Kwon Chol-nam, a North Korean defector, in a room rented for $267/month in Seoul, South Korea.
In 2014, divorced and empty-handed, Kwon Chol-nam fled North Korea.
Now, after many hardships and dangers, the man who fled North Korea has changed his mind and wants to return home, according to the New York Times.
Second class citizen
`You have to sit on a horse to know if that horse is for you or not. I tried and Korea is not for me. I want to go home and reunite with my ex-wife and 16-year-old son,` he said.
Although the world views North Korea as a repressive country, to Mr. Kwon, that means nothing.
`They gave me nicknames, treated me like an idiot, and didn’t pay me the same as others for doing the same job, just because I’m from North Korea,` Mr. Kwon said in an angry voice.
This North Korean man held press conferences, submitted a petition to the United Nations and protested in front of government buildings in Seoul hoping that the South Korean government would let him return to his homeland.
Since the 1990s, more than 30,000 North Koreans have fled to South Korea.
The attempt to return to North Korea sent Mr. Kwon to prison.
Theoretically, the two Koreas are still in a state of war, so citizens of the two countries are not allowed to exchange letters, let alone freely travel across the border.
Mr. Kwon is the second person after Ms. Kim Ryen-hi, a garment worker, to publicly express her desire to return to North Korea.
`Cases like this clearly show the complexity of the problem of family separation from 70 years ago. That problem still exists today in different forms and deeply affects people on the peninsula
For the North Korean government, defectors like Mr. Kwon become the perfect political propaganda tool.
`Kwon Chol-nam’s tearful plea that he cannot live in a hellish place like Korea shows that many of our citizens were forced to go to the South and are desperate to return.`
Difficult journey
Mr. Kwon Chol-nam moved to Seoul in March.
In 2014, Mr. Kwon, who was then trading medicinal herbs near the North Korea-China border, listened to the advice of a woman he had known before and fled to the other side of the border in the hope of finding
But reality is not as expected.
Mr. Kwon struggled to adapt to a fiercely competitive capitalist Korean society.
Working in all sorts of jobs, from working in agriculture to working at construction sites, wherever he goes, Mr. Kwon is often ridiculed for not understanding some common English words in everyday conversation.
The more Mr. Kwon struggled with life in South Korea, the more he missed his family in North Korea, especially his son.
And in May last year, Mr. Kwon said the owner who hired him to carry bricks did not pay him enough, which was `the last straw.`
`I will return to the North and hold a press conference to publicize the truth about life in Korea,` Mr. Kwon shouted at the police, according to court records.
‘Dilemma’
Standing in front of government buildings, Mr. Kwon Chol-nam held a sign with the words `I am a citizen of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. I want to return home.`
When he defected from North Korea, Mr. Kwon became an enemy of Pyongyang and now that he insists on returning to his homeland, he is considered an outsider in Korean society.
Yearning to return home, Mr. Kwon applied for a Korean passport and a tourist visa to China in the hope of being able to cross the border back to North Korea.
`I don’t want to live a miserable life here anymore,` the message read.
On June 22, 2016, more than 10 police officers entered Mr. Kwon’s house to search and arrest him, accusing him of planning to flee to North Korea.
Since his release from prison, Mr. Kwon has been unemployed and shunned by other North Korean defectors.
`In the South, I had to experience hardships that I had never experienced in the North. I was afraid of life here,` Mr. Kwon confided.
`Isn’t the most natural thing for a human being to return home to his family,` said Father Moon Dae-gol, who has taken care of Mr. Kwon since he moved to Seoul in March, `One nation
Standing in front of government buildings, Mr. Kwon held up a sign with the words `I am a citizen of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. I want to return home.`
Mr. Kwon asserted that even when he was punished by the North Korean government for defecting, he accepted it and considered it the price he had to pay.
Mr. Kwon’s determination shows that even though material life in Korea is better, he still prefers to live a simple life in the place where he was born.
`In the North, I may not be rich but I understand the people living around me and I will not be treated, like scum, the way they treated me in the South.`
