https://www.scmp.com/rss/325467/feed en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com Hwang Won was being held in hostile territory, 50 days after being abducted. He was not going to let his resolve be broken, though. It was Lunar New Year’s Day, 1970 and – yearning for his home and family – the 32-year-old South Korean television producer began to sing a popular folk song: “My hometown, the blue South Sea, comes into view as scenes from the past. How can I forget the calm blue sea? No never, never, even in my dreams. Seagulls there now still might be flying, how I wish to return... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/2126536/son-north-korea-hijack-victim-still-campaigns?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/2126536/son-north-korea-hijack-victim-still-campaigns?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 02 Jan 2018 12:00:36 +0000 The poet propagandist I began working in the poetry section in the United Front Department (UFD) of the Workers’ Party of Korea in August 1988. At first I was startled at the immense access to South Korean literature, newspapers and other foreign published materials. Anywhere else in North Korea these would be considered treason, but here, I had to pretend I was in Seoul, when in reality it was just an office in Pyongyang. Under the pseudonym Kim Kyong-min I wrote propaganda and ideological... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/2115032/escape-north-korea-how-kim-jong-ils-favourite?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/2115032/escape-north-korea-how-kim-jong-ils-favourite?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 12 Oct 2017 07:15:15 +0000