What If North Korea Folds?

TW: The recent missile launch caused one of our periodic bursts of attention to the region. But what if North Korea's government were to implode somewhat like the old Warsaw Pact nations? Is this desirable? I suspect the South Koreans would be at best ambivalent. While Korea's northern Asian neighbors would look askance at a united Korea (pro forma population of around 65 million) with whom both Japan and China have had historically challenging relationships.

Unlike the East Germans and other Warsaw Pact populations who had incomplete but significant knowledge of life outside their own nations, the North Koreans have lived in utter isolation from happenings not only in South Korea but the rest of the world. WaPo takes a look at the experiences of some of the few folks who have emigrated to South Korea. The adjustments have been considerable even if the details provided may be somewhat apocryphal.

From WaPo:
"...Teenagers are particularly bewildered. As part of the newest wave in a decade-old flow of defectors from the North, they arrive stunted from malnutrition and struggling to read. At the movies for the first time, they panic when the lights go down, afraid someone might kidnap them. They find it incredible that money is stored in plastic credit cards. Pizza, hot dogs and hamburgers -- staples of South Korean teen cuisine -- give them indigestion. One gargled with liquid fabric softener, mistaking it for mouthwash.

...Everyone who defects has adjustment problems," said Ko Gyoung-bin, director general of a settlement center called Hanowan, a government-financed cluster of red-brick buildings perched in hill country about 70 miles south of Seoul.

All adult defectors are required to spend three months at Hanowan, where they receive psychiatric counseling, learn their rights under South Korean law, take driving lessons and go on field trips to department stores, banks and subways.

Teenage defectors spend two months to two years at nearby Hangyoreh Middle-High School, a remedial boarding school the government built three years ago to help the increasing number of newly arrived youngsters who are unfit for public schools. Many have been out of school for years and have difficulty with basic reading and math.

"All I learned in school in North Korea was that Kim Jong Il was the best leader and that North Korea was the best country," said Lee, who is in her final year at Hangyoreh and hopes to become an English teacher.

...But helping defectors is rarely easy, the staff said, for they trust no one.

...She had learned at Hanowan how to use a computer, manage money and avoid swindlers who prey on the ignorance of newcomers from the North. But she struggled to speak Korean as it is spoken in the South, with a slang that is infused with hundreds of words borrowed from American English. "Language was a real problem," she said. "Sometimes I would insult people without intending to do so."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/11/AR2009041100766_pf.html