Girls exposed to unification issues
GYEONGJU, South Korea — Concepts like political repression, debilitating hunger and torture are difficult for tween girls to grasp. But rules stipulating that their skirts must be at least knee- length? Restrictions on how long they can grow their hair? Now that gets their attention.
Here in the ancient capital of the Shilla kingdom, one of the realms of a fractured Korean Peninsula more than a millennium ago, about 120 students from a nearby middle school recently went on a field trip with a difference: They were learning about piecing together the current fractured peninsula.
At this “unification camp” run by an educational institute attached to the South Korean unification ministry, the 12- and 13- year- olds thought about what kinds of jobs there would be when the two Koreas reunite, they did art projects related to unification, and they watched a comedic skit in which a North Korean woman fell in love with a South Korean man. But they also got a glimpse into just how different the two halves can be — when one, the North, regulates even personal appearance.
“The purpose of this camp is to raise leaders after unification,” said Kim Jun- hee of the institute. “These are the people who will live in the time of a unified Korea so we’re trying to get them to think about
We want to focus on the fact that normal, ordinary people live in North Korea, because many South Korean people don’t know anything about North Korea. KIM JUN- HEE KOREAN UNIFICATION MINISTRY
unification.”
This is a huge change in the way South Koreans are taught to think about their estranged neighbours. Ask any group of 40- year- old South Koreans what they learned about North Korea in elementary school and they will recount stories of being told to draw pictures of red devils with horns and to write the words “I hate communists.”
North Korea is a complicated issue for South Koreans, who share the same blood, language and traditions but who, after almost 70 years of division, live very different realities.
Those in the North live in the world’s most highly repressed state, and hunger remains part of most people’s daily existence. In the South, people use their smartphones as credit cards and it’s hard to walk a city centre block without encountering some kind of protest.
Older Southerners generally remember the pain of the war or the pain of separation, but younger ones seldom feel they have much in common with the people in the North, and worry about the cost of reunification on their high- tech, consumerist lifestyles.
The 27,000- odd North Korean defectors who live in the South describe having to learn about foreign concepts such as bank accounts and the Internet, and frequently talk about feeling as if they’re viewed as country bumpkins.
But at the unification camp, Lee Sol- mi and Lee Ji- min, two unrelated 21- year- old defectors, were greeted with nothing but curiosity when they took to the stage to answer the girls’ questions. What surprised them most about South Korea? Electricity all day long. Could they marry for love? It’s possible. What about makeup? Chinese products were available, but expensive.
The girls gasped in shock at many of the answers.
The differences became more stark when the girls asked about their favourite foods in North Korea. In the South, young people can be seen in groups eating pat- bing- su: a mountain of shaved ice topped with soft- serve ice cream, red beans and various fruits.
But what did the defectors answer? Lee Sol- mi said she missed North Korean sweet potatoes, while Lee Ji- min talked about fake soybean meat.
Things took a more serious turn when Lee Ji- min talked about her time in a Thai prison as she made her journey from North to South Korea.
Even though the defectors were speaking Korean, Lee Chan- mi, the moderator, was acting as a kind of translator throughout the session — not of language but of culture. She explained how brokers helped defectors cross the North Korean border into China, how the rations system worked — or rather, didn’t work.
She also sought to minimize the differences, pointing out that just a couple of decades ago, South Korea also regulated hairstyles and that Seoul indulges in its own kind of propaganda. Eating lunch — french fries and pork cutlets — after the session, the students expressed surprise about what the North Korean defectors had to say, especially when it came to hair and makeup.
“I had only negative thoughts about North Korea and the North Korean system before, but I like them more now,” said Kwon Min- ji, 13. That was the whole point of the camp.
“We want to focus on the fact that normal, ordinary people live in North Korea, because many South Korean people don’t know anything about North Korea,” said Kim of the unification ministry’s educational institute.
It didn’t matter if the discussion highlighted the differences as much as the similarities, Kim said. “Understanding and accepting the differences counts as progress,” she said.