North Korea Freedom Week Ahead of Chuseok

Ahead of South Korea’s Thanksgiving holiday of Chuseok, flights to popular travel destinations, including Japan and Thailand, have largely been sold out as people seize the opportunity to escape from complicated family affairs and massive ceremonial activities associated with this festival. However, Chuseok marks a season of isolation and despair for many North Koreans who have settled in the South and are unable to visit their famine-stricken hometowns, pay respect to their ancestors or celebrate the festival with friends and families who are still caught in the North.

Meanwhile, for another group of North Koreans detained in China awaiting forced repatriation as the country begins to ease its border controls after years of stringent Covid-19 lockdown, the holiday season ahead could mean facing punishment for defecting in the form of torture, imprisonment, sexual violence, forced labor in prison camps and even public execution.

WHAT IS THE NORTH KOREA FREEDOM WEEK?

In response to the anticipated mass repatriation of North Korean defectors, civic groups on North Korea’s human rights held a rally near the Chinese Embassy in Seoul, calling on China not to send defectors detained in the country back to the North. The rally was held during the North Korea Freedom Week, which is an annual campaign that seeks to raise public awareness of North Korea’s humanitarian situation in Washington and Seoul, alternating yearly. This year’s freedom week ran from September 17 to 23, 2023, in Seoul. 

The first freedom week was held in April 2004, when human rights activists demonstrated at Capitol Hill in Washington, urging the U.S. Congress to pass the North Korea Human Rights Act. The Act was later signed by President Bush on October 18, 2004, to promote human rights and freedom of North Korean refugees by 

1. providing humanitarian assistance to North Koreans inside North Korea; 

2. providing grants to private, non-profit organizations to promote human rights, democracy, rule of law and the development of a market economy in North Korea; 

3. increasing the availability of information inside North Korea; and

4. providing humanitarian or legal assistance to North Koreans who have fled North Korea.

“As we observe the 20th annual North Korea Freedom Week, we recognize the courage of the North Korean defector and human rights community, which continues to speak on behalf of the millions of North Koreans suffering abuses who are unable to advocate for themselves,” commented the State Department spokesperson, Matthew Miller, who also expressed concerns about the estimated 2,000 asylum seekers from the DPRK who are detained in China and at risk of repatriation.

FREEDOM WEEK IN 2023

Advocacy groups kicked off the freedom week this year by joining the opening ceremony held at the Daejeon National Cemetery in conjunction with a memorial ceremony for the 13th death anniversary of high-profile defector and former mentor to Kim Jong-il, Hwang Jang-yop, next month. The Unification Ministry’s Human Rights Division Chief also gave a speech declaring that “If we continue to spread information about the realities about the North Korea human rights situation, the DPRK authorities will be pressured to improve it, and I am certain that it will bring about changes that will lead to improving the abysmal human rights situation there.”

The trilateral relationship among the U.S., Japan and South Korea has significantly strengthened in recent years, particularly in relation to their diplomatic stance towards Pyongyang. As a result, Seoul’s Unification Ministry under the Yoon Suk-yeol administration has, since last year, referred to the freedom week events as sponsored by not only the core members – the U.S. and South Korea – but also Japan. As such, both U.S. and Japanese activists were seen participating in the freedom week events this year, which consisted of various activities including demonstrations against the forced repatriation of defectors, a seminar about testimonies against nuclear tests in the DPRK and an opera focusing on the experiences of women defectors.

North Korean Chuseok Feast, Without the Feast

A Korean Chuseok table

As the Korean Peninsula celebrates the Chuseok thanksgiving festival on September 10 this year, major food shortages sweep across the famine-stricken nation with a 700 percent rise in food prices, according to UN officials. This is leaving North Korean families unable to perform customary duties by bringing food to gravesites to thank their ancestors for an “abundant harvest” for a third consecutive year. Among the two main imported food products, namely sugar and flour, their prices between 2017 and late June 2022 have risen 726.76 percent and 271.84 percent per kilogram, respectively. Faced with the significant price increase in raw materials, food vendors must raise their prices or shrink their portions, but many fear that doing so would drive away customers and ultimately threaten their livelihoods.

HOW NORTH KOREANS CELEBRATE CHUSEOK

Unlike South Koreans who enjoy the holiday for at least three days, Chuseok is a one-day celebration in North Korea as socialist anniversaries like the birthday of its founding leader, Kim Il-sung, are deemed more important than traditional holidays. However, this does not mean that North Koreans lack sincerity in their preparation for Chuseok.

Traditionally, Chuseok food preparations are taken very seriously and would even begin a month in advance. North Koreans make songpyeon rice cakes two or three times bigger than South Korean ones and fill each half-moon shaped rice cake with boiled red beans or kidney beans, grinded walnuts or stir-fried vegetables. As the weather is colder in the North, a large amount of songpyeon is made during Chuseok, which can be stored and consumed for a long period of time. In addition to preparing their ancestors’ favorite dishes, North Koreans also cook Korean beef radish soup and grilled beef, though beef is extremely rare in the North and is often replaced with pork that they receive as rations from spring to fall which they preserve in salt.

THE NORTH KOREAN WAY TO BEG FOR FOOD

It has never been easy for North Koreans to acquire enough rice to make songpyeon even before the Covid-19 pandemic and recent economic downturns due to its low rice production. This year’s Chuseok is further met with “worse-than-expected food shortages” to the extent North Korea’s leadership ordered officials stationed abroad, including diplomats, trade delegates and smugglers of specialized items, to secure rice, corn, beans and other staple food supplies as much as possible. The authorities issued an explanation to the order: “Agricultural production took a hit following a ban on movement with the emergence of COVID-19 cases during the first half of the year, a time when the nation was supposed to fully mobilize labor into agricultural areas,” and added that the value of grain secured can be offset against their scheduled cash contributions to the Workers’ Party.

According to a source from DailyNK, the authorities called on overseas officials to secure food for the state. Additionally, a request for food by North Korean officials visiting the Indian Chamber of International Business to discuss humanitarian food aid was recently published on Yonhapnews, which DailyNK’s source warned that it could lead to punishments of the officials.

STEALING FOOD FROM ITS PEOPLE

Locally, “corn inspection squads” have reportedly been tasked to patrol areas near rural collective farms to catch “grain thieves” until the harvest season this month. However, sources from Radio Free Asia suggest that this is in fact just an excuse for the government to search and confiscate food from innocent citizens carrying grains. During a crackdown in North Hwanghae province, south of Pyongyang, “Merchants who were targeted by the police lost whole corn sacks” and residents were reportedly enraged by the authorities for “punishing people who trade grain to make ends meet.”

North Korea is in dire need of aid and yet continues to play war games while forcing its people to suffer under their cruel and harsh control.

A Painful Chuseok - A Thankful Heart

Chuseok is one of the biggest national holidays in both North and South Korea. It falls on the 15th day of the 8th month of the lunar calendar. This year it will land on September 21 and celebrations typically span three full days starting on the day before the actual holiday. The celebration is focused around the harvest and is similar to Thanksgiving in the US but culturally, the holiday has the importance of Christmas in the West. 

During Chuseok the entire peninsula shuts down and people return to their hometowns to celebrate. Festivities include a large, traditional meal and the most traditional observers pay homage to their ancestors by visiting their gravesites. For a second year, we expect celebrations on both sides of the DMZ will be muted as COVID-19 restrictions will impair the movement of people in both countries. 

There is one population who will not be visiting their hometowns during Chuseok: North Korean refugees. These people are permanently severed from their families and friends who are still caught in the country. They cannot call or write into North Korea. There is no form of Zoom or Facetime they can use to virtually join these celebrations. Most ties are all but severed.

Consider what it might feel like to be alone on Christmas as the world around joins their families to celebrate. North Koreans already feel isolated in South Korea but this shared holiday highlights this cold reality.

North Korean refugees in South Korea typically gather with fellow North Korean friends and engage in heavy drinking, according to our staff in South Korea. In the absence of immediate family, they gather with people who come from the same hometown in North Korea. Some celebrate with people who they came into South Korea with, people they can share their earliest memories of their new country.

The holiday starts with families visiting the gravesites of their ancestors to pay respect, something that is impossible for North Korean refugees to do. Chuseok celebrations then focus on food, specifically songpyeon, a rice cake with sweet fillings such as red bean, chestnuts, dates or honey. But for North Koreans, reminders of how food ran dry during the famine often pepper their feelings of nostalgia with pain.

Elim House resident “Kristine” remembers when she was a little girl in her hometown eating songpyeon and traditional Korean vegetables such as bean sprouts. In North Korea before the famine, Kristine’s family made a large amount of songpyeon and brought it to her grandparents' tomb.  After bowing three times, she remembers sitting around and feasting. The famine changed all of this, she said.

When the famine took hold in the late 90s, there was nothing to eat and no more rice cake to make on Chuseok. This is when she decided to make the dangerous journey across the river to China.

This Chuseok, our South Korea team will celebrate with our Elim House residents  and enjoy traditional food and activities together like a family. The celebration will be centered around God’s goodness in the lives of the refugees. Though this holiday is often a painful reminder of the homes and families they left, there is much to be thankful for: a safe place to stay, people who are there to help them rebuild their lives, and the love of their Heavenly Father.