Why I Left Both Koreas

From 1953, when the Korean Armistice Agreement was signed, Korea got two first names. North and South. Since then, two Koreas moved on to different directions. South Korea is now almost in top ten largest economy in the world and North Korea is still one of the poorest countries in the world with their distinctive system and philosophy. Starting from late 1990s, North Koreans started to defect their country. Mostly crossed border into China and some luckily got to South Korea. There are about 30,000 defectors living in South Korea since then. However, since mid 2000s, a number of them started to leave South Korea and go abroad. There is no statistics of how many left, but it's expected to be around 2,000. When I was studying in London, I happened to meet one of them. He lived in UK for eight years and had lots of interesting stories I have not heard of before. Stories of his harsh life in the South, rather than the North. There are lots of books, documentaries, and films that focus on...