By Here is a documentary that I highly recommend that everyone take some time today to sit down and watch to get a better understanding of the horrific conditions North Koreans refugees face:
“Crossing Heaven’s Border” is a documentary made by South Korean journalists who spent almost a year filming North Korean defectors trying to escape the hell of their homeland and enter the paradise that is freedom. (The film, presented as part of the PBS “Wide Angle” series, will be on Boston’s WGBH tonight from 10-11 p.m.; check local listings for other times and dates.)
The North Koreans who cross the border into northeastern China are in even more danger there than they were at home. Chinese authorities relentlessly hunt and repatriate defectors, who face punishments including torture, imprisonment in concentration camps and execution.
Yet still they flee. The film opens in darkness on the Chinese side of the Tumen River, where a camera with a night-vision lens picks out two figures, blindly stumbling through the water from the North Korean side. Arms waving for balance and orientation, the pair are a defector and a guide—one of many who will smuggle escapees heading for safety, which often is a 3,000-mile journey away.
The three journalists who filmed the defectors work for the South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo, and they were in danger too. Signs on the Chinese side of the river warn that people caught will be arrested. This past March, about a year after the Chosun Ilbo team finished filming, two American journalists making another documentary about defectors ended up in North Korean hands and were sentenced last month to 12 years’ hard labor in Pyongyang’s gulag.
The horror of what people face back in North Korea gives “Crossing” the kind of suspense Hollywood cannot manufacture. [Wall Street Journal]
Read the rest of the article, but below I have the entire PBS video of Crossing Heaven’s Border embedded for you to watch:
Like I said before take some time today and watch this video.
It will interesting to see what people thought was the most powerful part of the documentary. For me the most interesting part of the documentary was when the defector’s sister was so indoctrinated that she believed people in North Korea starved because they didn’t work hard enough and that Kim Jong-il was only fat because he didn’t sleep enough because he was so busy helping the nation. I found this interesting because many people think the US military can just walk into North Korea and occupy it despite such indoctrination of the North Korean people.
The divided families and sexual slavery of North Korean women in China should also be powerful aspects of the doocumentary for people unfamiliar with this issue. Feel free to post in the comments section what you thought was the most powerful part of the documentary.
7:26 pm on July 14th, 2009 1
And hey — Obama’s in the White House, so Wide Angle won’t have to bring on special guests and pop in a few notes here and there from the start explaining to the audience how Bush shouldn’t confuse NK with Iraq because Iraq isn’t NK and war with NK won’t be like Iraq and say Iraq three more times with two more Bushes and one or two wars as you see fit…
(I’m thinking of Wide Angle’s previous showcased documentary I think was called A Day in the Life…)
Reply
July 14th, 2009 at 7:34 pm
I should have explained further — the documentary was on NK – following a NK family in their day to day lives – and had squat to do with Iraq, the war in Iraq, or even Bush….but Wide Angle thought it needed to make very sure the audience understood we knew that the warmonger Bush shouldn’t think he could knock off Pyongyang like it did the regime in Iraq…they even brought in experts to make sure we understood that Iraq wasn’t NK and….)
Reply
8:55 pm on July 14th, 2009 2
I saw this online last week. I thought about posting it here but I was sure you would soon enough. The most interesting part for me was when the younger sister of the girl who fled insisted that Kim Jong Il is not responsible for their troubles. Saying his belly is big becuase it is bloated from not eating properly,…. Amazing.
Reply
July 20th, 2009 at 11:37 am
OK, I just watched this video and agree that the most powerful part is indeed the bit about the sisters who go their seperate ways. Here’s what I don’t get: What the hell were those damn South Korean reporters thinking? Why did they let that poor brainwashed woman go back toward her North Korean socialist paradise? It was so obvious to me that the sensible sister desperately needed help explaining why South Korea is a little bit better than North Korea. Are you kidding me? Why didn’t the cameraman intervene with some video of South Korea? They had 10 days to persuade her. Are they stupid or what? Why didn’t the South Korean reporter intervene with an intelligent series of questions for the Kim Jong-il worshipping woman? Like ask her how she gets information about life outside of North Korea? Ask her why her North Korean TV only gets one channel (assuming she even owns a TV). Ask her if she has ever heard jazz music before? Here’s an idea; take her to a dadgum Internet cafe in Dandong and show her South Korean news reports about North Korea! Let her read for herself! I could not believe how that bit ended with the woman simply walking away down the street. How does she think she is going to cross back into North Korea; skip across the Friendship Bridge singing Arirang to North Korean sentries? The South Korean doing this documentarty really should have known better and saved that sister from her own ignorance.
Reply
July 21st, 2009 at 4:57 am
A surprisingly high percentage (something like 50%) of those who are able to cross the river and get out – freely return to North Korea.
There are several reasons, one of the most powerful of which is that they have family there.
The other big one is more difficult for someone raised in a free society to understand: the power of brainwashing. They have never known anything else, so even when they are shown what should be overwhelmingly convincing evidence that contradicts what they’ve been told all their lives – they won’t allow themselves to believe it. AND…even after they’ve accepted the truth…it’s still hard for them.
I have spoke with many North Korean defectors. I remember asking one (who had been in South Korea for several months by this point) – “So what do you think of KIS and KJI now that you’ve had a chance to learn the truth about them?”
He said conceptually, he understood that it was all a lie…but he just couldn’t get himself to think disparagingly about KIS and KJI. He said, “Even though I know the truth…it still hurts when I hear people say bad things about them.”
And this was a guy who had lost several family members to starvation and his older brother died in a gulag.
The brainwashing they receive is extremely powerful and effective…I can’t think of any other way to describe it.
Reply
July 21st, 2009 at 10:36 am
Thank you very much for your reply, Guitard. That is truly amazing and my brain still has a hard time understanding the effects of brainwashing on North Koreans. Freedom sounds like such a natural choice.
I wonder what would be the results if a different strategy was employed. What if defectors were told that KIS is good and KJI is bad? What if they were told the truth about Kim Il-sung’s death, a plot in which Jong-il had a hand in according to one document that I recently read.
If the brainwashed North Koreans were to beleive that KIS was good and KJI is evil, then maybe an underground channel could start the grapevine that would ultimately turn into a noose around KJI’s neck.
Perhaps the middle son could then take over as the people’s choice.
I’m still angry at the South Korean reporters in this video for not even attempting to intervene.
I also wonder how those who choose to “freely return to North Korea” do so. If caught at the border by North Korean guards then wouldn’ they be sent to prison even though they were coming back?
10:24 pm on July 14th, 2009 3
the video seems to be removed!! I am soooo unhappy!!
Reply
July 15th, 2009 at 5:49 am
Gillian I just clicked on the link and the video was working. Try it again and see what happens.
Reply
July 15th, 2009 at 6:36 am
I can’t watch it either – I get a message that says the content isn’t available. I’m guessing it’s because Korean IPs are blocked.
Reply
July 15th, 2009 at 7:52 am
Did you try the PBS link above the embedded video and see if it loads up that way? I can’t understand why this video would be blocked in South Korea?
July 15th, 2009 at 5:43 pm
Works for me. Incredible story by the way.
Reply
July 16th, 2009 at 12:32 am
Are you in Korea?
Reply