Lingerie, secret tunnels, and chickens: a North Korean defector's tale
When Han defected from North Korea, his odyssey began in an unusual way - a thriving trade in illicit South Korean lingerie.
In 2008, underwear was among the necessities in short supply in the North, and Han - then a lieutenant colonel in the North Korean army - was looking to secure some for his daughter, Han Ock, who was in her early 20s.
At the time, Han - who insisted that only his surname be used, to protect his relatives who are still living in the North - was assigned to an army company at the Kaesong Industrial Park, where South Korean firms employ workers from the North. Though the park has been closed and reopened a number of times over the years, as ties between the neighbours wax and wane, it was in full swing while Han worked there, and enforcement of regulations was often lax.
Get the latest insights and analysis from our Global Impact newsletter on the big stories originating in China.
"In the beginning, we stuck to the rules and stayed away from Southerners. But we are all humans and we naturally became close to each other as time passed by," Han, 63, told This Week in Asia in his first sit-down interview.
The parents of some of the soldiers under Han's command worked on the famous ginseng patches of Kaesong, and he asked them to bring some ginseng back for him when they returned from holidays at home - which he then traded to South Koreans for daily necessities, including lingerie.
At first, Han limited these illicit transactions to a few pairs that he sent home to Han Ock in Pyongyang, but he soon expanded to entire boxes of underwear.
"My daughter was mesmerised by the well-designed, pretty lingerie from the South and she boasted of them to her friends. Later on, she began to sell them to her friends for a good profit," he said.
North Koreans walk past the Ryomyong Street residential development in Pyongyang in 2017. Photo: AP alt=North Koreans walk past the Ryomyong Street residential development in Pyongyang in 2017. Photo: AP
But it did not take long before Han Ock, who was then working as a nurse at a military hospital, began to suspect she was under surveillance by the authorities in Pyongyang.
She asked her boyfriend, who was a chauffeur for an army division commander, to drive her as well as her mother and brother to the border and transport them across the Yalu River into China.
Border guards waved them through, believing they were an army commander's family, and her boyfriend returned to Pyongyang alone.
Han's family travelled to the southern Chinese province of Yunnan, crossed the border to Laos and eventually reached Thailand, where they entered the South Korean embassy. But Han did not know this - when he returned home in April 2008, it was as if his family had disappeared.
It was only months later that he received a phone call from Han Ock, made with the help of South Korean intelligence agents and informants, telling him that his family was alive and well in Seoul.
"We all knew the South was prosperous and I also had a mind to come to the South," Han said. "My daughter's call was decisive in pushing me to abandon my 38 years of military life in the North and defect to the South."
He was supervising North Korean workers at a logging project in Russia when he heard from his daughter, and was soon escorted by guides hired by what he believes was a South Korean evangelist pastor all the way from Russia to Thailand via China.
From left to right: Han's wife, Han, his son-in-law, Han Ock, and his wife's niece at the family's sausage-casing plant. Photo: Park Chan-kyong alt=From left to right: Han's wife, Han, his son-in-law, Han Ock, and his wife's niece at the family's sausage-casing plant. Photo: Park Chan-kyong
Han took refuge at the South Korean embassy in Bangkok. He flew from there to the South in 2009 on a chartered plane, which he shared with 29 other North Korean defectors who had also taken shelter in the embassy.
After arriving at Incheon airport, he was granted a brief reunion with his family, before being debriefed by intelligence authorities for an unusually long period of seven months. He later received a reward of 300 million won (US$275,000) for handing them military secrets.
This included Han divulging that the North had built six tunnels across the border to the South before 1998 for infiltration in case of a war. Three of them had already been discovered, but the other three were only found after his tip-off.
A defence ministry spokesman said no additional infiltration tunnels have since been found, although the authorities were always eager for more such information.
With the remuneration, Han bought 9,000 square metres of land in the southern county of Seosan, where he settled with his family - including his daughter, who married her boyfriend in 2012, after he fled the North with his widowed mother.
Han currently works at a window panel plant in Seosan during the week, while also caring for his patches of cabbage, tobacco, corn and sesame. He also raises chickens and, with his family members, operates a plant that produces bean-based sausage casings.
He once raised 30 dogs at his farm to eat, as dog meat is popular in the North and even sold as a delicacy at restaurants in Pyongyang - but his neighbours were not amused.
"I didn't know it is not allowed here to butcher a dog for consumption. I butchered one of them to share the meat with my friends and someone in the neighbourhood reported me to the authorities," Han said, wryly. "I was consequently slapped with a 500,000 won fine for animal abuse."
Since then, he has kept a discreet distance from others in the area. "That's okay because I am too busy to mind what others think of me," he said, proudly pointing to his greenhouses and facilities for drying tobacco leaves.
In the years before former North Korean leader Kim Jong-il died in 2011, thousands of North Koreans fled the country to escape poverty. They crossed the then-porous border with China, with North Korean security guards often looking the other way in return for a fistful of dollars.
Things changed after Kim Jong-un succeeded his father, with the new leader tightening border controls and curtailing freedom of movement - resulting in fewer defections to the South.
Kim Jong-un cracked down on border controls after taking power in 2011. Photo: AFP alt=Kim Jong-un cracked down on border controls after taking power in 2011. Photo: AFP
The Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated this situation, reducing arrivals from North Korea to a trickle. Just 135 people reached the South in the first quarter of this year, down 41 per cent from a year earlier, and the 12 North Korean arrivals from the April to June period marked a drop of 93 per cent from the previous year - the lowest since 2003, when the relevant figures were first tallied, according to South Korea's Unification Ministry.
The case of Han's family is exceptional in that their defection to the South involved most of his extended family and that they successfully settled in the South, unlike many other North Koreans.
Many of the 33,000 North Korean defectors living in the South complain of poverty and chronic illnesses, as well as loneliness and homesickness. The latter two are often given as reasons for suicidal impulses; according to the ministry, eight North Koreans took their own lives last year.
But Han's daughter, 32-year-old Han Ock, said she had never regretted coming to the South.
"It was a good decision. You can make money here as much as you push yourself and you are free to choose what to do," she said, while feeding crushed beans into a machine extruding a long strap of sausage casings. The family's modest plant in Seosan is now equipped with 120 million won worth of machinery, including some imported from China.
At one corner of the plant, Han's two grandchildren, aged seven and three, lolled about under electronic heaters as they watched cartoons on mobile phones.
"Things are different here, though, and they speak in different accents. I find it rather unpleasant that many South Koreans harbour prejudices against North Koreans living in the South," Han Ock said.
"And it costs too much to educate my daughter," she said, adding that she had to spend large sums to send her to cram schools for mathematics and English, a must-do for many South Korean primary schoolchildren to prepare for the tough competition for a future place at a good university.
This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
Copyright (c) 2020. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
