Seok Hyeon Ju (in striped top) reapplying her lipstick before filming a YouTube video with Sim Ha Yoon, a fellow North Korean refugee YouTuber. Seok is one of a burgeoning niche of YouTubers comprising North Korean refugees telling their own stories of escape, survival and resettling in a capitalist land.
Her hair pulled back in a careless ponytail and a GoPro camera trailing her every step, Seok Hyeon Ju wanders with a kitchen knife across an empty cornfield strewn with fallen stalks.
She’s on the hunt for naengi – a spring green known as shepherd’s purse – that grows in the toughest soil, which years ago she foraged as a starving child in the mountains of North Korea. She picks some and then lets out a delighted squeal when she spots a shrivelled ear of corn left over from last year’s harvest.
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North Korean refugees tell their stories on YouTube
Seok Hyeon Ju (in striped top) reapplying her lipstick before filming a YouTube video with Sim Ha Yoon, a fellow North Korean refugee YouTuber. Seok is one of a burgeoning niche of YouTubers comprising North Korean refugees telling their own stories of escape, survival and resettling in a capitalist land.
(Marcus Yam/Los Angeles Times/TNS)
North Korean YouTuber Jang Jung Hyuk (left) practising mixed martial arts moves with his workout partner, Sim Min Seop, at a gym in Seoul.
North Korean YouTubers Seok Hyeon Ju (left) and Yoon Seol Mi make a video at Yoon's home.
Seok Hyeon Ju finds a leftover cob of corn and documents it for her YouTube channel, in Inje, South Korea.
Seok Hyeon Ju chops firewood before cooking a meal in her backyard in Hongcheon, South Korea, as her camerawoman, Kim Mi Ran documents it for her channel. Her videos showcase her survival and cooking skills.
(Marcus Yam/Los Angeles Times/TNS)
