Kim Jong-dead

These are crazy times in Asia right now with the news that Kim Jong-il passed away. I left Korea a few hours after the news broke and even though I've been back in Canada for a handful of days now, I'm having the hardest time getting over my let lag which definitely affected my ability to write this piece. Anyways, read ahead."

So what the hell just happened in North Korea? You can cruise through the Internet and get everyone's take on it. Will the Koreas reunify? Did Kim Jong-il really die in his train? Are those people truly grieving? Why are they crying so much? What the hell happens next? From questions surrounding where North Korean leadership is heading to whether a blindfolded Kim Jong-il really bowled a perfect game of 300 using a Ping-Pong ball with both hands tied behind his back while at the same time inventing the Internet -- you can find a topic on the matter online. There are people with far more initials before their names than myself who are more credible to offer their opinions on what's going on right now but from what I gather, their opinions are all they've really got right now. The truth is, nobody knows what will happen next in North Korea. The country is so closed off from the rest of the world. If the world was the first Home Alone movie, North Korea would be the old neighbour with the shovel. The weird guy next door who stopped talking to everyone else. The guy who everyone found weird, started rumours about and always saw walking around with that weapon of his. What's the point of this? That South Korea is Macaulay Caulkin, America is Michael Jackson, and this whole situation is fucked.1

My last day of three months in South Korea was on Monday, December 19th. Since Dawna and I didn't have to be at the airport until 3pm, we sort of last second decided to head to the PSCORE office where we had been working on North Korean human rights issues since October. We got in at 11am and I caught a cryptic message on Twitter that North Korea was posed to make a "major announcement" at noon. I imagined something along the lines of "The Dear Leader, Kim Jong-il, has discovered how to fly and while up in the air, he invented the cure for cancer and from the goodness of his heart, solved world hunger". Out loud, I joked with my South and North Korean co-workers that they would announce the death of Kim Jong-il which of course was met with laughter. We sat there and guessed for the next forty five minutes what this announcement would be. Maybe they'll say something about stopping their nuclear program or that they've reached an agreement with the United States on food aid. Time passed and passed and passed while we waited. Right at noon, one of our North Korean co-workers heard the news, live as it was being announced by the North Koreans. Pause here.

A few years ago, we were celebrating Christmas with Dawna's family. We got Dawna's dad an iPod, which at this point in the story, was still sitting under the tree waiting to see the light of day. Not sure why or how, but somehow that wrapped up iPod ended up in the hands of Dawna's five year old niece. While we're all concerned with hunting down our own gifts to unwrap, we hear this five year old shriek: "OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD I GOT A NEW IPOD!"2 You know that sound, when a child is so over-joyously thrilled that they've finally gotten something they've wanted forever. When they're jumping up in the air, flailing their arms everywhere and wearing the largest smile on their face. The smile on their face that indicates, for a brief moment, that everything is perfect. This look and sound was genuinely reenacted when my North Korean co-worker, who by the way is a grown adult in a business suit, got the news that Kim Jong-il had passed away. Rarely in Korean society do you see a businessman act in such a manner and to see it all unfolding in front of me was something I will never forget.

I consider myself to be fortunate to have been in the presence of North Korean defectors as the news broke that their former Dear Leader, who for the most part was directly responsible for these North Koreans defecting in the first place, was no longer alive. It's not everyday you get to hang out with North Koreans and despite the fact that Kim Jong-il was born under a double rainbow and doesn't defecate like the rest of the world, he only gets to die once. Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza, New Years, and their birthdays came early for these defectors this year as news broke that Kim Jong-il was no longer around. And despite the images on TV showing massive grieving in the North, I'm sure many of the Koreans living there secretly feel the same way too.

With North Korean defectors, we often overlook and forget to think that by leaving their country, they've in turn left their friends, in some cases families, communities, memories and lives. For one reason or another, and in most cases simply because of starvation, North Koreans decide to run away in search of food and something better. By leaving, they are considered traitors and are no longer able to return. If you've been away from home for a while, you're likely familiar with the feelings of being homesick. The familiar cuisine, your family and friends, your bed and shower and your routines. All of the North Koreans I've met are also homesick. Really, really homesick. They too, yearn to go back to their communities and get over their homesickness, but in their case, there's no way of getting over it. There's no going back. There's no reunion. There's no re-living the memories. At least not on North Korean soil. With Kim Jong-il dying, many North Koreans now feel more hopeful that within their lifetime, they'll be able to go back home.

Are these hopes realistic? Will the Koreas become more friendly or even reunify? Does Kim Jong-il’s death boost the odds? Like I said earlier, nobody really knows. For reunification to happen, all parties involved (i.e. South Korea, North Korea, China, etc.) need to want it to happen and the feeling I get is that nobody really wants it. For the Chinese, over 80% of North Korea’s foreign business comes from them. They wouldn’t want that to end. For the South Koreans, reunification (under their control) would cost too much. You’d basically have to take a (very poor) society and country currently constructed as if its 1950 and bring it 60 years into the future. This means training people on how to use things like the Internet, banking, vehicles or how to live in a capitalist society, as well as creating an infrastructure to support all of these things. Not to mention feeding millions of people who haven’t been able to eat properly in over a decade. This could cost trillions of dollars and for a society so hell bent on making as much money for themselves as possible, this doesn’t really make sense for South Korea. With North Korea, the leaders in charge are happy to be the leaders in charge and don’t appear willing to let go of that. Of course, there are many other factors, but the common denominator is a want for reunification to come and until all players get there, my opinion is that it will not happen.

Either way, Kim Jong-il’s death ushers in a new era. Whether or not this brings forward any positive change is unknown, but for the time being, North Korean defectors worldwide can rejoice and live knowing that at least temporarily, everything feels perfect.


1. This sentence is a definite affect of jet lag. In my head, North Korea is so obviously that old guy from Home Alone.
2. Trust me that taking away an iPod from a little kid is exponentially worse than taking candy from a baby.

- Gilad