Are North Koreans experts on North Korea? Myths and misconceptions, Part 5

Casey Lartigue Jr. and North Korean refugee Park Yeon-mi before a YouTube recording in March 2014. Courtesy of Freedom Speakers International

By Casey Lartigue Jr.

• Published Apr 19, 2025 12:00 PM KST

At first glance, the answer might seem obvious. If someone grew up in North Korea, surely they must know everything about it, right? They must have answers about how foreign governments should handle the Kim regime. Who better to explain what it’s really like, or what needs to be done?

But the reality is far more complex.

More than 600 North Korean refugees have studied at the organization I co-founded with Lee Eun-koo in 2013. One thing we’ve seen: the knowledge and experiences of most North Korean refugees is local. One reason is because most North Koreans are not allowed to travel freely inside their own country. Citizens must have a specific reason — such as a funeral, family visit, or medical issue — and receive permission from their workplace or local authorities. While enforcement can vary, the restrictions are real, and based on testimony, many people spend their entire lives in or near their hometowns. Westerners enjoy traveling to Pyongyang, but that remains a dream for most North Koreans who are forbidden from entering the capital without permission.

Two, they aren’t allowed to read books that have not been approved by the regime, few have access to the Internet (North Korea’s Intranet has tight controls over it), and for the most part they are cut off from the outside world.

As a result, many North Korean refugees tell us: “I learned more about North Korea after I left.” Outside the country, they finally gain access to books, newspapers, online content, and can have conversations with other defectors and experts.

Some North Korean refugees undergo a transformation — from refugees focused on survival to defectors with a deeper political awareness. Many escaped not out of ideological opposition to the regime, but because they were starving, following a family member, or forced out by circumstances. But once they reach freedom and gain access to information, they can begin to study the regime they once lived under. They move beyond personal escape stories and start to understand — and often criticize — the broader system that shaped their lives.

These differences illustrate why it’s misleading to treat any single North Korean defector as representative of the entire country. Their insights are powerful and grounded in lived experience, but often reflect only a narrow slice of life — shaped by geography, social class, and strict government control.

This is why, at public forums, North Korean refugees are sometimes asked sweeping questions like, “What should we do about North Korea?” — and many don’t have an answer. Even seemingly simple questions like, “What’s a typical day like in North Korea?” yield vastly different responses. The answer often depends on a North Korean refugee’s social class or the region they lived in. The same person may have stories about growing up in a wealthy family but later eating grass after someone in the family made a mistake and the family’s sungbun (class status) was downgraded.

Having said that, while some critics argue that North Korean refugees can’t be trusted as experts, many have proven otherwise. Some go beyond personal testimony, dedicating themselves to rigorous research and international engagement. Park Yeon-mi, my former podcast co-host, is a prominent example. Detractors often claim she can’t be an expert because she fled North Korea as a teenager. But in freedom, she has read extensively, kept up with developments inside the country, interviewed fellow defectors, worked with activists trying to bring down the regime, and even reportedly consulted with U.S. intelligence officials. She has combined her firsthand experience with serious, ongoing study to deepen her understanding and share it with the world.

Lee Jeong-cheol, the winner of FSI’s 14th English Speech Contest, studied political science at a South Korean university and became a serious student of North Korean affairs. He was a weekly guest on a radio program where he provided detailed commentary about North Korea in English — showcasing both his analytical depth and language skills. Having now spent more of his life in South Korea than in North Korea, he has continued to study the regime meticulously, combining personal experience with academic engagement.

Eom Yeong-nam, author of “Strongest Soldier of North Korea,” is a rare example of someone who graduated from both a university in North Korea and a graduate school in South Korea. A former loyal soldier of the regime, he now studies it critically in freedom. His transformation from regime loyalist to independent thinker highlights the intellectual growth that can happen when North Korean refugees gain access to education and freedom of thought.

Last week on my “Workable Words” blog at the Korea Times, Kim Su-jin — a North Korean refugee who joined Freedom Speakers International last year — reflected on how she only began to truly understand her country after living in freedom in South Korea. Although born and raised in North Korea, her understanding of the regime was limited by the state’s control over information. Motivated by this realization, she enrolled in a graduate-level North Korean Studies course, where she began critically analyzing the very system she had once accepted without question. In her post, she quoted a Chinese proverb: “You understand the castle better from the outside.” Now living in freedom, she is doing just that — studying the inner workings of a regime she once lived under, but never fully understood – in order to become a better human rights advocate.

So yes, it’s true — not every North Korean refugee is an expert on the entire country. But many go on to become experts by combining their lived experience with serious study. And even those who don’t claim the title of “expert” still offer something equally valuable: ground-level insight into life under one of the world’s most secretive and tightly controlled regimes.

It’s a mistake to assume that growing up in North Korea automatically makes someone an expert on the entire country. But it’s also a mistake to assume they can’t become experts.

Once in freedom, they can begin to study, question, compare and connect. They read what was once forbidden, analyze policies they once obeyed without question, and share stories.

Rather than asking, “Are they experts?” perhaps the better question is: Are we listening to what they’ve experienced and are learning — both inside and outside the castle walls?