In recent years, the view of the Kim regime and the role of the Kim regime in North Korean daily lives has rapidly changed and diminished. The jangmadang generation, or those born after the 1994 famine, have lived their whole lives without the same government support that their parents and grandparents experienced1. They have also grown up after the fall of the Soviet Union, which in the 1970s and 1980s was North Korea’s largest trading partner and provider of aid, and with the diminishing trade and aid with China and other countries2. This has led to the jangmadang generation growing up in a very different political, economic, cultural, and social situation from that of the older generations who grew up in a period where the North Korean government provided citizens with rations. These differences have shaped the current generation and how they view not only the Kim regime but the outside world as well. This change is especially clear in the social aspects of their daily lives.
A major part of the social change in North Korea is driven by the recent availability and widespread use of cell phones. It is estimated that of North Korea’s 24 million people, around 7 million have cell phones and jangmadangs have played a vital role in this3. This increased use of cell phones has allowed for easier access to the outside world through calls, USB sticks, and memory cards. In recent years, defectors have been using cell phones as a way to communicate with family and friends still in North Korea and to smuggle goods that they need into the country. It is estimated that there are anywhere from 200 to 2,000 calls between North and South Korea every day, despite laws and measures in place to try and prevent these calls4. Currently, North Korea has tracking technology that is meant to shut down and track these out-of-country calls; however, defectors and their families have found a way around this system through short calls and keywords, with some going as far as to have weekly calls with each other. North Korean Defector Park Nehemiah talks about these phone calls with his family, saying
His family uses this system of hanging up, then calling back in order to keep Nehemiah’s phone bill down. Additionally, they keep their phone calls to one or two minutes in order to minimize the risk of detection… Nehemiah calls his mother back and asks how she’s doing, to which she always responds, “We’re alive.” He then listens to the items that his mother will ask him to send. These items range from medicine and clothing to DVD players and Japanese laptops5
Park Nehemiah isn’t the only North Korean defector where phones have allowed them to remain in touch with family and to smuggle outside goods into North Korea. The increasing willingness to break the law and connect with the outside world highlights a major shift in the attitudes that people in North Korea have towards the Kim Regime. The introduction of cell phones a little over two decades ago has spread from 20,000 users in 2003 to an estimated 7 million in 20246. However, according to defectors, the number of people with cellphones is likely much higher, with estimates ranging from somewhere between 50% to 80% of adults having cellphones7. The willingness to go against the law to communicate with the outside world and to talk with families who have defected isn’t the only way that cell phones and technology distributed by jangmadangs have impacted social life and society in North Korea.
Another major impact of jangmadangs and the accessibility of phones and USBs is that it creates an envy of foreigners and of life in foreign countries, particularly of South Korea and the Western world, amongst those in North Korea. Jangmadangs have allowed for foreign media to be distributed more easily, with phones, memory cards, and USB sticks. Currently, foreign media is more widely distributed, which allows North Koreans to watch movies mainly from South Korea and China. These films and TV shows challenge what's taught in schools and by the state. In many foreign media sources, things that are considered luxury in North Korea are depicted as normal and expected in other countries. A young North Korean defector, Ha-young, said,
‘What kind of bullshit are the textbooks talking about?’ I quickly realized South Korea was more developed than North Korea… Since electricity production is so weak, you get a lot of blackouts, but if you watch Korean or American TV shows or movies, you see the lights are on at night. Even on the streets! It’s bright. At Night! … I was so jealous of them for that.8
Ha-young's experience is fairly common among defectors, where many of them describe how foreign media changed how they viewed the outside world and led them to question the regime and what they were taught.
In addition to spreading foreign media, USB sticks are also used to spread religion, in particular, sharing audio recordings of the bible. The Bible and other religious texts and memorabilia are forbidden under the Kim regime as the teachings of the Bible contradict the teachings of the regime. Religion, in general, is viewed as counter-revolutionary, with citizens being encouraged to report any religious activity and possession of religious texts to the authorities9. Under North Korean ideology, North Koreans are taught to worship the Kim family and to not question the decisions of the Workers’ Party of Korea. As part of maintaining control over the general population, religion is largely discouraged or banned depending on the religion. Due to Christian teachings about only worshiping one God and the belief that Christianity is a Western belief system and, therefore, a threat to the regime, it is banned in North Korea. However, despite the Kim regime’s efforts, it is estimated that 1% or 100,000 or 200,000 people in North Korea are Christian with that number steadily increasing10.
While the jangmadang generation has been one of the main drivers of social change in recent years, they are not the only generation where discontent toward the regime has been rising since the 1990s. Defector, Joon-hee, describing his grandfather saying,
My grandfather would sit there and talk about how that bastard [Kim Jong-Il] has to die. My parents talked a lot about Deng Xiaoping and said ‘we need to liberalize, like Deng’... I observed that such a culture of disrespect towards the Kims was possible11
This attitude really highlights how, even amongst the older generation, there has been a change toward the Kim regime and the current style of government. Since the government is no longer providing for the people, the attitude toward them has been slowly changing, with people, even the older generation, feeling more comfortable speaking out in private settings. While in public, there is still the expectation of being devoted in private, these attitudes are slowly changing. This attitude can also be seen in the growing distrust some feel towards their neighbors.
Another major social impact that jangmadangs and the information and goods that they have allowed North Korean citizens to access is the shift in communities. The rise of jangmadangs and increasing access to the outside world has led to increasing distrust between neighbors, but also increasing bonds between certain communities. Ha-young speaks about how when she was in North Korea, her family had access to foreign media; however, they were very secretive and distrustful of their neighbors and would only share outside media or reveal that they had access to foreign media to close family friends whom they had known since they were infants. Often, families will form complex networks for sharing foreign media. Each family in the network would buy different media and then share it amongst themselves, creating a complex network of families sharing information and movies12. This attitude of distrust and fear of their neighbors has led to North Korean society becoming less trusting, as individuals are more fearful, no longer feeling as though they can trust others out of fear of being reported to the military. On the flip side, it has also caused small, tight-knit communities that share media and work to protect each other from the authorities.
Jangmadangs and the rise of the Jangmadang Generation have had a major impact on social life in North Korea. Jangmadangs have allowed for information about the outside world to spread across North Korea, reshaping society.