Han-Voice

There was a strong focus on math and propaganda was incorporated into all our exercises and problems. For example, if 100 brave North Korean soldiers killed 25 weak American soldiers in the first battle and 30 in the second battle, how many American wolves did they kill altogether? This is how we learned math.

I never imagined life outside while I was in North Korea. When I watched Chinese movies in North Korea, I was in disbelief of the life that was pictured in the movies. In these movies people could live free lives and could talk publicly, but I still didn't believe it. But beyond that I never imagined how well people lived outside of North Korea. The government banned movies that had telephones and bikes, because the government wanted to make North Koreans believe that everyone outside of their country were living in poverty.

I wasn't in North Korea when Kim Jong Il died but when Kim Il Sung died, I was genuinely sad. We mourned and cried for almost 10 days. From the tenth day, I had no more tears in me but everyone around me was still crying so I had to continue and force myself to cry. If we didn't continuously cry and be very sad for the death of Kim Il Sung, our loyalty would have been questioned. We cried even harder than when our relatives died. People weren't arrested for not crying, only their loyalty was questioned.

Hi probably_ not_serious, Chris here. For an amazing description of how little control we may have of our own emotions when we're face to face with someone we half suspect to be a "god", have a quick read of Jang Jin-Sung's book "Dear Leader", where he recounts how animated he began to weep the first time he met Kim Jong Il. It is absolutely terrifying. Having shared a few cocktails with Jang Jin-Sung myself, it was hard to picture such a reaction from a such a stoic guy. But then again, my life has never been on the line...

I did watch foreign media including Chinese romantic comedies. I thought everything in the movie was fake and made up because it was very different from my life in North Korea. It took me more than a few instances to realize I was unhappy in North Korea. That's why I believe Project E is important so more North Koreans can learn more about what's happening outside the country.

I didn't hate the government when I lived in North Korea. I'm not sure what they think now. Even when my family was starving, we didn't blame our government. We were taught to blame the US for cutting the food supplies and making us live in extreme poverty.

EDIT: Hi SamTheManWithThePlan, Chris here. North Korean experts (Professors Noland and Haggard) have conducted several refugee surveys in order to track the changing mentality within North Korea. One striking thing they noticed was that North Korean citizens are criticizing the government more and more. This has been corroborated with several explicit examples of dissidence (i.e. proliferation of black markets, less fear of consuming foreign media, increase in fashion/clothing, etc.). However, at the time Kim Jong Il was taking his last breaths, Noland and Haggard found a stark absence of criticism of the first 2 leaders, Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. However, we've heard more recently from many defectors that have left North Korea that there is much less reverence bestowed upon Kim Jong Un. Korean tradition can be quite "age-ist", and so coming into power at such a young age may have worked against the baby-faced "supreme leader."