SEOUL, South Korea — As a math professor in North Korea, Jang Se-yul was among the nation’s relatively privileged classes; he got to sit in special seats in restaurants and on crowded trains, and more important in a country where many go hungry, was given priority for government food rations. Then he risked it all — for a soap opera from South Korea.
The temptation in this case was “Scent of a Man,” an 18-episode drama about the forbidden love between an ex-convict and his stepsister. A graduate student had offered him the bundle of banned CDs smuggled into the North and, too curious to resist, Mr. Jang and five other professors huddled in one of their homes binge watching until dawn. They were careful to pull the curtains to escape the prying eyes of neighbors taught to turn in their fellow citizens for seditious activities. But they were caught anyway and demoted to manual labor at a power plant.
Mr. Jang said they most likely escaped prison only because they paid bribes, but facing a lifetime of social stigma — and having had a glimpse of the comforts of South Korea in “Scent of a Man” — he decided to defect. He now leads a defectors’ group that sends soap operas and other entertainment to the North to try to empower people to demand an end to authoritarian rule.
“I am sure these soaps have an impact on North Koreans, and I am the proof,” he said. “In the future, if they spread, they can even help foster anti-government movements. That’s why the North Korean authorities are so desperate to stop them from spreading.”
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Kim Seung-hee, 24, is one. She watched her first drama, “Stairway to Heaven,” courtesy of soldiers who asked to use her home for safe watching, and was hooked immediately, drawn not only to South Korea’s freedoms, but also to the promise of love in a more open society.
“South Korean men in the films had such good manners toward women, unlike North Korean men who like to order us around,” she said. “It made me yearn for South Korea, dreaming of meeting such a man.”
A version of this article appears in print on January 25, 2015, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: North Korea’s Forbidden Love? Smuggled, Illegal Soap Operas. Order Reprints| Today’s Paper|Subscribe
