NorthKoreanRefugees.com

Former North Korean defector, Kim Soon Hee, now living in Japan, was shocked by a recent program, “Infiltrating North Korea under Economic Sanctions,” and was prompted to send us the following rebuttal:

The advertising catch phrase “Gaia’s Dawn” broadcast by TV Tokyo on January 21, 2020 was, “One-Year Exclusive Coverage: Infiltrating North Korea under Economic Sanctions!” 

The phrase “infiltrating North Korea” piqued my curiosity, so I watched it. I also consulted an online Japanese dictionary “Digital Daijisen” to check the meaning of the word corresponding to “infiltrating.”  According to the dictionary, it means “to penetrate secretly so as not to be discovered.” In other words, to sneak in.

After watching the whole program, I concluded that the program had nothing to do with “sneaking in.” It felt very much like a government-made program that captured, edited, and played only the parts that North Korea wants shown. At a glance, it had the same flavor typical of other North Korean propaganda.

The reason I am so sensitive about North Korea is that I was born in North Korea, where I lived until my early 20s, when I escaped. My family members still remain in North Korea, and I have no way of knowing if they are still alive or not. I know far too well the dreadful deadliness of North Korea, and I strongly feel that Japanese viewers should not believe these untruths about that country.

I tried to be very careful with the facts while writing these comments; I asked my acquaintances who have more recently fled from North Korea about current conditions there, just in case my information might be out of date.

However, other than the widespread use of mobile phones and the fact that electric bicycles now appear to be a major means of transportation, it is almost the same as it was 10 years ago. Although this is what I expected, still, I was disappointed. As it has always done, the North Korean government carefully screens overseas media teams, and those media teams chosen are never allowed to take a single frame unless they agree to follow the government’s stringent guidelines.

What never changes is, this “mysterious nation” shows only the parts that are convenient for themselves even when it accepts a request for coverage. All else is kept securely out of sight.

Let’s take a closer look at the parts of this program that were edited according to North Korea’s public relations strategy.

Is the North Korean standard of living really higher?

According to the coverage by TV TOKYO, North Korea seems to be making surprising reforms with its current emphasis on economics. As an example of the growing number of wealthy people, it showed many Chinese taxis and electric bicycles running in the city, people holding smartphones in their hands, and high-end delicatessen shops filled with crowds buying expensive prepared dishes.

Certainly, it showed that the number of taxis has greatly increased since I left the country 10 years ago, and it seems that electric bicycles, unseen before, are now widespread. And there is a wide choice of prepared foods in delicatessens. I had heard that smartphones are becoming more widespread these days, and many people were shown carrying smartphones. I felt that this a big advance from when I was in the country.

These suggest at first glance that the economy has improved due to policy reforms.

But many of them are just a part of Pyongyang (the capital city of North Korea) where many appearances are staged to project a certain image abroad. Therefore, focusing on Pyongyang will not give us the real situation in North Korea.

I also lived in Pyongyang for several years before I left the country. At that time, I often met people who led such a wealthy life style that it was beyond imagining for those living in rural areas.

Why are there so many rich people in Pyongyang? It is because Pyongyang is home to elites, including high-ranking bureaucrats, and rich people from all over the country. Many of these people have traveled abroad on government orders.

In general, North Korea does not allow its citizens freedom of movement and severely restricts even domestic movement. As a result, only a handful of very privileged people are allowed to go abroad.

Pyongyang has many such rich people, while the entire rest of the country bears the weight of them. It is no exaggeration to say that the whole population is supporting Pyongyang. Naturally, Pyongyang’s standard of living is higher than in rural areas, and there are many things that will never be seen in the countryside.

Why isn’t the abundance flowing to rural areas?

One must pass through checkpoints to enter Pyongyang. Thus, Pyongyang city is stringently separated from the provinces by a strict system of security.

The program showed scenes of domestically produced instant noodles, a catfish cultivation farm, and vegetables grown in greenhouses, many of which, of course, are for Pyongyang citizens. I heard that recently some of them have become available also at local markets.

The zoo and the swimming pool shown in the program and often featured in other television programs are exclusive to Pyongyang City. True, there are also several small zoos in rural cities, but all the carnivorous animals have starved to death, leaving only the herbivores.

The narrator also stated that the average monthly salary of North Koreans is equivalent to about 8,000 yen (about USD73). But that’s the monthly income of some executives. In contrast, the average person has never seen that kind of monthly salary.

In addition, when the interview group asked a Japanese immigrant wife in Hamhung, North Hamgyong province, “How do you get food?” she answered, “White rice and a little corn are distributed to us.” This is a lie. The local distribution system had already collapsed by 1995.

So, how do local people survive? Here I’ll digress for a moment to give a brief overview. Since men are almost always forced to work in designated and assigned occupations, their wives support their households by running tiny businesses such as trading in black market items or other side business such as peddling. As a result, people in rural areas are still trapped in extremely poor lives. In addition, I understand that Kkot-jebi (street children) are fairly common in those towns.

TV TOKYO could easily have established basic facts about North Korean society simply by asking some of those who have escaped from that country.  They did not do their homework – they didn’t check with any of the nearly 200 former defectors here. It is regrettable that the producers did not bother, and instead misrepresented false reports as truth.

Have there been any changes in the Kim Jong Un era?

The propaganda methods remain unchanged since the time of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. These include the slogan of “self-reliance,” their orchestra’s propaganda activities, the catfish cultivation farms, and the inviting of reporters to film “ordinary” households.

Didn’t the TV crew reporters feel suspicious when they saw a Japanese immigrant wife’s house or a young farming couple’s house? Everywhere seemed like rooms with no sense of life. And the children’s toys – they all looked brand new. Everyone who has raised a child knows that children start throwing, dropping, and scraping their toys as soon as they get them. However, it is obvious that everything onscreen was prepared hurriedly. It almost looks like neither the director nor the photographer was observant at all. That is why I suspect they were required to run their cameras precisely as dictated by their North Korean guides.

The publicity of the catfish cultivation farm is nothing new. I say this because, back during the Kim Il Sung era, for decades, they showed a documentary depicting the building of pig farms, in which Kim says, “I will have nothing to regret if my people can eat white rice with meat.”

Then, under Kim Jong Il, they showed us rural areas where herds of goats were being raised. In that case, for decades they repeated, “let’s exchange grass for meat.”

And now, in the Kim Jong Un era, nothing has changed except that the pig farms and goat farms have been replaced by catfish farms. He is just slavishly copying his grandfather – it’s nothing new.

The TV program also covered Hamhung, which is North Korea’s second largest city. It is rare to get permission for local coverage. I know well the area around the hotel where the reporter group stayed. This is the most beautiful place in town. There are apartments in front of the hotel, but just a ten-minute walk away is a market where the common citizens go. This is the true scenery of Hamhung. Of course, there would be no permission to cover a story there. The daily scenes there probably remain unchanged from 10 years ago, when many Kkot-jebi could be seen around ​​the market.

In the report, they said that recently, young couples often have their weddings at hotels, citing the example of a Japanese immigrant wife’s grandson. This is also a lie. There is only one hotel in Hamhung, and only rich executive families can afford wedding ceremonies there. Very rare.

As the reporting crew moved through Hamhung, several women were seen selling fruit. The narrator said that they were selling surplus peaches. I don’t think the peaches are not actually surplus items but valuable sales that support their family’s life. It is probable that the crew took the answers, exactly as given, without question, during the interview. It is clear that they know almost nothing about the actual people’s lives in North Korea.

Big change in presentation

I did sense, however, a dramatic change in the way they show things. In the Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il eras, the dialogue lines were always rigidly fixed, and in many scenes the same lines were repeated like parakeets.

In this documentary, however, they did show the women selling peaches, interviewed the young couple about their love story, and showed an executive visiting the catfish farm. At the fish farm, they told the foreman, “This is a visit without prior notice, so why don’t we show them the smoked and vacuum-sealed products?”  All these are, I’m sure, based on a script, but I was impressed by the way they improvised to make everything look natural. They have made progress.

Don’t be fooled by their “clean and safe country” tourism strategy

What I found most frightening was that North Korea is focusing on tourism, and the number of tourists is actually increasing.

The remark of a French tourist who said, “The city is safer and people are more friendly than I expected,” caught my attention. This is as big a mistake as thinking the Mekong River is safe just because you don’t see the crocodiles beneath the water.

One example is the case of Otto Frederick Warmbier, an American college student. He joined a North Korean sightseeing tour and was detained by North Korean authorities for stealing political posters. He was sent back home in a coma in June 2017, then died soon after his return. We need to keep in mind that this can happen to anyone.

Remember that the country is headed by the dictator Kim Jong Un who killed his brother and uncle.

Lastly, in the film, “Under the Sun—True North Korea,” shot by Russian director Vitaly Mansky, the occupations of the parents of the eight-year-old hero girl Lee Zin-mi differ from their real occupations. The job was depicted as full-time and was disguised as a senior position. In addition, a scenario was reportedly prepared by North Korea behind the camera, so that the story was made up beforehand even though it was purported to be a documentary. In order to reveal the real truth of all this, the director secretly filmed everything with another camera and wrapped that secret videotape around his body in order to smuggle it out of the country at the risk of his own life.

When North Korea agreed to allow Japanese TV coverage, the Japanese TV team should have suspected political trickery. Yes, North Korea restricted the production team’s actions and provided only the information they fabricated, but even so, they could have discussed matters with experts and defectors, based on the video taken, after they returned to Japan. But, they didn’t. Doesn’t this seem an amateurish way to go about things, even if it does claim to be an economic program?

It’s my guess that the TV production group felt compelled to take this approach because they feared never being allowed back into North Korea. They opted for this kind of “reporting” rather than telling viewers the truth. When a journalist starts to “surmise,” it will be just another show.

Back to the title of the TV program: “One-Year Exclusive Coverage under Economic Sanctions,” it’s like a bad joke.