Meet with the most famous North Korean on YouTube

Meet with the most famous North Korean on YouTube

North Koreans, like Jun Heo, that have crossed the DMZ is looking at vlogging to test southerners’ prejudices against defectors.

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J un Heo’s grandfather was actually an onetime bodyguard to North Korea’s founding leader, Kim-il Sung. Heo, exactly who grew up in a middle-class group when you look at the seaside state of Kyongsong, expected to adhere to within his footsteps, however when his mummy made an effort to defect towards the south in 2004, the household fell regarding prefer. Four many years later, he generated your way by themselves, smuggled across the Tumen River into neighboring China, and in the end attained his extended family members in Shanghai. It actually was here he utilized a pc for the first time.

“It ended up being hard for my situation to obtain the hang of at first,” Heo says. But he shortly found themselves homesick, making use of Baidu, the Chinese website, to look right up artwork of his hometown. When, last year, the guy gone to live in Seoul to analyze, like many defectors, the guy discover themselves ostracized. Read more