At Seoul school, North Korean refugees learn to assimilate

Institution also representative of just how deep the North-South divide runs

“What I saw when I came to South Korea was overwhelming,” 19-year-old Pak Sool says while talking about what he experienced since fleeing the North.

"North and South Korea are totally different. I had no idea what a credit card was, and that’s used everyday here," the Yeomyung school student said.

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Sool, who made it to South Korea after short stints in China and Thailand, is one of the over 100 North Korean refugees learning to assimilate in a radically different South at the school. Even fathoming the local dialect, heavy on English slang, was a formidable challenge for him.

“We want to become a model for education of North Koreans after unification,” school principal Lee Hung-hoon said. “We also want our students to become a force for unification, actively participating in the movement and spreading its message.”



Noble efforts separate, the institution is also representative of just how deep the North-South divide runs.

One student mused how hunger made many eat frogs in North Korea as a picture of one flashed on screen during a Biology class on different animals.  “We used to eat that because we were so hungry in North Korea. We don’t just eat the back legs, we eat everything, it’s very delicious.”

This article originally appeared in The Guardian.