{"id":40695,"date":"2022-01-16T20:00:49","date_gmt":"2022-01-16T11:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2022\/jan\/16\/second-thoughts-what-makes-north-korean-defectors-want-to-go-back"},"modified":"2022-01-16T20:00:49","modified_gmt":"2022-01-16T11:00:49","slug":"second-thoughts-what-makes-north-korean-defectors-want-to-go-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=40695","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Second thoughts\u2019: what makes North Korean defectors want to go back?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>South Korea is no promised land for escapees from a brutal regime \u2013 loneliness and poverty are common fates<\/p>\n<p>No one knows what awaited Kim Woo-joo when he arrived back in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/north-korea\">North Korea<\/a>, just over a year after he had fled the world\u2019s most oppressive regime for a life of freedom in the South.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier this month, the 29-year-old former gymnast approached the border separating the two Koreas, scaled a tall barbed-wire fence and walked the 2.5 miles across the heavily armed <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2010\/jul\/21\/demilitarised-zone-north-korea\">demilitarised zone<\/a> (DMZ), dodging landmines but not security cameras, which captured his escape no fewer than five times.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2022\/jan\/16\/second-thoughts-what-makes-north-korean-defectors-want-to-go-back\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>South Korea is no promised land for escapees from a brutal regime \u2013 loneliness and poverty are common fatesNo one knows what awaited Kim Woo-joo when he arrived back in North Korea, just over a year after he had fled the world\u2019s most oppressive regime &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":151,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,40,222,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-north-korea","category-south-korea","category-world-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/151"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40695"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40695\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40696,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40695\/revisions\/40696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}