Guardian Story About Escape From A North Korean Prison Camp

[MediumTex]

Imagine being born in a North Korean camp for political prisoners, spending your whole life there, and one day escaping.

This guy's story is amazing.

LINK

[FarmerD]

Great read.  It makes you appreciate where we live.  I can't imagine going through what he did.

In the Air Force I had an officer of Cambodian descent in my initial training class.  Never mentioned his past til I asked him about it.  Turns out he grew up in the Killing Fields.  He'd seen almost his entire extended family murdered as a kid then was forced to work in a slave labor camp.  He survived by eating bugs, worms or anything else he could find.  Eventually escaped by walking several hundered miles using the cover of darkness. 

The thing that amazed me was that he relayed his story in a matter-of-fact manner.  He didn't seem depressed or despondent or angry.  Throughout our 4 month class, he always conducted himself in a positive cheerful manner.  I had so much respect I had for him. 

[Lone Wolf]

That's an incredible story.  The small details are chilling.

[MediumTex]

The story was really chilling to me.  The psychological makeup of someone who was born into such a frightening and terrible environment and who knew nothing of the larger world is interesting to ponder.

He knew nothing about 95% of the foods that people eat.  He never knew the earth was round until he was in his teens.  Every single thing he knew that existed outside the prison fence was an abstraction--before escaping he had never seen, heard, tasted or smelled anything except what was inside the prison camp.

The idea of being in prison because your parents were prisoners, and one of your parents was in prison because his brother committed the crime of leaving North Korea is absurdly sad.

[AdamA]

There is a book called "The Aquariums of Pyongnyang" about another guy who escaped form a North Korean prison camp.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Aquariums_of_Pyongyang

One of the things that I remember from the book is how this author's family wound up in North Korea.  They were living in Japan and moved back to North Korea because the guy's grandmother bought into the Communist propaganda that was becoming popular at that time.  

I always think about this when people talk about leaving the US if things "get bad" here...I know it's not exactly the same situation, but it just seems like a lot of people who make this statement underestimate the potential for trouble when moving to another country.  

[lazyboy]

This sad story of Shin's life in a prison camp led me to think about how much damage, psychically, a human can endure and if that much love deprivation can ever really be healed. How degraded can life be without any sense that family love had any positive value or even exists, no sense of trust or loyalty, no sense of secure attachment. It's not just sub human, it's sub mammalian. It's below that. Even the smallest creatures are raised with more than that in their short lives. (It also reminds me of our soldiers who snap and kill people and wind up destroying their own lives and their families lives. But that's a discussion for another thread.) Even beyond the physical deprivation Shin endured it's hard to contemplate the emotional and spiritual deprivation.

That led me to think of the hopeful example of Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl and how he managed to survive the Nazi concentration camps, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Frankl  

It was due to his and others' suffering in these camps that he came to his hallmark conclusion that even in the most absurd, painful and dehumanized situation, life has potential meaning and that therefore even suffering is meaningful. This conclusion served as a strong basis for Frankl's logotherapy. An example of Frankl's idea of finding meaning in the midst of extreme suffering is found in his account of an experience he had while working in the harsh conditions of the Auschwitz concentration camp:
... We stumbled on in the darkness, over big stones and through large puddles, along the one road leading from the camp. The accompanying guards kept shouting at us and driving us with the butts of their rifles. Anyone with very sore feet supported himself on his neighbor's arm. Hardly a word was spoken; the icy wind did not encourage talk. Hiding his mouth behind his upturned collar, the man marching next to me whispered suddenly: "If our wives could see us now! I do hope they are better off in their camps and don't know what is happening to us."
That brought thoughts of my own wife to mind. And as we stumbled on for miles, slipping on icy spots, supporting each other time and again, dragging one another up and onward, nothing was said, but we both knew: each of us was thinking of his wife. Occasionally I looked at the sky, where the stars were fading and the pink light of the morning was beginning to spread behind a dark bank of clouds. But my mind clung to my wife's image, imagining it with an uncanny acuteness. I heard her answering me, saw her smile, her frank and encouraging look. Real or not, her look was then more luminous than the sun which was beginning to rise.
A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth – that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved. In a position of utter desolation, when man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way—an honorable way—in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment. For the first time in my life I was able to understand the meaning of the words, "The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory...." [7]
Another important conclusion for Frankl was:
If a prisoner felt that he could no longer endure the realities of camp life, he found a way out in his mental life– an invaluable opportunity to dwell in the spiritual domain, the one that the SS were unable to destroy. Spiritual life strengthened the prisoner, helped him adapt, and thereby improved his chances of survival.[8]

[MediumTex]

This sad story of Shin's life in a prison camp led me to think about how much damage, psychically, a human can endure and if that much love deprivation can ever really be healed. How degraded can life be without any sense that family love had any positive value or even exists, no sense of trust or loyalty, no sense of secure attachment. It's not just sub human, it's sub mammalian. It's below that. Even the smallest creatures are raised with more than that in their short lives. (It also reminds me of our soldiers who snap and kill people and wind up destroying their own lives and their families lives. But that's a discussion for another thread.) Even beyond the physical deprivation Shin endured it's hard to contemplate the emotional and spiritual deprivation.

Most of the bad things in the world can be measured in terms of their distance from love.

What the North Koreans are doing to their own people in these camps is really awful.  I don't know how you find guards to work in a place like that.  It's like their job is to commit spiritual cannibalism against their own countrymen every day.  I suppose if a person is desperate enough they will do almost anything.

It makes you wonder how long something like North Korea can go on in the modern world before something recognizably human begins to assert itself.  It's as close to a 1984-style arrangement as I can ever imagine existing, except rather than "Big Brother" they have "Short Brother" and now "Son of Short Brother."

[lazyboy]

This sad story of Shin's life in a prison camp led me to think about how much damage, psychically, a human can endure and if that much love deprivation can ever really be healed. How degraded can life be without any sense that family love had any positive value or even exists, no sense of trust or loyalty, no sense of secure attachment. It's not just sub human, it's sub mammalian. It's below that. Even the smallest creatures are raised with more than that in their short lives. (It also reminds me of our soldiers who snap and kill people and wind up destroying their own lives and their families lives. But that's a discussion for another thread.) Even beyond the physical deprivation Shin endured it's hard to contemplate the emotional and spiritual deprivation.

Most of the bad things in the world can be measured in terms of their distance from love.

What the North Koreans are doing to their own people in these camps is really awful.  I don't know how you find guards to work in a place like that.  It's like their job is to commit spiritual cannibalism against their own countrymen every day.  I suppose if a person is desperate enough they will do almost anything.

It makes you wonder how long something like North Korea can go on in the modern world before something recognizably human begins to assert itself.  It's as close to a 1984-style arrangement as I can ever imagine existing, except rather than "Big Brother" they have "Short Brother" and now "Son of Short Brother."

I spoke today with a friend who's a therapist and briefly filled her in on Shin's story. She said its possible for him to have emotionally survived this horrific upbringing because, rather than in spite, of the lack of bonding with his mother. In other words, he had no conflict over her death and his involvement in it because he developed no real attachment to her. He survived because he is not in conflict with himself over his actions. To him, she was part of the system that enslaved him...God help us, but I'll take my conflicted relationship with my parents any day over what Shin has experienced. I'm grateful for the love, food and material support I received. If Shin's story can be verified, and it sounds too complex and detailed not to be true, I'm more concerned with North Korea having nuclear weapons than with the possibility of Iran developing them.  If this is how they treat their own people what would constrain North Korea from deploying them? It would be as if Nazi Germany developed the bomb before us...I know, I know, we developed the bomb and used it against civilians.

[MediumTex]

If Shin's story can be verified, and it sounds too complex and detailed not to be true, I'm more concerned with North Korea having nuclear weapons than with the possibility of Iran developing them.

Part of what makes me think it is true is based upon its overall structure. 

I would be surprised if a person who was fabricating a story would fabricate parts of it where his own extreme sense of honesty (though driven by fear of his own death) would lead to the death of his Mother.  In general, if I was not telling the truth about something I definitely wouldn't want to make up a part where I engaged in an almost gratuitous display of honesty.  I would be afraid it would make people suspicious of the whole account if I told a story of being honest that was itself hard to believe (I informed on my Mother and it led to her death).

I also have to think that if he wasn't being truthful he would have come off as slightly more heroic. 

[lazyboy]

If Shin's story can be verified, and it sounds too complex and detailed not to be true, I'm more concerned with North Korea having nuclear weapons than with the possibility of Iran developing them.

Part of what makes me think it is true is based upon its overall structure.  

I would be surprised if a person who was fabricating a story would fabricate parts of it where his own extreme sense of honesty (though driven by fear of his own death) would lead to the death of his Mother.  In general, if I was not telling the truth about something I definitely wouldn't want to make up a part where I engaged in an almost gratuitous display of honesty.  I would be afraid it would make people suspicious of the whole account if I told a story of being honest that was itself hard to believe (I informed on my Mother and it led to her death).

I also have to think that if he wasn't being truthful he would have come off as slightly more heroic.  

I agree. His story seems very credible.
I do have questions about his organization, though, http://www.linkglobal.org/who-we-are/the-team.html
They are being very self protective, hiding their faces. There might be a very good reason if they are being targeted. It is interesting that Justin Wheeler, Vice President of Global Awareness for LINK worked for Invisible Children, an organization that is controversial and came under some heat for their Kony 1212 film and campaign which got talked about on another thread: http://gyroscopicinvesting.com/forum/ht ... ic.php?t=0
But it looks like they are doing great work and deeply understand the problems of the refugees:http://www.linkglobal.org/shelters.html

[MediumTex]

In order to show some of the more positive aspects of life in North Korea, how about "North Korea Party Rock Anthem" (4:24):

http://youtu.be/CG_hx8vWXvU

[MediumTex]

Okay, here is a 4:22 video of North Korean army training.  I have no idea when this is from (it looks like it's from some kind of alternate dimension).

(Who knew that jumping through rings of fire and rolling over pieces of broken glass were useful military skills?)

http://youtu.be/Aa_yTBtt244

If propaganda, parades and marching ability were included in GDP, I have to think that North Korea would be a far wealthier nation.

[lazyboy]

In order to show some of the more positive aspects of life in North Korea, how about "North Korea Party Rock Anthem" (4:24):

http://youtu.be/CG_hx8vWXvU

Good one!. Here's video intending to show N. Korea is a more positive light. It's funny how the trappings of Stalinism predominate what they are proud of. Compare that to what's happening in China.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUvYVZvG ... re=related

[lazyboy]

Okay, here is a 4:22 video of North Korean army training.  I have no idea when this is from (it looks like it's from some kind of alternate dimension).

(Who knew that jumping through rings of fire and rolling over pieces of broken glass were useful military skills?)

http://youtu.be/Aa_yTBtt244

If propaganda, parades and marching ability were included in GDP, I have to think that North Korea would be a far wealthier nation.

Yes, those elite soldiers look very capable and entertaining. They'll be set once they get a Trader Joe's and a Whole Foods Market.