Up to a third of North Korean escapees regret leaving

[elte]

http://mashable.com/2016/04/04/north-kor...tUtThp7qqC -- "Every year, thousands of North Koreans risk imprisonment, or worse, to leave their homeland, many hoping to eventually reach the South. Instead, they often find themselves lost in a nation where they thought they'd feel at home, struggling with depression, discrimination, joblessness and their own lingering pride in the repressive nation they left behind. Surveys have shown that up to one-third would return home if they could."

[C C]

The inhabitants of the "Arab spring" nations which successfully overthrew and tried to overthrow their tyrant governments probably have a similar feeling with the aftermath results. Not to mention the migrants learning that life in Europe was not the paradise their human smugglers promised ("State welfare will supply you with a place to live, food, and utilities until you get a guaranteed job."). Moral: Beware exchanging egotistical strongmen for inter-warring factions and intruding pathological maniac cults.

[Yazata]

My impression is that North Korea is the world's closest approximation to George Orwell's 1984. That must be a strange psychological environment in which to grow up and live. It must have lasting effects on people.

So imagine going from an environment where from birth you were told precisely what to think and all aspects of life were organized for you by the system, to an environment where you have choices: in what to buy, what to eat, what to wear, where to work, who to associate with, what to do for fun... to say nothing of what to think and believe.

I can imagine that it can be overwhelming and unsettling. All of the structure of your life kicked away and you suddenly responsible for everything yourself. Combined with the loneliness of losing family and friends, and it isn't hard to see why many of them can't handle it.