A recent report from South Korea’s Ministry of Unification disclosed the extreme measures taken by authorities North Korea To control the inroads of foreign cultures and information, particularly those coming into the country from south. The 2024 Human Rights Report on North Korea consists of testimonies from 649 witnesses North Korean defectors who presented a disturbing case involving a 22-year-old man who hails from South Hwanghae Province that was sentenced to prison in 2022 for “listening to seventy songs, watching three films and sending them,” thereby contravening a law enacted in North Korea in 2020 prohibiting “reactionary ideology and culture.”
The Guardian also noted that according to this report there have been other instances of repression and reactionary practices. Such as brides wearing white dresses, grooms carrying their wives on their backs, wearing sunglasses or drinking wine glasses which are all seen as being part of South Korean custom.
People often check phones for contact names spelling, expressions and slang thinking about how it could be influenced by South Korea. Although both countries share one language but have different one since divided by the Korean War 1950-1953.
This ban on Korean pop music is part of a wider campaign started by former leader Kim Jong Il and extended under his son Kim Jong Il Kim Jong Un to protect North Koreans from Western culture negative impacts.
In 2022 Radio Free Asia (funded by US government) revealed that regime was suppressing “capitalist” fashion styles like tight jeans, t-shirts with foreign words, dyed hair or long hair. Experts suggest that if South Korean pop culture is allowed to infiltrate into North Korean society. It could endanger an ideological basis which requires absolute loyalty to the Kim dynasty which has ruled since its foundation in 1948.
Though harshly repressed by the government in Pyongyang ,the influence had become irresistible according to another recent defector.
A woman defector aged about twenty also explained: “South Korean culture changes North Korea very fast. Young people follow and imitate Korean culture. They like everything about South Korea.”
Even though the China border is mostly closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, information passes through informal networks and spreads.
In recent weeks, Pyongyang has retaliated against Seoul’s balloon drops of leaflets containing anti-Pyongyang propaganda as well as dollar bills. And USB flash drives with K-pop music and dramas by launching thousands of balloons carrying garbage across its boundaries.
The defector also disclosed hidden resentment toward the North Korean regime; she said: “Of course we can’t say bad things about Kim Jong Un publicly but we do say those things between close friends, loved ones or family members.”
She added that many young people watch Korean dramas and think ,“Why should we live like this?… I would rather die than live in North Korea.”
