North Korea’s millennials, known as ‘The Jangmadang Generation’ are changing their country, new film shows
While the outside world is obsessed with Kim Jong-un and his nuclear weapons, ordinary North Koreans talk about the grass roots change taking place
From the outside, it might look like North Korea hasn’t changed much over the last seven decades. But from the inside, a fundamental shift has been taking place: an economic revolution lead by a generation of millennials who grew up as capitalists in a theoretically communist state.
They are the “Jangmadang Generation” – and they have emerged as the greatest force for change that North Korea has ever seen.
In the extraordinary documentary Jangmadang Generation, Liberty in North Korea (LiNK), a California-based organisation that helps those who have escaped, shows how young people are bringing about change in North Korea.
The jangmadang are the markets that popped up during the devastating famine in the 1990s, when the state could no longer provide for the people. As many as 2 million North Koreans starved to death as a result, and many of those who survived did so by turning into entrepreneurs out of necessity. Those with corn made corn noodles, those with beans made tofu.
Capitalism took root in this communist society and the regime had to tolerate it or risk an uprising.
The children of the 1990s famine grew up with the markets as part of their daily life and are, in many ways, native capitalists.
This is the most closed and repressive country in the world. But we wanted to let the audience see North Koreans are relatable people
Take Joo Yang, who was six years old when the famine began and grew up seeing people dying or starvation or cold. She began thinking about doing business when she was 14, and started out by picking leftover soybeans from the chaff at a factory and selling them.