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The students at this boarding school are slaves to a punishing routine. They're woken for
exercise just after six - and apart from a couple of free hours, they're studying till
nine at night. It's lights out at eleven -- and seven hours later it starts all over again.
The students here are all defectors from North Korea -- and they have a lot of catching up
to do.
Everything is a challenge.
Gwak Jong-Moon is the Principal of Hangyeore Middle and High School.
There's psychological confusion. There are physical ailments, which are due to malnourishment.
For example, the osteoporosis rate is 64%. Students are about 14cm shorter than in South
Korea and they're too skinny. Poverty... All they have are the clothes they stand up in.
Most of the students here didn't want to be identified. They still have family in North
Korea who could be punished if they were exposed as defectors. But those with nothing to fear
agreed to show their faces.
Do you know how many defectors there are in South Korea?
A thousand.
5000.
20,000.
Yes, 20,000. Currently there are 20,000 defectors in South Korea.
Ten years ago there were less than a thousand North Koreans here, but since the late nineties
famine has driven many to flee.
Is there anybody who left North Korea in 2007?
Not me.
In 2007? Put up your hand.
Just last year more than 3,000 arrived in the south. Many of the children who come have
missed out on years of education, and have difficulty adjusting. The government is worried
about the long-term costs if these students fall through the cracks. So it set up the
Hangyeore School four years ago -- despite strong opposition from local residents.
They lived all their lives with anti-communist ideologies and it wasn't easy for them to
change. When it was announced that the school will be built here there was a huge commotion
because they said a communist school was being built, in their eyes... We think of communists
as having horns or being scary... They were worried that there would be a lot of criminals.
They thought of this school as a kind of prison.
With state-of-the art facilities, a wide range of classes and devoted teachers, Hangyeore
is far from a prison. But there's no doubt many of the students need to "unlearn" their
childhood indoctrination.
A collection of school textbooks from North Korea gives some idea of what they've been
taught.
"The Childhood of the Great Leader Kim Jung-il." and "Preparing for War."
The little tank is going. Away goes our tank.
Shooting the American ***. Away goes our tank.
Do you learn social studies?
About communism and socialism.
Did you lean about history? ...
Yes, world history. Kim Jung-il's history.
Kim Jung-il's history? Kim Jong-il's birthday is.....Feb 16.
Yes. The day we get gifts.
You get presents on his birthday?
Yes.
They let go of the brainwashing and the ideological education they'd internalised as soon as they
arrive in South Korea because they themselves realise how useless all that brainwashing
and ideological education is.
Does anyone come from Musan?
Shin Ho-Rae is the school's social studies teacher. He thinks that while these kids have
a lot to learn, they also have a lot to teach South Koreans.
I gather that some of you have actually seen public executions.
I have.
Have you really?
At a market.
Weren't you scared?
It was OK.
OK?
The number who have witnessed public executions... is around 70% to 80% And the number who have
seen family and relatives starve to death is in the vicinity of 82%. What they've experienced
in North Korea exceeds anything we can imagine.
What education did you get in primary school?
I didn't go to school.
So what did you do instead?
I was just working.
Just working... Where was that and what kind of job did you do?
It was farming work.
Oh, farming. Did you make a lot of money?
No, just money for food.
Is there a need for food in North Korea?
Yes.
So it's quite common for people starve to death in North Korea?
Yes, many. Where I was, many people died.
No grass to eat?
There isn't even any grass to eat? You pick some up and put it in a pot with lots of water
and you add a little flour and boil it, like a soup. You use plenty of water to make it
seem like a lot. Your stomach fills up right away but very soon you're hungry again.
It was hunger that drove tens of thousands of North Koreans to escape. They ended up
in China -- sometimes begging for money and food. This Dateline story from 2000 showed
provides clues to what life was like for some of the kids from Hangyeore.
Defectors escaped to China by sneaking across the Tumen River, which marks North Korea's
northern border. They lived in hiding from the police -- terrified of being returned.
Though we don't have a house, living like this in hiding, at least we eat rice, which
is rarely available in North Korea, even for well-off families. We just hope we don't get
caught.
Everything else is fine, except for the fear and distress.
Those sent back were labelled traitors and ended up in a labour camp - some were even
executed. In order to survive, the refugees were forced to make unbearable decisions.
These parents had already put their two daughters in an orphanage and here they're filmed giving
up their son as well.
It wouldn't be so bad if we'd parted without crying. When the girls left, I knew it was
for their own good. I walked away without crying but this is so painful.
Soo-hwee and her husband had left their young daughter in North Korea when they fled.
What did you tell your child when you left?
I just put her to bed....
Soo-hwee lived on the run, hiding from suspicious neighbours. Still, she wanted to pay people
smugglers to bring her daughter to China.
I believe that some day in the future, the hardship will be justified. My family will
be together some day and we'll talk about the hardship we endured. I cling to that hope.
This is Soo-hwee now. Ten years later she's living in South Korea -- with her second husband
and three new children. Getting here wasn't easy. In 2002 she was arrested and sent back
to a North Korean prison; but she bribed her way out -- and took her daughter with her
when she fled back to China. A year later she flew to South Korea.
I was so anxious. Then, when I heard, "We are nearly there, we're now over Korean territory"
I was told to look down. The moment I looked down I cried. It's hard to describe that feeling.
Now I feel safe. When I first came, even when I heard the wail
of the police sirens I was frightened and I had to ask myself, "Am I really in Korea?"
I was like that. Sometimes even when sleeping I'd wake up when I heard a strange noise.
Then I'd say, "Ah, I'm in Korea."
In order to reach South Korea from China, most defectors need to first make their way
to another country where they can claim asylum. The students at Hangyeore have travelled through
much of Asia -- sometimes without their families - in a single-minded search for safety.
When you came to Mongolia did you use a car or walk?
I walked.
What did you find most difficult?
There were fences. We had to get past those.
Did you climb over them or cut through them?
We climbed. It was painful trying to hang on. It was so hard climbing over and holding
on tightly. And if you can't find your way, you get caught and killed. Some of the fences
are curved and it's dark so you get confused and end up climbing the same fence. I went
over one three times.
Three times?
But I got there in the end.
You made it.
Yes.
After they arrive in South Korea all defectors are brought here -- the Hanawon resettlement
centre. The government built this place in 1999 in order to deal with the large numbers
of defectors who'd started arriving. After studying what happened in Germany when the
Berlin Wall came down, the government wanted to be ready, just in case.
We learned that we needed to prepare for the cost of national reunification.
Yoon In-Jin is a sociology professor who advises the government on its resettlement program.
The small number of North Korean defectors in Korea can be a litmus test of our ability
to achieve social and psychological integration after national unification.
Security at Hanawon is tight, and I wasn't permitted to film the residents' faces. During
their three-month stay here, they're given a crash course on life in the south, and equipped
with some of the skills they'll need to survive. The centre's Director-General, Youn Miryang,
says it's never enough.
No matter how much we educate them the difference between north and south is too great and what
they have learned all their lives really doesn't help here in the South
Culture shock... you
can't even call it that. Because the difference is so vast they don't even realize it and
they just fall into culture shock.
South Korea might share a language, culture and border with it is northern neighbour -- but
it's hard to imagine two more different worlds. Plagued with shortages of food and fuel, North
Korea is a closed and repressive regime, where the state trumps the individual every time.
South Korea is a high-tech wonderland -- and one of the most fiercely competitive societies
in the world.
The biggest challenge for them is adjusting to the competitive society. Everything is
new to them. We even have to teach them how to vote in Korea. They expect the state to
provide for them but in South Korea one has to compete. It's not the government, but it's
up to individual to make ends meet and this is what is difficult for them.
Defectors do receive generous financial support form the government, but they still struggle.
In the early days, when I was in Hanawon, I thought I wanted to get away from there
quickly. But once I came out of Hanawon, people who would come out of Hanawon before told
me that "you'd wish you were back there again."
After 60 years of separation there are big differences in language and culture between
the two Koreas. Defectors say they're discriminated against and often have trouble finding and
holding down a job.
It was hard. It was very difficult for two or three years. I felt a bit lost. I thought
about going back. "What if I was in China? Maybe life in China was better."
Young defectors find it especially hard because of the South Korean obsession with education.
Success here is measured by how you perform in your exams and what university you get
into.
Studying is a big headache. It's too hard. Not only is studying tough but adapting to
life here is very hard. I've thought many times that I might go back to China. Go back
to China and enjoy an easy life. I think we're studying too much here.
I came out of Hanawon about 2 months ago. I don't know anything. Whenever I go to my
father's house he keeps lecturing me, "This country is a hard nut to crack." And the way
I feel here, I agree.
It often seems daunting, but these young defectors know that if they apply themselves here they
can achieve more than they ever dreamed of in the north.
In North Korea there is limit to how successful you can become. Children of senior officials,
they naturally think that 80 -- 90% will become senior officials. The children of labourers,
they can only get up to their parents' level. The limit is already set.
Today's the last day at school before the Autumn harvest festival, Chuseok - and the
students are making traditional rice cakes. Chuseok's one of the most important holidays
on the Korean calendar, celebrated in both the north and south. It's a poignant time
for the defectors, because traditionally this is when families come together and visit the
graves of their ancestors.
During the festive season like Chuseok or New Year's Day, I used to cry. I'd have a
drink at home and feel nostalgic. We'd get drunk at Hanawon and reminisce about the old
days. We'd just get more homesick and say, "I miss my mum" or "I miss my dad"
It's taken her almost 8 years - but Soo-hwee finally feels like she belongs in South Korea.
She has big ambitions for her children -- and they're ambitions she has in common with many
South Korean parents.
I hope this one becomes a doctor. That's what I hope. I have big expectations for my fourth
child. I hope... she becomes a celebrity or someone famous. I hope she'll benefit us.