Growing up in Japan in the 1980s, Hyangsu Park felt like a foreigner. At her Korean-language school, she was taught to praise North Korea’s founder, Kim Il-Sung, and his son, Kim Jong-Il, whose portraits hung on the walls. Outside of her community, however, she used a Japanese name and hid her Korean identity.
Park’s experience was common among ‘Zainichi’ Koreans, a term used for hundreds of thousands of Koreans who settled in Japan - voluntarily or forcibly - during its colonial rule of the Korean peninsula from 1910 to 1945 as well as for their descendants. The current population of Zainichi Koreans is estimated between 300,000 and 400,000. They hold permanent residency in Japan and have not naturalised as Japanese citizens.
Like many Zainichi at the time, Park’s family were members of Chongryon, a prominent association of ethnic Koreans in Japan that has been linked to North Korea and acted as Pyongyang’s de-facto embassy. Its influence, however, has been in decline.
To Zainichi, who were not Japanese citizens and faced widespread prejudice and discrimination, Chongryon offered a strong community and support network in the form of Korean-language schools, commercial enterprises and a university.
“It was kind of a fence that protected me. It’s one thing I appreciate about Chongryon and Korean schools,” Park recalled in an interview with SBS Dateline. “Outside of school, I felt like an alien. I learned to hide that I’m Korean depending on the situation.”
Hyangsu Park was raised in a pro-North Korean community in Japan. After the disappearance of her relatives and their apparent death in North Korea, she became a human rights activist working with the victims of Pyongyang's repatriation campaign, "Return to Paraside". Source: Supplied
It’s been almost 33 years since Park saw him, and 27 years since she saw his wife and three children in North Korea. She understands they died in prison.
“I could not speak out before,” she told SBS Dateline. “The reason why I can do this interview is that I learnt that my family in North Korea are dead. My mother told me: ‘now you can speak out instead of the people who cannot.’”
He wrote, ‘Please, send me a hot air balloon.’ Everybody realised that he wanted to come home but he couldn’t write it openly.
North Korea’s ‘Return to Paradise’ campaign
North Korea launched a repatriation campaign advertising the country as “paradise on Earth” in 1959, which was backed by the Japanese government, Chongryon, and the Red Cross. It promised free health care, housing, jobs, and, most importantly, “the return to the fatherland” to the discriminated people longing for a place to belong.
Approximately 93,000 Zainichi Koreans and their Japanese spouses moved to North Korea between 1959 and 1984. Those few who managed to escape later described poverty, total censorship, and manual work at mines, forests or farms.
But most could never leave. Among them was Park's uncle, Seok-geun Do.
In 1967, the 17-year-old followed his girlfriend, who had moved to North Korea with her family in the hope of a better life. Young Seok-geun realised that it would be hard for him to pursue his dreams in Japan because Koreans were excluded from public sector jobs and were paid lower wages. He didn’t want to work in the pachinko business, pinball-like gaming parlours where many Koreans were employed at the time. Pyongyang propaganda promised free education and work opportunities.
“After one year, my mum got a letter from her brother who asked to send him clothes and other things. In the end, he wrote, ‘Please, send me a hot air balloon.’ Everybody realised that he wanted to come home but he couldn’t write it openly.”
During her first visit to North Korea in 1990, 17-year-old Park met her youngest cousin. "She was wearing a red dress that I used to wear and that was my favourite. My mother would send our old clothes and shoes to them," Park said. Source: Supplied / Hyangsu Park
“My mother and her family were suffering and regretting that they had sent him to North Korea,” Park said.
In 1990, she got a chance to stay for a few days with her uncle’s family during a two-week tour to North Korea organised by Chongryon for Korean high school students.
Taken away by the secret police
Six years later, when Park and her mother were able to visit again, they could sense something terrible had happened. Seok-geun was absent this time. Only his wife and children came to meet them. They looked distraught and emaciated.
After a mandatory and closely monitored tour to Pyongyang, they finally managed to talk privately on the day of their departure. Park and her mother learned that Seok-geun had been taken away by the secret police, and there had been no news of him since.
“They were so scared. We didn’t know what to do. We were leaving in a few hours. My mum gave them all the money she had and promised to do something through Chongryon. She told them to just stay alive,” Park recalled with tears in her eyes.
It was the last time Park saw her aunt and three cousins. Her family wasn’t allowed into North Korea again.
It wasn’t until 20 years later that she learned about their fate.
In 2016, she shared the story of her uncle on a local YouTube show. Shortly after, she was contacted by a man who had defected from North Korea to Japan and said he knew what happened to her relatives.
Seok-geun with his three children photographed at Wonsan port in 1990. Source: Supplied / Hyangsu Park
Seok-geun was with his friends when he received a call from his brother in Japan who told him about the collapse of the communist government in Romania. “Don’t worry, North Korea won’t last long,” his brother said, oblivious to the fact that international calls were wiretapped. The entire group was arrested and tortured.
Seok-geun’s wife and three children were later sent to the Yodok political prison camp, notorious for its harsh living conditions, forced labour and torture.
In the following years, Park searched for any information about her relatives from North Korean defectors and human rights organisations. She was able to corroborate the death of her uncle through other sources. But it’s unknown whether her aunt and cousins survived.
“One defector in Seoul told me she saw my aunt and my youngest cousin in prison and I should stop hoping they might still be alive. They were all skin and bone and couldn’t even walk properly. That was more than 10 years ago,” Park said.
“I still have a tiny hope. I just can’t believe they are all dead.”
In memory of her uncle and his family, Park continues to advocate for the victims of the “Return to Paradise” campaign working with various human rights groups in Japan and South Korea. She collects testimonies of Zainichi Koreans who went to North Korea during the repatriation campaign and managed to escape as well as of the families who never saw their relatives again. She plans to publish a book and make a documentary.
“Sometimes I want to forget about it. But it comes from my heart. I have to do it. So maybe until I get really tired, I will continue.”
Park with her mother, aunt and three cousins during her second - and last - visit to North Korea in 1996. Source: Supplied
Shifting attitudes towards Chongryon and Koreans in Japan
Over the past few decades, Chongryon’s influence has been shrinking. Its membership rates — and donations — have fallen.
Perceptions towards North Korea among Zainichi Koreans have changed following revelations about the regime’s widespread human rights abuses. When North Korean leader Kim Jong-il admitted in 2002 that his country had abducted at least 13 Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s and forced them to train North Korean spies, it dealt a heavy blow to Chongryon’s reputation as the organisation had denied such kidnappings.
Hyangsu Park photographed on Mount Paektu with a classmate during a two-week graduation trip to North Korea in 1990 organised by Chongryon for students of Korean high schools in Japan. Source: Supplied / Hyangsu Park
“My nephews use their Korean names, even after they transferred to a Japanese school,” she said. “The image of Korea, especially South, has changed dramatically, mainly because of K-Pop and K-dramas. I sometimes envy the younger generations. They are very open and sometimes even proud of having Korean heritage.”
Chongryon-affiiliated Korean schools have been struggling too, as funding from Pyongyang dried up, and the Japanese government excluded them from a subsidy scheme, making them more expensive to attend. There are still over 60 schools with some 6,500 students.
Lately, the Korean schools and pupils have become targets of attacks by Japanese ultra-nationalists amid North Korea’s increasing missile tests, some of which were fired towards Japan.
Did you like this story? Watch the documentary “Inside Little North Korea” about Chongryon’s schools and why some Zainichi Koreans still feel a strong bond to North Korea .
