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My COVID experience in North Korea (Part 2)

Kim Yumi
(Image: @KimyumiTV, YouTube)

I want to talk about the floating debris that washed in from South Korea, what the North Korean authorities call “garbage,” and how those who got their hands on the various things that arrived made some good money.

During the pandemic, an enormous amount of “garbage” washed ashore. it included strange items we had never seen before. Some refrigerators, for example, were huge. They were unbelievably large. Yes, even refrigerators floated in from the sea.

In restaurants, I saw noodle bowls, the kind used for serving naengmyeon or soup. There were also supermarket shopping baskets. Many of them were white and made of very high-quality material. After coming to South Korea, I haven’t seen quite the same kind. I’m not sure exactly where they were from, but they turned up in North Korea in large quantities, and fetched quite a high price.

During the COVID-19 period, even more “garbage” arrived. That was because, before the pandemic, many ships went to sea and were able to scavenge debris before it could drift ashore. But when COVID hit, none could set sail and people were barred from approaching beaches. When I went near the coast, I could see piles of perfectly usable goods just sitting there on the beach, beyond the quarantine line.

It was tempting to grab them, but picking anything up meant a risk of being punished for violating emergency quarantine rules, which could make your life miserable. I never took that risk myself.

Soldiers in emergency quarantine suits patrolled the beaches, collecting debris and piling it in designated spots, then pouring fuel over the piles and setting them on fire. 

At first, they followed orders to the letter, burning everything even though it felt wasteful. Orders were orders. But as time passed, they started breaking the rules.

At first they believed the propaganda claiming that South Korea was sending the virus through the debris, but after piles and piles of “garbage” kept arriving and they had burned it several times without getting infected, their thinking began to change.

They began secretly siphoning off usable goods and selling them. Many items were brand new and in good condition. They squirreled them away, then sold them at high prices. A single basket could fetch 20,000 to 25,000 won. 

I remember seeing gas canisters. If they were in rough condition, they sold for about 200,000 won each. But if they were clean and in good shape, up to 500,000 won. 

Ordinary soldiers knew what was going on, but didn’t have the means to profit from it. The officers in charge did. They made huge profits. Soldiers would bring in items, the officers would give them a small cut, and keep the rest for themselves.

I have to say from my experience that these items from South Korea were genuinely useful in our daily life. While the regime sent soldiers to destroy them, people survived thanks to that “garbage.”

With the borders sealed and imports dried up, diesel and gasoline became scarce. Vehicles stopped running and machinery stopped operating. If a vendor ran out of fuel and couldn’t move his vehicle, he’d lose an entire day.

Someone began producing a diesel-like fuel by burning and extracting it from plastic sheeting. North Korean-made plastic yielded very little oil, but the plastic washed in from South Korea produced a lot. So the “garbage” they had once burned became valuable. Everything was worth money.

North Koreans admire South Korean products. They think they’re good. But they wouldn’t eat the rice sent from South Korea. That was because the authorities spread propaganda that it was poisoned. Sometimes plastic bottles would float in containing rice and leaflets. The rice looked so high-quality that people became suspicious.

The rice we ate in North Korea was often broken, cracked, and mixed with small stones or other impurities. The South Korean rice, on the other hand, was so clean it was hard to believe it was real the first time we saw it. Now that I’ve eaten it here in South Korea, I can finally believe it’s just properly farmed rice.

At the time, one of my coworkers secretly fed some of it to her dog. When the dog didn’t die after a few days, she whispered to me that she had started secretly cooking and eating it. “Poison? What poison? It’s delicious,” she said.

Even now, it’s hard to believe. Just two years ago, I was living there, talking about that rice and now I’m eating it myself. It feels surreal.

Some of you left questions in the comments. One person said, “COVID started in China. How could North Korea not know that?” I think there’s some misunderstanding. North Koreans did know COVID began in China. What I meant was that the government told people “South Korea is sending COVID into the North.”

Another person asked, “They banned access to beaches because the seawater had COVID?” That’s correct. From February 2020, they blocked all access to the shore. Starting in November 2021, the restrictions were gradually eased. For one year and nine months, we could not approach the beaches.

When someone’s ship ran aground, people wanted to go help secure it. But they couldn’t. They could only watch their valuable vessel break apart and cry.

Someone else asked, “How did you get salt then?” Between 2020 and 2022, we couldn’t produce any salt. Prices skyrocketed. Refined salt was 400 won per kilogram, black salt 1,000 won, and MSG (seasoned salt) 2,500 to 3,000 won.

COVID made life incredibly difficult for many people. I’ll talk next about what happened when I actually caught COVID.

Kim Yumi
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