Kang Chol-hwan
So I was channel surfing again, looking for some time-filler. I searched the upper, more obscure channels and came across this gem on DOC, the Documentary Channel.
It had already started, but had an hour to go. I was engrossed in mere moments. As I watched, I searched the schedule for future broadcasts, found it and set the DVR to record the whole thing. I've watched it twice since then.
The documentary’s name Kimjongilia is actually the name given to a flower, a begonia hybrid, in honor of ‘The General’ Kim Jong-il, the recently deceased ‘supreme leader’ of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. You know, North Korea.
The documentary is as notable for what it doesn’t contain as much as for what it does. It includes interviews with several defectors who managed to escape the country, often losing family members in the process. Many were interred in the now infamous prison and re-education camps, victims of forced labor, brutal living conditions, and all have experienced prolonged malnutrition.
North Korea is not a prosperous country; it has deliberately cut itself off from the vast majority of the world. Even its few remaining allies are distant and reluctant partners.
The country has suffered several famines in recent years, the plight of the already poor worsened to biblical proportions by floods and disease. During the deepest, darkest points of blight, farmers were still forced to grow opium instead of food crops to maintain the flow of cash into the government’s dwindling coffers.
The stories of atrocities brought forward by the defectors are chilling. Kang’s reflection on eating mice, when they could be found, as well as the stories of climbing the cold, wet mountains to gather roots and tree bark for food are difficult to grasp for those of us lucky enough to have been born in a more enlightened culture.
But then there’s what the documentary doesn’t show. Not for lack of motivation or effort, but for reasons of the politics of an oppressive totalitarian government. There is very little film footage of the day to day lives of the people of that country, because there is so little of it available, anywhere. This is not a technology rich nation, unless you count the fighter jets and nuclear weapons. Most of the vehicles in North Korea run on charcoal* since the country has access to only a very limited supply of petroleum. A country in which there is only one car per every one thousand people. ** (For an even more chilling image of the techno-poverty see the satellite photo of Korea at night.)
What is shown in the documentary are several state-sponsored propaganda films, the likes of which hark back to cold-war era Soviet stock. Happy workers, singing children, colorfully adorned traditional dancers, and over and over again military clad men and women, in great numbers, in carefully orchestrated shows of unity and strength. DPRK has the world's fourth largest standing military, 1.1 million of the nation's 26 million citizens are in uniform and 7.7 million are in the reserves.
Then there’s the dancer. Whenever the defectors talk of filth, hunger, beatings, massacres and imprisonment, other than a few old black and white photos, the documentary zooms in on a young, haunting, contemporary Korean dancer. She starts in military/police uniform, mid-thigh skirt, long boots, thick epaulet-ed jacket and large service cap directing the flow of human traffic. At first confident and proud, the dancer and the dance itself devolves into a morose, declining and suffering casualty of an overwhelming oppression.
The program, which premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, also teaches us some history, about the rise of Kim Jong-il’s father the ‘Eternal President’ Kim Sung-il, who, similar to many revolutionaries of the era rose up from obscurity to fight against the occupying forces.
In Kim Sung-il’s case it was the Japanese. He was born in 1910, a Presbyterian, and according to legend, rallied other Christian groups to taunt and oust the Japanese occupiers. At the end of World War Two, the Japanese having been driven out of the Korean peninsula by the Soviet Union, the power vacuum in the country led to his appointment by the Soviets as the head of the Provisional People’s Committee. This led to the Kim dynasty, currently in its third generation.
The educational portions are not too heavy, there only to set the stage for how this country ended up in its current dismal state. A state where punishment for disloyalty is meted out brutally to three generations of a violator’s family.
The tales of escape from Yodok prison, the bribing and theft required to escape the torture, are not unlike those from Nazi occupied Europe. In North Korea though the escape route is especially daunting since the border with South Korea is so heavily militarized and guarded, escape to the north, to China is the usual route. This wouldn’t be so bad, almost anything is better than starving to death or being tried and summarily tortured or executed for the most minor of slanders against the state, but China is one of those reluctant allies of which I spoke earlier. Koreans that do reach China only marginally improve their fate. They are forced to hide and bribe their way to somewhere else.
One young lady tells the story of reaching China only to be immediately sold into sex-slavery by the guide she hired to get her there.
Yet the escapees all show a tortured love for their homeland, a longing not for escape, but for reform of their former country. They also display a mature, and almost baffling sense of hope and humor. Each of the defectors portray a mix of shame, anger, horror, love and longing. Hope.
The documentary touched me, even though I, like most non-North Koreans know little about North Korea.
I do know a little about South Korea though. While stationed in Japan I was sent for temporary duty, one month, to Osan Air Base, south of Seoul. I spent a lot of time in the villages outside the base. I was by then accustomed to the near-westernized Japan. South Korea, in the early 80’s was vastly different. Still struggling to overcome a war which killed and maimed millions of people it was still under the veil of constant threat. (I recall the deafening roar of F4’s, in full afterburner-combat takeoff mode responding to a suspected infiltration. Sirens blaring, people running for assigned shelters.) South Korea of that time found itself in two different cultures. The old, still the norm in the North, and the new, the westernized, robust, capitalist economy it has become.
I recall the dozens of legless and armless old men begging for coins and scraps on the muddy streets. The hurried steps of the people as they dashed from task to task as if being chased. The charcoal-heated, run-down, scrap metal hovels the more fortunate poor lived in.
I’m sure the area has improved greatly since then, the South has enjoyed many of the fruits of liberty and commerce. The North though still struggles, even declining as the nation finds itself, and girds itself, in nearly-complete isolation.
The Korean people I have known are just people. They don’t deserve to suffer simply because of their birthright. They have hopes, dreams, family, love and laughter, just as we do. They are only different because of where and when they are.
This documentary captures the humanity of the culture. Those interviewed are not put on display as victims, though they certainly are that, but as humans. A dancer, a writer, a pianist, a wife, sister, father, brother. They survived egregious cruelty, faced layers of death, and left everything behind to seek out a better existence. An existence they could only remotely imagine, a simple existence not unlike we here in the U.S. wake up to and gripe and moan about nearly every Monday morning.
Has much changed since the new, younger leader took power? Not according to sources:
"Under Kim Jong Un, North Korea has pledged to hunt down and imprison, or even kill, three generations of family left behind by escapees, successful or not, according to Seoul's Joongang Daily newspaper."
For more information, visit the film’s website.
The film is also available at amazon.com and a schedule of upcoming airings can be found at The Documentary Channel
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* Charcoal powered vehicles: http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2010/03/03/2010030301014.html
** Cars in DPRK: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a31VJVRxcJ1Y
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