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''' '' THE KOREANS
TAP '' '''
IN A SURVEY THAT SEOUL NATIONAL UNIVERSITY'S :
Institute for Peace and Unification Studies conducted of 116 people who fled North Korea in 2018 or 2019, nearly half said they had ''frequently'' watched South Korean entertainment while in the North.
COMPUTERS - TEXT MESSAGES - MUSIC PLAYERS are now being searched for South Korean content and accents, according to North Korean government documents smuggled out by Asia Press.
Kim Jong-un called it a ''vicious cancer'' corrupting young North Koreans' "attire, hairstyles, speeches, behaviors.'' His state media has warned that if left unchecked, it would make North Korea ''crumble like a damp wall.''
After winning fans around the world, South Korean pop culture has entered the final frontier : North Korea, where its growing influence has prompted the leader of the totalitarian state to declare a new culture war to stop it. But even a dictator may have trouble holding back the tide.
In recent months, hardly a day has passed by without Mr. Kim or state media railing against - '' anti-socialist and nonsocialist - '' influences spreading in his country, especially South Korea movies, K-dramas and K-pop videos. As part of a panicked attempt to reassert control, Mr. Kim has ordered his government to stamp out the cultural invasion.
The censorship is anything but a peevish dictator's tantrum. It comes at a time when the North's economy is floundering and diplomacy with the West has stalled, perhaps leaving the country's students / youth more receptive to outside influence and challenging Mr. Kim's firm grip on North Korean society.
'' Young North Koreans / students think they owe nothing to Kim Jong-un,'' said Jung Gwang-il, a defector from the North who runs a network that smuggles K-pop into North Korea. ''He must reassert his ideological control on the young if he doesn't want to lose the foundation for the future of his family's dynastic rule.
Mr. Kim's family has ruled the North for three generations, and loyals from millennials in the country has often been tested. They came of age during a famine in the late 1990s, when the government was unable to provide rations, causing millions to die.
Families survived by buying food from unofficial markets stocked with goods smuggled from China, including bootlegged entertainment from the South.
North Korean state propaganda had long described South Korea as a living hell crawling with beggars. Through the K-dramas, first smuggled on tapes and CDs, young North Korean students learned that while they struggled to find enough food to eat during a famine, people in the South were going on diets to lose weight.
South Korean entertainment is now smuggled on flash drives from China, stealing the hearts of young North Korean students who have watched behind closed doors.
Its presence has become so concerning that North Korea enacted a new law last December to address it.
The law calls for 5 to 15 years in labor camps for people who watch or possess South Korean entertainment., according to lawmakers in Seoul who were briefed by government intelligence officials, and internal North Korean documents smuggled out by Daily NK, a Seoul-based website.
Those who put material in the hands of North Koreans can face even stiffer punishments., including the death penalty. The new law also calls for up to two years of hard labor for those who ''speak, write or sing in South Korean style.''
The introduction of the law was followed by months of new dictates from Mr. Kim warning of outside influence. In February last, he ordered all provinces, cities and counties to ''mercilessly'' stamp out growing capitalist tendencies.
In April, he warned that ''a serious change'' was taking place in the ''ideological and mental state'' of young North Koran students. And last month, the state run newspaper Rodong Sinmun cautioned that North Korea would '' crumble '' if such influences proliferated.
'' To Kim Jong-un, the cultural invasion from South Korea has gone beyond a tolerable level,'' said Jiro Ishimaru, chief editor of Asia Press International, a website in Japan that monitors North Korea. ''If this is left unchecked, he fears that his people might start considering the South an alternative Korea to replace the North.
North Korea has resorted to urging its people to inform on others who watch K-dramas, according to documents smuggled out by Daily NK. But many have decided to look the other way, even tipping their neighbors off ahead of police raids, the documents said.
''The phenomenon of distributing impure publications and propaganda is not disappearing, but continuing.''
The Honor and Serving of the Latest Global Operational Research on The-State-Of-The-World and Freedom, continues. The World Students Society thanks author Choe Sang-Hun.
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