North Korean defector reveals ‘unusual’ Christmas celebrations beneath Kim Jong-Un
Il-yong Ju, who managed to escape North Korea, shared how his family marked Christmas in their village every year without realising the origins of it
A North Korean defector has shared the ‘strange’ way Christmas was celebrated in his rural village under Kim Jong-Un’s cruel regime.
Il-yong Ju spoke of his experience of what would happen on December 25, every year. He explained how his grandfather would visit, before sending him out to the mountains to cut down a pine tree.
Then, he would bring it home, and together would hang small balls of cotton on its branches. While these seems like an ordinary, festive ritual carried out by families every year, it’s different in North Korea. It comes after Kim Jong-un previously ordered North Koreans to celebrate his own grandmother instead of Christmas.
The special day is banned under Kim Jong-Un’s regime, with threats of death to those who try to celebrate it. For most North Koreans, December 25 is just a normal day.
Ju said: “In my home, we just celebrated that kind of thing. But we didn’t know what that day was about; just every December 25th, my grandfather asked us to do that.
“My grandfather taught us ‘hey grandson, the other countries beside North Korea, every December 25th, they make this kind of tree and celebrate this day’.”
Not knowing the origins of the tradition, given the repression of Christianity, his family displayed the tree in public. It was known by neighbours as a “yolka” – a tree put up to mark the new year in the Russian-speaking world.
His family faced no repercussions for putting the tree up. He said: “It was possible because my village was a very small village. There were only 30 households living in my town, and it was very isolated from the main city.”
The family would also clap and lead a chant. It sounded like “belly hem, belly hem, say goodbye, say goodbye”. Radio transmissions from South Korea, could be the reason why they did it, according to Sky News.
Ju and his family were able to listen into illegal foreign radio broadcasting in their country. He said: “Me and my family actually listened to the illegal foreign radio broadcasting in North Korea.
He said: “We listened to the FEBC (Far East Broadcasting Company), which is South Korean Christian broadcasting. It’s very clearly heard in North Korea in the very early morning. So that was the first moment that we heard about gospel and Christianity.”
“We had to risk our lives because we were listening to South Korean broadcasting that is highly prohibited in North Korea. If you get caught, you would go to political prison camp or even be executed, because it was Christian broadcasting.
“So every time we covered the window with a blanket and lowered the volume to prevent someone from hearing.” That radio broadcasting was very impactful for my family.
“That radio was what motivated my father to escape from North Korea. He escaped first. When my father resettled in South Korea, he sent a broker to us. So me, my mother, and one of my sisters escaped in October 2009.”
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