First North Korean defector to become a full-time professor recalls starvation, hardship and danger

North Korean defector Kim Seong-ryeol, who became a full-time professor at Busan University of Foreign Studies, speaks during a lecture at the university. [BUSAN UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN STUDIES]

North Korean defector Kim Seong-ryeol, who came to the South after two attempts to flee the North, was named a professor of international studies at Busan University of Foreign Studies (BUFS).

This marks the first time that a North Korean defector became a full-time professor at a university in South Korea.

According to the university, Kim has been giving lectures on South-North Korean relations and international political theory since the academic semester last month.

Kim, 38, described the daily starvation he suffered back in North Korea in a phone interview with the JoongAng Ilbo.

He was born in Chongjin in North Korea’s Hamgyong Province and lived there until he crossed the Tumen River to China.

According to Kim, there was little food in Chongjin in the 1990s.

The food shortage forced his mother to sell the household television, the only property the family had left.

His mother spent the money to purchase flour from China and resell it to North Koreans.

But as overseas Chinese began selling flour themselves, the family had to find other ways to survive.

In March 1997, Kim’s mother took 12-year-old Kim and his older sister across the Tumen River to China.

“I still vividly recall how my mother carried my sister and me, desperately crossing the river by breaking the frozen water,” Kim said.

Kim and his sister began working at a factory in China until Chinese police caught the family three years later.

He was sent back to the North together with his mother and sister and subsequently jailed.

He was jailed for about three months and freed when the North Korean authorities decided “to release those who crossed the Tumen River due to famine” following the inter-Korean summit in June 2000.

But Kim decided to escape the country again as he had no place to live after being released.

Other people were already living in his home in Chongjin, and the family did not have any relatives to ask for help.

Kim fled the North in August 2000. returning to the factory in China for which he previously worked. Two months later, his mother and sister also successfully came to China.

He came to South Korea in 2005 and settled in Seoul.

“I was desperate to come to South Korea and study what I wanted to study,” Kim said.

After he came to South Korea, he was accepted to Handong Global University’s School of International Studies, Languages and Literature in 2007 after passing qualification exams for elementary, secondary and higher education in just a year.

It took a whole seven years for Kim to graduate from university.

Kim, who became interested in international politics and diplomatic matters after escaping from and being repatriated to the North, wishes to build a university in North Korea once the country unifies.

“I want to make changes in North Korea through academics,” he said.

Kim received a master’s degree at Yonsei University in Korean unification studies. He was then awarded a Fulbright scholarship and received a Ph.D. from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University in New York.

BY KIM MIN-JU, CHO JUNG-WOO [cho.jungwoo1@joongang.co.kr]