by WorldTribune Staff, July 31, 2020
“I believed they were full of hostility … but they were just so nice,” a North Korean defector said after visiting the United States.
Kim Geum-Hyuk said he was “shocked” at what he found when he visited the United States because he had been a “victim of brainwash education,” in communist North Korea.
“They taught us to fight [Americans] til the end,” Kim told the YouTube channel, “DIMPLE,” which shares stories and videos involving North Koreans.
“So there are Mexicans, Chinese, Koreans … So many people made up one community,” he said. “I was just so surprised by the diversity.”
In North Korean education, Americans are considered “street dogs” or “wolves” depicted as “people who torture and kill,” said Kim, who defected from North Korea after attending college in Pyongyang. He now resides in Seoul, South Korea.
“[Americans are] so nice, funny, and open to anything,” Kim said. “I was so surprised when I first went to California. What I was taught in North Korea was an image of the coldness and wickedness of Americans.”
Because of what North Korean media presented, he said he was led to believe that Iraq was going to win the Iraq War in 2003.
“I was like, ‘Iraq is amazing, they’re gonna win,’ ” he said. “And I found out America wiped them all out in 57 days. So I fixed my thoughts.”
The landscape of America was stunning to Kim as well, who said visiting the Grand Canyon felt like going to Mars and he was amazed at how big Texas was.
He also noted that the U.S. is a place where you “can gain weight,” saying he put on almost 10 pounds during his visit.
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