LIFE UNDER KIM JONG UN
MANY NORTH KOREANS THOUGHT THEIR LIVES WERE GOING TO IMPROVE WHEN KIM JONG UN BECAME THEIR LEADER ALMOST SIX YEARS AGO. BUT THE HOPE OF GENERATIONAL CHANGE IN THE WORLD’S LONGEST-RUNNING COMMUNIST DYNASTY HAS NOT COME TO FRUITION. IN SIX MONTHS OF INTERVI
When Kim Jong Un became the leader of North Korea almost six years ago, many North Koreans thought that their lives were going to improve. He offered the hope of generational change in the world’s longest-running communist dynasty.
But the “Great Successor,” as he is called by the regime, has turned out to be every bit as brutal as his father and grandfather before him. Even as he has allowed greater economic freedom, he has tried to seal the country off more than ever, stepping up security along the border with China and stepping up the punishments for those who dare to try to cross it. And at home, freedom of speech, and of thought, is still a mirage.
In six months of interviews in South Korea and Thailand, The Washington Post talked with more than 25 people who lived in Kim Jong Un’s North Korea and managed to escape. These refugees provided the fullest account to date of daily life inside North Korea and how it has changed — and how it hasn’t — since Kim took over from his father, Kim Jong Il, at the end of 2011.
Their names have been withheld to protect their family members still in North Korea.
In theory, North Korea is a bastion of socialism, a country where the state provides everything, including housing, health care, education and jobs. In reality, the state economy barely operates anymore.
People work in factories and fields, but there is little for them to do, and they are paid almost nothing. A vibrant private economy has sprung up out of necessity, one where people find ways to make money on their own, whether through selling homemade tofu or dealing drugs, through smuggling small DVD players with screens called “notels” over the border or extracting bribes. The university student, now 37, from Sariwon. Escaped in 2013: “North Korea technically has a centrally planned economy, but now people’s lives revolve around the market. No one expects the government to provide things anymore. Everyone has to find their own way to survive.” The farmer, now 46, from Hoery
ong. Escaped in 2014: “We lived in the city centre, but we rented some land in the foothills of the mountains and grew corn there. During planting and harvest season, we would wake up at 4 a. m. and walk three hours to reach the farmland. We’d take a little break for lunch or a snack, then work until 8 p.m. before walking home again.
“Doing the weeding was the hardest because we had to get rid of them by hand. And we’d buy beans from the market and make tofu that we’d sell from our house. Our profit was less than 5,000 won ( 60 cents at the black market rate) a day. But because the bean price fluctuates, sometimes we were left with nothing at all.”
Tens of thousands of North Koreans now work outside the country, in lumber yards and garment factories and on construction sites, in China, Russia and other countries, earning foreign currency. Generally, two-thirds of their pay goes to the regime, and they’re allowed to keep the rest.
The construction worker, now 40, from Pyongyang. Escaped
in 2015: “I wanted to earn money for my family and buy a house, so I paid US$100 to bribe my way into an overseas construction job. I was sent to St. Petersburg. We lived at the construction site and would work from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., or sometimes until midnight in the summer, then we’d go back to our dormitory to eat. We worked seven days a week, but we could finish early on Sundays — 7 p.m. — and that was nice.
“My whole purpose for being there was to make lots of money and go home proud of my achievement. I still remember the first time I got paid. It was 1,000 rubles. When I finished work at 10 p.m., I went to the store and saw that a bottle of beer was 27 rubles. I thought, ‘ Wow, I’m rich.’”
As the economy and the rules that govern it change, there are more and more grey areas that can be exploited. That means illegal trade and activity have blossomed, too. The drug dealer, now 46, from Hoeryong. Escaped in 2014: “I did so many things that I wasn’t supposed to do. I worked as a broker transferring money and connecting people in North Korea with people in South Korea through phone calls. I arranged reunions for them in China. I smuggled antiques out of North Korea and sold them in China. I sold ginseng and pheasants to China. And I dealt ice ( also known as crystal meth).
“Officially, I was a factory worker, but I bribed my way out of having to go to work. If you don’t operate this way in North Korea, you have nothing.” The doctor, now 42, from Hyesan.
Escaped in 2014: “The salary for doctors was about 3,500 won a month. That was less than it cost to buy one kilogram of rice. So of course, being a doctor was not my main job. My main job was smuggling at night. I would send herbal medicine from North Korea into China, and with the money, I would import home appliances back into North Korea. Rice cookers, LCD monitors, that kind of thing.”
The farmer: “Technically, you don’t have to pay to go to school, but the teachers tell you that you have to submit a certain amount of beans or rabbit skins that can be sold. If you don’t submit, you get told off continuously, and that’s why students stop going to school. The kids are hurt just because the parents can’t afford it.”
The fisherman, now 45, from Ryongchon. Escaped in 2017: “I lived through all three Kims, but our life was not getting any better for any of us. We all have to pay for Kim Jong Un’s projects, like Ryomyong Street (a residential development in Pyongyang). We had to contribute 15,000 North Korean won per household ( more than four months’ salary) to the government for that street.”
THERE WERE LONG PERIODS WHERE WE DIDN’T GET PAID. I ONCE WENT FOR SIX MONTHS WITHOUT GETTING ANY SALARY AT ALL. WE LIVED IN A SHIPPING CONTAINER. WE WERE GIVEN RICE AND CABBAGE AND ONE EGG PER PERSON PER DAY. — CONSTRUCTION WORKER
The drug dealer: “My main business was selling ice. I think that 70 or 80 per cent of the adults in Hoeryong city were using ice. My customers were just ordinary people — police officers, security agents, party members, teachers, doctors. Ice made a really good gift for birthday parties or for high school graduation presents.
“It makes you feel good and helps you release stress, and it really helps relations between men and women. My 76- year- old mother was using it because she had low blood pressure, and it worked well. Lots of police officers and security agents would come to my house to smoke, and of course, I didn’t charge them — they were my protection.” The construction worker: “There were long periods where we didn’t get paid. I once went for six months without getting any salary at all. We lived in a shipping container at the construction site. We were given rice and cabbage and one egg per person per day, and we had an electric coil in our container that we could cook on. We needed some protein because our work was so hard, so we started buying pigskin at the market because it was cheap.
“Washing was like a special occasion. But if you went to the bathhouse, you would miss out on work. Once I didn’t bathe for two months. We didn’t think anything of it. It was just the way we lived.”
The phone connector, now 49, from Hoeryong. Escaped
in 2013: “I watched lots of ( s muggled) movies and soap operas on USB sticks from the market. I would plug them into my TV. Vendors who are selling ordinary things like batteries or rice or whatever, they hide the USBs inside under the counter. When you go into the market you say to the vendors: ‘ Do you have anything delicious today?’ That’s the code. USBs are also good because they are so easy to hide, and you can just break them if you get caught.”
The fisherman: “In the past, if you watched Chinese movies on USBs you were OK. You got put in a labour camp only if you were caught with South Korean or American movies. But now, under Kim Jong Un, you get sent to a labour camp if you’re caught watching Chinese movies, too. The police and the security services and government officials live better these days. The more people they catch, the more money they earn.”
It is impossible to overstate the pervasiveness of the personality cult surrounding the Kims in North Korea. Founding President Kim Il Sung, his son Kim Jong Il and his grandson, the current leader, Kim Jong Un form a kind of holy trinity in North Korea. There is no criticizing them or questioning the system — at least not without risking your freedom and the freedom of your entire family. Your life itself could be at stake. The elementary schoolgirl, now 7, from Ryongchon. Escaped in 2017: “We got gifts on Kim Jong Un’s birthday: candy and cookies and gum and puffed rice. I was so grateful to him for giving me all these sweets. We would stand up in class and say, ‘ Thank you, General Kim Jong Un.’” The university student: “We had ideological education for 90 minutes every day. There was revolutionary history, lessons about Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il, Kim Jong Un. Of course, they taught us about why we needed nuclear weapons, and they would tell us that we needed to make sacrifices in our daily lives so they could build these weapons and protect our country, keep the nation safe.
“I was so sick and tired of hearing about all this revolutionary history, I was so sick of calling everyone ‘comrade.’ I didn’t care about any of that stuff.” The young mother, now 29, from Hoeryong, escaped in 2014: “Everybody knew that Kim Jong Il and Kim Jong Un were both l i ars, that everything is their fault, but it’s impossible to voice any opposition because we are under such tight surveillance. If someone is drunk and says Kim Jong Un is a son of a bitch, you’ll never see them again.”
The doctor: “It’s like a religion. From birth, you learn about the Kim family, learn that they are gods, that you must be absolutely obedient to the Kim family. The elites are treated nicely, and because of that they make sure that the system stays stable. But for everyone else, it’s a reign of terror. The Kim family uses terror to keep people scared, and that makes it impossible to stage any kind of social gathering, let alone an uprising.”
North Korea operates as a vast surveillance state, with a menacing state security department called the Bowibu as its backbone. Its agents are everywhere and operate with impunity.
The regime also operates a kind of neighbourhood watch system. Every district in every town or city is broken up into neighbourhood groups of 30 or 40 households, each with a leader who is responsible for co- ordinating grassroots surveillance and encouraging people to snitch.
The young mother: “People in each neighbourhood association are always checking up on each other. If one family seems to be living better than everyone else, then all the neighbours try to find out how they are making their money. Everybody is sensitive because if someone seems to be living well, then people get jealous of that house. Nobody has to be asked to bring that wealthy family down and make sure that this wealthy family loses their money. When you see a family lose their house, that feels good. That’s why it’s important not to show off how wealthy you are.”
For those who ran afoul of the regime in ways that money could not solve, the punishment could be harsh. Those accused of economic crimes — which could involve any kind of private enterprise — are sent to prisons and often made to do hard labour, such as building roads by hand.
The phone connector: “The first time I went to prison, I had been caught helping people make phone calls to their relatives in South Korea. I was sentenced to four months’ hard labour, building a road on the side of a mountain that they said we needed in case there was a war. The men did the digging and the women had to carry rocks and soil.” Escapees f r om North
Korea’s gruesome political prisons have recounted brutal treatment over the years, including medieval torture with shackles and fire and being f orced to undergo abortions by the crudest methods. The teenage prisoner, now 22, from Hyesan. Escaped in
2013: “I was interrogated by the secret police, and they wanted to know about my mother’s business. They were slapping me around the face again. They always go for the face. I was beaten severely that time. They pushed me so hard against the wall that I had blood coming from my head. I still get a headache sometimes.
“While I was there they made me sit with my legs crossed and my arms resting on my knees and my head always down. If you move at all or if you try to stretch your legs out, they will yell at you and hit you. I had to stay like that for hours on end.” The money man, now 43, from Hyesan. Escaped in 2015: “In 2015, a money transfer went bad — the woman I’d given the money to got caught and she ratted on me — and I was put in detention. I spent two months there. I wasn’t treated like a human being — they beat me, they made me sit in stress positions where I couldn’t lift my head. Two times they slapped my face and kicked me during interrogation, but I was not beaten up badly. Maybe because I was not a nobody, maybe they feared that I knew someone who could get back at them.”
Starvation is often part of the punishment, even for children. The 16-year-old lost 13 pounds in prison, weighing only 88 pounds when she emerged.
The teenage prisoner: “We got up at 6 a. m. every day and went to bed at 11 p.m., and in between we would be working the whole time, shovelling cement or lugging sacks, except for lunch. Lunch was usually steamed corn. I was too scared to eat. I cried a lot. I didn’t want to live.” The phone connector: “Even though we were working so hard in prison camp, all we got to eat was a tiny bit of corn rice and a small potato. By the time I got out, I was so malnourished I could hardly walk.”
It is this web of prisons and concentration camps, coupled with the threat of execution, that stops people from speaking up. There is no organized dissent in North Korea, no political opposition.
The drug dealer: “If you make problems, then your whole family gets punished. That’s why people don’t want to make any trouble. If I get punished f or my wrongdoing, that’s one thing. But it’s my whole family that would be put at risk if I did something. North Koreans have seen that Kim Jong Un killed his own uncle, so we understand how merciless he can be. That’s why you can’t have an uprising in North Korea.” The university student: “The secret to North Korea’s survival is the reign of terror. Why do you think North Korea has public executions? Why do you think they block all communications? Why do you think North Koreans leave, knowi ng that they will never see their families again? It shows how bad things are. All our rights as people have been stripped away.”
WE HAD IDEOLOGICAL EDUCATION FOR 90 MINUTES EVERY DAY. THERE WAS REVOLUTIONARY HISTORY, LESSONS ABOUT KIM IL SUNG, KIM JONG IL, KIM JONG UN. OF COURSE, THEY TAUGHT US ABOUT WHY WE NEEDED NUCLEAR WEAPONS — UNIVERSITY STUDENT