South Korean Stereotypes: Mi-Ran

미란(MI-RAN)
The first character introduced and interviewed is Mi-ran. She is introduced as a young teen that has a love interest in another boy named Jun-Sang. It starts out as an innocent love that is shared between the characters but there was a problem. Mi-Ran was born from a poor miner that was a former South Korean, the enemy. As she matures she finds out that she is treated lesser than Jun-Sang as he is from a higher class. Her family is of the lowest class with the father working in the coal mines of North Korea. Mi-Ran is fortunate enough to get an education and eventually became a teacher. By the time she became a teacher the famine in North Korea had struck and many were dying. Mi-Ran was helpless and couldn't do anything about the …show more content…
Kim-Hyuk grew up innocently and did not experience the outside world much and was stuck inside of the orphanage for most of his life. He grew up with other orphans and created a close knit family with each other. However, when the economic downturn and famine struck North Korea the orphanage shut down and Kim-Hyuk and the other orphans were out on the street. They stole and scavanged whatever food they could get in order to survive. In the streets the orphans experienced the real world and saw the reality of the situation when dead bodies were littered throughout the streets due to hunger and malnutrition. Kim-Hyuk was able to find a way out of North Korea through China. There were hardships along the way in China and even death got to one of the orphans. Despite the hardships, Kim-Hyuk was able to get to South Korea. Kim-Hyuk's character shows that even the helpless and innocent were stuck in this horrible famine. It also shows the illegal activities that was required to survive the economic downturn and …show more content…
Kim was also a loyal follower of the regime, like Mrs. Song was, and she was a perfect citizen in terms of North Korea. She was a doctor of the workers party and worked hard to maintain the health of the patients that went to receive treatment from her. She was the ideal woman of North Korea; she was beautiful, smart, and hardworking. She strived to become perfect in all that she does and provide the most excellent care she could give. The famine and downturn of the economy changed Dr.Kim's view on perfection. So many starved patients were coming in and there was almost nothing Dr.Kim could do except accompany them while they were dying. Even the hospitals didn't have food or resources. It eventually got to the point where Dr.Kim was not getting pay and was helping from the satisfaction of helping others. She would try to provide the best even though she knew there was no way she could help them survive. She defects after realizing that there is too much and she had too little to offer. When she defected to China she came across a dog's bowl of food and realized that the dogs in China ate better than doctors in North Korea. Dr.Kim's character shows that even though a perfect citizen may get you a better living condition, almost no aid was given during times of crisis. This is shown through the dogs as the dogs in China were able to receive better food than the citizens of North Korea, even the