Mick Hartley

Another Daily NK interview (previously here) with North Koreans in China. Here's Park Yong Hwa, a woman in her seventies, who works with a religious group helping defectors in the town of Jian just over the border: 

– How do the North Koreans feel these days? 

Chosun people have been devastated ever since the currency redenomination. No strength remains. The only ones with positive energy and able to laugh are the cadres.

Older people have it the hardest in Chosun. As a result, many commit suicide. Their sons and daughters have trouble making a living, so the elderly have to look after themselves. Children ask their parents to leave the house. Everybody is hungry; it’s helpless. Some bad sons abuse their elderly parents. The elderly are so unfortunate, and they can’t even talk about it.

– What’s the initial reaction of North Koreans visiting China for the first time?

First they find out what freedom is. Yeah, that's it. But they get disoriented and scared, like patients. Having to deal with the different environment here overwhelms them. Seeing people jog in the morning along the river front, eat dumplings and look free and do things freely affects them. But after about a month, they get more used to it. 

The many cars on the street overwhelm them and they don’t know what to do. They say they feel like they are in a dream. They say they can’t believe what they are seeing. They ask how it came to be like this.

– Do North Koreans help each other once they come here?

No, they don’t. They don’t like communicating with each other. They can’t trust each other.

– I heard that the awareness of North Koreans has changed.

In the past, I couldn’t even talk to Chosun people. Back then they worshiped Kim Il Sung and there was not even religion in Chosun. However, after the March of Tribulation and currency redenomination, they suddenly changed. They hear North Korea is a paradise on earth but then they see deaths so it’s disturbing and confusing. People come to realize that they were lied to once they leave North Korea. They ask why their country is like that and you hear them saying “We’ve been living like fools”

Finding out what freedom is by visiting China may seem like finding out what friendly service is by visiting France, but of course it's all relative. 

This is interesting:

– What would you say is the biggest social problem in North Korea?

I would say use of drugs.

– It is that serious?

Three years back, I met someone who was selling 'bingdu'. My brother says Chosun people have had enough and this makes them look for things like ‘bingdu’, as we call it. I go there once every year to visit my relatives, and I saw people doing it myself. Even cadres do it, I hear. With white powder….

– How do the drugs get out of North Korea?

Military units on the North Korean border are involved in drug smuggling with cadres. Without help from the military units, drug smuggling is impossible. My brother-in-law is a Chinese policeman. He said to be careful of drugs. They say tons of drugs are smuggled by North Korean military units.

"Bingdu" is crystal meth. For more on crystal meth use in North Korea, see here.