Life after Kim: inside the schools catering to North Korean defectors
- Young people who escape North Korea face a second struggle when they arrive in the South: how to cope in an alien education system
- Schools like Haankkum help them adjust to a new way of life
As a star student at Haankkum school, about an hour’s drive north of Seoul, Kang will have fond memories when she graduates in the summer.
The 27-year-old has been at Haankkum just two years, but has a lifetime’s worth of memories. Of trips to New Zealand, America, India and Nepal, of friends made, projects undertaken and goals achieved.
Among the clearest of her memories will be the time, shortly after her arrival, when she took the lead role in a musical, Frozen River, performed at Seoul’s famous Kookmin university.
“I used to be a very shy person who couldn’t go in front of people, so I didn’t plan on taking the lead role,” says Kang. “But, I ultimately thought I should overcome this challenge.”
It wasn’t just the crowd making her nervous – but that the musical was based on her life. It told the story of how her father was executed for opposing the North Korean regime and how she escaped to China over the frozen Tumen river after being branded the daughter of a traitor.
It’s a story that will have been familiar to her friends at Haankkum; the school is among a handful of South Korean educational institutions that cater solely to defectors from the North.
