South Korea has Asia's fourth-largest economy. It's a booming country. North Korea, however, is a different story, with 6 million people threatened with hunger, according to a recent United Nations report. It's hard to imagine that the North Koreans would remain in the North. If there is a lesson to be learned from German reunification, then it's presumably that the easterners head west: rapidly, in large numbers and inexorably.
Do the North Koreans even want reunification? "We have no information about this," says Kim. "We don't know. We only have the defectors who tell us that the conditions in the country are very poor."
Roughly 3,000 North Koreans flee every year -- mostly via China, then through Vietnam or Thailand to South Korea, where the Ministry of Unification looks after them. First, the refugees are interrogated by the intelligence agency to ensure that they are not spies. Afterwards they are sent to Hanawon -- a resettlement camp outside of Seoul.
During a three-month training program, they are given an introduction to South Korean society. No one is allowed to leave the camp and the refugees are closely guarded. They relearn the country's history, for instance that the North started the Korean War. They learn how to use an ATM. They learn how to drive a car. They even learn how to speak: South Korean.
You can immediately recognize a North Korean by the way he speaks, says Sang Don Park, a ministry official responsible for matters relating to refugees. He says that North Koreans don't use any Anglicisms, but they do use communist political jargon that no one in the South is familiar with. These are presumably terms like ones that were common in East Germany that only raised quizzical looks among Germans in the West after reunification. A North Korean often understands only 60 percent of South Korean, says Sang. What's more, he adds, there is a different intonation and various dialects. Not to mention health problems: North Koreans have poor teeth due to malnourishment. Many suffer from depression and other psychological problems when they arrive in the South. North Korean refugees receive financial aid for five years after they leave the camp. There are programs that help them find work and housing -- and acquire an education.
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