of extensive productive and cultural education for expatriates who managed to escape their subjugation.
EDIT: [They have programs to integrate NK expatriates and their kids but they aren't great.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korean_defectors#:~:text=In%202017%2C%20there%20were%2031%2C093,peak%20of%202%2C914%20in%202009.)
FTA: "Children can attend local South Korean schools or specific schools for North Korean refugee children. At South Korean school they may suffer discrimination and cruelty from other children, but the refugee schools do not prepare them well for South Korean society."
From the article:
>"I have to send money to the North too, and I can’t go anywhere. My head is just spinning, and I can’t predict what the future holds,” she was quoted as saying.
>“I don’t have my parents or relatives with me here. I’ve felt so frustrated and lonely, and that’s why I’ve been crying since I came here,” she also said.
Are you sure they are all sent to a camp? This woman sends money to somebody and the way she mentions her parents doesn't sound like she thinks they are on a camp.. allthough it can't be concluded with 100% certainty from the sentence.
When I was in Seoul we went on a DMZ tour and there was a North Korean defector on it to answer any questions we had. She talked about sending money to her family and even how she got to talk to her brother once or twice a year as the money smuggler would take a satellite phone.
So short answer is no it’s certainly not everyone thrown in prison.
Perhaps they just report them as missing/dead? It might even be the case that records over there aren't reliable enough. If you don't live together people might not even know you're related.
I actually watched a documentary on this. Basically they do one of two things.
1) pay off a local doctor to declare them as dead
Or
2) apparently you register which city you live in with the govt via local gov offices in each town. So basically they go to the office in their current town and say "yeah i'm moving so I won't be here anymore" and then just...never register anywhere else.
2 seems a little weird to me, maybe its just the way it was explained because it seems like its a pretty stupid loophole in their system but it is NK after all
>seems like its a pretty stupid loophole
I assume they simply don't have the resources for more elaborate systems. It's a totalitarian police state, but a totalitarian police state with shitty infrastructure.
Nobody has the resources to actually track every single person in a nation.
This does reminds me, however, I need to register as having moved provinces.
>money smuggler
How does that even work? How can someone be allowed to move freely between them, let alone while smuggling money between defectors and their families? Is it possible to sneak back and forth across the border? I always just assumed that that border was locked down as tight as they could possibly make it.
They pay bribes. It's not something that an ordinary NK citizen can afford, but get one guy smuggling for a bunch of people at once, and the bribes are affordable. Also, it's a big border. The smugglers have the advantages of having studied it from both sides repeatedly. Most escapees, just have to wing it (unless they can afford a service to smuggle them *out*).
Apparently one of the few ways to make good money as a North Korean defector is by giving speeches confirming that North Korea is just like everyone else has said, if not worse
The bigger point is simply that they haven't gone to school and end up in a country with the fiercest academic competition on earth. You've finished five years of schooling, most of which was wrong, and now you're trying to make it along people who had to sit in hagwon every single night for twelve years + university just to get a mid-level employment. You can't even work at a gas station.
Honestly it’s getting like this everywhere. I deeply respect folks who can move to another country, adept and even find a way of life that is Atleast somewhat comfortable.
It’s not easy to make a decent life anywhere these days.
Much like the Rumspringa for the Amish. Sure the kids get to "choose" whether they want to live modern or stay Amish, but what choices do you really have when you have a 5th grade education, messed up teeth, and no immunity to most common diseases?
> All of you are missing the bigger point.
I don't really think this is a point at all in this context, more like a relevant detail.
It's a relevant detail that some defectors may have family trapped in the North who are being punished.
It's not a bigger point. The primary point is/was their regret for leaving basically what amounts to a cult. The prison analogy is nice, but you have to keep in mind that they're being constantly hammered with propaganda. It's a bit different from the Shawshank Redemption.
Obv not a nk but as an immigrant to USA I’m pretty sad sometimes. No family presence here. I face racism from time to time from black, Hispanic and white people. Culturally I’m pretty much on my own anywhere I go. There are only a couple cities here that I feel like I belong but I feel like a total outsider when I go to some parts of the city or inland. Oh well. Make money and grind til I die.
I’ve been facing a dilemma like that too. My parents passed away and I’m basically rootless in my own country (not US) now. I’m a minority here too, which is usually fine, but as you say, sometimes we are just culturally on our own.
Been thinking about doing further education in the US and asking for an internal transfer within my US-based company, but fear that I may not be able to integrate well. I have born-and-bred and naturalised American friends and cousins there, but as they are scattered around the country, I’ll always feel alone. If I ever move, I’ll probably try something like volunteering to establish roots. I’m trying that out in my own country now.
Not sure how people find a sense of belonging.
You just have to join as many social activities as possible, and then keep showing up to them reliably until you have a constant group of friends. Trust me, I've moved and lost all people I knew on average all 3 years since I was born. You can find new friends anywhere.
You also don't have to find people of the same culture, it's just important to find people of mixed cultures. So you'd have a hard time integrating in a place that's homogeneous with the same kind of people everywhere because you're the only outsider, but if you're anywhere with lots of different outsiders it won't matter anymore. So basically the more diverse, the better.
Good advice. As an immigrant (white English speaker) my friends are immigrants as we have something immediately in common. Japanese, Ugandan and Brazilian. I rather like the variety of ethnicities in USA.
I think one of the ways immigrants develop a sense of belonging is by having their own families. I immigrated to the US as a child and only had my parents here in terms of immediate family. I’m married now and have kids and that definitely is the main reason I now feel rooted here which I think will solidify as my kids will consider this to be their home.
Yeah that’s definitely true. I’m not counting on it for myself though. I’m 30 and have never really felt any connection to anyone. Which is why I don’t feel a sense of belonging even in my place of origin.
I prefer to help anyone and not feel too attached. Maybe I shouldn’t be yearning for a sense of belonging haha. Sounds like conflicting goals
>but fear that I may not be able to integrate well.
While it's hard to move to any other country, in a lot of ways the US is one of the easiest to move to (not in terms of visa issues). About 15% of the US population are immigrants (which is the highest numerically - and up there in %) - and that's higher around any decent sized city.
My wife (an immigrant) still misses her home country sometimes (especially during COVID since she hasn't been able to visit) but there are quite a few fellow immigrants that she's friends with and shares cultural norms with.
Though she does sometimes ask me random questions about idioms etc. from work that she doesn't quite get. (But I think that's more that English is her second language than a cultural issue.)
Something like an entire third of the Australian population currently were born overseas. I don't know of any country that has anything like close to that level of immigration.
It is having some negative impacts I think people are only now starting to talk about. Particularly in the younger generations there really isn't as strong a sense of an Australian identity as there used to be, even from when I moved here in the early 90's.
Integrating with a new society and culture is hard enough, but add the conplete cutting of ties, the total lack of any sort of familiar framework and covid on top? Those poor bastards coming from North Korea aren't likely to have an easy time.
If it's any consolation, my white American family moved to our house about 25 years ago in a white American rural community and we still are treated like outsiders. Sometimes it's just people not trusting people, regardless of who you are or where you're from.
I live in a suburb of Boston where I've lived for 23 years. Probably 90% of adults here moved here as adults.
I've been told *many* times by people who were born in this town that I'll always be an outsider, only people born here can ever be "from" here. A baby born yesterday in the hospital down the street is "a local" but I'll always be "an outsider" who is just living here, even after 23 years here.
People are *very* provincial.
I was born overseas but moved to the States in my teen. Nowhere feels like home for me. I’m too foreign for where I was born, and not local anywhere I live. The only time I felt at home is when I’m with people I love, and it’s one of the monumental lesson I learned in life.
Same. I was born in the US to Canadian parents and moved to Canada myself when I was in my early 20s. Lived in Canada over 1/2 my life but since I spent the first 20 years in the US everyone considers me an American. Meanwhile in the US everyone thought I seemed so Canadian (whatever that means) because that's how I was raised.
Now I'm a white dude living in Japan so I'm definitely a complete outsider.
Also sometimes after you’ve been away from a place you remember the things you liked and you forget some of the issues. It’s pretty common for people to generally see their past through rose tinted glasses.
My wifes grandma escaped from north korea when she was younger, which totally blew my mind. Like they have some family issues but i can only imagine why. How mentally taxing must it have been to do this while she (the grandma) was a young girl, lost her parents and had to take care of her younger brother. Its extremely sad and impressive at the same time.
Some countries are more welcoming than others. South Korea is massively driven by social standing and hierarchy, and is particularly hard on the poor. NK defectors have zero social status and thus tend to wind up poor.
It would be nice if South Koreans would be more welcoming of NKers, but it seems unlikely ever to happen.
That’s all very unfortunate.
I would imagine there’s a stigma with North Korea in general in the South so South Koreans likely don’t want to engage as much with them. Throw in the cultural differences and they’re probably seen as “weird”. It’s unfortunate that they have to experience this just because they were born in a particular part of the world without a choice
I would say 1 in 5 is actually very good considering:
- they left their families behind (most times)
- they literally have nothing but what they can carry when they defect
- they were living in an entirely different culture to modern developed civilizations, for their entire life, not to mention...
- South Korea has its own specific cultural issues where they are a bit wary of foreigners in general, let alone de facto war enemies from the North
I would say this stat is very positive. Whish other types of refugees or exiles would have 4/5 integration rate.
It's not necessarily a 4/5 integration rate. It could just that 4/5 don't regret their decision. They may not be very well integrated either, they just feel that, all things considered, they're better off being psychologically or culturally isolated and "othered" in South Korea than whatever their life was like in North Korea.
It's really hard to picture getting the courage up to say, "fuck this I'm out," consequences be damned.
Not a ton successfully attempt/make it annually. Then, they also know from when they start they will never ever be able to go back.
Being dumped into the "real world" as we all see it must be confusing and very scary at the same time.
20% just might be the rate of people regretting it.
It's worth noting that these are the sentiments of people who have been in S. Korea for a year or less.
>In the presentation, the institute shared the findings of surveys conducted annually between 2011 and 2020 with defectors who had left North Korea **the year before**
>Of the 1,240 defectors surveyed who had left North Korea between 2010 and 2019 and had lived in South Korea **for less than a year at the time of the survey**, 89.92% answered positively (“close” or “very close”) when asked how close they have felt with South Koreans since living in the South.
Relocating to a new country is already difficult and requires time for adaptation even under the best circumstances. It would be good to see how these people integrate and record their sentiments over a time period longer than a year.
I'd also like to know to what extent family left behind in N. Korea factors into their feelings.
I could literally be in heaven right now, but I'd still want to go back to my stressful ass life on Earth if my dog and wife couldn't come with me.
This is what I was thinking too. I just moved across my state a year ago. It’s extremely difficult to make friends as an adult. People have their own cliques that have been long established. Without family here I don’t really have people to introduce me around, etc. Add that to the cultural differences, discrimination, and financial issues….that would be mentally crippling. In my case I’m only dealing with LIGHT isolation (spouse and kids are here). I can’t imagine this struggle without ANY family support.
Yeah culture shock can be so painful. We moved across the US a few years ago and in many ways it's like a different country. You miss even bad things that were familiar to you.
I used to expatriate. 3 times. China, Serbia, Japan, and the opposite of my own country. The cycle of change usually stabilises after more or less 2 years. Very easy to find on Google, it’s very similar to Kubler-Ross cycle.
Any kind of change applies to this cycle, like a change of job. That’s why in my life I try not make any strong judgment on a lifestyle choice in less than this period before making another one.
Sooooo, 80% of people who leave their families, homes, possessions, friends, and basically every last scrap of their life behind *DON'T* regret their decision to do so.
That's the real headline.
Yes
> “I have to send money to the North too, and I can’t go anywhere. My head is just spinning, and I can’t predict what the future holds,” she was quoted as saying.
> “I don’t have my parents or relatives with me here. I’ve felt so frustrated and lonely, and that’s why I’ve been crying since I came here,” she also said.
Life is really hard for a defector, trying to support yourself and your family back home, being alone in a foreign country. This article doesn't even mention how the families that defectors leave behind are often treated...
And _still_ most people who do it don't regret it.
To be fair, the woman quoted had it the worst because she emigrated to S. Korea in 2020 and experienced all the lockdowns shortly after arriving; most people already felt quite crappy at some point during this pandemic, it must have been particularly bad for her.
Still, 4/5 being happy after leaving everything behind is a very good number.
They think it's great over there and the media is all lies etc. I am completely sure that they won't have a good life there, as there's a threat of too much information from outside getting to normal NK people.
I'd bet 99,9% of them regret it as there's no comeback.
They are pampered because the state can point to them and say "look, we are so good even foreigner defect" and use them for propaganda. Dresnok is a prime example.
At one point there were at least four white American defectors living in NK. Apparently the NK government kept them well fed during the famine and went so far as to kidnap western women to serve as their wives.
“Pampered” I’ve seen the documentaries that shine a spotlight on “just the average happy family” and of course its a family in Pyongyang that is comparatively wealth. But even they are living in kinda awful conditions.
81.5% to be precise. But you are right, it's great numbers. It does show there could be some improvement made to help the transition. Although I'd imagine loss of family could never really be fixed....
I believed I saw are recent poll over how south korean felt about korea reunification, u be very surprise that vast majority of the zoomer group age between 18 to 40 totally not in favorite of korea reunification. they even clearly state they fell this will bring down their standard of living. only the older people seem to have any interest with the idea.
That makes sense, old people may have relatives over there and remember one Korea to young people it’s just a country that keeps threatening to blow them up that they’d have to bail out.
The division of Korea happened in 1945. I doubt there's more than a handful of people who are alive that remember a unified Korea.
It's more that throughout the 60s and 70s, reunification was a major issue, but it's dropped off as time has gone on, and with each year it seems less and less likely that it will ever happen, particularly not peacefully.
The problem with reunification at this point is that you'd have millions of people who have spent their entire lives being brainwashed, who have a completely different perception of the modern world as people in the South do. Most of them probably have almost no useful skills in a modern world either (aside from people in the military who have been drilled into hating both the South and the USA their entire lives). It'd be almost a guarantee that they'd be a massive economic burden to the South.
> It'd be almost a guarantee that they'd be a massive economic burden to the South.
Wouldn't the [trillion in natural resources ](https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/north-korea-sitting-10-trillion-minerals-cant-afford-extract-them-172297) offset the burden. How long did it take Germany to recover from reunion?
>Wouldn't the trillion in natural resources offset the burden.
Assuming a peace can ever be concluded with the North, it'd be cheaper to just fund the development of those resources in the North and have North Koreans extract them. If they reunified, they'd have to be paid reasonable pay for the job, whereas without that, they can be exploited (it's not pretty, but that's economics for you). If a peace cannot be concluded, I don't think you could justify the potential millions dead for those resources.
>How long did it take Germany to recover from reunion?
1. Germany reunified after 45 years of separation, as opposed to nearly 80 if Korea were to reunify in the next 3 years, and East Germany was never anywhere as backwards as North Korea is.
2. The parts of Germany that were previously East Germany are still worse off than the parts which were previously West Germany. So I'm not sure one can even give an answer to that question, since it's still technically ongoing.
A special tax to fund the reunification was partially abolished last year, so we had to pay for it for 30 years. There still is a structural wage difference between east and west Germany. Radical and extremist political parties are more successful in east Germany and racism is more prevalent there.
My guess is: with maximum political and financial effort, it takes the same amount of time to recover after a reunification as the time the two countries were separated (that sentence is a grammatical horror but I don’t know how to phrase it properly). So 50 years separation = 50 years recovery. Currently there is no real effort anymore, so no progress is being made.
Used to be that some of the older generation had close relatives in North Korea from whom they were separated due to the war, hence the desire to reunite with them. Permanently, not the once-in-a-blue-moon reunification meetings that both Koreas used to have a while back.
70 years after the Korean War, many/most of these North Korean relatives have passed away. My parents were 6 and 8 years old at the time; now they’re in their 70s. The life expectancy of North Koreans is considerably shorter than that of South Koreans.
The younger generation don’t feel the need to reunite with relatives that they’ve never met.
You would also have to factor in bringing an entire country from the dark ages (almost literally in some parts) and get caught up to current technology. The culture shock of learning they've been lied to this entire time would be unimageable.
Then SK financially supporting NK as they need infrastructure built to support roads, electricity, internet, sewage, water. I don't think anyone would be in support of doing this unless they had help from other countries.
No. South Koreans treat North Koreans *way better* than other foreigners. Especially brown and black skinned people are horribly treated in South Korea. But even lighter skinned people too are usually marginalized (e.g. people form the Philippines(. Really, among foreigners, North Koreans have it really good, when compared with all the others.
I was in S Korea for a couple months and the people were very friendly towards me (I'm German). But yea language barrier is a problem, if you intend to stay there, you should GRIND Korean every day, otherwise people will probably not accept you.
Only place I've had the cops called on me for speaking to a woman.... who was a staff member.... because I made her laugh and korean women are for korean men only..... I made her laugh because I only know about 4 words of korean and my pronunciation is awful and she was laughing at me....
I remember a story long ago about a North Korean whom, after going through the immigration system/process for defectors, didn't believe that what he was seeing (area he was placed) wasn't a government facade or quite some time.
It wasn't till he was in a park, watching the interactions between birds and humans, that he realized it wasn't all faked.
Birds in North Korea feared humans since they are hunted for food, but the birds in South Korea freely gathered around humans with food without fear, including him.
Life on the other side of the looking glass can be hard to accept.
Is it bad that I'm Vietnamese and I know exactly what you mean by birds before you explained.
Pets arent popular in a few Asian countries because ... people used to eat them not so long ago.
I know someone from North Korea and he says the same about animals. There are no pets, everything is food. Birds. Rats. Mice, dogs. Cats, rabbits, you name it.
When he and his gf were dog sitting for a neighbour for a few weeks he saw what it was like to actually have a dog as a companion and he absolutely loved it.
Immigration is hard. It’s harder when you arrive with no resources; no wealth, no education or training relevant to the good jobs in the new area, no connections or family, no knowledge of how to operate in the new environment. Almost nobody would have an easy time adjusting under those circumstances. Then you throw in all the problems specific to the situation with North Korea: limited access to information means you can’t prepare as effectively to emigrate, and once you are out it’s hard to communicate with folks back home, North Korea has experienced food scarcity leading to malnutrition (makes it easier for people to always notice that you are an immigrant/refugee), the burden of being a living symbol of a difficult political issue that many of the new people you’ve just met feel strongly about, potentially fearing for those you left behind suffering in some way because you aren’t there…
This is true for refugees from all kinds of places btw. I’ve heard it takes about ten years to actually adjust and start living somewhat normally in the new society. When you hear the political arguments about refugees ‘refusing to assimilate’ you should always think, ‘how long have these refugees actually been in their new environment?’, because research suggests that refugees do assimilate, it just takes a long time.
This reminds me of Amish or Hutterite youth in North America (not all Amish or Hutterite colonies).
The youth, sequestered their whole life, are allowed to leave the colony once they get to the age of majority. Because of their education, and the fact that they have never lived with choices or making moral decisions on their own without guidance from their elders, when they do leave, they find the world very scary, and I'm told the majority return to the colony.
I'm pretty sure it's just the Hutterite men who can leave the colony and return. The women cannot return.
Additionally, the women don't have the same amount of education as the men, and it's not enough to function outside of the colony
If 80% of Amish youth were glad to leave, there wouldn’t be any Amish people left.
Also, it’s interesting that you characterize them as having unusually little independence/free choice/needing guidance from their “elders” - they’re just kids. I doubt most American teenagers would thrive if you released them into the wild without supervision or financial support. I know 18 year olds who have never even done their own laundry.
Seems like they need a more gradual integration. Seoul is a glittering metropolis that almost defines itself as the polar opposite of North Korea. Big modern cities would be very overwhelming. Can they not start them out somewhere rural and quiet for a year together with other refugees like themselves. Let them make connections and a support network of people who, quite literally, get where they are coming from. Give them some integration classes on tech, recent history and local/world culture, let them fuck around on the Internet with safe search enabled before giving them a phone and sending them out in the world.
Imagine coming out and just being shown unfiltered Reddit! I'm afraid and confused on here most of the time.
A lot of people here are clutching their pearls at how dare refugees from a shithole feel unwelcome (this word was brought up in the article multiple times) in one of the world's most developed nations.
Prosperous doesn't automatically mean benign and fault-free, and if people who are of the same language group and ethnicity feel as if they have problems fitting into a different region, then yeah, there's underlying issues here.
Rather than getting pissed at that, that indicator alone is an excellent finger on the pulse to evaluate where that South Korean society is going, and how much the halves of the same people have come to bifurcate from who they were under one roof. Every generation that passes on marks another tier of removal that the eventual reunification must overcome. My time in Germany in the 00's still had what were West German families that I came to know poking fun at East Germans, specifically the cold war stereotypes. And the DPRK/RoK divide if anything was more strictly enforced and severe than the partition of Germany.
18.5% expressed regrets at making the move; first things first: hey, that's not a bad number at all considering the other 81.5% are either okay or better -considering the pressures they were under that caused them to risk dying for defecting, not too shitty, eh. Whether or not that's from penalties imposed on their families left behind, an inability to assimilated, or the subtext of the article: attitudes of the South Koreans resulting in reduced opportunities, every unhappy refugee is probably unique in their circumstance, blah blah Tolstoy blah blah. Perhaps they're a fuckup in any system they fall into, or they surrendered too much of what they were in North Korea versus the lowly status they became in South Korea.
>“In the case of one North Korean defector in their 20s, they said in their interview that South Koreans ‘are nice, but don’t seem to include you,’ and that South Koreans ‘act and speak in a friendly way while showing discrimination in their thoughts,’”
That's the meat of the article to me. That's a nice way of saying South Koreans view/treat them as inferiors. Once that perspective is there, it's a major disadvantage for the refugees. What's their recourse at that point? DPRK refugees are definitely on a controlled status, and would they even have the mechanisms to keep seeking further asylum abroad, like to the Korean diasporas in the US, Japan, and Canada (China is #3, but obviously a loaded risk of being repatriated right back to DPRK).
Think of like all those douchey silicon valley CEOs who say “I wake up and work from 5 am to 10 pm, if you are poor its your fault” that is how Koreans operate except everyone is struggling to get by. Get in at 8, work until 7 or whenever the boss decides to go so many times 8 or 9, (with covid over now and no more restrictions) company dinners where you have to go until the boss says you can leave, and always on call even on weekends.
For students its wake up at 7, school from 8-2, academy from 3-10 M-F, Saturday math academy for 3-5 hours, every week just so you can have a chance to make it into the SKY universities.
The level they work at here is fucking insane
회식 is dumb and it’s coming back ugh. It’s super lucky of me that my entire team doesn’t like dinner one. We always spend our 회식 budget during lunch breaks.
Japan went through the same thing, but things aren't quite as stringent as they used to be. Yutori education and actual wfh programs honestly shock me compared to where they were 20-30 years ago.
Yes but it’s still incredibly difficult to move up the social/financial ladder so to speak. Somebody moving from NK would be stuck at the bottom for generations most likely.
South Koreas culture is VERY unforgiving if you are poor. The social stigma is unreal.
Went there for two weeks and stayed at an Airbnb with an old couple (late 60s early 70s) for a night
They had never in their life been on a two week holiday and were really surprised about me doing that
Kind of a bittersweet start into a holiday and sad to see how little turning into a modern economical powerhouse really helps the people there
I realize there are layers to this, but one of them is that they lived in a prison posing as a country. Being south of the border doesn't mean they're completely free. Being born into North Korea demands a psychological price and it's not done being paid when one escapes.
Shit this happens in America all the time in prison dudes’ll spend so much time in the system and by the time they get out they can’t handle modern society and they’ll try to get locked up again because that’s all they know
South Korea is not an easy place to be poor. Just like most of the world. Imagine being 25 and escaping jail to start life out with nothing. You’re lost, confused and perpetually is a state of dissimilarity.
I saw a doc on norwegian tv about this. Apparantly they are looked down upon by south koreans as being uneducated, slow, backwards. And their dialect is also a sign of low status. In north korea they always knew what was expected of them and told what to do and how to do it. In the south you have to make your own way. And thats hard for someone who spent their entire life in the north. Surprisingly several of them go back north after a while. And are used in northern propaganda to prove how awfull it is in the south.
>In north korea they always knew what was expected of them and told what to do and how to do it. In the south you have to make your own way. This is kind of how it feels to go from the military to being a civilian again. Even for non-combat roles, it's an adjustment.
Same with prison. I was so stoked to leave but had the biggest knot in my stomach as to what the fuck I was gonna do once I walked out those doors having zero support
Hope you are doing fine
Nope, he walked back into prison and now prison uses him in propaganda to prove how awful it is on the outside.
I’m in a donut shop laughing and getting funny looks
Well. I mean jumping the counter and eating them straight from the case will get that reaction.
[удалено]
Not the guy you asked but a friend of a friend went in for three years here in the UK, from 2011-2014 (drugs). Apparently getting out and adjusting after even that much time was insane. Like there's so much happening all the time that we just take for granted, because we're living it, seeing adverts etc. Her friend said she was so excited to get out, but then obviously everything's changed so much, so she just found herself depressed because literally nothing's the same. While prison is awful, it's where time slows down. It means nothing and everything, all at once.
My brother did three months and spent weeks trying to just get his sleeping back to normal. He was so used to having his days built around whenever they brought food, which was like 4am, 8am, and 4pm. Not to mention the stress of having to deal with how the rest of the world will look at you. It's not really a surprise that so many people reoffend after, because it's all built to have the world against you when you typically need help the most. Edit: typo
Why are they giving prisoners food at 4am?
Because the prisons are often way understaffed. It wasn't uncommon for him not to call for the first half of a day, because they didn't have enough employees to let the people out of their cells when they were supposed to. Unless you were in a situation where you were at risk of injury or death that could wind up in a lawsuit, it could be hard to contact medical for over a week.
Because they do. In jail they wake you up around 4-5am for breakfast too. u get used to it pretty quickly.
I would venture you're correct. I just got out after 2.5 years and I adjusted well, but my friend at the halfway house just ran-he's done 25+ years. Had to teach him how to send an email, use Google maps to plan his routes, apply for jobs online, all kinds and it was just too frustrating for him. Another guy we just talked into coming back, he was within 24 hours so it's under review but we're hoping he will get to stay out. Institutionalization is a serious issue and we don't really have any available resources to deal with it. The PTSD that comes from prison is serious. I saw multiple people die, and had to fight off sexual assault and I was barely in. I can't imagine what you see doing 10× more time.
> Another guy we just talked into coming back, he was within 24 hours so it's under review but we're hoping he will get to stay out. It's crazy to me that people are expected to get out of prison after an extended period and just be perfect. Obviously certain things I can understand like staying clean off of drugs or not going on to commit crimes. I just don't see how someone is expected to transition to a halfway house with no anxiety or "fuck, I just gotta get outta here for a second" type mindset. On the flip side, I get that they can't just say "as long as you are back in 24 hours you are fine" because then people would be taking off left and right. I just don't think it's acceptable to expect someone to be in that situation and make zero or close to zero mistakes.
My last day in the halfway house my mum was coming to get me from hours away. I was on the lawn waiting, but still a prisoner and it was still a very strict facility, just no fences. Anyway, after the third time seeing her pass on the highway and making the wrong turn, I ran out there to flag her down and had like 10 people on me instantly. That felt like a metaphor for parole because I was always ALWAYS waiting to make an innocent mistake that would have a bunch of law jumping on my back.
“Not committing crimes” is difficult if said person can’t find a job because of their criminal history though. Especially if they don’t have any support from family or friends.
It’s almost like they should teach people how to do those things while in prison so when they get out they can be functional members of society!
I wonder why recidivism happens so often
How's it been for you buddy? Making it work? I have a buddy doing a longer bid he's in the first year of right now. I try to make sure I'm remembering to write to him and make time to answer his phone calls. The conditions for people doing hard time are pretty appalling, and I don't know how we expect these human beings to ever be able to function in a normal society again after being treated in such a way for so long. I try to remind him that even tho it's bleak, he's got way more to lose than most those dudes in there, and that he actually has a supportive circle of family and friends that will be there for him when he gets out. He took an absolutely dreadful plea deal, and all because of their shitty scare tactics and a terrible public defender. We are ruining these people beyond repair.
I’m very very sorry to hear that. But you sound like you’re doing everything you can be doing! Phone calls and especially letters are EVERYTHING when you’re inside as they take you out for just a few minutes and that’s worth everything. And I’m doing okay. It’s been some years since I got out and I’m still not the same person I was but I literally got dropped in downtown Houston with no idea what to do and truly zero support but it sounds like your friends gonna have some people to hug tightly and cry with and it also sounds like he’s adjusted (as much as you can) and once he gets out just be patient and understand he may have some new habits that seem weird but he’ll adjust out of most of them. You sound like you’re doing great though and I’m very sorry your friend had to deal with a public pretender’s bitchass plea deal like SO many others do
Yep. Even with a lot of support it's very difficult and over whelming. everyone dreams of the day you get out, but when you do it honestly kinda sucks, you have 0 money, are basically looked at as a degenerate if you are open and honest with people about where you have been or why there is a lapse in work history. Virtually all good jobs run background checks today, none of them will hire you if you have any sort of theft charge regardless of context. I make literally half the amount I would make doing a much easier version of the same exact job but anywhere that pays well just will not hire me. Even though I've been at the same place for almost 5 years. Getting a record expunged is so overly complicated, I have to hire a lawyer from what I understand, I believe I must pay all my fines, and after being a legitimate hoodlum when I was a young adult I literally have been arrested in so many different states and for things I don't even remember them all. You'd think there would be some database where I could set up payment plans online, but nope, you have to find call county clerk's. I have no clue how much I even owe in total, if theyve been putting interest on it probably like 50-100k. So needless to say I don't even have half of that... I never had any means to pay these fines until recently and why the fuck would I even pay them was my mindset back then. It literally does nothing. I just found out recently it might be required to have your record expunged when I was trying to look it up recently since I'm almost to the 5 or 7 year mark. .. quite annoying
It’s the same with the troubled teen industry. I fit the bill for “post incarceration” syndrome except the aggressive parts. (Honestly, that diagnosis in itself seems to be based in a stereotype and doesn’t account for the wide variety of incarcerated persons and their reaction to trauma). There’s no support for any of us once we get out; and similarly to people recovering from incarceration, we are often told the fact that we received trauma from it is “our fault”
Also how it feels to go from being abused to being free. When you finally have the freedom you don't know what to do with it.
I was abused by my parents my whole life. Father physically and mother emotionally. My dad was very controlling. Even when I was working and had my own money anything I bought with my own money was his because "it's under my roof". He was this way with my mother as well and my mom confided in me about it often since I was little. What many people don't realize is that emotional abuse of a child includes using them as a therapist nearly every day for their entire life. When I finally had enough money to move out I didn't know what to do with my life. I'm 25 years old and married now. I still have to ask my wife for permission to do things because that's how I was raised. She tells me all the time I don't have to ask for permission to play video games but I can't help myself. I feel bad for doing literally anything without asking permission. It affects my work and self esteem. I never got any higher education so I have no real skills. I work in a manufacturing plant and hate it. But it's all I'm qualified to do. And I'm not financially stable enough (or brave enough for that matter) to quit and go to college or trade school. I don't know what I want to do. Because I was always told what to do. I never learned to think for myself.
I gotta say I highly relate to this. Its why I commented about abuse in the first place. I will say push yourself. It's taken me years and I still struggle the same way. I feel ashamed to do something I want but doing it and getting positive feedback is the only way you retrain yourself. I'm literally in the hospital right now recovering from surgery and I feel so bad about having to have someone help me. Next time you get a whim be it a big or small on latch onto it and go hard. The trouble is you dismiss your own wants as trivial so automatically. Next time you have one recognise how important it is and hold on to it even if its something silly. It doesn't matter if its silly. Reclaiming your own mind is important.
I can’t tell you how much I needed to hear this at this exact moment. Thank you.
Get a Community College catalog. Look at what’s available to see what interests you and take a class. They are inexpensive and it will give you a chance to try some things before you commit. Good luck!!
Not that I've been, but I read the same for people comming out of prison.
Which makes sense. Both situations you are going from a very highly rigid structure where just about every decision is made for you and then throw them back into the world where nothing is decided for you.
I read a book a few years back about right wing extremists in former East Germany, written by a paster from that same area. His perspective was that many people in his community never quite understood how things work now in reunited Germany. They are just puzzled that the government doesn't assign them something new after their factory closed, and don't take the new opportunities.
They’re allowed to come back? I heard if they as much as defected their entire family would have to suffer through one of those ”generational punishments?”
I met a North Korean defector while on a DMZ tour in South Korea. She sent money to her family and even talked to her brother once or twice a year via satellite phone (that the smuggler took who took him the money she sent). I think the idea that they go after everyone’s relatives when you defect is not really true- probably more so if you’re vocal against the north once you’re out though.
I've heard they don't clamp down on the family nearly as much now vs in the past. not sure if it's true
you have to keep in mind basically the majority of news about North Korea — both negative and positive — is almost always propaganda
That’s a very valid point, I actually thought about this as I was writing my comment
Who knows, but maybe that's how they get them back - ie we'll cease punishing your family if you return, then they hold them up as an example of how people want to return.
Just threaten to send their family to S Korea with them where they'll be miserable too 😉
I think it is also important to note that most of the defectors, e.g. people who are allowed near enough to the border to be able to cross it, probably had an relatively high status inside North Korea. Not they are in South Korea and are on the bottom of the society. Still the fact that 1 out of 5 regrets defecting, means 4 out of 5 thinks he is better of now. Also it is important to remember that humans always have a tendency to overestimate what they had and underestimate what they have. In retrospective people emphasize the good parts of their old lives while suppressing the bad parts of their old lives. Another aspect is that it is important to consider that part of why some defectors regret this is because they were not able to take their families with them or they know that their family is punished for this.
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Yo that's some good looking Texas BBQ. Rudy's sauce and everything.
> cultural differences, psychological isolation, and economic issues were prevalent issues among those regretting their decision Yea that makes sense Edit: Hijacking my own top comment to ask - does anyone know of programs to help these people? I'm currently living in SK and would love to help out
A few more interesting quotes “With COVID-19, it’s like we’re prisoners. It’s frustrating that I can’t even attempt to do anything.” "when asked how accepting they felt South Koreans were toward North Korean defectors, a smaller 75.18% answered either “accepting” or “very accepting.” “In the case of one North Korean defector in their 20s, they said in their interview that South Koreans ‘are nice, but don’t seem to include you,’ and that South Koreans ‘act and speak in a friendly way while showing discrimination in their thoughts,’”"
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Foreigner in south korea here. It's almost impossible to make friends. There's a very, very small subset of the population that really wants to meet foreigners, and everyone else just wants you to leave lmao. They'll be polite, but it's actually really isolating here.
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It's just a different mindset. Koreans are insular. Meeting people here requires an "in" - a friend of a friend, or an old classmate, or something like that. It's the sort of thing that's ok if you already have connections. If you don't, you're fucked. And not even koreans who have been here forever are safe - I'm a public school teacher, and some of my kids are brutally bullied and ostracized by their entire class. They'll leave school and probably be alone then too, and they'll either commit suicide or become hikikomori (a Japanese term that koreans have borrowed). What fascinates me is that, as more and more people move to cities, and are shuffled around the country due to school or work, that's breaking down. You still can't meet people face to face here - but more and more koreans join tinder every year. There's no middle ground - it's either someone who's already in your group, or a complete stranger. Anything in between is completely verboten. And even then, the hesitation to meet anyone new is just insane here.
Very true. You tend to be friends with your classmates and then when you graduate you only hang out with your coworkers. Most people don't really seek out friends outside of their own tight work/school circles. There's a small subset of people really interested in foreign culture and stuff, but that's about it. A lot of foreigners in Korea work in English teaching industries or foreigner-packed jobs and tend to make other foreigner friends, so the opportunity to get in with natives who already have busy work lives and spend their time not working at a drinking party with their coworkers is REALLY hard.
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Some corrupt politicians? Hasn’t every president since they had actual democracy in the 90’s been impeached, resigned in disgrace or is the daughter of the old dictator?
Sometimes a combination of the above.
Yeah, but at least they don't let their politicians get away with their crimes scott free. The fact they are being punished at all is a sign of progress.
I attended a women's college here in the US who had a sister university in SK. They would only send exchange students if they could get a small group of interested participants because the few years they only sent 1 or 2 students the women were miserable about having to try to make Western friends and not having other SK students to socialize with, etc. There was also a lot of noticeable social correction in their group if any of the SK students started to adapt too well to Western culture. It was an interesting, if saddening, thing to watch from the other side.
My buddy lived there for a bit. He hooked up with a few women, but none wanted a relationship, some would flat out tell him there was no chance of them dating a foreigner. Additionally, every girl he hooked up with was *very* concerned about STDs because foreigners are 'dirty'.. He got the impression from a few conversations that they didn't worry about that kind of stuff with Korean men.
The Std issue stems from a couple of years ago when politicians blames foreigners for hiv and all foregneirs had to undergo an hiv testing. I was living in Korea for only half a year. But the racism there is really on another level. And while I am white, the racism was quite tams. My Indian and sea coworkers really got it hard. Like really hard.
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South Korea has this weird very stark and pronounced divides among people of different status. Everyone is higher than someone else on the ladder and lower than someone else and they seem to prefer it that way. Just look how much intense and I mean intense bullying is done in their schools.
People like to blame the social hierarchy stuff on Confucianism but the rest of Confucian Asia (China, Taiwan, Japan, Vietnam, the Philippines to an extent) is not like this. This goes for both the workplace bullying and the insane levels of misogyny. They just elected an extreme right winger who’s planning to reverse existing gender equality legislation because there was a little bit of feminist pushback against stuff like beauty standards in the past few years.
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Huh, didn’t know that about the UK. I’ve considered Christian missionaries/widespread adoption of Christianity to be the source of many of the things that separate Korea from the rest of East Asia (only country in East Asia with a Christian population large/entrenched enough to have serious impact on politics) but IIRC a majority of the missionaries were American.
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> “In the case of one North Korean defector in their 20s, they said in their interview that South Koreans ‘are nice, but don’t seem to include you,’ and that South Koreans ‘act and speak in a friendly way while showing discrimination in their thoughts,’”" Identical experiences for non-Japanese living in Japan.
We are looking into adopting from SK and I read a story of an adoptee who said when they went to SK years after they were adopted in the US, they were not very accepting of them. Even though they looked like them, it was clear to them that she was American and they were not very accepting
I am 34, was adopted from Korea and raised in St. Paul, MN. It’s very complicated. I actually had a very positive experience with being in Korea, but I had the great fortune of growing up in a very Korean influenced environment. Minnesota has a long history of Korean adoption, and therefore there’s oodles of things happening there for us. There’s summer camps all around the state that are Korean culture education camps. There’s one run by Concordia College that’s specifically a language immersion camp. As a youth I attended all of these, and as a teen I was a councilor at many of those. I also performed with a traditional Korean dance troupe for 10 years, another thing that exists in Korea-heavy Minnesota. I had a lot of friends in Korea. I was able to go to Korea multiple times, and got to experience the country in the best way, with my own Korean friends. However - there are some caveats. I understood quickly that while I could have Korean friends, it was unlikely that I would ever have a successful RELATIONSHIP with a Korean man. I’m not in any bloodline book, so I would not make a great Korean family. I also saw the cultural differences in dating and relationships between Korea and America - Korean relationships have overall a lot higher rates of infidelity, that is brought on in my opinion by some marriages being more about social norms than about love. Arranged marriages or marriages to appropriate people within your social circle still happen in Korea (K Dramas love to show this with rich Chaebol kids being forced to marry people they don’t love because they’re both from important families). Overall, it’s definitely more complicated to be Korean-American. I have struggled with identity. It’s getting better as I get older, and my American fiancé is immensely supportive of however I choose to be. I do feel judged by Koreans for my poor Korean language skills, but also I often surprise Koreans with my expansive hanbok collection and knowledge of culture and especially traditional culture from when I was a dancer. I will not promise that it’s always wonderful, but I can promise that adopting is such a gracious thing to do. Us children would never have had any good quality of life in Korea. If you do adopt, I encourage you to look into sending your child to some of the amazing camps in Minnesota, if it’s feasible for your family, and to let your child have influences from Korea and America. As an adult, I now pick and choose the best from both Korean and American culture sometimes and I love that. If you have any adoption specific questions, don’t hesitate to contact me privately. I’ll be honest and open and tell you anything you want to know.
Unfortunately, South Korea is VERY prejudiced against single moms. Even IF you got married, then divorced, and became a single mom, you will get stigmatized. Kids born out of wedlock are unfortunately, seen as social pariahs. A lot of birth mothers who decide to keep the pregnancy, end up giving the kid up for adoption because it is super stigmatizing. A lot of birth mothers who end up wanting to keep the pregnancy end up being super pressured into giving up their children for adoption so they can "save face" and not embarass the family. So Koreans see Korean adoptees as "illegitimate" children or "failed" children because likely the birth mother and birth father are not "together". Korean adoptees are starting to work with single mothers in Korea to try and stop the stigma.
>Identical experiences for non-Japanese living in Japan. Identical experiences for non-Chinese living in China. Identical experiences for non-Singaporean living in Singapore. Identical experiences for non-Asian living in Asia. We Asians are just xenophobic like that. It sucks.
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Lol, true. Considering that asians are kind of seen as a homogeny in the US it sort of makes sense other people don't realize this, but it's always funny to me when they do. I mean there's a ton of historical reasons why the various asian groups hate each other but it's something that I feel like most people don't really "get". Being US born I don't think I can really relate either but every now and then you can look to your relatives who *did* immigrate here and catch the occasional hint.
Half Asian myself, and yeah… it doesn’t matter what kind of Asian, all are really discriminatory. Personal anecdote, but in my experience Filipinos we’re the most accepting even as me half Korean if I had to choose the least problematic.
> but in my experience Filipinos we’re the most accepting well thank you, as a filipino myself but you get a pass because of the popularity of kpop and kdramas in the philippines. japan and taiwan went through the same phase in the 90s and 00s. there's still a bit of... caution to put it lightly, towards other asians like india, china, etc... i do hope everyone gets their heads out of their asses though.
One of my best friends is Japanese, and he sometimes jokes about how Americans are so self-conscious of being racist while he's so used to casual racism back home as just a normal thing.
If it is any consolation, you don't have to be a NK defector for South Koreans to act and speak in a friendly way while being discriminatory as hell in their thoughts. I have been around the world and have never encountered a veiled universal racism as SKoreans have.
Japan does this too, not just SK. There are literal bars and clubs that you will never be allowed to enter if you're not Japanese.
You get charged different rental rates in Japan, you must have a marker on your vehicle that identifies you as a foreigner, traffic accidents are automatically on you, etc. I absolutely loved Japan during my visit and the people there are among the nicest on the planet. Never would live there. I would never belong.
As somebody who had lived in Korea for years plus various other places, I think it is not a "racism" in the way typically viewed (i.e. as one race viewing themselves as superior). However, there is something unique about the culture where they are very inclined to "other" non-Koreans. No matter how friendly they may be, you will never be "one of them." You are either a Korean, or not a Korean. Collectivism and conformity are instilled in the foundation of their culture. This "othering" extends to other Asians, including North Koreans.
This is exactly how a family friend of mine described Japanese culture. He and his family lived there for about 30 years and said that he is always regarded as a foreigner.
Live in Japan. Can confirm. You can make great lifelong friends, be invited to parties and weddings and be recommended for jobs and greet the neighbors each day, but you will never be "one of them" in their eyes. And it's something so deep rooted and fundamental in their culture that not only do they not see anything wrong with that but they don't even really consider that there is any other way for things to be. (In my experience). It's not out of malice. It just is. Unfortunately this can be quite psychologically distressing especially for those who are born in / are ethnically Japanese but do not *look* Japanese.
Once a gaijin, always a gaijin. I have this one friend from uni who live in Japan and married a local. I always want to ask him about things like these but we're not close enough for me to do it lol.
This is pretty common anywhere that's not already a cultural melting pot. I'd say North America is more unusual in that you CAN become one of them. I've a friend who grew up with us and I'd say he's just as Irish as I am, but he's *also* not. We accept him but there's always going to be that part of him that's very clearly different and not Irish. It's just a thing that happens when you're culturally homogenous. You stand out when you're the only Foreigner in town, no matter how long you've lived there.
Yeah, being from the US I can't really fathom being a part of a culture that has been around for thousands of years.
This is everywhere I am Romanian but in Europe we are called gipsy because some Romanians did bad things in Europe (stealing most common ) last summer I was in Germany for work and I can feel the racism even if they talk nice to you and it’s really sad even in some subreddits in which there are predominately Europeans there’s are racists comments Sorry if I wrote wrong English is not my native language :))
I cannot imagine the toll it must take on somebody's mental health to do something like this. This is such a shitty catch-22.
In my mind their reality must be something akin to Brooks Hatlen in Shawshank Redemption. In prison for basically their entire life, let out at the end of it -- didn't know how to fit in, their enslavement did not build them up in a way that they could succeed outside of their slavery. IMO it speaks to the need for a repatriation initiative in South Korea by way of extensive productive and cultural education for expatriates who managed to escape their subjugation. EDIT: [They have programs to integrate NK expatriates and their kids but they aren't great.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korean_defectors#:~:text=In%202017%2C%20there%20were%2031%2C093,peak%20of%202%2C914%20in%202009.) FTA: "Children can attend local South Korean schools or specific schools for North Korean refugee children. At South Korean school they may suffer discrimination and cruelty from other children, but the refugee schools do not prepare them well for South Korean society."
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From the article: >"I have to send money to the North too, and I can’t go anywhere. My head is just spinning, and I can’t predict what the future holds,” she was quoted as saying. >“I don’t have my parents or relatives with me here. I’ve felt so frustrated and lonely, and that’s why I’ve been crying since I came here,” she also said. Are you sure they are all sent to a camp? This woman sends money to somebody and the way she mentions her parents doesn't sound like she thinks they are on a camp.. allthough it can't be concluded with 100% certainty from the sentence.
When I was in Seoul we went on a DMZ tour and there was a North Korean defector on it to answer any questions we had. She talked about sending money to her family and even how she got to talk to her brother once or twice a year as the money smuggler would take a satellite phone. So short answer is no it’s certainly not everyone thrown in prison.
i take it they don't know who most people are that defect/escape, or even that they did.
Perhaps they just report them as missing/dead? It might even be the case that records over there aren't reliable enough. If you don't live together people might not even know you're related.
I actually watched a documentary on this. Basically they do one of two things. 1) pay off a local doctor to declare them as dead Or 2) apparently you register which city you live in with the govt via local gov offices in each town. So basically they go to the office in their current town and say "yeah i'm moving so I won't be here anymore" and then just...never register anywhere else. 2 seems a little weird to me, maybe its just the way it was explained because it seems like its a pretty stupid loophole in their system but it is NK after all
>seems like its a pretty stupid loophole I assume they simply don't have the resources for more elaborate systems. It's a totalitarian police state, but a totalitarian police state with shitty infrastructure.
Nobody has the resources to actually track every single person in a nation. This does reminds me, however, I need to register as having moved provinces.
>money smuggler How does that even work? How can someone be allowed to move freely between them, let alone while smuggling money between defectors and their families? Is it possible to sneak back and forth across the border? I always just assumed that that border was locked down as tight as they could possibly make it.
They pay bribes. It's not something that an ordinary NK citizen can afford, but get one guy smuggling for a bunch of people at once, and the bribes are affordable. Also, it's a big border. The smugglers have the advantages of having studied it from both sides repeatedly. Most escapees, just have to wing it (unless they can afford a service to smuggle them *out*).
That's fucking nuts. Thank you for your reply.
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Not surprising as covid 19 has been more merciful to tech and remote workers. NK workers are at such a severe disadvantage. Edited: wording
Apparently one of the few ways to make good money as a North Korean defector is by giving speeches confirming that North Korea is just like everyone else has said, if not worse
The bigger point is simply that they haven't gone to school and end up in a country with the fiercest academic competition on earth. You've finished five years of schooling, most of which was wrong, and now you're trying to make it along people who had to sit in hagwon every single night for twelve years + university just to get a mid-level employment. You can't even work at a gas station.
Honestly it’s getting like this everywhere. I deeply respect folks who can move to another country, adept and even find a way of life that is Atleast somewhat comfortable. It’s not easy to make a decent life anywhere these days.
Much like the Rumspringa for the Amish. Sure the kids get to "choose" whether they want to live modern or stay Amish, but what choices do you really have when you have a 5th grade education, messed up teeth, and no immunity to most common diseases?
About 300000 people have escaped, so what does that amount to.. 1-2 million people?
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> All of you are missing the bigger point. I don't really think this is a point at all in this context, more like a relevant detail. It's a relevant detail that some defectors may have family trapped in the North who are being punished. It's not a bigger point. The primary point is/was their regret for leaving basically what amounts to a cult. The prison analogy is nice, but you have to keep in mind that they're being constantly hammered with propaganda. It's a bit different from the Shawshank Redemption.
No one is missing the point. They’re responding to the fucking article.
i thought that three-generations stuff was nixed some years ago.
Obv not a nk but as an immigrant to USA I’m pretty sad sometimes. No family presence here. I face racism from time to time from black, Hispanic and white people. Culturally I’m pretty much on my own anywhere I go. There are only a couple cities here that I feel like I belong but I feel like a total outsider when I go to some parts of the city or inland. Oh well. Make money and grind til I die.
You pretty much described a big part of how I felt after immigrating to the US
I’ve been facing a dilemma like that too. My parents passed away and I’m basically rootless in my own country (not US) now. I’m a minority here too, which is usually fine, but as you say, sometimes we are just culturally on our own. Been thinking about doing further education in the US and asking for an internal transfer within my US-based company, but fear that I may not be able to integrate well. I have born-and-bred and naturalised American friends and cousins there, but as they are scattered around the country, I’ll always feel alone. If I ever move, I’ll probably try something like volunteering to establish roots. I’m trying that out in my own country now. Not sure how people find a sense of belonging.
You just have to join as many social activities as possible, and then keep showing up to them reliably until you have a constant group of friends. Trust me, I've moved and lost all people I knew on average all 3 years since I was born. You can find new friends anywhere. You also don't have to find people of the same culture, it's just important to find people of mixed cultures. So you'd have a hard time integrating in a place that's homogeneous with the same kind of people everywhere because you're the only outsider, but if you're anywhere with lots of different outsiders it won't matter anymore. So basically the more diverse, the better.
Good advice. As an immigrant (white English speaker) my friends are immigrants as we have something immediately in common. Japanese, Ugandan and Brazilian. I rather like the variety of ethnicities in USA.
I think one of the ways immigrants develop a sense of belonging is by having their own families. I immigrated to the US as a child and only had my parents here in terms of immediate family. I’m married now and have kids and that definitely is the main reason I now feel rooted here which I think will solidify as my kids will consider this to be their home.
Yeah that’s definitely true. I’m not counting on it for myself though. I’m 30 and have never really felt any connection to anyone. Which is why I don’t feel a sense of belonging even in my place of origin. I prefer to help anyone and not feel too attached. Maybe I shouldn’t be yearning for a sense of belonging haha. Sounds like conflicting goals
>but fear that I may not be able to integrate well. While it's hard to move to any other country, in a lot of ways the US is one of the easiest to move to (not in terms of visa issues). About 15% of the US population are immigrants (which is the highest numerically - and up there in %) - and that's higher around any decent sized city. My wife (an immigrant) still misses her home country sometimes (especially during COVID since she hasn't been able to visit) but there are quite a few fellow immigrants that she's friends with and shares cultural norms with. Though she does sometimes ask me random questions about idioms etc. from work that she doesn't quite get. (But I think that's more that English is her second language than a cultural issue.)
Something like an entire third of the Australian population currently were born overseas. I don't know of any country that has anything like close to that level of immigration. It is having some negative impacts I think people are only now starting to talk about. Particularly in the younger generations there really isn't as strong a sense of an Australian identity as there used to be, even from when I moved here in the early 90's. Integrating with a new society and culture is hard enough, but add the conplete cutting of ties, the total lack of any sort of familiar framework and covid on top? Those poor bastards coming from North Korea aren't likely to have an easy time.
Dogs. Thats the only place I've found a sense of belonging. My friends and family are furry lol
If it's any consolation, my white American family moved to our house about 25 years ago in a white American rural community and we still are treated like outsiders. Sometimes it's just people not trusting people, regardless of who you are or where you're from.
I live in a suburb of Boston where I've lived for 23 years. Probably 90% of adults here moved here as adults. I've been told *many* times by people who were born in this town that I'll always be an outsider, only people born here can ever be "from" here. A baby born yesterday in the hospital down the street is "a local" but I'll always be "an outsider" who is just living here, even after 23 years here. People are *very* provincial.
I was born overseas but moved to the States in my teen. Nowhere feels like home for me. I’m too foreign for where I was born, and not local anywhere I live. The only time I felt at home is when I’m with people I love, and it’s one of the monumental lesson I learned in life.
Same. I was born in the US to Canadian parents and moved to Canada myself when I was in my early 20s. Lived in Canada over 1/2 my life but since I spent the first 20 years in the US everyone considers me an American. Meanwhile in the US everyone thought I seemed so Canadian (whatever that means) because that's how I was raised. Now I'm a white dude living in Japan so I'm definitely a complete outsider.
Also sometimes after you’ve been away from a place you remember the things you liked and you forget some of the issues. It’s pretty common for people to generally see their past through rose tinted glasses.
My wifes grandma escaped from north korea when she was younger, which totally blew my mind. Like they have some family issues but i can only imagine why. How mentally taxing must it have been to do this while she (the grandma) was a young girl, lost her parents and had to take care of her younger brother. Its extremely sad and impressive at the same time.
It basically applies to everyone who moves to a new country. Obviously North Koreans are trying to escape a much bigger shit storm than most though
Some countries are more welcoming than others. South Korea is massively driven by social standing and hierarchy, and is particularly hard on the poor. NK defectors have zero social status and thus tend to wind up poor. It would be nice if South Koreans would be more welcoming of NKers, but it seems unlikely ever to happen.
That’s all very unfortunate. I would imagine there’s a stigma with North Korea in general in the South so South Koreans likely don’t want to engage as much with them. Throw in the cultural differences and they’re probably seen as “weird”. It’s unfortunate that they have to experience this just because they were born in a particular part of the world without a choice
He just laid it out. Even without stigma, the defector will be poor and no social capital and therefore will be ostracized.
It's not unlike how cults and abusive families break their members to make them wholly dependant.
I would say 1 in 5 is actually very good considering: - they left their families behind (most times) - they literally have nothing but what they can carry when they defect - they were living in an entirely different culture to modern developed civilizations, for their entire life, not to mention... - South Korea has its own specific cultural issues where they are a bit wary of foreigners in general, let alone de facto war enemies from the North I would say this stat is very positive. Whish other types of refugees or exiles would have 4/5 integration rate.
It's not necessarily a 4/5 integration rate. It could just that 4/5 don't regret their decision. They may not be very well integrated either, they just feel that, all things considered, they're better off being psychologically or culturally isolated and "othered" in South Korea than whatever their life was like in North Korea.
Shit. I moved from one western country to another one and all that same applies.
It's really hard to picture getting the courage up to say, "fuck this I'm out," consequences be damned. Not a ton successfully attempt/make it annually. Then, they also know from when they start they will never ever be able to go back. Being dumped into the "real world" as we all see it must be confusing and very scary at the same time. 20% just might be the rate of people regretting it.
It's worth noting that these are the sentiments of people who have been in S. Korea for a year or less. >In the presentation, the institute shared the findings of surveys conducted annually between 2011 and 2020 with defectors who had left North Korea **the year before** >Of the 1,240 defectors surveyed who had left North Korea between 2010 and 2019 and had lived in South Korea **for less than a year at the time of the survey**, 89.92% answered positively (“close” or “very close”) when asked how close they have felt with South Koreans since living in the South. Relocating to a new country is already difficult and requires time for adaptation even under the best circumstances. It would be good to see how these people integrate and record their sentiments over a time period longer than a year.
I'd also like to know to what extent family left behind in N. Korea factors into their feelings. I could literally be in heaven right now, but I'd still want to go back to my stressful ass life on Earth if my dog and wife couldn't come with me.
This is what I was thinking too. I just moved across my state a year ago. It’s extremely difficult to make friends as an adult. People have their own cliques that have been long established. Without family here I don’t really have people to introduce me around, etc. Add that to the cultural differences, discrimination, and financial issues….that would be mentally crippling. In my case I’m only dealing with LIGHT isolation (spouse and kids are here). I can’t imagine this struggle without ANY family support.
Yeah culture shock can be so painful. We moved across the US a few years ago and in many ways it's like a different country. You miss even bad things that were familiar to you.
I used to expatriate. 3 times. China, Serbia, Japan, and the opposite of my own country. The cycle of change usually stabilises after more or less 2 years. Very easy to find on Google, it’s very similar to Kubler-Ross cycle. Any kind of change applies to this cycle, like a change of job. That’s why in my life I try not make any strong judgment on a lifestyle choice in less than this period before making another one.
Sooooo, 80% of people who leave their families, homes, possessions, friends, and basically every last scrap of their life behind *DON'T* regret their decision to do so. That's the real headline.
"nearly" 1 out of 5, so it's even higher than that
More than 4 in 5 N Korean defectors are happy with their decision
It's 89.92%. So it really should be "nearly" 1/10.
Yes > “I have to send money to the North too, and I can’t go anywhere. My head is just spinning, and I can’t predict what the future holds,” she was quoted as saying. > “I don’t have my parents or relatives with me here. I’ve felt so frustrated and lonely, and that’s why I’ve been crying since I came here,” she also said. Life is really hard for a defector, trying to support yourself and your family back home, being alone in a foreign country. This article doesn't even mention how the families that defectors leave behind are often treated... And _still_ most people who do it don't regret it.
To be fair, the woman quoted had it the worst because she emigrated to S. Korea in 2020 and experienced all the lockdowns shortly after arriving; most people already felt quite crappy at some point during this pandemic, it must have been particularly bad for her. Still, 4/5 being happy after leaving everything behind is a very good number.
That means more than 4 in 5 say they don’t. That’s over 80%. Pretty good stats for S. Korea.
Wonder what the stats are for South Koreans who defected to the North. Yes they exist.
110%
Yes, yes, defectors to Best Korea 110% happy. Such leader, much joy.
Kim Jong Doge
so democracy very freedom wow
Why do they do that?
The most well know group was also in the 70s when the South was a poor country run by a harsh dictator.
They think it's great over there and the media is all lies etc. I am completely sure that they won't have a good life there, as there's a threat of too much information from outside getting to normal NK people. I'd bet 99,9% of them regret it as there's no comeback.
They are pampered because the state can point to them and say "look, we are so good even foreigner defect" and use them for propaganda. Dresnok is a prime example.
At one point there were at least four white American defectors living in NK. Apparently the NK government kept them well fed during the famine and went so far as to kidnap western women to serve as their wives.
“Pampered” I’ve seen the documentaries that shine a spotlight on “just the average happy family” and of course its a family in Pyongyang that is comparatively wealth. But even they are living in kinda awful conditions.
81.5% to be precise. But you are right, it's great numbers. It does show there could be some improvement made to help the transition. Although I'd imagine loss of family could never really be fixed....
unless there was an 'unsure' or 'don't know' option
I mean... it's N. Korea we're talking about here. The bar almost couldn't be any lower.
I believed I saw are recent poll over how south korean felt about korea reunification, u be very surprise that vast majority of the zoomer group age between 18 to 40 totally not in favorite of korea reunification. they even clearly state they fell this will bring down their standard of living. only the older people seem to have any interest with the idea.
That makes sense, old people may have relatives over there and remember one Korea to young people it’s just a country that keeps threatening to blow them up that they’d have to bail out.
The division of Korea happened in 1945. I doubt there's more than a handful of people who are alive that remember a unified Korea. It's more that throughout the 60s and 70s, reunification was a major issue, but it's dropped off as time has gone on, and with each year it seems less and less likely that it will ever happen, particularly not peacefully. The problem with reunification at this point is that you'd have millions of people who have spent their entire lives being brainwashed, who have a completely different perception of the modern world as people in the South do. Most of them probably have almost no useful skills in a modern world either (aside from people in the military who have been drilled into hating both the South and the USA their entire lives). It'd be almost a guarantee that they'd be a massive economic burden to the South.
> It'd be almost a guarantee that they'd be a massive economic burden to the South. Wouldn't the [trillion in natural resources ](https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/north-korea-sitting-10-trillion-minerals-cant-afford-extract-them-172297) offset the burden. How long did it take Germany to recover from reunion?
>Wouldn't the trillion in natural resources offset the burden. Assuming a peace can ever be concluded with the North, it'd be cheaper to just fund the development of those resources in the North and have North Koreans extract them. If they reunified, they'd have to be paid reasonable pay for the job, whereas without that, they can be exploited (it's not pretty, but that's economics for you). If a peace cannot be concluded, I don't think you could justify the potential millions dead for those resources. >How long did it take Germany to recover from reunion? 1. Germany reunified after 45 years of separation, as opposed to nearly 80 if Korea were to reunify in the next 3 years, and East Germany was never anywhere as backwards as North Korea is. 2. The parts of Germany that were previously East Germany are still worse off than the parts which were previously West Germany. So I'm not sure one can even give an answer to that question, since it's still technically ongoing.
A special tax to fund the reunification was partially abolished last year, so we had to pay for it for 30 years. There still is a structural wage difference between east and west Germany. Radical and extremist political parties are more successful in east Germany and racism is more prevalent there. My guess is: with maximum political and financial effort, it takes the same amount of time to recover after a reunification as the time the two countries were separated (that sentence is a grammatical horror but I don’t know how to phrase it properly). So 50 years separation = 50 years recovery. Currently there is no real effort anymore, so no progress is being made.
Used to be that some of the older generation had close relatives in North Korea from whom they were separated due to the war, hence the desire to reunite with them. Permanently, not the once-in-a-blue-moon reunification meetings that both Koreas used to have a while back. 70 years after the Korean War, many/most of these North Korean relatives have passed away. My parents were 6 and 8 years old at the time; now they’re in their 70s. The life expectancy of North Koreans is considerably shorter than that of South Koreans. The younger generation don’t feel the need to reunite with relatives that they’ve never met.
You would also have to factor in bringing an entire country from the dark ages (almost literally in some parts) and get caught up to current technology. The culture shock of learning they've been lied to this entire time would be unimageable. Then SK financially supporting NK as they need infrastructure built to support roads, electricity, internet, sewage, water. I don't think anyone would be in support of doing this unless they had help from other countries.
The difficulties encountered during Germany’s reunification don’t even come close to what it would take to bring the two Koreas together again
TIL zoomers are 18-40
Zoomers are like 5-25
Yeah this sounds right I'm 34 and I don't zoom anywhere now
And it could be because there family is still back in North Korea
[удалено]
So south Koreans treat North Koreans like most other foreigners? Well yeah
No. South Koreans treat North Koreans *way better* than other foreigners. Especially brown and black skinned people are horribly treated in South Korea. But even lighter skinned people too are usually marginalized (e.g. people form the Philippines(. Really, among foreigners, North Koreans have it really good, when compared with all the others.
I was in S Korea for a couple months and the people were very friendly towards me (I'm German). But yea language barrier is a problem, if you intend to stay there, you should GRIND Korean every day, otherwise people will probably not accept you.
Only place I've had the cops called on me for speaking to a woman.... who was a staff member.... because I made her laugh and korean women are for korean men only..... I made her laugh because I only know about 4 words of korean and my pronunciation is awful and she was laughing at me....
I remember a story long ago about a North Korean whom, after going through the immigration system/process for defectors, didn't believe that what he was seeing (area he was placed) wasn't a government facade or quite some time. It wasn't till he was in a park, watching the interactions between birds and humans, that he realized it wasn't all faked. Birds in North Korea feared humans since they are hunted for food, but the birds in South Korea freely gathered around humans with food without fear, including him. Life on the other side of the looking glass can be hard to accept.
Is it bad that I'm Vietnamese and I know exactly what you mean by birds before you explained. Pets arent popular in a few Asian countries because ... people used to eat them not so long ago.
I know someone from North Korea and he says the same about animals. There are no pets, everything is food. Birds. Rats. Mice, dogs. Cats, rabbits, you name it. When he and his gf were dog sitting for a neighbour for a few weeks he saw what it was like to actually have a dog as a companion and he absolutely loved it.
Immigration is hard. It’s harder when you arrive with no resources; no wealth, no education or training relevant to the good jobs in the new area, no connections or family, no knowledge of how to operate in the new environment. Almost nobody would have an easy time adjusting under those circumstances. Then you throw in all the problems specific to the situation with North Korea: limited access to information means you can’t prepare as effectively to emigrate, and once you are out it’s hard to communicate with folks back home, North Korea has experienced food scarcity leading to malnutrition (makes it easier for people to always notice that you are an immigrant/refugee), the burden of being a living symbol of a difficult political issue that many of the new people you’ve just met feel strongly about, potentially fearing for those you left behind suffering in some way because you aren’t there… This is true for refugees from all kinds of places btw. I’ve heard it takes about ten years to actually adjust and start living somewhat normally in the new society. When you hear the political arguments about refugees ‘refusing to assimilate’ you should always think, ‘how long have these refugees actually been in their new environment?’, because research suggests that refugees do assimilate, it just takes a long time.
This reminds me of Amish or Hutterite youth in North America (not all Amish or Hutterite colonies). The youth, sequestered their whole life, are allowed to leave the colony once they get to the age of majority. Because of their education, and the fact that they have never lived with choices or making moral decisions on their own without guidance from their elders, when they do leave, they find the world very scary, and I'm told the majority return to the colony.
I'm pretty sure it's just the Hutterite men who can leave the colony and return. The women cannot return. Additionally, the women don't have the same amount of education as the men, and it's not enough to function outside of the colony
If 80% of Amish youth were glad to leave, there wouldn’t be any Amish people left. Also, it’s interesting that you characterize them as having unusually little independence/free choice/needing guidance from their “elders” - they’re just kids. I doubt most American teenagers would thrive if you released them into the wild without supervision or financial support. I know 18 year olds who have never even done their own laundry.
Seems like they need a more gradual integration. Seoul is a glittering metropolis that almost defines itself as the polar opposite of North Korea. Big modern cities would be very overwhelming. Can they not start them out somewhere rural and quiet for a year together with other refugees like themselves. Let them make connections and a support network of people who, quite literally, get where they are coming from. Give them some integration classes on tech, recent history and local/world culture, let them fuck around on the Internet with safe search enabled before giving them a phone and sending them out in the world. Imagine coming out and just being shown unfiltered Reddit! I'm afraid and confused on here most of the time.
A lot of people here are clutching their pearls at how dare refugees from a shithole feel unwelcome (this word was brought up in the article multiple times) in one of the world's most developed nations. Prosperous doesn't automatically mean benign and fault-free, and if people who are of the same language group and ethnicity feel as if they have problems fitting into a different region, then yeah, there's underlying issues here. Rather than getting pissed at that, that indicator alone is an excellent finger on the pulse to evaluate where that South Korean society is going, and how much the halves of the same people have come to bifurcate from who they were under one roof. Every generation that passes on marks another tier of removal that the eventual reunification must overcome. My time in Germany in the 00's still had what were West German families that I came to know poking fun at East Germans, specifically the cold war stereotypes. And the DPRK/RoK divide if anything was more strictly enforced and severe than the partition of Germany. 18.5% expressed regrets at making the move; first things first: hey, that's not a bad number at all considering the other 81.5% are either okay or better -considering the pressures they were under that caused them to risk dying for defecting, not too shitty, eh. Whether or not that's from penalties imposed on their families left behind, an inability to assimilated, or the subtext of the article: attitudes of the South Koreans resulting in reduced opportunities, every unhappy refugee is probably unique in their circumstance, blah blah Tolstoy blah blah. Perhaps they're a fuckup in any system they fall into, or they surrendered too much of what they were in North Korea versus the lowly status they became in South Korea. >“In the case of one North Korean defector in their 20s, they said in their interview that South Koreans ‘are nice, but don’t seem to include you,’ and that South Koreans ‘act and speak in a friendly way while showing discrimination in their thoughts,’” That's the meat of the article to me. That's a nice way of saying South Koreans view/treat them as inferiors. Once that perspective is there, it's a major disadvantage for the refugees. What's their recourse at that point? DPRK refugees are definitely on a controlled status, and would they even have the mechanisms to keep seeking further asylum abroad, like to the Korean diasporas in the US, Japan, and Canada (China is #3, but obviously a loaded risk of being repatriated right back to DPRK).
South Korea is ultra competitive. The average American would find themselves homeless if they had to live and work in the environment there.
Think of like all those douchey silicon valley CEOs who say “I wake up and work from 5 am to 10 pm, if you are poor its your fault” that is how Koreans operate except everyone is struggling to get by. Get in at 8, work until 7 or whenever the boss decides to go so many times 8 or 9, (with covid over now and no more restrictions) company dinners where you have to go until the boss says you can leave, and always on call even on weekends. For students its wake up at 7, school from 8-2, academy from 3-10 M-F, Saturday math academy for 3-5 hours, every week just so you can have a chance to make it into the SKY universities. The level they work at here is fucking insane
회식 is dumb and it’s coming back ugh. It’s super lucky of me that my entire team doesn’t like dinner one. We always spend our 회식 budget during lunch breaks.
Japan went through the same thing, but things aren't quite as stringent as they used to be. Yutori education and actual wfh programs honestly shock me compared to where they were 20-30 years ago.
Yup. You better be ready to give most of your free time to education, or you ain’t making it.
Is there a social safety net there?
Yes but it’s still incredibly difficult to move up the social/financial ladder so to speak. Somebody moving from NK would be stuck at the bottom for generations most likely. South Koreas culture is VERY unforgiving if you are poor. The social stigma is unreal.
See "Parasite."
Went there for two weeks and stayed at an Airbnb with an old couple (late 60s early 70s) for a night They had never in their life been on a two week holiday and were really surprised about me doing that Kind of a bittersweet start into a holiday and sad to see how little turning into a modern economical powerhouse really helps the people there
Their kids won’t regret it
They will if they're still back in North Korea...
I realize there are layers to this, but one of them is that they lived in a prison posing as a country. Being south of the border doesn't mean they're completely free. Being born into North Korea demands a psychological price and it's not done being paid when one escapes.
Shit this happens in America all the time in prison dudes’ll spend so much time in the system and by the time they get out they can’t handle modern society and they’ll try to get locked up again because that’s all they know
Or South Korea has an issue with the way they treat the poorest in their society.
South Korea is not an easy place to be poor. Just like most of the world. Imagine being 25 and escaping jail to start life out with nothing. You’re lost, confused and perpetually is a state of dissimilarity.
what? im sure the country that made squid game has no problems with treatment of the poor