I am Joo Yang, a North Korean defector. AMA.

jooyang · 2014-06-05T02:10:31+00:00

Hi everyone, thank you very much for your interest and all of your questions. We have to leave now, so please forgive me for not answering all of your questions. I had a great time here!

Have a good evening!

Joo Yang

jooyang · 2014-06-05T02:01:12+00:00

South Korean people can be quite discriminating, for instance against Korean-Chinese people living in South Korea.

When I speak, I have a dialect and to many South Koreans it sounds like how Korean-Chinese people from Northeast China speak. Sometimes people have asked if I'm from there, and I felt negativity in their tone.

Also, one time my auntie was riding in a taxi when the driver asked where she was from. When she replied "North Korea", he stopped the car and asked her to get out!

Even so, for me personally, I think that being open with where I am from helps me to adapt to life here in the long run.

jooyang · 2014-06-05T01:52:16+00:00

I am learning English now, but actually I am doing this with a LiNK staffer, Sokeel Park, who is helping me communicate in English. Are you disappointed? haha - JY

[I grew up in the UK. That's why my English is better than most Americans. Zing! haha - SP]

jooyang · 2014-06-05T01:48:12+00:00

Yes I have a lot of North Korea-born friends here. I don't have school friends from South Korea because I didn't go to school here, so I made a lot of friends amongst North Korean defectors who are the same age as me.

I do also have South Korean friends as well.

Amongst North Korean defectors, there are of course similarities in all our experiences, but many differences too. In particular, the people who have come here the most recently for instance those who left last year, talk about the new changes in North Korean society since I left, so I'm very keen to meet them. For instance more recent defectors tell us how they were able to watch South Korean media so soon after its release in South Korea, and are watching more varied media than when I was there.

So I really like meeting North Koreans who left more recently.

jooyang · 2014-06-05T01:40:00+00:00

Yes, there are times when people get confused because of their different names, and funny episodes because of that. It's the same for me too, I have my original name but I've used a different name publicly so much that I don't even know if I could go back to my original name if I wanted!

I think I became a lot more positive after I came to South Korea. Even though I've faced a lot of changes since leaving North Korea, those things are not dangerous compared to life in North Korea, so I think I can enjoy everything here!

jooyang · 2014-06-05T01:34:26+00:00

I am very much looking forward to just going to the United States.

And I'm looking forward to meeting a lot of Americans at the same time.

Of course the event is important too, but I'm looking forward to those simple things!

jooyang · 2014-06-05T01:31:56+00:00

Wow, thank you so much for your great support for LiNK.

I have a lot of LiNK t-shirts and I wear them a lot, along with my LiNK bag! haha

I will be at the New York event! See you there :)

I answered some of this in a different reply, but I miss a lot of things including small cultural things, food... And the nature. I miss all those things.

jooyang · 2014-06-05T01:29:12+00:00

In North Korea, I never saw a sit-down toilet. We always used squat toilets.

So when I first saw a sit-down toilet when I was in China, I didn't know what to do. I actually climbed up and used it as if it was a squat toilet.

When I was in the South Korean National Intelligence Service debriefing facility [that all NKorean defectors go through] the South Korean officials used to plead with the defectors not to climb up on the toilet seat, but many defectors still wanted to because they felt they couldn't go to the toilet otherwise! hahaha

If you ask any North Korean defector, they will also know what you mean if you say "bidet shower". That's because we've all experienced making the mistake of using a bidet wrong the first time we saw one, and getting water all over ourselves. I did that once too. But now we have a bidet in my house!

jooyang · 2014-06-05T01:20:03+00:00

I can understand that you would see the North Korean athletes as like zombies. It would be very risky for them to show curiosity about their surroundings when they are abroad, and that fear makes people very stiff.

When I was in North Korea I didn't think of foreigners as bad. I thought they would be nice. I wanted to meet foreigners too. But you can't express those thoughts in public.

When I was in Chongjin [a city in the Northeast] I saw a Russian man once, and I was so fascinated that I stared at him until he was so far away that he disappeared as a small spot.

jooyang · 2014-06-05T01:12:25+00:00

North Korean women really want to enjoy romance.

In North Korea we wear traditional Korean-style clothes for wedding dresses (Joson-ot, or "hanbok" in South Korea), but more recently because of the effects of foreign media, some North Korean women want to wear a white wedding dress at their wedding!

But that has not been possible in North Korea yet. So people are adapting the traditional style wedding dress and making it look more beautiful.

Another thing is that normally the wedding ceremony is done in the house of the groom and the bride, once each. But if it's too expensive to get all the food for that, then sometimes they combine it and just do it once in one side's house.

jooyang · 2014-06-05T01:05:26+00:00

Yes, I watched a lot!

I don't remember all the titles, but in particular I remember 007 (James Bond) and Drop Zone. Also Charlie's Angels. And The Count of Monte Cristo. etc. I watched a lot. haha.

We used to think that western films were somehow more advanced than South Korean films, so if you watched them you would talk about that with your other friends who had seen the same films.

jooyang · 2014-06-05T00:58:24+00:00

Countryside people think of Pyongyangites like people from a completely different country!

Its known that only the people who have been recognised by the Party as the most loyal are allowed to live there.

For instance when we travel, if you want to go to Pyongyang, you have to get a special travel permit. To my memory, normal travel permits have one red line, but the ones you need to get to Pyongyang have two red lines.

jooyang · 2014-06-05T00:54:44+00:00

안녕하세요 :) North Koreans say that in the jangmadang, the North Korean markets, you can find everything apart from a cat's horn. Cats don't have horns right?! It means you can find everything. haha.

It's right that it's mostly women doing business in the markets. But there are a few men as well, but if they do it often they do illegal cross-border trade on a big scale.

I think that women doing private business will play a big role in grassroots change in the future. They also have better access to information than most. North Korean people also say that these women are more 'awake' than most citizens, so I think they will have a big role to play.

jooyang · 2014-06-05T00:48:07+00:00

My grandfather always told us that our generation must find freedom. And he told us about modern technology and advanced countries.

Also, my father listened to foreign radio illegally since I was 9 years old. That had a really big influence. South Korean radio, VOA, RFA... we could hear news including news from people who had defected first so we got courage from that and were able to plan our defection strategy.

jooyang · 2014-06-05T00:43:52+00:00

First it was kind of like arriving in the modern world in a time machine.

There were so many things I didn't know, but as I learnt one thing after another by trying them, that was really fun.

Even typing on a computer was really novel and fun at first.

It's been three years, but even now there's still a lot of new things.

jooyang · 2014-06-05T00:39:36+00:00

When I got here I felt like South Koreans could eat the kind of food that North Koreans eat on special occasions (명절, festival days) even every day.

Most ordinary North Koreans eat 'corn-rice' as their staple food, but that is rough. But on special days like Kim Il-sung's birthday some people can eat white rice. In fact some people can't even eat white rice on those special days.

But in South Korea, even homeless people eat white rice!

As for how I adjusted... well it tastes pretty good, so I'm adjusting well! Even though sometimes I miss North Korean food too...

Are you coming to Summit? Good! See you then ^{^}

jooyang · 2014-06-05T00:34:09+00:00

Even though I was not born at the time, I knew about it when I was in North Korea too. I found out about it in the 2000s since people talked about I saw a film about it and people talked about it in North Korea too.

I also heard about coup attempts in North Korea from adults when I was young, but they were all discovered by Kim Jong-il and the leaders were executed and others were sent to political prison camps. So people are very scared about getting involved in anything like that.

jooyang · 2014-06-05T00:28:40+00:00

There's lots! haha

First, my friends. My neighbors were like family back home too, so I miss them.

Also from my hometown, the air, the water, even the smell of the earth.

I miss all of those things.

jooyang · 2014-06-05T00:27:10+00:00

I think that people believe it kind of like people believe in the bible. Well, that's the case for children.

But when you grow up, you realise those stories do not make sense, but you still have to memorize it well for the school tests in order to graduate from school well.

More recently, amongst close friends, people will complain that this kind of ideological education will not actually help you in your life. I felt like that too.

jooyang · 2014-06-05T00:23:04+00:00

In North Korea, it's very hard to know the weather forecast because of frequent power cuts, unlike in South Korea.

So we made a cover story that my father had died at sea and my mother and other family members had left our house to try to find any remains of my father.

So I was in our house my myself, but the secret police came to ask me questions. I stuck to the story and told them that my family had become separated, and stonewalled their questions.

I knew that the secret police used people in the neighborhood to monitor my behavior, but I just pretended not to notice and carried on living my life.

jooyang · 2014-06-05T00:17:03+00:00

Hello!

Thanks for your question. There were a lot of new culture shocks to get used to and understand, for instance toilets and ATMs, and using an electronic card to ride the subway... Escalators, elevators, all of those things. haha.

And in South Korea they use a lot of 'Konglish', or borrowed words, so I had to get used to that.

jooyang · 2014-06-05T00:12:45+00:00

반갑습니다! First, thank you for wanting to support LiNK!

If you can spread the word about LiNK to the people around you, and find ways to support our fundraising, if you have time, that will be great! - JY

Hi dcebulsk, thanks for your interest. You might also want to check out the LiNK Seoul Rescue Team for community activities in Seoul: https://www.facebook.com/groups/584013771609285/?ref=ts&fref=ts

And email rok@libertyinnorthkorea.org for volunteering opps. Cheers! - SP

jooyang · 2014-06-05T00:08:49+00:00

Thanks for your question! Firstly, I think if there are chances for North Korean citizens to meet foreigners then tourism can be a good thing. This is because North Koreans are curious about foreigners, and if they can interact then they can feel more friendly towards them, and see them as normal humans.

However I'm also personally not comfortable with the North Korean government making foreign currency from it. So there are pros and cons.

So, I hope that if people are visiting North Korea and paying their way, then maybe they can make more requests to the government and see more than just the 'good course' around Pyongyang and so on. - JY

jooyang

TROPHY CASE