N. Korean escapees

Freedom.


Such a bittersweet story. It's amazing how this family of four managed to survive a six day, 900 km (roughly 560 mi) journey in a small boat.

"It took a week for us to come here for freedom," they said. "We headed for Japan since South Korea and North Korea have strong security on their borders. We planned to kill ourselves with the poison if we were caught by the North. We want to go to South Korea."

Dude. That's what you call determination. I can't imagine...floating in a teeny boat on the sea for six days straight, with no real guarantee that I'd even make it to any safe shore. And then to carry a bottle of poison with me, in case I decided that my trip had failed.

Bittersweet.

Sweet because it makes me more grateful that I live here, where I have so many freedoms...even if my every action online is being watched, recorded, analyzed. That's so miniscule compared to fleeing for my life, compared to floating aimlessly in a small boat, not knowing if the rest of my family or I would make it out alive.

Bitter because the reality is that there are so many people left behind on the northern half of the Korean peninsula, so many more who will never live to see anything outside of North Korea, so many more who will die miserable deaths after having lived miserable lives.

Yet all I do is sit here and type away at my laptop...

N Korea = full of

...excuses.

"Because of the intervention of foreign powers, the implementation of what is agreed upon between the two Koreas is being suspended, and the inter-Korean relationship is being edged out by foreign powers," the North's Korean Central News Agency quoted Kwon as saying in Seoul.

The North -- which staged a short-range missile test last week -- also took the South to task for its joint military exercises with the US, and urged it to repeal its tough National Security Law and reject outside interference.

Looking back at these past few decades, all North Korea seems to have wanted is for the United States to clear the peninsula completely. Thrice, I believe, did North Korea attempt to have peace talks with South Korea; thrice did they fail. But why? Why did these talks fail? Well. It was always on the part of North Korea to rough things up a bit.

I think that the North Korean government just wants to purge the peninsula of any US influence, to reach their ultimate goal of reunification. But their means of reunification is for the North to take over the South by force.

I think it'll be a long while before North Korea will ever become cooperative with South Korea and the United States, let alone the rest of the world.

Three lives = $3,000

At least, that seems to be the case in Laos.



These three, Hyok Choi, a 12-year-old boy, his sister, Hyang Choi, 13, and another girl, Hyang-Mi Choi, 17, were caught in Laos as they were trying to find safety after having fled North Korea. And Laotian officials are asking for $3,000 "to grease the wheels of their release."

Are you kidding me? That's absolutely ridiculous. I'm at a loss for words...

"If you don't help us, we will kill ourselves because we don't want to go to North Korea," Choi Hyok wrote on April 6.

Choi Hyang-mi told her uncle that the three had been interrogated and threatened by North Korean officials and urged him to send them the money being demanded in exchange for their release. "Don't count the number and please save human life! They can take our dead bodies to North Korea, but not us alive. I mean it!" she wrote.

Choi Hyang-mi wrote that her letter was "the last chance of a drowning person who will catch at a straw," according to a rough translation into English from the original Korean.

To tell you the truth, I can't believe the officials only demanded three thousand dollars. Not to say that it's right that they demanded anything at all--oh, I don't know. This whole situation is just disgustingly wrong.

Inside North Korea (Part 2)

I think what people fail to realize is that for the most part, North Koreans are genuine in their worship and praise of Kim Jung Il and Kim Il Sun. Think about it-these people have never known anything outside of North Korea. The government makes sure that there is no outside influence, and they control every aspect of life. How can the people be discontented with something when they have no way of finding a measure of comparison? Most, if not all, North Koreans truly believe that their way of life is the best, and that it is their duty to educate and spread their way of life to the rest of the world. That's kind of what the Juche ideology is about as well.

North Korea...such a complicated nation. How can we help a peoople so far gone, so firm in their beliefs that they don't need any help? Hm...

Inside North Korea

This is the first part of a National Geographic documentary about North Korea.

Part 1


Quite possibly one of the most depressing video clips I have ever seen.

Just one thing--according to Micheal Breer, "the juche philosophy basically means 'up yours' to the outside world. We can make everything ourselves, we don't need you."

The Juche ideology is much more than just that--it is a religion, a way of viewing the world. It is God's gift to the North Koreans, for them to spread throughout the world. They believe that they are some kind of Jerusalem of the East, that it is their destiny, their duty, their calling, to share with the world what God has blessed them with. And they want to start by dominating the South and indoctrinating them as well.

Part 2 to come later.

U.S. Says Macau to Release $25M in Frozen N. Korean Funds

Nuclear North Korea + Money = bad idea


(Photo from http://flapsblog.com/)


How wise is it, really, to trust the North Koreans? Yes, I realize that nobody has much of a choice and that we need to cooperate with the upper half of the Korean peninsula...but still. How can we even know for sure that they'd really stop production and what not? North Korea may be poor, and the people starving, dying and disappearing...but that doesn't mean that the government is stupid. In fact, the fact that this nation still exists goes to show just how smart the government officials are. They've managed to keep a dying nation alive for far longer than it should have been. We have a hard time finding any real figures and stats about this place, because it is so closed and so private. How can we rest assured that they would stop nuclear production? Even if they stop the physical production, we don't know that they would go and improve their technology on paper.

Then again, what can we do? Not much. I say we gather all the North Korean officials and send them off in a rocket up onto Mars. Maybe they'll figure out a way for human life to subsist on this planet, a mystery yet to be solved, simply as a result of their belief that they are superior than all others. And I'm half kidding. I suppose that the only way we can really deal with this insolent group is to just go about doing what we're doing--though we may trip, fall, and totally destroy ourselves in the process of groping around in the dark, there's actually a chance that we might find the light switch and be able to deal with this matter in a better informed and well guided way.

Until then, I say we put Kim Jong Il on a one way rocket to Mars.