• Stovetop@lemmy.world
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    15 days ago

    I know a good number of North Koreans would love to defect if there weren’t going to be consequences for their families back home. Put those people in a situation where they can just disappear and have it explained as being honorably slain in combat? Seems like a golden opportunity if the country they defect to doesn’t just send them back.

      • Stovetop@lemmy.world
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        15 days ago

        Hah, got me there.

        I did actually meet a North Korean once when I spent a fair bit of time in Seoul during a study abroad program, but she “defected” as a child (read: smuggled into the South via China by some Christian group) and didn’t really have much recollection of what life in the North was even like. Definitely not many though!

        • slaacaa@lemmy.world
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          14 days ago

          One of my parents was in North Korea multiple times in the 80s as a tour guide from the Eastern Block, I remember hearing the stories about it when I was a child.

          Cameras being taken, poverty housing blocked off with walls, fake buildings and rooms, US soldiers watching them from the other side of the DMZ “negotiation building”.

          I always took these stories for granted, and didn’t realize for a long time how special and unique these experiences were. When I tell my Western EU colleagues they always drop their jaws.

    • Valmond@lemmy.world
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      15 days ago

      Hi Kim, me and my whole family wants to def … go to Ukraine and die for you!!

      The whole family!