Discovering Joy: Ten Years in North Korea

by Joy Yoon

How do we build trustworthy relationships with North Koreans? Simply by trying to understand where they come from and who they are. North Korea is not interested in being pitied or patronized by foreigners. They do not want to be told what to do. They want relationship based on mutual respect and reciprocal give and take. Many North Koreans have been surprised to get to know us and interact with us. Their attitudes about Americans have changed from fear and hatred to openness and warmth for their newfound friends. The more my husband and I understood North Koreans, the more we learned to work together with positive results. And the more we learned to trust them, the deeper our relationships with them became. To my own surprise, I discovered joy in building relationships in the DPRK. What became a personal journey of discovery has taught me so much about who I am. I had my own preconceptions of who North Koreans were, and not all of it was true. But I had preconceptions about myself too. It was only when I became vulnerable and allowed myself to engage openly with them on a human level in their own world that I began to expand my understanding of both North Koreans and of myself. Our journey into North Korea led to a paradigm shift in both of our hearts and minds. A collision of East and West brought about a brand-new worldview, and I find myself today full of gratitude in who I became during my ten years in North Korea.