The delusion of home ownership
All buildings belong to the government. Not a single one belongs to an individual. (Image: iStock / Karsten Jung)
In North Korea, it is not possible to buy and sell land or property. We all have no doubt about that. All houses and buildings are owned by the government. There is a legal provision for people to buy a 50-year lease on a house. But this is part of the foreign investment law and for foreigners only. Not a single house belongs to a citizen of North Korea.
But then, at the same time, we North Koreans have no doubt that the house we live in belongs to us. It is ours. We own it. What kind of paradox is this?
The state has the authority to reclaim any house from its occupants at any time if it so chooses. However, it generally does not do this. Unless someone defects, like I did, that is. Or commits acts deemed to be anti-party and anti-revolutionary. Then they are expelled from their home. Otherwise, it is unlikely. So, for 99 percent of the people, their house is theirs.
But then there are the 1 percenters. To tell their story, let me explain how houses are supplied and, in fact, bought and sold in North Korea.
People who experienced the “Arduous March” famine of the 1990s know that food is much more important than housing. Starving people back then did anything to survive. Such is the instinctive struggle for survival. Some mixed clay with flour to eat. Others went into the mountains to peel tree bark for food. Some even ate rats.
Given such circumstances, how could we expect houses to have been on their minds?
At that time, a lot of people left their homes and went on a random search for food. There were abandoned houses everywhere.
If those houses could have been exchanged for food, it would have been the happiest and most fortunate situation. However, the tragic reality was that everyone thought the same way. There was, in other words, huge supply but zero demand.
That doesn’t mean there was not a trade of sorts. For example, if you were very lucky, you could swap your apartment on the 13th floor with someone on the third floor for 13 blocks of tofu.
As this illustration shows, in apartment buildings where elevators don’t work, lower floors are worth more. But not too low. It’s best to avoid the first and second floors because they can be targeted by thieves. In case you didn’t know, thieves can walk in unheard and unlock any door.
So, if you live on a lower floor, you can never sleep peacefully and if you live on a higher floor, you have to struggle up and down. This latter situation is especially tough on the elderly.
Now, let’s talk about real estate development in general. For this, government approval is always required. The problem, though, is that getting approval, no matter how reasonable the request, is nigh on impossible.
But there is a trickster who can make it happen. If you meet this person, he will write the proposal for you for around $300 and your approval is guaranteed. His perfect writing skills make it impossible for the government to reject.
Thus, with a good eye for spotting prime real estate and connections to such a proposal writer, even an ordinary person can become wealthy. A middleman can become the richest person in the country in this way.
In scenic areas of Pyongyang, there were prime plots of land that real estate agents had their eyes on. But these areas were restricted and could not be turned into regular housing. Then the middleman came up with a very convincing proposal. He would build apartments on the land to solve the housing needs of workers from the Central Party and the National Defense Commission. With this noble purpose and justification, approval was granted.
As you can appreciate, in North Korea, approval documents are far more important than investors. Once you have the approval, finding investors is easy.
With the money from investors, our middleman built the first floor, sold the units, and then built the second floor and so on. In this way, he was able to build a 30-story apartment and become rich.
What an ingenious method! A single letter of approval proved to be so lucrative.
Perhaps this is why people say that power takes precedence over money in North Korea.
Relying on money alone is like building on sand. One of our neighbors built a house without approval, only to have it confiscated by the government.
“Why didn’t you say anything when I was doing the foundation work?” he asked the government official after having spent his money and gone through the effort of building his house.
People are 99 percent sure that the house they live in belongs to them. What they don’t expect is the 1 percent chance that something unexpected will happen.
That 1 percent could come in an unforeseen way, as it did during Kim Jong-un’s visit to Chongjin in the fall of 2016.
At the time, the streets and houses of Chongjin were dilapidated and dirty, much like the lives of its residents. After his visit, Kim reportedly commented, “It would be suitable to film a movie here from the Japanese colonial era.”
North Hamgyong Province officials were immediately alarmed. Kim’s whim directly determined their future prospects. They had to make it happen. Residents were ordered to modernize their homes. They were told to hang flowers on their doors, rebuild fences, and repaint the exteriors to create beautiful scenery.
The homeowners who had to do this were people who were worrying about where their next meal was coming from. So, the orders to prettify their houses was an incredibly troublesome and worrying matter for them. If they were asked to provide labor, they would have done it without hesitation, as they were used to unreasonable demands of that sort. However, how could they pay to make the district look nicer when they had no money?
The most absurd part of this story was the punishment for those who failed to follow orders. People who couldn’t afford to improve their homes were kicked out.
People who questioned such unreasonable orders found themselves losing their homes on the grounds that they had refused to follow the supreme leader’s orders.
This was the moment when the unpredictable 1 percent of bad luck came to them. They had ignored and denied the possibility, but it came in the end.
Perhaps the 99 percent certainty of ownership was just an illusion, and the truth lay in that 1 percent?
Residents unable to afford the improvements could have been allowed to sell their homes. Wouldn’t that have been better than expelling them?
How to describe the feelings of people who had to give up their homes to create a landscape to please Kim’s eyes?
Among them was a 70-year-old woman who had to leave her home of 45 years. She was my grandmother. That house was a major part of her life. It was a source of joy, of memories. Grandmother had hoped to die in that house. But she tearfully left and moved to a place with fewer rooms and less sunlight.
The Kim family houses are naturally in the most scenic and beautiful areas of North Korea. We call them “special resorts.” They are so grand that they can be seen from far away. They are always guarded by sentries to prevent access by ordinary people.
Near my grandmother’s house, there is a place called the Gomal Mountain Special Resort. When we were children, we were very curious about it, and we would peek inside through the tall fences and the nails and glass shards placed on top.
We gazed at an endless expanse of grass, scattered low pine trees, occasionally visible sentries and guard dog kennels, and colorful, patterned sidewalks. To our young eyes, it was enchanting, the likes of which we had never seen before.
For us, covered in filth as we were, it felt like a sacred, forbidden area. An interesting fact is that despite our fascination, the Kim family has never visited that place. Even so, 40 caretakers still reside there, waiting for the day when the supreme leader might visit. It could happen at any time.
This is the fate of the two houses separated by just a fence. One will arrive, and the other will depart. The fate of those who own and those who do not own.
Animals have their homes, and birds have their nests, but why is it that we have no dwelling?
Are the people of North Korea destined to leave? They leave for 13 blocks of tofu, they leave because they have no approval, and they leave because they can’t afford to decorate their homes.
Everyone in time leaves their beloved homes. They leave their hometowns.
Born in Chongjin in 1990, Jang Mi was not a studious child, but under her mother’s influence, she graduated from high school and went on to university to take math and science. She worked as a wedding video editor for seven years until her defection in 2019.
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