Back to Basics

Today's issue of the IHT has a fascinating article by Su-hyun Lee on the adjustment of North Korean defectors to life in South Korea. After years of peddling their "North Korea as Communist Shangri-la" myth, the regime conceded some time ago that, yes, South Koreans have the better standard of living of the two countries, a level of prosperity they have attained by selling their souls to imperialistic occupiers from the United States. A lot of defectors, then, arrive in South Korea expecting that their lives will be a featherbed of delights, only to be sorely disappointed:

After she defected here from North Korea in 2006, Ahn Mi Ock was shocked to learn that most South Koreans lived in small apartments and had to struggle to buy one.

Ahn, 44, had fully expected that once in the South she would enjoy the same luxurious lifestyle portrayed in the television dramas she had watched on smuggled DVDs. It had not occurred to her that the fashionably dressed characters sipping Champagne in the gardens of stylishly furnished houses were not, well, average South Koreans.

For my part, I've long been fascinated by the exposure of North Korean defectors to the outside world and to a semblance of reality. Due to the regime's near-monopoly on information in North Korea, many citizens have never heard of, much less used, basic ideas and technologies that we take for granted every day. When they arrive in South Korea, defectors generally spend three months in a government-run "reeducation" center - ideological detox, if you will - in an attempt to gain a basic understanding of how a market functions and how to conduct one's daily life in such a system. Three months, though, is scarcely time enough to learn the things that the rest of us have absorbed for our entire lives. To that end, other programs have been established:

To alleviate their confusion, a Newspaper in Education program to encourage young people to read was introduced a year ago at Setnet High School, an alternative school for North Korean defectors. There, they can ask an instructor to explain concepts they encounter in newspaper pages.

"What is business and sales?" asked Park Jeong Hyang, 18, during a Setnet class.

"Amateur? Is that something to do with sports?" asked Mah Gwang Hyuck, 23.

"Can you explain what marketing is again?" asked Kim Su Ryun, 18.

Where to begin?