“Many things are closely related to North Korea in our real life”
Professor Ha Seung-hee works as a member of the North Korean Studies Institute at Dongguk University. During a course named “North Korea System Change Seminar” in the first semester, the professor published a fairy tale book about a child whose hometown is North Korea with students majoring in North Korean studies. Through interviews with the North Korean expert, the Dongguk Post would like to provide an opportunity to indirectly listen to the stories of North Korean refugees, a minority group in our society.
Q1. Please introduce yourself.
My name is Ha Seung-hee, and I work as a visiting professor at Dongguk University Institute of North Korean Studies. I am researching on reading North Korean Society through North Korean social culture and media, and instructing a Capstone design class for seniors and juniors majoring in North Korean studies. During the first semester, I conducted a course called the North Korean System Change Seminar, and this semester, I am conducting another Capstone design class called the Korean Peninsula Unification Seminar.
Q2. We would like to know about your work and activities at the Institute of North Korean Studies.
Our research institute has another research group called the North Korean Mixed Society Research Group. In addition, we are eventually conducting interdisciplinary exchanges related to North Korean research, collecting data related to North Korea, and conducting international academic conferences. There are diverse, but ultimately, it aims to contribute to the goal of unification, and now it is a place to view North Korea as an academic field and expand in its research. Furthermore, it has various purposes such as building research infrastructure and fostering subsequent generations of academics, suggesting not only academic contributions but also policy alternatives, and forming public opinion on unification.
Q3. Please introduce the fairy tale book, “Sosim’s Courage.”
There was a Capstone design class called “The North Korean System Change Seminar” in the first semester of 2023. This is a picture fairy tale book that two students majoring in North Korean studies and I produced together as a result of the class. This book was produced through the support of the school LINC Business 3.0 Project and in cooperation with the Korean Association of North Korean Studies. Normally, we only read papers or specialized books about North Korean refugees, so it is harder to talk about them through a fairy tale book. I thought it could be a new experience for students, so we decided to do something like that. The book is about a North Korean child refugee. He is the main character. He had a bit of fear and hopelessness when introducing his hometown, but now he is in the process of overcoming this fear with the help of his classmates and an owner of a gimbap restaurant who came from Thailand.
Q4. Was there anything difficult when you published the book?
I was careful in dealing with the content related to discrimination. Even if it is an experience that students have experienced in person related to discrimination, it cannot be said in its entirety. It is their own perspective. I think there is a part where he can get closer because he talked based on this experience. We emphasize “defectors,” and like a stigma, it is true that they came from North Korea, but by emphasizing North Korea, it remains in our perception. We thought a lot about how to do that to make it different from us. Even in books, words like defector do not come out directly. There were various fairy tale books. After reading them critically, North Korean defectors were portrayed as outsiders, and they were drawn only as people who needed help or had pain, so I think students had a sense of the problem and worked on the project.
Q5. Why do you think North Korean studies are important?
The National Institute for Unification Education publishes a book called “Understanding North Korea” every year. North Korea’s current trends are unrelated to the direction of unification since the Korean War. Still, it is important to recognize them in all economy, society, and culture fields. But in fact, many things are too closely related to our lives. Not only do we live together and aim for unification, but also there are news that we are currently dealing with most sensitively. We have been hearing the main news about North Korea, and many things are closely related to North Korea in our real life. There is a position in terms of how to read and interpret those things.
Q6. If there is a reason why we need the story of North Korean defectors, what would it be?
The same goes for North Korean defectors. I think it is because we live together. However, our images are different because of distortions and various information, but now that I am interested in the media, I think many parts are affected by the media. So, to see that image objectively and in a balanced way, I think we need to see North Korea, as I said before. There are about 30,000 North Korean defectors, but we can live without meeting each other for the rest of our lives. I think there is just this kind of illusions about North Korean defectors and North Korea that we make. It has continued to change, but in the past, elders thought that North Koreans had red faces or horns. In the end, however, it keeps preventing us from going and meeting them. Because of this, we cannot keep meeting each other. I think everything will be solved when we meet, but the media keeps creating images which are far from the reality. To go together, I think distorted images are the biggest matter we should agonize. We are living, but there are a lot of things that are wrong.
Q7. What do you think is the biggest diff iculty that North Korean defectors are currently experiencing?
I think it is a matter of identity. When talking with students who defected from North Korea talk about it, many friends are hiding their identity. Among the students who came recently, all the South Korean friends do not know. They fear their South Korean friends realize that they are from North Korea, so they end up hiding it and living their lives. When I ask why they hide it, they think that their friends will look at them differently when friends realize. The prejudice or perception of this society itself is not that much, but there are parts where they hide it first. On the other hand, there are definitely parts that they are discriminated against because of prejudice and things like that. Therefore, in this system, when they do the same thing, they get the same evaluation, but when they say I am a North Korean defector, they get more because others feel sorry, or feel that they are excluded.
Q8. Koreans make content based on North Korea related topics. It is used as a material for humor or as a characteristic element of a drama. I wonder if you have thoughts about such situations.
It is called a North Korean meme. Now there is a paper in which I conducted research on memes with two of those accounts. There are things like how images appear when you see them, but in the end, these things are “disgusting.” Some parts can continue to build on North Korea’s stereotypes. These are expressed as a caricature and ridicule materials, which can be regarded as freedom of expression or critical object. There is ambivalence, so I think I need to think about how to do these things. What I am worried about is that if it is combined with deepfake, it can spread as fake news. As I said before, media literacy is important. Also, it is directly related to security, so you have to be careful about memes that spread rumors. So now that there are actual cases like that, if technology continues to develop and comes close to our society, we need to think about how we use it in such ways.
Q9. Can you tell us about your future plans?
Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a hot topic these days. There were parts where we thought about how it would be when we approached the theme of unification with North Korea. Typically, there is chatGPT. However, if you ask questions about North Korea based on open source, it is not accurate, but has many errors, or it is ambiguous now. Also, North Korea is a closed nation with no data, so open sources cannot provide accurate information. In the end, what should we do if we want to approach unification or North Korea with generative AI? Someone can use these wrong data by misunderstanding the facts. Basically, the database, which is the basis of North Korea, should be released publicly in North Korea, but that is the tough part. Therefore, of course, accurate information cannot be obtained. This is about cyber security, not only text-based, but in various aspects such as video-based or music-based. There are various things, so when you put in images or music about North Korea, for example, pictures. Then, certain images will be generated, and they will be created with existing data on North Korea, so it can represent a prejudice we have. Furthermore, I am thinking about checking the products that come out and making a book this semester, which could be a kind of guideline.