Latest NK Defector Article in NY Times

Journalist Norimitsu Onishi has been very diligent in featuring articles about North Korean defectors in the New York Times.  Today his latest article has been published which portrays another example of the alienation North Korean defectors feel once they arrive in South Korea:

“Everything’s about money here,” he said, dragging on a Dunhill Slim, a popular cigarette here. “You go to work in the morning — you can’t even take phone calls on your cell at work — then you go home and go to sleep. In North Korea, there is a fence around people to control them. But it’s very collective, so people help one another out. In that system, people do find ways to have meaningful relations with one another.”

As with many North Koreans, Mr. Lee’s nostalgia about the North increased in direct proportion with his sense of alienation in the South. At a small noodle shop, he asked the owner to turn on the fan but got only a puzzled look because he referred to it with a word used only in the North.  <…>

“It was so hard to get here,” he said. “Before, I thought that once I got to South Korea, everything would be all right. But now I know that I’ve just opened the front gate and come in. The journey’s just begun.”

South Korea currently has over 10,000 North Korean defectors living in the country and the alienation of North Koreans in South Korean society is a common problem for them.  Can you imagine what it will be like for South Korea if it has to absorb 23 million North Koreans if the North was to collapse if the country has a hard time absorbing 10,000 defectors?

Despite this fact it seems little attention is made into developing successful programs to help North Korean defectors learn job skills and educate themselves.  They are treated as nothing more than another 3D worker in Korea.  Treating 23 million North Koreans one day as nothing more than 3D workers will lead to disastrous consequences.