New generation, same border

While Kang’s story symbolises the division of the Korean Peninsula, it would be wrong to think such tales only belong to an older generation of Koreans.

Kim Kang-woo, 31, has also been directly affected by the division.

Today, Kim lives in Siheung, a satellite city of Seoul, but he was born in Hyesan, a North Korean city on the Chinese border. At age 22, he made the biggest decision of his life: He decided to escape to South Korea.

Kim left out of necessity. During his second year in high school, his father was beaten to death during an interrogation in a North Korean state security detention facility. His father had crossed into China to earn money for his family, which had fallen into poverty after the North Korean government implemented a currency reform in 2009, but after just a few months, he was caught illegally staying in China and forcibly repatriated to North Korea.

Kim’s dad had been deemed a political criminal, and as his son, Kim would be barred from military service, which in North Korea meant his adult life was effectively over before it began. Those who don’t serve in the military have essentially no status in North Korean society and are subjected to a lifetime of unpaid labour, with no path out.

Defectors’ relatives left behind in North Korea are held responsible for the escapee’s actions under the regime’s guilt-by-association policy. Reporting based on defector testimony describes heightened surveillance, forced relocation to remote areas and downgrades in songbun — the hereditary loyalty ranking that shapes access to housing, food and opportunity. Schooling and job prospects for the next generation are often among the first casualties. In the most serious cases, families have been sent to labour camps.

What helped convince him to leave, however, were the smuggled South Korean films he watched in secret. Most foreign films, music, and other cultural content are banned in North Korea, but in border towns like Kim’s hometown, South Korean media slips in through smugglers, often carried on small hard drives or USB sticks. Through these dramas, part of the global wave of South Korean media that has reshaped pop culture in recent years, Kim learned of a very different South Korea from the one he was taught about in school.

“I was taught that South Korea was full of poor children selling cigarettes and gum. That kids couldn’t go to school and that there were lots of shantytowns. So we thought South Korea was worse off than we were,” he said.

But after seeing South Korean TV series, particularly “Prosecutor Princess” (2010) and “Boys Over Flowers” (2009), he came to a realisation: “We had it all wrong.”

In “South Chosun,” as North Korea calls the South, ”even kids like me with no money and no connections have opportunities if they work hard. Realising that gave me the courage to defect,” he said.

Kim defected from North Korea on May 26, 2016, and entered South Korea that same year in October. He explained to Al Jazeera that he fled over the border with China, making his way to Southeast Asia from where he could reach a South Korean embassy — the most common route for escapees since crossing the heavily fortified and mined DMZ is close to impossible.

After completing his mandatory South Korean government security screening that is meant to filter out spies, and a resettlement course, he entered South Korean society in February 2017. His mother, however, had remained in the North, and he had promised to come back and free her once he made some money.

So he started taking all kinds of work, from construction to store clerk, saving enough to pay for brokers who would facilitate his mother’s escape.

In 2019, he returned to the Chinese border with a broker he had arranged to bring his mother out. But the plan fell apart when his mother, frightened and without a phone of her own, got cold feet. Kim regrouped and came up with a new plan. He figured that the only way to get her out would be to convince her himself. That meant crossing the Yalu River again, but this time from China into North Korea. So he remained near the border and watched the North Korean patrols along the river for two days before timing his crossing to a shift change.

Crossing into North Korea is extremely dangerous. Border guards have a shoot-on-sight order for anyone nearing the North Korean border, and many have not made it alive. But Kim succeeded.

Once across the border, Kim made his way, undetected, back to the house where he had grown up. His mother could not believe he came back for her, and was at times doubtful of whether she should also leave for the South.

But Kim had brought his iPhone to show her photos and videos of his life in South Korea as proof that what he had seen in dramas was true. Despite showing her evidence, such as his home, the variety of food, and amenities like a refrigerator and running water, she initially had difficulty believing him because she was unfamiliar with these technologies. But he successfully convinced her to join him.

For nearly a month, he worked in the North with brokers on both sides of the border, trying to get them both out.

His hair was dyed at the time — a strict no-no in North Korea, where even fashion and hair are regulated by the state. So he wore a cap to hide it, but he mainly just stayed inside to avoid being caught.

Then, one day, North Korean surveillance intercepted one of his phone calls, and agents came for his mother while he was away from the house. They held her, demanding to know if her son had returned. A friend hid Kim and told him to leave, for both their sakes.

Kim crossed back into China alone, and when he landed back in South Korea, intelligence agents were waiting for him. They had tracked his movements and questioned him about his stint in the North.

Then word came through a new broker Kim had hired: another attempt to get his mother out succeeded. She was on her way to him.

South Korean authorities soon arrested Kim for illegally re-entering North Korean territory, which is a crime regardless of intent.

A judge, citing Kim’s remorse and clean record, cut what could have been a three-year sentence down to six months, plus two years’ probation. His mother made her way to Seoul while her son was in jail, and when he was freed in September 2020, she was waiting for him at the gate.