Seong Guk a North Korean Refugee in exile looks back at his homeland

There is an old Korean proverb which says, “Even rivers and mountains change so much in a period of ten years.” I think it meant that nothing is unchangeable in the passage of time. Change is necessary because it is the driving force for the evolution of all living beings in nature. Although everything might change with time, there is one thing that does not change. It is nostalgia for the past. About ten years ago, I lived in Cheongjin, a little coastal city in the northernmost part of the peninsula. It’s a pretty little town surrounded by mountains, a river and the ocean. Blessed with the beauty of nature, my childhood there was happy. I listened to different birds chirping in the morning and sometimes in the quiet evening, I could hear the whistle of faraway ships in the ocean. The town bustled with a lot of activities during the day. I took my mother’s hand when I first went to elementary school. There were times when I played hooky and went to the seaside with my friends. We were punished by our teacher the next day. On holidays my family sat around and played our traditional yut games in the house. When I was older, arriving at puberty, I felt my heart throbbing when I brushed past a pretty girl on the street. These are the memories of my childhood in the north and it is like my little treasure box that I open from time to time when I feel lonely, but I have no one to share with. When I was in high school, we often took part in a mass calisthenics, especially to congratulate our leader Kim Il-sung’s birthday. We were also mobilized to work in the country. One time we worked for two months, weeding and planting rice seedlings in the fields. We worked under the slogan of ‘Socialist Construction’ which inspired us to devote our youthfulness to the leader and the socialist country. We were up at six and went to the Statue of Kim Il-sung to sweep the square and take an oath of loyalty to the leader. I still have my family there in the north, including my adorable nieces and nephews. I miss them all. It’s almost ten years since I left home. In the winter of 2000, I left my hometown where I had lived for 20 years. I came to South Korea, the southern half of the only divided nation in the world.. Only in recent years, the divided halves began to help each other on many issues. However, when I first got here, things were quite different. Those who wanted to have a dialogue with the north were simply condemned as ‘Red Communists.’ I never imagined the South was so cold and hostile towards the North. I thought I saw another North Korea in the south. It seemed the hostility between the two countries was now too deep to be reconciled. It’s deplorable that for these 60 years of division, we’ve never come up with any solution to settle the mistrust and animosity of homogeneous people. We can see in this book the graphic reality of the North. The author tries to focus his lens on the inside of the North Korea which has been covered in veil, starting from Panmunjom at DMZ. He does this scrupulously and impartially from the viewpoint of a third party. He seems to be searching for answers to why the country still remains divided after so many years and what might be a solution for the country to be reunited again. Even in the daily activities of little children, it isn’t difficult to find the spirit of their socialist ideology. But the photos seem to tell us, “Yeah, this is what I look like. So, let’s get to know each other better.” Among the photos, there are many things that indicate that we are more in common than we are not, providing confidence in us that we could be reunited someday.

A Glimpse in to North Korea
In early 2004, I was made aware of a ten day tour going to North Korea, organized by the Korean Friendship Association. This tour had the added benefit of allowing journalists to accompany and would involve extensive travel throughout North Korea. Tours of North Korea are usually limited to very specific tourist stops and very little to no interaction with the North Korean public, this tour had a little bit more flexibility in sites visited as well as the possibility to interact with locals on a limited basis. As a photojournalist, I try to keep an open mind and an open eye. Much has been written about the various problems in the North Korean regime. This tour would obviously not be showing us any such dire situations and no matter how controlling a dictatorship is, they can’t control everything at all times. That said, having covered and documented some of these issues I was more interested in the daily hum drum lives of North Koreans, who, generally put their pants on one leg at a time like the rest of us. There is a minds eye picture in the world of North Korea as a ruthless military state, its citizens foaming at the mouth, bent on the destruction of the west. This vue has great advantage from a military stand point and making a military strike much more palatable for the outside world. A similar strategy was used to great effect not too many years ago with devestating results for the average citizen just trying to make ends meet. I decided to tackle my introduction to North Korea at face value and present what I saw how I saw it, without embellishment leaving it up to the viewer to draw their own conclusions.

Nayan Sthankiya, is a photojournalist represented by Zuma Press – who at his other pictures at www.nayansthankiya.com