註-이 글은 한 탈북 여기자의 수기를 영어로 번역한 것입니다.
  
  Up until 1993 I worked as a reporter for the Foreign Language Publishing House and the South Hamgyong Province Daily Newspaper. Working as a reporter in a communist state, I felt like a trumpeter for the regime. A reporter with no independent voice is no more than a parrot. I presume you may be curious as to what journalists do in a country as unimaginably closed as North Korea.
  
  As a former reporter I feel an obligation to speak out. I was born in 1944 in Bongchon-dong, Pyongchon district, Pyongyang. My parents were farmers when I was born.
  
  During the Korean War (1950-53) I hid out with my mother, like we were playing hide and seek. After I graduated from high school, I enrolled full of hopes and dreams at Kimchaek Institute of Technology, North Korea’s most famous engineering school.
  
  Kim Il-sung University later became more famous as an ideological university. Until the early 1960s the prevalent progressive view was that technology was more important, but after 1965 ideology gained the upper hand. I studied hot-metal printing in the materials engineering department. Our printing technology texts were from the former Soviet Union. The typesetting machines and materials were all from East Germany, Hungary, China and Japan. I had to study very hard to be able to read my Russian texts.
  
  Kimchaek Institute of Technology is more modern now, but at the time study conditions were comparatively primitive. Regardless, we were all incredibly diligent. We were all determined to be a part of the new country we were building and we were spurred on with pride, believing that we were engaged in an important job. Although a woman, I was determined to do my share in society, to which end I studied hard through cold and hunger. I don’t think it’s any exaggeration to say that the zeal of university students at that time was much greater than it is now. These days, students are unable to really apply themselves due to the extremely difficult living conditions and uncertain future.
  
  Appointed to the Pyongyang Foreign Language Publishing House
  After completing my five-year program, I was appointed to the Pyongyang Foreign Language Publishing House. I was full of hope and ambition.
  
  In North Korea, where anything associated with the word ‘foreign’ is held in high regard, working at a place with the words ‘foreign language publishing’ in it, I felt that I had landed a dream job. At the time the Foreign Language Publishing House was located in Yokjeon-dong, Waesong district, Pyongyang, and it was later moved to its current location in Seochon-dong, Seosong district in 1978.
  
  The Foreign Language Publishing House complex is surrounded by a wall that’s twice as high as the buildings inside and gaining entrance involves a tightly-controlled procedure that leaves a rather formidable impression. Outsiders are strictly banned, which serves to heighten the awe with which North Koreans regard the operation. This reverence is partly due to the fact that the press has been instrumental in creating the divine status of Kim Il-sung and his son and successor, Kim Jong-il, both at home and abroad. All publishing is strictly controlled by the propaganda department of the Workers Party, under that is the Publication Inspection and Guidance Bureau which censors news and publications. At the Foreign Language Publishing House we had 5 censors who worked directly for the Party and they scrutinized all published material.
  
  The Foreign Language Publishing House was basically divided into the pictorial editing department, the labour editing department and the periodicals editing department. The company had a president, editor-in-chief, associate editor and a number of department chiefs. The monthly publications included the Choson Workers’ Alliance, the Agriculture Workers Alliance and Choson Women.
  
  When I was appointed to my position we were still in the early days and we didn’t publish nearly as many periodicals as we did once we got established. We would publish these periodicals with materials provided to us by such unions as the General Federation of Labor Alliances, the Democratic Women’s Alliance, the Agriculture Workers Alliance, and the Socialism Labour and Youth Alliance. Beginning in the 1970s we began sending these publications to places like China, the former Soviet Union, Japan, Africa and the Middle East. The publications were all translated into the languages of the countries where they were sent. There were about 1,000 people who worked on translations alone. A typical scene at the Foreign Langauge Publishing House was to see several hundred translators flipping through their dictionaries. There wasn’t a single technical publication. It was nothing more than political rhetoric that was occupying so many people and using up so much material resources. I was employed in the editorial department of the periodicals department, covering working people’s organizations.
  
  Reporters as Drama Writers
  Pictorials were the most expensive periodicals to publish, requiring that we use precious foreign currency to purchase supplies, including glossy paper and vellum from the former Soviet Union, Chochongryon (the pro-North Korean residents’ league in Japan) and China. We used expensive glossy paper to display illustrations propagandizing the greatness of Kim Il-sung, images of him demonstrating leadership, meeting with foreign delegations or showcasing his recent activities. To mark Kim Il-sung’s 65th birthday in 1977, the Foreign Language Publishing House spent enormous amounts of money to buy glossy paper, which was even more expensive than vellum paper, from China and Chochongryon.
  
  Then we began printing a photo album called “The Road of Great Love” portraying the greatness of Kim Il-sung. We often had to work through the night to finish the job. Reporters had to go anywhere Kim Il-sung went to report on his activities. The irony was that there was nothing to report on.
  
  Once I was sent to the Saenal Cooperative in Saenal-ri, Shinchon-kun, South Hwanghae Province to write a story on how Kim Il-sung had visited the area and walked down a trail dispensing wisdom on how best to farm. The story went that he had sat on the grass beside the trail talking with farmers, supplying solutions to all their problems. I was full of excitement when I was given this assignment and told to take pictures and write an article. But when I asked the farmers from the cooperative about it, there wasn’t a single person who could verify that it actually took place. They said Kim Il-sung had never even been there.
  
  Flabbergasted, I informed the publisher, who in turn contacted the central party. Eventually, the following was ascertained: Kim Il-sung had been driving through the area one day in the previous year and had commented, “that’s not bad” as he looked in the direction of the Saebyol Farm.
  
  So now it was my job to take that remark and do it justice, to build a whole article around it. I had no choice but to carry out orders, to come up with a piece entitled “A Meaningful Place,” complete with pictures. It was total fiction. It wasn’t just the photographer and I who had to act on these orders. The farm cadres and farmers were removed from their work for two days to help us complete the assignment. We experienced similar scenes everywhere we went.
  
  With the material we prepared in hand, several hundred tranlators went to work overnight to translate it into different languages. After that we went into a huge printing run -- but then we suddenly received new orders.
  
  By orders, I mean the “word” of Kim Jong-il. We were told to make Kim Il-sung appear more compassionate. We had already added as much fabricated humanity to the story as we could. We were at a loss as what to do next.
  
  But official guidance is as good as the law. So we bit our tongues, went back once again to the site and, forget reporting, we worked strictly on embellishing our earlier fabrication. The story that we came up with is still known as a pictorial masterpiece, called “The Road of Great Love”.
  
  500,000 Copies Ended up Being Scrapped for Recycling
  About 30,000 copies were published in eight languages. After I escaped from North Korea and made it to China, I never saw a copy of the original story, but coincidentally I did see several pictures which had been torn out of the article.
  
  The media in a communist regime is a joke, being nothing more than a mouthpiece that glorifies the political leadership.
  
  In 1972 another tragicomedy occurred. At that time, Kim Song-ae, who was Kim Il-sung’s wife, wielded a great deal of power as head of the Choson Democratic Women’s Alliance. Using her position, she acted as if she were Empress of North Korea. But that wasn’t enough, she also wanted to be enshrined in history.
  
  First she made the Women’s Alliance the most powerful women’s group in North Korea, and then with the help of the media designated herself the “Revered Comrade Kim Song-ae.”
  
  She made plans to publish an impressive pictorial titled, “The Great Leader’s Dearest Comrade”. This was part of her grand plan to make herself the best-known heroine in North Korea and, indeed, the world. Kim Song-ae spent precious state funds to import the latest Japanese film equipment and the very best double-sided lithoprinter.
  
  She also imported huge quantities of glossy paper from Germany and Japan, causing economic bureaucrats’ mouths to drop. “Wow, the Great Leader’s wife really is powerful,” they’d say. She also gave notice that she had assigned the publication of the pictorial to the Foreign Language Publishing House. The employees rallied around vowing to do their best. Her influence was so great that underlings from the Women’s Alliance came strutting into the publisher’s office, more imposing than even the Central Party bureaucrats. Yet no one dared to stand up to them.
  
  No one got to go home at night. We worked, ate and slept at the office, being ordered around day and night. The work progressed quickly since all we had to do was to write the text according to the prearranged script and take photographs according to the plan prepared by the Women’s Alliance.
  
  The translators worked through the night as well to get the story translated into various languages. After a two-month battle we published about 500,000 copies of an approximately 100-page pictorial. Then something totally unexpected happened. The Central Party put the whole press-run under wraps with orders not to distribute even a single copy.
  
  According to rumours, Kim Jong-il had taken control of the propaganda department after a power struggle with Kim Song-ae. A week later, an even bigger rumour began circulating that Kim Song-ae’s ambitions had been squelched at a Central Party meeting. She was accused of dividing the Great Leader’s central system, and the Central Women’s Alliance was left on the verge of being dismantled.
  
  This was an example of a power struggle in which some “pruning” took place. The very next day several trucks arrived at the publishers and carted away load after load of the publication. The trucks went to the paper factory where all the copies were recycled.
  
  Crazy Propaganda For Foreign Countries
  The basic duty of the publisher was to exalt North Korea’s rulers abroad. And the publisher was well financed and equipped to get the job done. Kim Jong-il gained trust by keeping his father, Kim Il-sung, in the limelight, and later used the Foreign Language Publishing House as an important propoganda tool in consolidating his own political base. Kim Jong-il designated the works that Kim Il-sung was supposed to have written during the anti-Japanese struggle at Balchisan as classics, ordering that these great works of art be prominently displayed. Works including “Flower Girl” and “Sea of Blood”. In other words, it was a strategy based on using the power and persuasion of the arts. The task of the Foreign Language Publishing House was to produce “Flower Girl” and “Sea of Blood” in a pictorial format and then to distribute them overseas.
  
  At the time, the 300,000 copies that we had printed were almost completely distributed. It was at this time that we developed our overseas distribution network. Later, when I went to China, I didn’t see any of the pictorials we had published apart from “Flower Girl” and “Sea of Blood”. So I asked about the English-language copies and was told that they had been trashed for lack of interest. That’s when it occurred to me that only true works of art leave any lasting mark.
  
  Although we were publishing time-sensitive materials (the speeches of Kim Il-sung,) we regularly published them in book form. We would put a copy of the Rodong Sinmun, the North Korean Party newspaper, in with copies of Kim Il-sung’ speeches and send them abroad. We would print political propaganda in the translated works and distribute it in various countries. We were busiest when foreign delegations visited North Korea to meet with Kim Il-sung. We always printed the banquet speeches, for which the staff had to remain on duty for the duration of the event.
  
  As soon as the speeches had been delivered, they sent them to us for publishing, so that the book could be presented to the departing foreign delegation to take with them when they left North Korea. On occasion, the delegation would leave the morning after the banquet and we would have to work through the night to finish the job. The funny thing was that when we would present a delegation with the publication they would often turn it down, offering to take only a few copies of the 30,000 copies we would generally print. It was disheartening to work so hard only to have the fruit of our labour sitting in a warehouse. It gave us a taste of the free market, where unpopular items are ignored.
  
  The Concerns of Diplomats Who Had Gone Abroad
  Our publisher distributed our publications overseas through foreign-based embassies and consulates. Whenever we put out a new publication, the embassies and consulates were sent a distribution index which they complained prevented them from getting any other work done. They took the publications with them to ceremonies and banquets to hand out, but the problem was that that they were contemptuous of this duty. They complained that most foreigners would look askance at the title and flat-out refuse to accept a copy out of disinterest. Meanwhile, they said that many people would gladly accept the tourism brochures they had printed in other countries. Thus, orders were given to include the propaganda in tourist literature about spots like Kumgang Mountain and Myohyang Mountain.
  
  This is a policy that North Korea has been following since the 1980s. It’s a system whereby all diplomats leaving Pyongyang to a foreign posting had to carry two boxes of propoganda material with them, which of course they found truly bothersome. When going to live abroad there are boxes of personal belongings one has to take with them, so having to carry two extra boxes of books becomes a real added burden. But no one dared to disobey the regulation, if they valued their job that is.
  
  Reports had to be submitted on how the books were distributed, forcing the diplomats to plead and cajole with people in the host countries to accept a booklet. One story that circulated at the publishers was about one diplomat who had thrown his books in the garbage instead of distributing them. He got caught and was immediately summoned home to be dealt with.
  
  The main objective of the publications distribution system was to get materials into the hands of Koreans living overseas. The majority of them were living in China and Japan. This was done by providing books free of charge to the Chochongryon and the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in Jilin Province, China. As the materials were provided free of charge we were of the understanding that almost every family had a copy of each publication. To provide these publications, the Rodong Sinmun and Choson Daily News had to print tens of thousands of copies each month.
  
  For North Korea, which was economically strapped, this was a tremendous investment. As well, since 1975 we had been taking printing orders for constitutions, portraits, and even New Year’s greetings cards for the wives of presidents of Third World countries.
  
  If North Korea had spent as much material and labour resources on the economy and in taking an interest in the lives of the people instead of focusing on ideology, we might at least have been able to catch the heel of South Korea. It is a pity there is such a night and day difference.
  
  People tend to think that journalists or the media exercise some influence, which even the authorities or powerful organizations are reluctant to challenge. In North Korea, however, journalists have no independent voice -- and if they ever attempt to express one, they face the consequences.
  
  There was a very talented photographer who had been with us at the Foreign Language Publishing House since its inception. We admired him for his abilities and his decency. But one day in 1978 he came in with the colour drained from his face and handed in his camera.
  
  His seven-year-old son had broken the glass on a portrait of Kim Il-sung while playing. Party officials had found out about it and declared he and his family a “media reactionary family”, expelling him from the party and exiling him to a remote area. It was senseless. He was no reactionary. For a man who had worked so hard for so long and then to be condemned for this “crime” because of what his young son had done was beyond comprehension. After seeing many repetitions of this type of incident at the Foreign Language Publishing House we felt like we were walking on eggshells.
  
  The Editor in Chief Who Was Sent to a Detention Camp for What He Said
  Such was our existence that everything we did was reported to the Propaganda Department of the Central Pary. Another incident occurred at the Foreign Language Publishing House in 1980 that still haunts the staff.
  
  In North Korea we start each day with a “pledge of allegiance” to Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il. The Editor in Chief was responsible for leading the pledge each day.
  
  One day we were waiting for him to lead the pledge of allegiance and he didn’t show up. We wondered what was up and continued to wait for his arrival. At last, he came running in sweating profusely. The Editor in Chief apologized for being late, saying his bus had been held up.
  
  Then he grabbed the “allegiance” book, but instead of saying, “we will now say the pledge of allegiance to the Great Leader Kim Il-sung and the Dear Leader Kim Jung-il,” he said, “we will now meditate on the Great Leader Kim Il-sung and the Dear Leader Kim Jong-il”.
  
  He didn’t even pick up on our questioning glances and went on to lead the General Kim Il-sung song.
  
  Recognizing that it was an unwitting slip of the tongue, we couldn’t help but chuckle as we sang. But about two hours later a terrible rumour started spreading throughout the publishing house. Workers from the Security Department had come in a black car and taken away the Editor in Chief. At first we speculated that he would explain that it was all a mistake and would soon be back. But we later learned that he was sent with his family to the political detention camp in Seungho-ri, Pyongyang.
  
  He had been Editor in Chief since the inception of the publishing house, a man of talent and a manager who made important decisions, as well as looking after all the details. We could do nothing without him. We were so distraught that the staff and cadres within the organization wrote letters to the Central Party that were jointly signed asking for his “wrongdoing” to be forgiven and for him to be sent back. However our proposal was ignored. Instead, a warning was issued saying we had protested the government’s dealing with the matter and subsequently a “guidance group” was dispatched.
  
  The group held an ideology session for several days, putting all employees under the gun. As a result, the senior editor and two reporters who had instigated the letter were fired and sent to a remote area.
  
  Continuous suppression of the media put the Foreign Language Publishing House in upheaval for a year, so that we didn’t know whether we were coming or going.
  
  Lee Sang-byok is one of North Korea’s most famous announcers. Apparently his hometown is in the South. He has a Seoul manner of speaking and a bit of a Seoul accent. Since independence from the Japanese and the Korean War, Lee Sang Byuk came through the reconstruction and has practically had a monopoly on broadcasting in North Korea. With his wonderful voice and his particular way with words, he is widely loved by the people.
  
  At a meeting of announcers in 1978 he was vigorously debating broadcasting when he put forward the opinion that the Seoul dialect be introduced as the standard broadcast language. Lee Sang-byuk argued that, “given that the population in the South is double that of the North it would aid in restoring national homogeneity after unification.” However, someone informed on him and he was summoned and exiled to a remote area.
  
  Lee Sang-byuk toiled away on a farm for several years until there was a concensus that he was the best announcer in North Korea and he was dealt with leniently and reinstated.
  
  Although he is now old, his voice is not forgotten and he is still loved by North Koreans.
  
  Reporters Who Were Dismissed for Women Problems
  No doubt there were incidences of corruption among reporters out on assignment. The cameramen would promise to put some flattering picture of a woman in a magazine and then bully them into assuming various poses, presumably for the sake of the picture. At first the women would resist but would then eventually give in to having an affair with the reporters.
  
  That is why we had a constant ideological battle, but instead of things improving they only got worse. There was a whole string of good reporters who were dismissed due to women problems. It was the one area they really didn’t seem to want to be controlled.
  
  And for the translators who had to sit there all day and do nothing but translate, it was common for them to mutually relieve their stress through sex.
  
  At night when they were leaving work, couples who had had their eyes on each other would go out and meet at a predetermined spot. Until the situation drew public criticism, no one even attempted to deal with the problem.
  
  Kim Nam-hae and the “Good-for-Nothing Delegation”
  As with everywhere else in North Korea, family background was important in the media, too, so that ‘core class’ cadres were assigned to positions that they weren’t qualified for, in which they just blundered their way through.
  
  Mr. Kim Nam-hae, the man who has headed the Foreign Language Publishing House since 1980 is just such a person. He was my senior for one of the years I was at the Kimchaek Institute of Technology. He was kicked out of school for not studying, but then forgiven because his father was some businessman doing business with South Korea. After barely graduating from college, he never worked diligently and moved from job to job until he had nowhere to go and ended up staying at home. Then, overnight, he became successful.
  
  The story was that his father, who had been dispatched to South Korea as a ‘spy,’ was sacrificed so that his son had to follow in his father’s footsteps. One evening four black cars arrived at his house. Out stepped 7 or 8 elderly men with protruding stomachs who marched straight into his house.
  
  They said, “We will pass on the instructions of the Great Leader,” then proceeded to say that Kim Il-sung had said, “Hak-chul was a good comrade. If there were only 8 people like him the fatherland would already be united.” He then said that Kim Nam-hae had been seperated from his parents during the Korean War, had been carried on the back of a North Korean soldier back to the North and suffered like an orphan, but that from now on the party was going to take care of him.
  
  It was as if Kim Nam-hae grew wings overnight. Kim Nam-hae received the blessing of Kim Jong-il and shortly thereafter became President of the Foreign Language Publishing House.
  
  Kim Jung-il gave instructions to Kim Nam-hae to get an equipment-purchasing delegation together, and to “not spare any expense in buying equipment from overseas.” Initially, he tried to do a good job by getting together workers who were very good technically and sent their names to the authorities, but they were rejected two times because they were considered bad elements. Infuriated at the Central Party’s rejection, he formed a delegation of the sons of party cadres. Then he succeeded in gaining permission from the party and left with them. Shopping in 16 countries, he bought nothing but the best equipment, had a good holiday and came back in high spirits. The problems started when they tried to install the equipment.
  
  They had bought the best equipment but there wasn’t a soul on the delegation with any particular expertise and no one had learned how to operate the equipment.
  
  Eventually those who had been rejected for the delegation because they were bad elements were the ones who studied the manuals and put the equipment in working order.
  
  Kim Il-sung’s Books Rotting in Storage
  The delegation members who purchased the equipment spent most of their time goofing off and were dubbed the “Good-for-Nothing Delegation”. Although this information was reported to the Central Party, they never got in any of trouble. In fact, Kim Jong-il praised Kim Nam-hae, calling him a “ brave man”, which goes to show what a mess North Korean society is in. To this day workers in the press room refer to the presses as the “Good-for-Nothing machines”.
  
  When I was still working at the Foreign Language Publishing House I believed that the countless publications we were putting out were almost all being sent abroad. That was a mistake. In 1991, when I went to the overseas propaganda department to look for some material, I was in for a shock.
  
  The first three floors of the 100-metre-long, seven-storey apartment complex were entirely taken up storing publications for the overseas propaganda department. When we went into the storage area the books were piled high. Shocked, I look at the labels on the stored materials only to find that most of them were various publications we had published.
  
  I couldn’t sleep that night thinking about the abandoned accummulation of our publications and all the wasted foreign currency it represented. The books were piled twice as high as the average person, with black mold growing on the bindings that emitted an awful odour.
  
  I felt shudders of futility. As an employee of the Foreign Language Publishing House, I felt hatred and couldn’t help but feel embarassed. About 80% of the books were by or about Kim Il-sung, of which 60% were pictorials and monthly magazines. In the end, it seemed that less than half the books we had published had been distributed. I was so confounded I asked the person in charge why there were so many books in storage. He replied, “How are you supposed to give people books they don’t want? They all seem to say something about not being interested in the Juche ideology. If only our comrade leader was a bit more powerful he could have rounded up those foreign bastards who refuse to take the books and sent them to a detention center. But they are from a different county, so what could we do?”
  
  The North Korean authorities were accustomed to self-delusion, printing tens of thousands of books despite knowing they weren’t finding an audience.
  
  In 1992, when my husband retired and we moved to Hamheung, I began working as a reporter for the South Hamkyong newspaper.
  
  The Puppet Newspaper
  First, I’d like to simply introduce the North Korean newspaper operation that I saw while working as a reporter. As far as newspapers go, the only official government mouthpieces are the Rodong Sinmun, the Minju Choson and the Rodong Chongnyon, known as the voice of the young.
  
  Apart from those papers, there is the armed forces newspaper, the Choson People’s Army, which places military concerns above all else. Since Kim Il-sung’s death, it has been these three central organ newspapers that print a joint editorial instead of the annual New Year’s message.
  
  The most important newspaper, the Rodong Sinmun, covers all aspects of political, economic and cultural issues in the country. This newspaper occupies an important position and has absolute power, so that the editor in chief occupies a senior central party post, participating in matters of state such as party policy discussions.
  
  The Rodong Sinmun occupies a long five-storey building in Chungshin-Dong, Chungkuyeok, Pyongyang and has a large building beside it which houses the printing presses. The Rodong Sinmun, with the country’s largest circulation, is the voice of Kim Jong-il.
  
  Everything, from how various news strories are covered to how they’re presented is under the direct control of Kim Jong-il. He is the first person to see each day’s edition so he can comment on it. Everyone who works at the paper is from the elite class in North Korea. The Rodong Chongnyon was not the voice of youth either. It was controlled by the Rodong Sinmun and followed its direction. There were also daily newpapers in each province bearing the name of the province.
  
  The basic purpose of the provincial papers was to support the editorial point of view of the Rodong Sinmun. The provincial papers also existed to strengthen the foundation of the party.
  
  That is why you would regularly see the words “according to the Rodong Sinmun” on the front page every day. The South Hamkyong Daily was based on the 6th floor of Building 1 at the South Gate apartment complex in the Songchon River district, Hamheung City.
  
  The press that printed the paper was located adjacent to the Provincial Daily paper. Although the paper received its editorial direction from the propaganda department of the Provincial Party, the paper still had to go through the provincial pary censors before it could be published. The Provincial Daily was structured just like the Rodong Sinmun, with a Party Life Department, Working People’s Organizations Department, Industrial Department, Agriculture Department, Education and Culture Department and Regional Industrial Department. I was assigned to work as a reporter in the Regional Industrial Department. Our job was to publicize companies located in South Hamkyong province, thereby overstating their economic position. Regional companies are referred to as so-called “Third-class businesses” in the North Korean system. They have fewer than 1000 employees and even factories are considered SMEs.(small and medium companies) The quality of our newsprint was unbelievably poor.
  
  The newsprint used by the Rodong Sinmun was made with wood pulp, but the newsprint used by the provinces was made from 40% wood and 60% rice straw. The paper was rough to the touch and an ugly yellowish color.
  
  Since 1994 when the economic crisis first began we could not harvest any trees off the mountain and had to cut back dramatically on the number of papers we printed.
  
  Production of notebooks for students and the like was suspended altogether, but the paper was given top priority in order to maintain the system. In a society where freedom has been suspended, the role of the North Korean press was to act as a propaganda machine and to maintain military discipline. It was a troubling method.
  
  Money-grubbing, Overly-ambitious Journalists
  The Rodong Sinmun reporters, the most privileged elite in North Korean society, use their party credentials to exercise their authority and receive first-class treatment whevever they go. They have privileges to travel by car and ride first-class on trains at will. They are believed to report to the Central Party anyone who doesn’t treat them well. This, of course, strikes fear in people, who in turn treat them to the best of everything possible. In North Korea, where food comes before anything this is the best treatment possible. According to informal surveys, people say that reporters have the No.1 job satisfaction in North Korea.
  
  Unfortunately, lower ranking reporters such as myself didn’t have those same privileges and could only envy the top reporters. That isn’t to say we were treated badly, we were certainly able to get by. When I went to large companies, the cadres would stick their noses up in the air and wouldn’t agree to interviews. That’s because they reported directly to the Central government. Thus, we had to look for “baby cadres” under the provincial party to interview. The regional company cadres fit this category. The North Korean press characteristically deals only with good news, if at all possible. The news is full of success stories.
  
  In North Korea, where the only way to survive comfortably is to be a cadre, the cadres of SMEs would ask us to please write a favorable story about their factory. So the reports tend to be influenced by the “baby cadres” who pull strings to get the kind of coverage they want. How could the reporters not be swayed. They were too busy being entertained and trying to get what they needed to get by in their daily lives from the people they were interviewing to do a proper job of reporting. I too frequently experienced this.
  
  Reporting on the Soy Sauce and Fermented Bean Paste Factory
  One incident occurred in 1993 when I went to report on the soy sauce factory in Keumya-kun. The information I had received from the provincial party was incorrect. According to the provincial party, the factory kept the kun supplied with soy sauce and fermented bean paste, which everyone liked. According to residents in the area, the factory produced vegetable corn oil for the cadres and all they were left with was incredibly bitter-tasting fermented bean paste. And that was provided only once every two months, meaning they often had to use salt as a substitute. And that’s why they called the factory the “cadre supplier.” As for supplies such as vegetable oil, they said it had been about a year since each family had received one bottle per family. When I confronted the head of the factory with what I had heard from the people, he jumped up and down saying I was making accusations that would see his head roll.
  
  He quickly went and found one of his underlings and after discussing things he said, “you must be very tired, please just have a rest today and we can do the interview tomorrow.” His assistant immediately came to escort me. I followed him as he took me to a very neat and cosy inn. A little later, the factory head, the top-level regional party secretary and four cadres from the factory came over for refreshments. There was the famous Pyongyang Yongsung beer, Kaesong Ginsaeng liquor, high quality sweets, even pigs feet, all of which was an amazing display of hospitality for someone of my status. It was not typical fare. I had intended to pass on the comments I had heard from the people, but the instant I saw the refreshments spread out on the table all my good intentions started to cave in.
  
  Reporters expected to be treated well. When we weren’t, it was our custom to start finding fault. They held out a box that contained sweets and several bottles of oil which they said they hoped would be useful to me.
  
  I felt incredibly grateful. I even felt sorry that I had felt anything negative towards these good people. Afer staying up half the night eating and drinking I was beginning to think that being a reporter was really not a bad job after all.
  
  A Bribe for My Brother-in-law’s Wedding
  When I went back to the factory to do my reporting the next day, everything looked good to me. I had put what the people had told me out of my mind. Instead I focused on how to put the cadres at the factory in the best light possible.
  
  It was the least I could do to compensate for their hospitality. I padded the article with a lot of untrue “facts” and pushed it through the editors. A few days later the lengthy article and photos appeared on page 3, under the headline “Genuine Servants of the People”.
  
  The night the newspaper was published I received phone calls to thank me from the top party secretary and the head of the factory.
  
  They said to let them know if there was ever anything they could do for me and asked me to come back and do another article some time. The connection came in useful when my sister-in-law was getting married. A wedding date had been set, but my in-laws, who didn’t have two coins to rub together, looked to me for help. Thinking I could make use of the factory, I devised a “plan.” I suggested I do another story on the factory and got approved. When I contacted them that I intended to do another article on them, and also that I had a problem, they wanted to know right away what it was. When I told them it was because of my sister-in-law’s upcoming wedding, they told me not to worry, just to do a big feature on them.
  
  We came to an agreement and I went and did another article, coming out of the bargain with 10 bottles of oil and expensive liquor and two boxes of expensive sweets.
  
  Of course the article was prominently featured, but it elicited an unexpected response. Having read my article, the South Hamkyong Province provincial party decided that they should learn from the Keumya-kun factory. They even requested that I come up with a name for the lecture series. The head of the factory let me know that they had to do a little something for the priviledge.
  
  So I joined their little club and did my bit to help them get ahead. The media can be a magical entity. It can pull a rabbit out of a hat, or just as easily make it disappear. Thus it was that the head of the factory became the deputy director of a bureau of the provincial regional industry.
  
  All the cadres were decorated, which no doubt served to pave the way for their futures.
  
  The graft that I received was a big help to our family. Moreover, I was the recipient of my husband’s affection and he praised me lavishly as “a woman of action.” It wasn’t just me, every journalist I knew was milking whatever he or she could out of their work to their personal benefit.
  
  A Moving False Article
  Thanks to the media, a young single woman came to South Hamkyong Province in 1994 as the star of “Good Deed.” A middle-aged reporter working at the ministry of education learned of this.
  
  When he went to Shinheung-kun, South Hamkyong Province to report the story, he found out that a young woman had helped an old lady who had lost her only son while he was in the army. After tracking down the young woman and reporting on how she had helped the old lady, he initiated a romantic liason with her (a fact he later divulged while drinking).
  
  To somehow compensate the naive young woman for having robbed her of her virginity, he wrote that the young woman had helped the woman who had lost her son everyday for two years. He asked the old lady to back-up the story and spun a very moving story. The article ran on Page 2, taking up almost the entire page and capturing enormous attention all over the province. The provincial party secretary read the story and called in the young woman for a chat. When workers were sent out to verify the story the old lady agreed with everything the reporter had said. The much-impressed provincial party secretary reccommended her to the central party for which she received a TV and fridge as a reward given in the name of Kim Jong-il.
  
  Then when she received the “honorable” gifts from Kim Jong-il, another big story appeared in the paper. A black and white TV and a refridgerator were big gifts, gifts that one could never hope to have even after a lifetime of saving.
  
  All of a sudden the young woman was as desirable as a princess. The young woman chose a good-looking navy officer from among all her suitors and married him.
  
  But problems began when she continued to meet with the reporter under the pretense of going to visit her parents. Her husband gradually caught on to her relationship and divorced her, leaving her in a pitiful situation. The reporter, too, was fired and sent to the countryside.
  
  My life as a reporter ended when I turned 50 in 1994. I then began to receive an old-age pension.
  
  Practical Chinese Politics
  The food crisis which hit North Korea in 1995 brought the people of Hamheung city to death’s door. Amid the shortage, my retired husband and I were unable to put food on the table and had nothing to live on. Eventually, I lost my husband to starvation. Thinking I would not last much longer, I cursed North Korea as I successfully made my way into China. I left because I had no desire to try and hang on any longer in a place where death was ever present. At the time, there were many people from Hamheung city who were escaping into China across the Tumen and Yalu rivers.
  
  From my experience as a reporter, I feel distraught that the North Korean regime had put sustaining the system ahead of people’s lives. They were only looking out for themselves and people like me were left to our own devices, leading me to decide to flee to China A reporter that I had worked with advised me to go to North Hamkyong province and cross the Tumen river.
  
  He urged me to go ahead and settle in, that he would follow if the situation in North Korea did not improve. As I write this I can’t help but feel thankful to the ethnic Koreans in China who helped me to escape from North Korea.
  
  The reforms and winds of change in China are great. Although there is no freedom of the press, I have written what I want to say in a book. Both being communist countries, North Korea considers China an ally, a country which respects its people and which is practical.
  
  In China, I feel a great deal of satisfaction in seeing people buying books and reading them because they are interesting. If the books were only full of personality worship and the juche philosophy like they are in North Korea, then the Chinese people would definitely not read them.
  
  Interesting Korean Magazines
  People in North Korea read North Korean publications because that’s all there is to read and because they have to read and report on what they have read. Ethnic Koreans living in China say they received the Rodong Sinmun pictorial until 1993, when they were suddenly cut off.
  
  Obviously, North Korea had to suspend its overseas propaganda due to the food shortage and economic difficulties. So I asked people if they had enjoyed reading the material before it was cut off. They said things like: “There was nothing to read. I’d look at it hoping for some news from my hometown but it was all just about the Great Leader, stuff I don’t much want to hear about.” Or, “Aren’t there any writers in North Korea? The articles sound as if they were all been written by the same person.”
  
  They had a point. I could understand their being disgruntled, given that in North Korea the same things are repeated over and over again, day after day. People want to read something new that will be in their interest, they want to see their voice reflected and they want to express their opinion. But in North Korea where the voice of one dictator has been published for decades on end, there is nothing more boring and annoying.
  
  I still wondered if perhaps there wasn’t at least some way in which the Rodong magazine was missed, so I asked an ethnic Korean and he got all excited, saying, “There isn’t a person in China who wants to read that crap.” Instead they seemed to read the Choson Daily News or the Dongah Daily newspapers from South Korea. I enjoyed reading them, too.
  
  In those papers, journalists can say what they want and give you the sense that they are an integral part of their own culture. To hear this voice coming from my own people brought tears to my eyes. I was overjoyed to see it. It was so interesting I stayed up all night reading it over and over again.
  
  When we are unified and North Koreans read South Korean publications they will find it so novel they too will read it again and again. And their eyes will be popping out of their heads. They will demand freedom of the press to say the things they have been denied for so long.