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Former top North Korean actress builds new life as South Korean bar maid
Tip oâ the hat to Conrad. EFL. Before she defected, Joo Sun Young was one of North Koreaâs rare "Class-One" actresses, hand-picked to play the coveted role of the regime leaderâs wife and "mother" of all North Koreans. Today, she sells beer and sings songs for drunken South Korean businessmen at a low-rent Seoul bar. The crowd knows she once performed for North Koreaâs inner circle, which is in part why they like hollering for her to fill their glasses. "I sometimes feel humiliated at how my life has been downgraded. But I thank my customers for coming to my place. This is my life. I have come a long way," she says. Somehow I think youâre better off. Jooâs journey from the spotlights of Pyongyang to the dim lights of backstreet Seoul mirrors both the dreams and fears of many who flee totalitarian North Korea. Joo was a 16-year-old violin student in 1981 when communist party talent scouts came to her high school in the northeastern town of Kyongsong and took her away. She was handed a baggy military uniform and told she was joining the military. Reminiscent of the screenings of maidens for the kings of ancient Korea, party officials inspected "every inch" of her body for imperfections. She did not mind. "I was proud and excited that the party chose me," Joo says. Ew-w-w-w-w-w-w. For six years she served in the Pyongyang Garrison Commandâs esteemed performing arts troupe -- and was allowed to visit her parents only once. Joo got a powerful boost when Kim Jong Il, son and heir of then President Kim Il Sung, handed her the "Class-One" title, reserved for the few actors portraying members of the Kim family. The job was so sacred she was barred from taking other roles. Prolly just as well; once youâve played the Great Leaderâs Wife, what else is there? Jooâs best-known film was the 1983 epic "Far and Away from the Command Post," in which she played Kim Jong Suk, Kim Il Sungâs wife, as a young guerrilla fighting Japanese colonialists. Jooâs exalted life changed after Kim Il Sung died in 1994, famine struck North Korea and actresses scattered to find new jobs. By then she was married with a son and daughter. To earn extra cash she overstayed a travel visa to China in 2000 to run a border town coffee shop. Twice she was deported, but bribed North Korean guards to let her back into China. Finally, a South Korean government agent in China realized who she was and arranged her flight to Seoul in January 2003. In August, she borrowed $60,000 from a bank to open her bar, Taedongkang Hof, named after the river that runs through Pyongyang. She hired two North Korean women, who, like her, left children behind. That has to suck. Her background is her attraction, and she entertains customers with nonpolitical South and North Korean ditties, including the popular "Women Are The SKors donât want to know. "I want to be a rich businesswoman," Joo says. "I concentrate on work not to think about my children, but when I see delicious food, I canât help crying. I wonder whether my children are not starving." Okay, tough call -- stay in North Korea and starve with the kids or escape to the South and maybe, just maybe, work something out. Posted by: Steve White 2004-02-26 |
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