North Korea

My knowledge about North Korea

One of the most frequent questions I have been asked is about North Korea. I was surprised to know that Americans I have met are more familiar with North Korea than with South Korea. Whenever I am asked the question “What do you think of North Korea?,” I have nothing to say because I have little knowledge about North Korea. I feel ashamed of my ignorance. Therefore, I’d like to arrange my thoughts to answer to questions about North Korea.

First, when I was an elementary school student, I was taught that North Korea is a communist society. In the text book, communism was described as a bad political system. I remember that I had a poster contest and slogan contest about anti-communism. Most students drew the leader of North Korea as the monster. The theme of most slogans is that we hate communism.

While I was attending middle and high school, I studied the reason North Korea and South Korea had to be split. In 1945, Japan failed in World War II, and we were independent from the colonial times of Japan. But we were not strong enough to have our own government. So, the meeting held in Moscow decided that Soviet (Russia) was charge of the North while United States was charge of the South for five years. They drew temporary line at 38 latitude but it became permanent after the Korean War. I remember I studied the importance of reunification at social studies class. I also had to write an essay about why we should be reunified.

After graduating from high school, I had few opportunities to learn about North Korea and I was not interested in politics. I did not read the articles and opinions related to North Korea. Honestly, I do not feel that North Koreans are the same nation as us since I have lived in the divided country for long time. I guess they have different ways of thinking from us, which will cause problems after reunification. The reason North Korea sticks to nuclear weapons is to threaten the world to keep their own system; the gap between North Korea and South Korea became larger. When I think of families separated, however; my heart breaks. They are political scapegoats. The reunion of separated families are a great achievement in the history of the divided country.