Irresponsible Purchases

As some of you may recall, the last time I was in Seoul I visited the DMZ, where among other things I found some merchandise from across the border in North Korea. There are a few products that North Korea exports into the south, but the only ones that I am aware of are alcohol-related. This particular one is Korean brandy, which I picked up at the train station that could potentially link the South to the North someday. It cost only 9,000 won and it didn't taste especially good, but I was so enraptured with the idea of consuming something from North Korea that I didn't really care. Now, I see that not only was that instinct motivated from a very bad place, mainly a part of me that still sees North Korea as some sort of exotic, secret land in the "East," but perhaps even worse is that I have no idea where the money from my purchase ended up. Most likely, as with just about everything else in North Korea, the money somehow ended up in the hands of the State, a.k.a. Kim Jong Il. The North Korean State is certainly something I do not want to support. The situation in North Korea does get a little bit more attention these days because of its "Axis of Evil" claim to fame and the giant, mushroom-shaped elephant in the room, but I really don't think that anyone except North Koreans themselves have any idea how bad it actually is. Whatever we imagine it is like there, I imagine it is probably one hundred times worse. There are a few good documentaries that have been made about the current situation, one of which I saw last weekend. It included footage shot clandestinely in the North by a defector who routinely crosses the border and smuggles film out in order to bring more attention to the plight of his people (talk about dedication). It was eye-opening even for me, who thought I had a pretty good idea of how bad things were there. At any rate, the idea of consuming something seemingly "taboo" like North Korean brandy doesn't seem worth it to me anymore.