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It's going to be a massive shell shock seeing the south and comparing it to his previous life.
Hope he didn't leave any family behind.
It's a huge shock. A number of defectors actually return to NK because they've been institutionalized and can't handle it.
Same reason guys get out of prison and get themselves right back in.
Dear Fellas. I can't believe how fast things move on the outside. I saw an automobile once when I was a kid, but now they're everywhere. The world went and got itself in a big damn hurry. The parole board got me into this halfway house called the Brewer, and a job bagging groceries at the Food-Way. It's hard work. I try to keep up, but my hands hurt most of the time. I don't think the store manager likes me very much. Sometimes after work I go to the park and feed the birds. I keep thinking Jake might just show up and say hello. But he never does. I hope wherever he is, he's doing okay and making new friends. I have trouble sleeping at night. I have -- bad dreams, like I'm falling. I wake up scared. Sometimes it takes me a while to remember where I am. Maybe I should get me a gun and rob the Food-Way, so they'd send me home. I could shoot the manager while I was at it, sort of like a bonus. I guess I'm too old for that sort of nonsense anymore. I don't like it here. I'm tired of being afraid all the time. I've decided not to stay. I doubt they'll kick up any fuss. Not for an old crook like me.
The book is hilarious with this part. He said that "every song now is about fucking"
The ones back in his day were too, but the euphemisms were much heavier.
Aw Shawshank Redemption
Chances are he has at least mother, father, siblings, grandparents who will spend the rest of their lives in horrific slave work prison as punishment for their relative defecting.
Kim Jung un doesnt fuck around.
He ran across a minefield. With people shooting at him. I think he deserves a break
Good for him. I hope he can live a more normal life soon
His family tree is fucked.
Normal is relative. The normal world will seem extremely foreign to him.
So all 155 miles of the border is walled and patrolled? I know there's a heavily trapped DMZ, 2.5 miles wide, but for all 155 miles? How does that work?
I obviously have zero experience, but I would think a healthy, well equipped person could easily find a hole.
It isn't the first time someone built a heavily trapped, walled and patrolled border of that size.
Take a look at the Inner German Border. It was over 1300 km (approx. 810 mi) long, and was (average) about 5.5 km wide (a bit more than 3 miles).
From 1974 to 1979, 4956 people attempted to cross it, and only 229 (4.6%) actually made it.
And the other parts of the iron wall weren't that much better.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protection_of_Czechoslovak_borders_during_the_Cold_War
Geography limits your options of where to cross.
Survival equipment is difficult to obtain or learn usage of discretely.
It isn't like they can just buy camping gear and walk the length of the dmz during vacation to find a weak point.
a healthy, well equipped person
So not your average North Korean, then.