Disillusioned Defectors - South Korea

Sep 1997
Fleeing starvation and a brutal military regime, defectors crossing from North Korea to the south were once national heroes. But they feel increasingly like outcasts, finding it impossible to fit into modern, capitalist society.

Kim Hyung Duk escaped from North Korea at the age of 20, his body covered with torture scars from North Korean police. But once in the south he found the alien culture and indifference of the authorities too much to bear. He was caught at the port of Ulsan stowed away on a ship bound for China, trying to go home. Defectors such as the Cho family enjoy luxuries unheard of in the north yet are regarded with suspicion by neighbours for the support they receive from the government. Others such as Kim Young Seh hold a burden of guilt. The wife he left behind in the north was forced to marry someone else. Unusually, Dr Lee Keum admits publicly that the government is not as keen on reunification as it once was. However, South Koreans are becoming less eager to take on the burden of their northern neighbours.

Produced by ABC Australia
Distributed by Journeyman Pictures

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• South
• Korea
• Fleeing
• North
• Outcasts
• Suffering
• Shunned
• neighbours
• Torture
• Journeyman
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• current affairs
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[danning1]

Shit, let the idiot go back to North Korea if he wants to. I'm sure he'll get a great welcome by Kim Jong-Il when he gets back.

[TheTollundWoman]

@joncarolyn

Re: "its Korean nature to be greedy."

Thats the most RACIST comment I've ever heard.

Koreans are no more "greedy" than the rest of humanity. Good god.

[Tenki09]

@thedstly

Maybe is time to stop being an ignorant. Study a language buddy.

[classicpiano123]

@bapyou This docu was made in 1997 so yes there were more political restriction.

[RisingStarOfKorea]

North Korea is not a country, it is the greatest concentration camp in the world . I feel so pity for the "inmates" . Let that bastard go back there . If somebody does not like living in liberty and having aboundant food every day, he deserves to be allowed back to NK.

[Jaiyeson]

@jagara1

Actually, your comment is kind of stupid. You have no idea how things work in North Korea. Your familly and friends are automaticallly imprisoned when you defect from North Korea. Just google or search on youtube from the prison/work camps in North Korea. Thats the price you have to live with should you escape from North Korea. There is no doubt any familly and close friends you leave behind will be thrown in labor camps, beaten and/tortured. Thats why many dont try and escape.

[jagara1]

This is completely stupid!

Showing defectors faces and names and pictures of their family could mean that their families get imprisoned, and worse, in North Korea!

[pstchaseki]

The post Berlin Wall era and the indifference between the East and West Germans would be a perfect example, except if the North ever collapsed and reunified with the South, it would be much worse than the conflict in Germany

[pstchaseki]

It's called CULTURE SHOCK. Even prisoners here in the United States who get out are so culture shocked and feel so indifferent with society they wan to go back. Remember the movie Shawshank Redemption, Morgan Freeman 's character talks of being "institutionalized".

[TheTollundWoman]

@joncarolyn

Re" "thats how koreans are. they get something and then they say they want more."

I have news for you: thats HUMAN NATURE. People are never completely satisfied. You're taking a trait inherent in human nature and applying it to one particular group of people as if it were an insult. You think "thats how Koreans are"?? Well, its also how Australians are, and how Americans are, and how Zimbabweans. But I guess being racist is a lot easier than being honest...