00:00I knew their heart-wrenching stories long before I flew halfway around the world,
00:06but it didn't make them any easier to hear.
00:19These young smugglers are part of an underground resistance in North Korea,
00:24pushing the limits against one of the most oppressive regimes on the planet.
00:30I came to Korea and I came to Korea.
00:36Risking everything for an unexpected tool for freedom.
00:41Makeup.
00:46The Democratic People's Republic of Korea, better known as North Korea,
00:51was born after World War II when the once united Korean Peninsula was split.
01:25You probably know it best for its eccentric millennial dictator Kim Jong-un,
01:26but you cannot look how you think.
01:29Seoul, South Korea is known for street after street of beauty boutiques,
01:34carrying the latest South Korean products, known as K-Beauty.
01:39Wow, I love lipstick.
01:41In less than a decade, it's exploded into a more than $13 billion industry.
01:49The sheer amount of choices and information can be exhilarating,
01:53especially for 27-year-old Jessie Kim.
02:01She and I same neutral colors?
02:04Yes, right.
02:05My colors?
02:06Really?
02:06We're most neutral.
02:07Oh my gosh!
02:08So good!
02:10Jessie grew up in North Korea, under oppressive rule.
02:18She's part of a new generation that's pushing boundaries in an unexpected way.
02:22If you don't have a hair, then you don't have a hair hair.
02:26If you don't have a hair hair hair.
02:28I'm doing a hair hair hair but you have different colors.
02:30Sometimes when you're gonna buy these beauties,
02:32you have to buy it.
02:35You have to buy it immediately and it's like they don't make it!
02:38It was a kind of value.
02:41Strict rules around appearance are used by the North Korean regime as a form of control.
02:48Visual confirmation of whether or not you fall in line.
02:51A state-issued guide outlines specific hairstyles and lengths approved by the Supreme Leader.
03:00Salon menus show the cuts that are allowed.
03:04Appearances are so regulated that any deviations can lead to public shaming and even arrest.
03:10But what's strictly controlled by the regime is still finding its way in.
03:32Dawn Bi Kim started a business smuggling basic goods into North Korea at just 14 years old.
03:38But she quickly realized that beauty and fashion items were the most in demand.
03:43Beauty products are for the North Korean women, but it's a really popular product.
03:48What kind of items were most requested?
03:56Many North Koreans barely know what South Korean K-beauty products are even called.
04:02But they know they want them.
04:12You were getting hundreds of orders from all over North Korea.
04:19The demand for South Korean products is high.
04:23But how do they even know that they exist?
04:27The best way to understand K-beauty is within the Korean wave.
04:31The Korean wave.
04:32A tsunami of popular South Korean culture.
04:37Boy bands and girl bands.
04:41K-dramas and films.
04:44And the latest wave.
04:48K-beauty.
04:50So, as you see here, we have four different kinds of masks.
04:54This microtip patch has a needle here.
04:56Wait, there's needles on these sheet masks?
04:58Iconic South Korean brand, Dr. Jart, is at the forefront of K-beauty.
05:03It's like a lab down here.
05:05Its progress is part of a larger experiment.
05:08We've got some support with our global marketing activities,
05:13such as a pop-up store project in the US and in China.
05:17So, the government awarded Dr. Jart funding
05:20so we can go out into the world and do pop-up stores
05:23and spread the word even further internationally.
05:26Yeah.
05:27It's part of a government strategy to export Korean culture
05:30and build international influence.
05:33It's called soft power.
05:35In international relations, if we talk about soft power,
05:38that's usually in contrast to what we call hard power.
05:40So, when we talk about hard power, we normally think of something like,
05:43you know, bombs, guns, military might.
05:46When we talk about soft power, we're trying to use the power of attraction
05:49to get the counterpart to do what we would think is desirable behavior.
05:53So, if hard power is forcing people to like you, soft power is getting them to like you.
05:59Yeah.
05:59This soft power strategy has been vital to South Korea becoming an economic powerhouse
06:05by bringing in tens of billions of dollars.
06:09The Korean wave has reached countries all over the world, including its adversarial neighbor.
06:17K-dramas smuggled into North Korea through flash drives have spread like wildfire,
06:23and so have its beauty trends.
06:25We've heard from North Koreans how they began to wonder,
06:28why can't we have these things ourselves?
06:30Liberty in North Korea is a non-profit that helps North Koreans defect
06:34and tracks the information they bring out of the country with them.
06:38It's this sort of shared disobedience, you could say.
06:41In a country that's as restrictive as North Korea,
06:45this is a really interesting and important signal.
06:57You're a rebel.
07:00Jessie was able to avoid being arrested,
07:04but Donbi paid a heavy price.
07:07One night, North Korean officials came to Donbi's home
07:11and arrested her entire family.
07:13They accused her older brother of being a spy,
07:17a common umbrella charge for going against the regime.
07:21She was just 17.
07:23My friends, me, and my family,
07:26about 30 people at night.
07:29And I kept going to the car,
07:30and I kept going for a few hours.
07:35And I went to the street like this.
07:38And I went to the street like this.
07:40But I felt like this is not a normal prison.
07:44I felt like this is not a prison.
07:45I felt like this is not a prison.
07:46I felt like this is not a prison.
07:47Oh.
07:50Punishments for rule breakers in North Korea are horrifying.
07:56The state has a secret network of camps and detention centers
08:00that it denies exists,
08:02despite detailed satellite images
08:05and verified testimonies collected by the UN.
08:08Drawings from prison camp survivors detail the conditions they endured,
08:13eating rats to survive,
08:16barbaric forms of torture,
08:18and even mass executions.
08:21It's estimated that around 200,000 North Koreans are imprisoned in camps today.
08:26The killings taken by the hospital
08:29and the job that was held on December.
08:30And then there was one day that fell asleep.
08:33I went and my legs,
08:34and all my legs were broken.
08:35I went to the bathroom,
08:37but I took the shoes.
08:38I took my shoes and I took the shoes and done the floor to the bathroom.
08:42After that pain and pain, I lost it for you because of your father.
08:51When I told you, I told you,
08:56I told you, I told you,
08:58I told you, I told you,
09:00I told you,
09:02I told you,
09:07I told you that you told me the truth.
09:12I told you,
09:16My house came back.
09:17I guess you could help me in Korea.
09:30I think I could help you in Korea.
09:39Don B's decision to leave wasn't an easy one.
09:43Defecting from North Korea is a difficult journey.
09:46South Korea has an open door policy,
09:49but there's no easy way to get there.
09:51The demilitarized zone between the two countries
09:54makes it nearly impossible to cross at the border.
09:57Instead, most take their chances through China
10:00and then on to Mongolia or Southeast Asia,
10:03hoping to make it to a country that won't send them back.
10:07Liberty in North Korea's footage gives us a rare view
10:10into the harrowing journey.
10:12You may face the risk of being shot in the back
10:15as you're trying to get to the other side
10:17or caught midway through and being dragged all the way back
10:21in the act of trying to get across.
10:23There's no time to think.
10:25Sometimes they don't even eat
10:26because they're so nervous and scared.
10:30That's about a 3,000-mile journey,
10:33longer than the distance between New York and LA.
10:36Once they get to Southeast Asia and our team greets them,
10:40it's always a mix of emotions.
10:45Some people are just so exhausted.
10:47They just pass out.
10:48Others are just so overjoyed
10:51because this is the first time that they are truly free.
10:56Of the more than 25 million people living in North Korea,
11:00it's estimated that about 1,000 safely escape each year.
11:04Hannah and her team are involved every step of the way.
11:08They've seen what matters most to defectors who make it to safety.
11:12The basics are the most important,
11:13but every so often women will ask for BB cream
11:18or maybe they'll ask for hair dye or face masks.
11:23Some people might look at this very small step of what you do,
11:27which is put in together these kits and say,
11:29why would someone from North Korea need a face mask?
11:32What would your response to that be?
11:34I can only imagine how difficult that journey is.
11:38And so to come through that,
11:39even if there's something small we can provide,
11:42like a face mask,
11:43what's so wrong about wanting to really look their best
11:46as they're really starting a new life?
11:48It's a reminder that K-beauty's impact goes beyond face value.
11:53It's a tool of comfort, resistance,
11:56and especially international influence.
11:59I'm about to learn just how far that influence goes.
12:03When it comes to North Korea.
12:07Just last year, Kim Jong-un declared that North Korea
12:11was getting into the global luxury cosmetics game
12:14to make, in his words,
12:16the world's best cosmetics.
12:18Is K-beauty a threat to North Korea?
12:21Yeah, I think so.
12:22South Korean K-beauty's threat to the Kim Jong-un regime.
12:27It is important for North Korea
12:30to prevent the South Korean K-beauties
12:33to enter the North Korean society.
12:35Professor Nam is one of the few people in the world
12:38who's studying North Korean beauty products.
12:41He offered to show me what NK beauty looks like.
12:45I wouldn't know that any of this is from North Korea
12:47if I wasn't standing in your office looking at products
12:50that you basically can't find in most of the world.
12:54Trying North Korean state-created beauty products
12:57for the first time.
12:59It doesn't smell like a beauty product.
13:01It doesn't have that, like, florally,
13:03fragrancy smell that beauty products will have,
13:05and it smells more like it's, like, an edible product.
13:08For the countries of North and South Korea,
13:11beauty has become a new weapon in the race for power.
13:14For its people, it's a driver of change.
13:18These small changes that are happening
13:21are being driven by North Korean people.
13:23This is really where there's hope.
13:26Oh, pretty.
13:27The reality is, beauty isn't going to free North Korea,
13:32but curiosity about self-expression
13:34creates curiosity about the outside world.
13:48It's empowering the younger generations
13:50to imagine a new kind of North Korea.
14:01It's empowering the younger generations
14:03to imagine a new kind of North Korea.
14:03a new kind of North Korea.
14:06Thanks for watching Refinery29.
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