Thread by @BonicMichael

A 4th-generation South Korean in Japan who doesn’t speak Korean discovers North Koreans are “just like us. Very kind, very gentle, very

"True North" retells the horrors of North Korean human rights abuses through narrative fiction and animation
nknews.org/2020/11/laugh-…

2/"cooperative, funny, intelligent and all that. Probably even much more than some of us.” He then creates the above👆animation film based on testimony of 4 NK defectors.

"True North” director Eiji Han Shimizu says: “I’m a fourth-generation ethnic Korean here in Japan, born and

3/"raised. Korea, both South and North, has always been foreign to me. My dad and my grandparents are from the southern side of the Korean Peninsula, so you can categorize me as a “Zainichi Kankokujin.”

I grew up in a very Japanese environment, so I don’t speak [Korean]. In

4/"fact, I wanted to keep some distance from the Korean matter because, as you know, in the past Koreans were seen as second-class citizens. I happen to have a Japanese name. I didn’t need to lie if someone asked, but I didn’t need to reveal my Korean identity because we all look

5/" the same.”

OK - who "all look the same"? Japanese and Koreans "all look the same"????? Give me a f###ing break. Or did he mean all South Korean's look the same? As a South Korean in Japan he STILL feels like he's a "second-class citizen"? So this animation is really a social

6/outcast's attempt to redeem his Zainichi Kankokujin status by showing the world North Koreans are: "Very kind, very gentle, very cooperative, funny, intelligent and all that. Probably even much more than some of us. So I wanted to show true North Koreans to the world, because

7/"we have such a bias towards these people."

I have no bias against North Koreans. I suppose he wants to contrast his long-lost twice-removed fellow kinsmen of the North he portrays in a positive light against prison conditions. Why doesn't he do an animation on American

8/prisons? No country on Earth has more prisoners per capita than the US. He wants to tap people's emotions re the plight of North Koreans in prison.

OK. Got it. Anyone can go to Un A's YouTube channel Echo of Truth to experience audiovisually how amazing
youtube.com/channel/UCP5_c…

9/the people of DPRK are and how life for the Millennials, students and people living in Pyongyang is.

https://twitter.com/BonicMichael/status/1328088280156389376?s=20

10/In North Korea a 9 year old girl wants to be a fashion designer. And you know she will be the DPRK’s Donna Karan. DPRK education fuels the dreams of its children.

https://twitter.com/BonicMichael/status/1297783947686887424?s=20

11/I'm not even any part Korean but I know I have a better understanding of the people of North Korea than Zainichi Kankokujin Shimizu. My heart is with every DPRKer who, like the girl speaking English in the opening scene👇🏿of my video and members of the

12/Moranbong Band and Wangjaesan Dance Troupe, love their country with a patriotism, national pride and socialist purpose and revere their Respected Supreme Leader Comrade Kim Jong Un and Respected First Lady Ri Sol Ju more than Americans revere their President.

Every country

13/has its prison system for lawbreakers. If there's to be reform in DPRK's prisons there should first be normalization of relations b/t the US and DPRK and peace on the Korean Peninsula (formal end to the Korean War). Or at least a deal b/t US and DPRK that can be the first

14/step on the "Road To Peace" for all Korean people.

https://twitter.com/BonicMichael/status/1294535754597773314?s=20

Under the unfair and unrelenting pressure of US & UNSC international sanctions designed to increase hardship on DPRDers, sh#t runs downhill. Of course life is 10x more brutal in a North Korean prison

15/camp. But if the US and DPRK make peace, DPRKers are free to travel the globe, Moon and Kim Jong Un ramp up inter-Korean economic projects, sanctions are lifted and China, Japan & Russia integrate their economic policies w/ Pyongyang and Seoul, then with a little help from

16/DPRK's new friends Kim might upgrade DPRK's prison camp system to comply w/ standards. When there's love & prosperity in abundance, prison camps will lighten up. But until then it's bleak and bad, and a sophmoric anime by Zainichi Kankokujin Shimizu will piss off DPRKers & PY.

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