escape from Bukhan

Bukhan is the way you say "North Korea" in the native language. Buk is north and han is Korea. (South Korea is Namhan.)

Even if the average American is aware of the deplorable situation in NoKo, not many realize just the enormity of the North Koreans' plight, even those who have escaped the Kim regime and sought their fortunes elsewhere.

Those North Koreans who get up the courage to make a break customarily go through China. They are aided in this by Korean and Chinese "brokers," who perform a similar function to the coyotes in Mexico, forging false documents for the refugees and providing maps and routes. Once into China, however, the refugees' plight is far from over. The People's Republic, in complete defiance of international law and common decency, routinely and rigorously captures North Koreans and repatriates them.

I probably don't have to tell you that attempting to defect is a capital offense for a North Korean. Those refugees caught by the Chinese and shipped back to North Korea face execution, imprisonment in gulag-style concentration camps, torture, and untold suffering. Pregnant refugees are subjected to brutal abortions. Dissidents are thrown into work camps where they perform hard labor for 12 hours and attend reeducation classes for four more, only getting four hours' rest. The slightest complaint is answered with a public execution. There's a reason North Korea has been branded the world's largest prison camp.

In case you think I'm bloviating, I have a source for this information. His name is Mr. Lee.

Lee is one of the lucky ones. Not only did he pull off a successful escape, he saved up enough money to get his mother, his wife and his children out as well. He moved through China to Thailand, emigrated legally to South Korea, and worked any odd job he could find to pay the way for his family. He bussed tables and swept streets because he couldn't find anything better.

And now we come to the third and most perplexing part of the sad tale of North Korean refugees. Should they manage to escape their homeland and traverse unfriendly China in safety, they still face hostility, prejudice and callous indifference from South Koreans. The average South Korean holds the North Korean refugee in lower regard than a Pakistani or Cambodian...and believe you me, that is saying something. Mr. Lee reckons it has something to do with money. South Koreans judge foreigners by their monetary worth and potential. That's why they bring so many American, Canadian, English and South African nationals to this country to teach. We Anglos are from affluent countries and are classed as skilled labor. People from poor countries like Vietnam, Bangladesh, and elsewhere are looked upon as wastes of time and space. The average North Korean refugee shows up in South Korea as a penniless migrant. Guess what kind of reception he gets?

Mr. Lee beat the odds. He made enough money to get his family across, at something like $3,500US a head. (Nowadays the fee is roughly $10,000.) They're living quite happily in the Itaewon area. Mr. Lee works hard to support them, and still finds time to devote to his charitable foundation, North Korea Peace. It's a divine mission, he says.

To hear a North Korean speak of God is almost laughable. Mr. Lee was brought up to believe that Kim Jong-Il was the people's one true god, and that Christianity was merely a ploy by the Western powers to weaken and oppress the Korean people. In school he was taught that the Joseon War (what North Koreans call the Korean War) was begun by Christian missionaries, with the backing of the U.S. military. He never saw any evidence to the contrary; he knew no other alternative. So he believed.

But when the Chinese police were walking toward him down the aisle of a rattling train car on a midnight run to Shanghai, Lee prayed. He prayed feverishly, passionately, determinedly. He asked God to spare him, to save him. And in His way, God answered. A knife-fight broke out in the adjacent train car. The policemen had approached to within 10 meters of Lee, checking IDs and asking tough questions. Neither Lee nor any of his party spoke a word of Chinese. They would have been caught for sure. But the fight drew the cops' attention. They rushed away to the adjacent car and Lee got his reprieve. It was a seminal moment. Lee believed that God had saved him for a purpose. God was handing him a mission, and by the time Mr. Lee had arrived in Thailand, he'd figured it out. He would help as many of his fellow North Koreans as possible, still held in bondage on the other side of the DMZ.

So he started North Korea Peace, and with the aid of a few other Koreans who were fluent in English, began recruiting foreigners to his cause. The balloon launch on February 25 was the culmination of that endeavor. Mr. Lee, his assistants, and foreigners from six different countries (from Austria to Indonesia) inflated weather balloons, suspended cardboard boxes of warm socks from them, and released them into the wispy white skies over the city of Paju, a stone's throw from the Demilitarized Zone.

Here are some pictures.

Unpacking the hoses. The boxes of socks are on the left.

Adjusting the first balloon for inflation...hah, adjusting for inflation, geddit?!

The hydrogen tanks. Apparently helium is expensive and hard to come by in Korea. These spawned a lot of Hindenburg jokes...most of which may or may not have been told by yours truly.

Inflation commences...

...and it's ready!

My turn to help out.

Whoa Nelly!

Merciful Balloon #4, ready for launch!

Hana, tul, SET!

And there she goes!

After the balloons had been launched, and had floated away out of sight into the stratosphere, we piled back on the bus, chilled to the bone, and drove to the Imjin River. There stood the Imjingak, "Freedom Park," a sort of monument/museum to the Demilitarized Zone. I wish I could properly describe the place to you, but words simply can't capture it. Shall I tell you about the thousands of paper prayers hung by North Korean refugees in tribute to their imprisoned loved ones a few kilometers to the north...?

The rusting, hole-ridden hulk of a steam locomotive on a scrap of track, which was once the proud railway link between Seoul and Pyongyang?



The miles and miles of barbed wire stretching into the distance? Dim, distant Songhaksan, my first glimpse of North Korea, nearly hidden on the horizon behind the Imjin Bridge?

Or shall I mention the observation platform with its 500-won binoculars, the incongruous kiddy fun park with its tilt-a-whirl and carousel, the souvenir shop selling North Korean fruit wines and maps of the Joint Security Area printed on red and blue handkerchiefs...?

Combine these things and you get the Imjingak.

It was while we were waiting to board the bus that I received a drop of tonic to soothe the ache in my soul. As fun as the launching of weather balloons can be (trying to hold onto a fully-inflated balloon in the brisk Korean breeze was like trying to hold a bucking bronco at bay), the joy was tempered by the ever-present knowledge of the cargo's eventual destination. One could not help but brood on the suffering of the shoeless, starving North Korean people, and the monstrous injustice which put them in such a position. My distress had been further compounded by the Imjingak. Nothing makes me sadder than seeing a railway line that ends in the middle of nowhere, and a once-functioning locomotive rusting away to nothingness on a forgotten siding. I could only ponder on the romance and adventure of taking the train from Seoul to Pyongyang, and thence to Beijing or Vladivostok, or even across Mongolia and on to Europe. But no: the locomotive forever stares across the uncrossable gulf of barbed wire, empty fields, frozen river and skeletonized bridge supports. Across the barren, lonely hills with their bare trees lies a land of death, suffering, and political oppression.

Depressing.

So that drop of tonic on my soul was greatly appreciated. I began chatting with Mr. Lee via his translator, Cecilia. He asked me if I was particularly interested in North Korea and its citizens.

"Just Korea in general," I answered. "My grandfather fought in the war."

"Wow," Cecilia, of Korean descent herself, answered. "Will you thank him for me? From the bottom of my heart?"

"Uh, sure," I said, taken aback. "Absolutely."

Cecilia translated this for Mr. Lee, and he began speaking very quickly.

"He says he'd like to thank your grandfather personally for his service," Cecilia said. "South Korea is as great as it is today because of what the Americans did in the war. If they hadn't fought the Communist North, the entire country would have been taken over. Whenever Mr. Lee hears someone say bad things about America, he thinks they're not right in the head."

Well, folks, that bowled me over. This fellow, who hadn't even met my grandfather (and had been born on the wrong side of the fence to appreciate his sacrifices) was thanking him with every fiber of his being. It blew me away. All I could do was jerk my head, thank him profusely, and promise to relay his message at the earliest juncture. It seemed a poor thank-you for the sentiment Mr. Lee had expressed. But somehow, even though I was merely a conduit for this man's heartfelt gratitude, I was nonetheless buoyed by it, soothed by it, calmed by it. The weight on my heart seemed lessened somewhat. They call Korea "the forgotten war"...it was nice to know that there were some people, in some far-flung corner of the world, who hadn't forgotten, and still appreciated what the skinny, shivering draftees had fought and died for in the frozen mud of the Korean peninsula.

When I told Grandpa over the phone about what Mr. Lee had said, he chuckled. Then he cemented his status as a true American hero by saying that war memorials should not be built for the men who fought and came back, but the ones who made "the supreme sacrifice" and lie buried in foreign fields. He said I should relay that to Mr. Lee the next time I saw him.

I'll leave you with a video that was taken by a real journalist at the balloon launch. It conveys what I'm trying to express with more eloquence and less pomp.

Your humble correspondent, signing off.