Why a North Korean defector is supporting a Toronto campaign to smuggle Wikipedia into the DPRK

When Lucia Jang of Toronto sits down to watch the nightly news, she is sometimes overwhelmed by all the options available. The day’s events are on so many channels, each one offering slightly different stories, many from the lives of everyday people. She recognizes that this is a good thing, but Jang grew up in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, or North Korea, where the news focused almost exclusively on the sometimes miraculous, always magnanimous “Great Leader,” Kim Il-Sung. Military developments also featured prominently. Watching the news in Canada is a completely different experience, and sometimes, she says, “not everything registers. It’s too much.”

Having near limitless access to information would come as a shock to all but the most elite of citizens in North Korea, where owning a fax machine is prohibited, all TV and radio channels are controlled by the government and the internet is actually a closed-network national “intranet” called Kwangmyong. (Cell phones are blocked from making international calls, though people living near the border with China find ways to reach that country.)

For years, though, North Koreans have been able to buy movies and TV shows on CDs, DVDs, or USB drives, that are illegally smuggled into the country. Getting caught with foreign media, whether Titanic or a South Korean soap opera, can lead to years of incarceration in one North Korea’s infamous concentration camps, and yet the black market trade continues.

Activists remain committed to feeding that market and hacking the North Korean thought-control system with evidence of the larger world. In early May, HanVoice, a Toronto human rights group focused on North Korean issues, launched Canada’s first crowdfunding campaign aimed at bringing information into the Hermit Kingdom. Working with the North Korea Strategy Center, a large activist group based in Seoul, HanVoice plans to sneak 200 USB sticks featuring a compressed, static version of Wikipedia into the country. They hope to trigger an Arab Spring-like movement one day in the future.

Donations for Project E on Indiegogo start at $30, the cost of one USB plus incidentals, such as the fees for bribing border guards and others along the smuggling route. At the $600 level of giving, donors can select a piece of media—a film, book, or TV show— related to “justice, democracy, history, or content that’s informative of the outside world.” At the $90 range, supporters receive a copy of Jang’s moving book, Stars Between the Sun and Moon, co-written by investigative journalist Susan McClelland.

The book is a thoroughly engrossing account of Jang’s life, first growing up in the Great Leader’s dictatorship during the 1970s and ‘80s, living through the famine of the ‘90s, surviving an abusive husband who sells her first child, risking her life to trade goods between China and North Korea, escaping imprisonment and eventually crossing the Tumen river with a new son, a one-month old baby, in a plastic bag tied to her back. Jang eventually found her way to Canada, leaving South Korea, where many defectors say they feel marginalized and in constant danger from North Korean spies. We spoke to Jang through an interpreter to find out what life has been like for her in Canada, where she has lived since 2008.

You had to escape from the DPRK twice. When did you first feel free?

I’d say first in China, because I had the freedom to travel and walk around. That freedom was upgraded, when I went to Mongolia, because in China I feared being caught and sent back to North Korea. That feeling evolved further when I went from Mongolia to South Korea, where I could speak the language and get a job. Finally, it was upgraded again when I moved to Toronto, where refugee human rights are better than they are in South Korea.

What aspects of daily life in Canada do you most appreciate, things that Canadians might take for granted?

Toronto is a really great place to raise my two kids, because kids and women and elders come first, before everyone else. One of my sons has a disability.

I also don't have to worry about putting food on the table for each meal. I like that I can taste all kinds of food from the supermarket, fruit from different parts of the world, many that I don't even know the names of. The tropical fruits surprise me the most, like one that's red on the outside and whitish on the inside and very sweet. I don’t know what it’s called. I saw mangoes and bananas and peaches in pictures or on TV in North Korea, but I had never tasted them.

In North Korea, you could only watch one or two movies that were playing, and I love that in Toronto there are so many different movie times, different movies to see, different theaters, and I can watch the one I choose.

In general, I can do whatever I want, whenever I want. If I want to be with my kids or take a train somewhere, I can do that. In North Korea, I couldn’t do whatever I wanted because I had to do what the authorities told me to do. I couldn’t say no even if I didn't want to do it, because I would get punished.

In Canada, people respect my opinions and ideas, so I have a say in my life. Because of this, my mind is at ease when I'm here. I also like that I can talk freely to the press about my story.

What goes through your mind when you see public authorities in Canada, like police officers?

When I lived in North Korea, I would avoid the police at all costs because they would just check my ID and try to fine me for unreasonable things. The police were not seen as friends. They were not people who were there to help.

When I first came to Canada I was uncomfortable with the police presence because of my ideas from North Korea. When I saw the police here, I would try to avoid eye contact and my heart would beat faster. But after living here for a while, I'm totally okay with them. I don't think that they're scary or anything. I like that when you call them for any kind of reason, for your safety, they come right away, so I actually feel safe because they're around.

When you think about your sons growing up, becoming teenagers in this country, how do you feel about the way young people live?

It's very different from my generation in addition to the fact that it’s a different society. Obviously, it’s good that my kids have more freedoms, but I can't say whether it’s better or worse that young people have so much freedom. I try to adapt to the times and the different culture, but I find it hard to understand relationships. In my day, I had to wait until I was in my 20s to have a relationship, and now my youngest son is seven years old and he already has a girlfriend! I don't know why things have to happen so fast, but I'm trying to understand.

One day my youngest son came home from school and told me that they learned about how babies are born— they’re learning things like that so early on. I know that they're learning about life, all the facts of life. In North Korea I was told that babies were formed in people's bellies or dropped from the sky. I like that my sons are learning the actual facts.

Why did you get involved in Project E by HanVoice?

I think it's a really great idea that they are trying to get outside information into North Korea. All information in North Korea is regulated and blocked by the government— all the radio channels and TV channels, unless you're taking part in illegal activity and wanting to listen to Chinese or South Korean radio. You could see some movies the government selected, so mainly North Korean and Chinese movies.

One of my cousins watched a South Korean movie called Wedding Dress. She was really surprised by the amount of food that people could eat, and the nice clothes, and the make-up. She was 18 years old and I was 36 at the time, living in China. She asked me via phone whether it was all real, because it was completely the opposite of what the North Korean government tells its people. They say that their country is the best, and that South Korea is so poor that we should take pity on them. In a movie like that, my cousin sees that’s not the truth. That’s what gets people thinking about whether this is true, and they start questioning everything.

What movie or TV show have you most enjoyed watching here?

Prison Break is my all-time favorite. Definitely. I'm watching it to learn English. I love the storyline and the fight scenes. It's just really thrilling to watch Michael go through the episodes -- it always looks like he's going to get caught, but he never does in the end. I find it fascinating.