by Daniel Tudor
How religious are North Koreans really? And is it true that there is an underground church?
DT: The answer Jimin offers below deals with a lot of the history of religion, particularly Christianity, in Korea. But this does inform part of the answer—that there certainly was a lot of underground religion, in spite of the official communist ideology, but that over time, the authorities have stamped most of it out.
Jimin Kang:
This is just my opinion, but Koreans seem to be a people with a deep sense of religiosity. Many of the foreign religions that have entered Korea have become prevalent and enjoyed great success. The history of our country has unfolded alongside the rise and fall of these religions, which of course include Buddhism, Confucianism, Catholicism and Christianity (Protestantism).
Maybe it’s because of this devout religiosity that the Kim family can command so much loyalty, and a worthless novice can be subject to such flowery praise and rule the whole country, just because he is from that family.
In the past, Chinese emperors used superstition to emphasize their legitimacy and command the loyalty of the people, and would call themselves sons of heaven. Hundreds and even thousands of years have passed since then, and a new era has come in—one of science, technology and logic. Ironically, there is still someone in North Korea who designates himself a son of heaven, and there are ordinary people who show religious zeal towards everything he does. Of course, there are all manner of reasons and conditions that make this possible, but the loyalty of the common people who love him cannot really be explained with logic. Especially in the only communist country in a materialist world.
Actually though, North Korea was a land of very devout Christians before Kim Il Sung’s communist regime came into being. Sungsil College in Pyongyang was the best seminary in the whole of Korea. This school was the alma mater of Kim Hyung Jik, father of Kim Il Sung.
Even after he moved to China, Kim Il Sung served as a Sunday school teacher. The given name of his mother, Kang Pan Seok, was a Koreaniz ation of Peter. She was a church deacon. Kim Il Sung’s grandfather and uncle were also pastors at the same church.
As such, North Korea was a religious land in which Christianity was prevalent. But following the establishment of Kim Il Sung’s communist regime, Christianity was subject to brutal repression. Korean Christianity is still so conservative and firmly against communism because of this history, which is traced in tears of blood.
After the establishment of the communist regime in North Korea, all religions declined and most believers were killed in prisons or camps. After liberation and the Korean War, the remaining religious people moved to the South, where they and their descendants formed the foundation of Korean Christian society that exists to this day. Ironically, Christians who fled south due to persecution by the North Korean authorities turned South Korea into the world’s second largest exporter of missionaries.
The underground church in North Korea has been almost completely destroyed. There were families who practiced small-scale worship. But when such people were caught, they were executed by the authorities.
Families of believers used the covers of novels to disguise their bibles, and sat together and worshipped quietly. Of course, the children were sworn to secrecy, but occasionally, the authorities would find them out by chance. There were cases were those caught starved themselves to death in prison.
The biggest problem for the authorities, however, was that of North Korean refugees who had escaped from North Korea after the economic crisis and had become Christianized by meeting Korean missionaries and pastors in China. They were protected by the church, and learned Christianity at the same time. Such people vowed they would preach Christianity. And hundreds of them reentered North Korea.
As a result, when State Security Department agents arrest a defector, they focus their investigation primarily on whether he or she has been in contact with Christianity or attempted to go to South Korea [nb. obviously, the North Korean authorities are hostile towards South Korea too]. If they find either to be true, the arrestee will undoubtedly be killed.
North Korea’s economic difficulties have also brought about a revival of shamanism. Because people were worried about their future, they began to search for shamans who could tell them their destiny or read their fortune. As a result, shamanism became a very popular religion. Even high-ranking North Koreans are attracted to shamanism, and there are rumors that Kim Jong Il went to see Mudang [shaman priestesses], too.
Anyway, anxieties about an uncertain future have made North Korea into a religious nation, but even now people are living from day to day without religious freedom.
Why do so many North Korean defectors become Christians?
DT: As Yoo-sung states below, there is plenty of overlap between North Korea, Kim Il Sung, and Christianity—despite the state persecuting anyone who follows the religion. But not only that, many of the groups who help defectors are very overtly Christian in nature. I have even heard of defectors who pretend to convert, in order to be helped out of China and on to South Korea by Christian groups. This is, of course, entirely understandable given the nature of their situation.
Kim Yoo-sung:
In North Korea, we were forced to study and believe only in Juche ideology. Though Juche is the one and only religion in North Korea, I think many of my fellow countrymen were always curious about new ideologies and religions.
The North Korean regime places strict restrictions on Christianity in particular.
This is interesting because Kim Il Sung comes from a devout Christian families on both paternal and maternal sides. His father had been educated at mission schools before Kim was born. His maternal grandfather was Presbyterian and taught local people about the Bible in his town. As a devout Christian, his mother took little Il Sung to church on Sundays, even after the family moved to Manchuria. In Pyongyang, she took him to Chilgok Church, which still exists today. Kim Il Sung’s uncle on his mother’s side studied theology at university and became a pastor. In North Korea there are the Ten Principles for the Establishment of the Monolithic Ideological System; it is pretty obvious that the Kims got the idea from the Ten Commandments. Pyongyang was once referred to as the “Jerusalem of the East.”
While the regime cracks down on all religions, it attacks Christianity especially harshly. Because the North Korean regime launched vicious verbal attacks on Christianity, I wanted to learn about Christianity more than any other religion. I think many North Koreans are especially curious about Christianity among all the religions that weren’t available to us. I’m sure it wasn’t just me.
While I wanted to learn about Christianity, I was never allowed to do so in North Korea. I was not allowed to read or study the Bible. There were no church services I could attend on Sundays.
Then, unexpectedly, I happened to leave North Korea for South Korea with my parents. When I first found out about my parents’ plan to escape, the first religion I wanted to learn about was Christianity. While we were in Thailand, I saw a Bible placed on a desk at the police station. In North Korea, it is a crime to be in possession of the Bible or read it even once; you could be sent to a political prison camp for that. As soon as I caught a glimpse of the Bible, I immediately picked it up and began to read. It was my first time reading the Bible.
It wasn’t easy to understand it. I got through the first few pages, and then stopped because I couldn’t understand it very well. I thought I would study about God and Christianity in more detail after entering South Korea. At Hanawon, pastors, priests, nuns and monks from the church, cathedral and Buddhist temples came to speak to us every weekend.
Among the religions, Protestantism was the most popular, Catholicism second, and then Buddhism. Hanawon, which accommodates female defectors, had a pastor who was assigned by the Christian Council of Korea to give sermons every morning throughout the week. I don’t know if these sermons are the reason, but I do know that many defectors commit to Christianity. After attending church
services and hearing sermons every morning for three months at Hanawon, North Korean defectors begin attending church services in their new towns at the invitation of the pastor at Hanawon.
After leaving Hanawon, I also began to attend Sunday services at a mega church (which I prefer not to reveal the name of) that my pastor at Hanawon introduced me to. In the first year, the number of Christian defectors increased and, from the second year, it gradually decreased. Seven out of 10 defector friends of mine have stopped going to church, for example.
At the time though, I was so eager to study the Bible and learn about God’s word and Jesus Christ. I lived as a committed Christian for the first three years before I stopped attending church. The reason why I stopped going to church had nothing to do with my Christian beliefs. There was a pastor whom I looked up to, but I soon found out that he was so fake. The pastor was married with two kids. But whenever he saw pretty North Korean defectors, he would tell them that he was single.
It didn’t end there. He would often invite beautiful North Korean women to sit in his office with him alone. He would go to their homes to convince them to go on a trip to Jeju Island with him. I felt very disappointed and betrayed. Before me and my wife met each other, my wife almost went on a trip with him because she didn’t know he was married and he persistently asked her to go with him. As we began dating, my wife told me all about this and I stopped going to church.
Although I have stopped attending church, I respect all kinds of religions in this world. When reunification comes, if some South Korean pastors and missionaries continue to betray God like my former pastor did, there may be an increase in the number of Christians among North Koreans in the beginning, but a sharp drop in the long run.
Is Christmas celebrated in North Korea?
DT: There was no strong cultural history of Christmas on the Korean peninsula, so it is not necessarily a surprise that North Koreans today do not celebrate it. The authorities wouldn’t want people celebrating it either, though. This is in contrast with South Korea, where presidents offer Christmas wishes, and companies jump on the Christmas marketing bandwagon almost as enthusiastically as their Western counterparts do.
Kim Yoo-sung:
No, we don’t have Christmas in North Korea. Therefore, it isn’t a public holiday; Christmas is just another weekday when everyone goes to work or school, unless it falls on the weekend. However, Christmas does appear in our dictionaries and encyclopedias, along with Christmas Eve, but people don’t really think much of it. It seems to me that Christmas is a big holiday for people in capitalist countries, mainly. I imagine people in those countries always spend Christmas in a highly festive mood.
Most North Koreans don’t know Christmas is celebrated with such great enthusiasm in other countries. But I do believe diplomats and their children who travel abroad would be well aware of it. In a country such as North Korea where Kim Il Sung is the only god and people are brought up under Juche ideology, Christianity is not typically practiced or tolerated. Therefore, they don’t teach children about Christmas at schools and they never tell people what Christmas is about. It’s no wonder that most North Koreans don’t know anything about Christmas or Christmas Eve, right?
Yet, December 24 was a public holiday in North Korea when I was living there. December 24 is the birthday of Kim Jong Suk, the mother of Kim Jong Il, so they declared it a public holiday. On December 24 every year South Koreans celebrate Christmas Eve, while North Koreans celebrate the day thinking dearly of the mother of Kim Jong Il, as it is the holy day on which she was born.
In South Korea, children wake up on Christmas morning to look for Christmas presents delivered by Santa Claus. I learned about this only after I arrived in South Korea. South Korean children fall asleep on Christmas Eve waiting for presents to come the next day. But December 25 is just an ordinary day for North Korean children.
Now I have a daughter who was born in and is being raised in South Korea, I will celebrate every Christmas with her from now on, as I adore her so much. It was at a church in South Korea where I celebrated my first Christmas. I felt somewhat awkward and uneasy as it was the first time I celebrated it and I didn’t know what to expect. Four or five years have passed since I arrived in South Korea. Now, I don’t forget to celebrate Christmas and spend the holiday with my family. My daughter is 10 months old now. I expect that she will begin to have a concept about Christmas from next year. I will surprise her with a Christmas present and tell her that it is a gift from Santa Claus, for having been a good girl over the past year. As I’m writing this down now, I’m already looking forward to every Christmas I will spend with her, and I’m already thinking about what present I should give her.
In South Korea, young people seem to celebrate Christmas with their girlfriends or boyfriends. That was what everybody seemed to be doing on Christmas day. So, I was planning to spend Christmas just like everybody else. I met my wife on a blind date last January. We dated for six months before getting married in August of the same year. Thus I never got to spend Christmas with her while we were dating, since we couldn’t wait to get married. But we spent Christmas together as a married couple last year.
My wife was already pregnant by Christmas last year. For that reason we decided to spend Christmas at home, instead of going to a restaurant. But I invited close friends of my wife to throw a Christmas party at home in order to make my wife happy.
This Christmas, I’m planning to have a big Christmas dinner with my wife, daughter, and my parents. After Christmas dinner, I would like to take my family to see the Christmas lights around Seoul. By Christmas next year, my daughter will be able to walk by herself. I’m looking forward to taking her and my wife to the beautiful Christmas lights at Seoul’s Cheonggyechon stream and taking my daughter to a playground and playing with her there and being a good dad.
I hope all North Koreans get to celebrate Christmas like us sooner rather than later.
PART 10
Love, Sex, Relationships
[Introduction]
North Korea is probably best characterized as a very conservative society when it comes to relationships. Sex before marriage does, of course, happen, but it is frowned upon, as is something so innocent as holding hands in public. Most people will have had few partners before getting married, and will probably know a lot less about “what to do” than young South Koreans.
It may be that the DPRK authorities consider sexual liberalism as a potential gateway to free-thinking in other areas. But more importantly, the North’s conservatism is really a continuation of Korean tradition. The Korea that has changed greatly is the South, which has become rather liberal in the past 10 or 15 years. In the past, you’d rarely see public displays of affection there, and now, it is quite normal. When I first lived in South Korea in 2004, probably a majority of people despised international dating and marriage, and homosexuality. Nowadays, the former is broadly accepted, and the latter by about half the population, according to surveys.
The essays in this section are to some extent a reflection of each author’s background, and North Korean society at the time each of the authors left the country. Different people have different experiences. Generally it can be assumed that city life in North Korea is more liberal than country life. It can also be assumed that those who defected a long time ago will have a more conservative idea of their country, as more recent reports suggest that things are changing.
The section on pornography is interesting in that regard. While it is certainly true that the authorities want to stamp it out, current sources say that the rise of the USB stick as the primary means of spreading foreign media has led to an explosion in the sharing and consumption of pornography from abroad.
Another interesting development not mentioned in the essays is the practice of renting homes to young lovers, by the hour; this certainly represents a step in a non-conservative direction. During the course of researching my book North Korea Confidential, my coauthor James Pearson and I heard fr
om completely separate sources that this practice was going on in most towns. During afternoons when the kids are at school and the husband is at work, there are housewives who will take cash payments from young couples and vacate their apartment for an hour or two. Appropriately enough for the “new North Korea,” the money received will most likely end up being spent at a semi-legal jangmadang street market.
How do you find love in North Korea?
DT: Korea has a tradition known as jungmae, where families would ask a local matchmaker to find a suitable partner for their son or daughter. Marriage was (and largely still is) a union of two families, rather than just two individuals. Although the “love marriage” is the standard these days, couples will meet for the first time via introductions from either friends or family friends. Suitability with one’s own family and social status is crucial. Since division though, the South has become a little more liberal, and the North has largely kept its conservative attitudes.
Jae Young Kim:
While you might not think it possible, love exists in North Korea just like in any other country, and people are free to have relationships. However, the norms and social perception of relationships are different to South Korea and other parts of the world.
Romance and relationships in North Korea tend to be quite different, depending on the province. Country areas tend to be very conservative—there can be quite a lot of problems for a North Korean girl if she gets pregnant before she is married. But we don’t have as many problems in the urban centers, where attitudes are quite different. Here, kissing is viewed as quite normal (although not so much in public), and you even find the odd girl who has had a child before marriage. Sex before marriage does take place, but it is not that common.
Although everyone has some idea about what happens when you’ve been dating someone for a while, the way relationships develop in North Korea is far less agreed upon, as it is hard to find scenes on TV or in movies where people physically express their love. As a result, you don’t find many couples willing to express their affection in front of other people, who regard such behavior as awkward. When I first came to South Korea, I was so surprised at seeing couples kissing and cuddling on TV or in public places, but now I’m getting used to it.