Growing Up Korean American in North Korea
Due to the recent tragic events in the United States, Asian Americans are now standing up and voicing an end to the belittling and dehumanizing of Asians around the world. Echoing last year’s “Black Lives Matter” movement, Asians are also demanding to “Stop Asian Hate”. The call for equality and justice in America is ringing loud and clear. All lives should matter, the people shout.
But why is it that prejudice and discrimination still remain deeply imbedded in our culture? The Civil Rights Movement in the Unites States began back in the 1950’s. But after nearly 70 years of fighting racial injustice, this struggle continues even today. When will there be genuine equality?
I believe this struggle is based on the premise that we fear what we do not know or understand. We are critical of others’ differences, and instead of trying to get to know one another and display compassion for one other, we, as human beings, have the tendency to build of walls of fear and hatred.
What is the solution then? I believe one of the best ways to begin chiseling a crack in these walls is to shed light upon each other’s humanity, that is sharing authentic, individual stories that touch the human heart, to find common ground, and to begin to relate to one another as people.
Recently, our eldest daughter, Sarah Yoon, was interviewed about her experiences growing up in North Korea. Her interview reveals her struggles and identity as a Korean-American. Just like the Civil Rights Movement’s 70-year fight for justice in the United States, another 70-year struggle wages on the Korean Peninsula. In this interview conducted by Preston Jones at John Brown University, Sarah honestly shares about what it was like for her to grow up in North Korea, to discover her roots as a Korean, and to eventually find hope for her generation to be used as agents of healing to a broken nation. Below are select portions of her interview. The full length can be found on the YouTube Channel entitled, “Stuff of Life”.
How many years did you live in North Korea?
- Eleven to Twelve Years. I did live both in the country side, in a village, and I lived in Pyongyang, as well. Our family originally lived in the city of Rason. And then my family got invited to Pyongyang because my dad’s medical work was acknowledged, and they wanted him to train doctors in Pyongyang.
If you met someone on their way to the DPRK for the first time to work, not as a tourist but for work, what would be your advice be to someone on their way to the DPRK for the first time for some kind of work?
- To be the most candid, I would say, “Don’t do anything stupid.” “Be extremely respectful.” It is not just because you will get in trouble, but to be disrespectful is to do something stupid is someone else’s country. You do not belong in that country. You need to ask before doing something. Whether or not it is taking a picture because taking pictures is very sensitive. Some questions you don’t ask. You might ask an experienced foreigner who has lived in North Korea. You don’t ask certain disrespectful questions to your guide. You can ask human questions such as “How is your family?” “Are you married?” “What does your mother and father do?”, “Have you gone to university?” Those are great. Get to know people! It’s great... Don’t question the government. Don’t speak about the government. We have never spoken about the government.
First of all, I think this is a really important thing you are saying here, not only if you want to stay out of trouble but if you want to come back, and you want to have some kind of influence. It is important to remember that the relationship matter.
- Yes, and just looking at your guide, as a human. I look at our guide as an uncle. In Korean, it is “small father”. I see him as my uncle. And I call our driver as my uncle. I am going to build relationships to build relationships. And I can do that because I am a kid. My mom does not do that. She calls them “teacher” as a title of respect. My dad does the same. As kids, we were able to call him uncle. He accepted us as his nieces and nephews. When you make that relationship, when you treat them as people, they will fight for you. Our family has faced many hiccups here and there. You will face hiccups anywhere. They are the ones who appealed for us to their own government. They said, “No, these people are great people. These people want to help us, help our people.” It is not something that happens overnight. It takes years, years of being with them. It takes a lot of time, especially with North Korea. When they view Americans, they view Americans as U.S. Imperialists coming to overthrow their government. Their walls are guarded up.
What I am also hearing you say, is that you go in there with the intention of building trust. What’s the best thing about North Korea in your own experience and what’s the hardest thing?
- For me personally, in my very personal journey, I have learned a lot about what being Korean means. And especially it has been hard because people there know that I am not fully Korean, just by the way I look and because of my mom. People in Asia know that I am not fully Korean. In South Korea, they feel like I am not fully Korean. But in North Korea, they treated me as if I should be Korean. I was really taken back by this because I have always been treated as not being Korean within the Korean society. I believe that North Korea really has preserved more of traditional Korean history and traditional Korean values than South Korea has.
Holiday Dancing with Local North Koreans
If I’m hearing you right, you are saying that North Koreans have been less discriminatory than South Koreans.
- In a way, but they also see that I am American. There’s a weird mesh. I am not treated as a foreigner. My mom is not even treated as a foreigner because she’s a woman married to a Korean man. There was another family where the German father was married to a Korean woman, and that family was considered German. It is all about the man, very patriarchal. Personally, I felt both good and bad. I both received the embrace as a Korean to Korean, but I also experienced more pressure in a way that I should be Korean. “You should be doing it like this.” I kind of valued more of my American values. It all comes back to art for me. I want to do abstract art. I want to think of different solutions. There is no one right way to do it. But being outside of the Korean community here, I realize how Korean I am, different defaults that I have. But I have connected to my roots in North Korea.
Mom, Sarah, and Her Younger Sister in Pyongyang, DPRK
So, you have received in a way positive pressure to come home to Korea?
- The worst would probably be kind of be the same. It was a lot of pressure. I was never able to be Korean enough. I did speak Korean with no American accent as with any Korean expat. My dad is in way more of a position of respect than I am. He’s a doctor. He’s older. He was actually pretty young among his colleagues, but he has white hair, and he never dyed his hair so that he could be more of an equal to them. As a woman, a female, I did also get different pressure than my brother did. You need to be a doll, be perfect. I got a lot of pressure from that. It was not the way I spoke. It was not the way I acted because I was very Korean and respectful in that way. It was more of the way that I thought and pushed back in the way that I thought, my thinking process. I am from an individualistic society that values the individual opinion. But my opinions were not heard because it did not matter, if it is not in the majority. So, I have seen both a lot of value in collectivistic society as well as a lot of value in individualistic society. In my own personal walk on this earth and in faith, I have realized that there is no culture that is perfect. The individualistic culture is not perfect. The collectivistic culture is not perfect. There are faults with both.
What hopes do you have for North Korea 10 or 15 years from now?
- So, I told my parents that I was going to be meeting with you and talking about the Korean War. This is kind of a rabbit trail but it will lead back. My mom said, “Make sure he knows all the facts.” There are a lot of things that the North Koreans paint Americans for being bad. And there are a lot of things that Americans paint the North Koreans for being bad…I don’t know if you know this, but North Korea is the second most bombed nation in the world. 50% of the population was affected by the war. I would say 100% was affected, but 50% was directly, directly affected by the war. There are a lot of things that the American side, the UN side, did. And it is frustrating because the United States government does not see it as an official war. But to the Korean people that was a war. That was a war. There is so much weight and emotion that comes with the word war. Families were separated. That was 70 years ago, so if they were born during the Korean War they are about 70 now. The people who fled are dying off. Their families were never able to reunite again. That is really, really sad. I think it is more of my generation or my sister who is 12, her generation, who is going to do something about all of this. Because there is so much hurt from my parents’ generation and their parents’ generation from the war. I would really like to see conversations. Not necessarily from North Korea because I know from my experience that North Korea is not necessarily going to start the conversation. But sometimes we need to be the bigger people. And we need to be okay with being the bigger people.
My understanding is that in North Korea is that Americans are referred to Imperialists and so the government continuously has the people on a war footing.
- Yes, but we are at war. They are still at war because an end of the war treaty was never signed. That’s why there is the DMZ.
This seems to be what you are saying. What happened in North Korea because of the bombing that’s going to have an effect, a psychological effect on people, and it is going to get passed on.
- Yes, there is definitely a huge, huge psychological effect. In kindergartens and daycare centers, there are photos and replicas of the Korean War, of dead bodies. We are still at war. And that is why South Korean men are forced to go into the military. That is why North Korean men are forced to go into the military. They are being drafted. They are still at war.
What I am picking up from you is that there are a lot of atrocities all around. But one thing that needs to be noticed is that North Korea was bombed into oblivion. That is not the whole story, but part of that story is this seize mentality... You can make a case for why this mentality exits...
- Yes, this is why North Korea acts in this way because historically x, y, and z, so now a, b, and c.
So, this is part of the conversation. It was not that long ago that your capital city was absolutely bombed into the ground. So, we understand that this is still something really important to you…
- This is important to every Korean. Let me rephrase. It is important to every Korean, but the importance is dying out because that generation that was affected by the war is literally dying out. That is why I think it is going to be my generation to do something about it because we do not have that malice and hatred from the Korean War. But for me being surrounded by all this talk of war and separation and knowing and truly seeing and living it, this is a passionate subject for me.