Songbun: The Lives of North Korean Citizens
In North Korea, its citizens live much differently compared to western civilization. North Korean citizens live through widespread hunger with little to no help from their government. On the contrary, the government forces propaganda into their citizen’s minds giving the Kim leader a god like status, all while enforcing strict laws alongside cruel punishments. Socioeconomic status, region, and different demographics including loyalty to the supreme leader place citizens into their level of the caste system. The varying levels include: the upper class, considered the core; the middle, considered the wavering; and the lower, considered the hostile, make up the caste system in North Korea. We wanted …show more content…
We started off by visiting our University library and spending time accessing the databases provided to us. We quickly came across multiple articles and books regarding our subject, taking into account when the content was posted along with the relevance and possible bias that might dissuade from more evident truths. The book “Marked for Life”(Collins, 2012) contained accounts and examples of encumbrances and inhumane treatment of the peoples living in North Korea regardless of their level in the caste system. With the initial culture shock settled in over the harsh lives we were reading about, our understanding of the caste system deepend. We began to get a clearer picture of how the social structures in North Korea worked. Since the inception of the system in 1964 (page 23) , "...the goal of the North Korean regime is to make people dependant, to fix in its citizens’ mind that their country is the only place where people live happily and equally." (Peterson, 2016) we quickly related all the information we gathered from Yoenmi’s book and established small comparison to the sources. We additionally reaffirmed Yoenmi’s reasoning to her hesitance over dating Chun Guen through Hunter’s (1999) book Kim Il-Song’s North Korea. He states how, “A friendship between students with good and bad songbun would be broken off immediately if there was any hint of subversion or if any criticism of the regime was voiced.” (Page 7) These were such extremes to our group and the reasoning perplexed us further. This was such an overt alienation of people in lower classes, who could hardly change their own positions in life. I saw this as a major point for our research paper because of the eventual separation and fishbowl lifestyle the people of North Korea face. We started looking deeper into the reasoning behind the separation of the three main
In North Korea, its citizens live much differently compared to western civilization. North Korean citizens live through widespread hunger with little to no help from their government. On the contrary, the government forces propaganda into their citizen’s minds giving the Kim leader a god like status, all while enforcing strict laws alongside cruel punishments. Socioeconomic status, region, and different demographics including loyalty to the supreme leader place citizens into their level of the caste system. The varying levels include: the upper class, considered the core; the middle, considered the wavering; and the lower, considered the hostile, make up the caste system in North Korea. We wanted …show more content…
We started off by visiting our University library and spending time accessing the databases provided to us. We quickly came across multiple articles and books regarding our subject, taking into account when the content was posted along with the relevance and possible bias that might dissuade from more evident truths. The book “Marked for Life”(Collins, 2012) contained accounts and examples of encumbrances and inhumane treatment of the peoples living in North Korea regardless of their level in the caste system. With the initial culture shock settled in over the harsh lives we were reading about, our understanding of the caste system deepend. We began to get a clearer picture of how the social structures in North Korea worked. Since the inception of the system in 1964 (page 23) , "...the goal of the North Korean regime is to make people dependant, to fix in its citizens’ mind that their country is the only place where people live happily and equally." (Peterson, 2016) we quickly related all the information we gathered from Yoenmi’s book and established small comparison to the sources. We additionally reaffirmed Yoenmi’s reasoning to her hesitance over dating Chun Guen through Hunter’s (1999) book Kim Il-Song’s North Korea. He states how, “A friendship between students with good and bad songbun would be broken off immediately if there was any hint of subversion or if any criticism of the regime was voiced.” (Page 7) These were such extremes to our group and the reasoning perplexed us further. This was such an overt alienation of people in lower classes, who could hardly change their own positions in life. I saw this as a major point for our research paper because of the eventual separation and fishbowl lifestyle the people of North Korea face. We started looking deeper into the reasoning behind the separation of the three main