아직도 지구촌에서는 동성애 부부들을 보는 보통 사람들의 시선은 곱지만은 않은것 같다. 보통 남녀간에 사랑하여 결혼하고 새끼낳고....누군들 그러한 평범한 삶을 살아가고 싶지 않은 사람이 어디 있을까? 나자신도 그들만이 모여사는 Village를 드라이빙 하면서 지나치는 경우를 본기억이 있다. 동네 어귀에는 무지개색을 상징하는 Flag가 펄럭이는 광경을 보면서. The Forks of Credit Rd.를 따라 산등성이가 이어져 있고 그아랫쪽에는 Creek을 따라 깨끗한 물이 흘러가는 경치가 좋은 곳이지만, 평상시에는 인적이 흔한 동네지만, 가을철 단풍시즌에는 많은 Driver이 즐겨찾는 Driving Course이기도 한곳이다.
장영진씨는 북한에서 약 25년전에 여러번의 탈북시도끝에 결국은 휴전선을 넘어 남한으로 정착하여 살아가는 탈북동포로, 그가 탈북한 원인은 그는 동성애자로 정상적인 Gay부부로서의 결혼생활이 허용안되는 북한에서는 살아가는것은, 죽은 인생과 같아서, 더이상 괴로움에 시달릴수가 없어 남한행을 택했다는 그의 인생 이야기가 전세계에 울려퍼지고 있다. 그의 인생얘기가 전세계에 알려지게된 원인은 그가 최근에 그의 자서전을 발표하면서 부터다.
그는 외모는 정상적으로 훌륭해 보였지만, 그는 아름다운 여성을 봐도 성적매력을 느껴본적이 없었다. 그러한 환경속에서 그가 27살 되던때 결혼을 했었지만, 결혼 첫날밤에 그의 인생고통은 더 커지고 마는 경험을 하게 된다.
느끼는 감정이 그를 더 불편하게 만들었었다. "첫날밤 신부에게 손끝을 하나 만지고 싶은 욕정이 생기지 않았었다"라고 그날밤을 회상한다. 그래도 결혼생활은 계속됐었지만 부부관계를 한적은 거의 없을 정도로 매우 드물었었다. 결혼 4년이 지났지만 임신이 안돼, 이를 지켜본 그의 형제들이 형을 유도하여 받은 대답은 성적욕구가 발생하지 않는다고 실토하자, 의사를 만나 상담하도록 조치를 취했었다.
"나와 형제들은 북한에서 여러병원들 찾아 뭐가잘못된것인가를 확인하려 노력을 많이 했었다." 그러나 신체적 결함을 발견하는데 실패한다.
북한에서는 "동성애"에 대한 생각자체를 인정하지도 않고, 따라서 주민들은 상상도 하지 않고 살아간다"라고 그는 설명하면서, 어떤사람이 같은 동성애자를 만나서 반가워하는 광경을 보면, 단지 친한 친구를 오랫만에 만났기 때문인것 쯤으로 치부해 버린다. 실질적으로 가끔씩은 동성애자들이 거리를 거닐면서 손을 잡고 걷는 경우를 본다. "북한은 전체주의 사회이기에 사회생활을 하는데 많은 동성애자 부부는 겉으로는 정상적인 삶을 살아가는것으로 보일수밖에 없다.
군대생활을 같이 했던 한친구가 제대후 그를 여러반 찾아 왔었다. 그때 친구에게 고백하기를, "결혼생활이 죽을맛이다. 마누라의 손가락 하나를 만지기가 싫다"라고. 그때의 심정을 설명하기를 "아마 그친구도 나와 같은 Gay였던것 같았다"라고 그때를 회상한다.
국민대학교수 박정원교수는 설명하기를, 장씨는 Gay과 Lesbian들에 대한 실질적 관계에 대한 북한법을 잘 알지 못하고 있었던것 같다고 설명하면서, 북한에서는 혼외관계와 사회적관습을 어기는것으로 취급되는 Gay부부의 섹스관계가 발견되면 바로 법의 심판을 받는 사회라고 강조해준다.
이화여대교수 김석향씨는 탈북민들 여러명을 만나 동성애 주제를 놓고 얘기를 해보았으나 모두의 대답은 북한에서는 그런 얘기를 들어본 적이 없었고, 그런 생각을 갖인 사람들도 없다는 것이었다.
"동성애자들의 섹스에 대해서 물었는데, 대부분의 탈북동포들은 그말뜻을 선뜻 이해하지 못하는것 같았고, 그래서 그들에게 자세히 설명을 해주어야만 했었다"라고 설명한다. 탈북동포들은 교수인 그녀에게 말하기를, 그런 사람은 사회일원으로 취급되지 않고, 법의 심판을 받고 심한경우에는 사형까지 당하는수도 있다고 했다.
탈북동포 '장'씨는 형제들과 합동으로 건강검진을 받았었지만, 신체적인 결함을 전연 없었다는 판정을 받았었다.
서울의 사회적 인식을 북한과는 완전히 달라서, 관계당국자들도 그를 이해시키는데 힘들었었다고 한다. 모든 탈북자들은 남한에 도착하면 수주동안 국정원에서 그들이 진짜 탈북자인지 아니면 간첩으로 파견된자인지를 확인하기위해 조사를 받게된다. 그러나 장씨의 경우는 무려 5개월 이상의 심문에 시달려야 했었다. 왜 그가 탈북했는지를 설명해야 했었기 때문이었다. 결국에는 그자신이 여성에 대한 성적욕구가 없는 사람임을 실토하자 당국은 마침내 그가 남한에서 살수 있도록 주선해주면서, 다시한번 전문의사에 보내 검진을 받도록 했었다.
"국정원 직원은 여성을 싫어하는 이유가 있다는것을 그에게 설명해 주었었다."
장씨가 탈북했을 당시에는 남한의 국민들도 동성애자들의 성관계 기본 지식에 대해서는 보편적으로 잘알려지지 않는 시기였었다. 몇몇 의사들은 장씨에게 정신적 도움을 받아 보라고 권했었지만, 그는 받아 들이지 않았다.
그리고 난후 1998년 봄에, 한국에 온지 13개월이 지난후 그는 한잡지를 우연히 읽게 됐는데, 그곳에 자기자신이 DMZ를 통해 남한으로 넘어온 탈북과정에 대한 이야기가 있는것을 발견한 것이다. 다음 페이지를 넘겼는데 그곳에는 미국영화속에서 두젊은 남성들이 침대에서 키스하면서 섹스를 즐기는 광경에 대한 기사와 여러명의 동성애자들에 대한 기사가 실려있는것을 발견한 것이다.
Jang은 이북에 있을때를 회상한다.
그자신뿐만이 아니고 모두가 살길은 오직 하나, 북한을 떠나 살아가는 길이다 라고. 이렇게 되면 그의 부인도 자유인이 되여 다시 결혼하고 새생활을 할수 있을 것이다라고.
남한에서 행복하게 살면서도 그의 마음은 북에 있는 가족들때문에 편치만은 않았다. 들려온 소식에 의하면 그가족들은 북한의 추운지방으로 쫒겨나 살고있고, 그뿐만이 아니고 그의 가족들은 북한정권에 충성심이 없다는 이유로 무지막지한 고통을 받고있다는것에 괴로움이 더한 것이다. 그의 가족들중에서 이미 6명이 배고픔과 질병으로 목숨을 잃었고, 그들중에는 그의 어머니와 4명의 형제자매가 포함되여 있다.
마침내 그는 생각하기를, 이고통속에서 벗어나는 길은, 그의 생각을 적어서 세상에 알리는 길이다라고. "북에 있는 내가족들을 생각하는것은 나에겐 너무나 큰 고통이었었다. 그래서 기록으로 남겨두자는 생각이 들어 자서전을 쓰게됐고, 그길만이 가족들을 포함한 모두에게 왜 내가 탈북하게 됐는가를 알려주는 길이었었다고 믿기 때문이다"라고.
그가 받는 또하나의 위로는 북한탈출함으로써 그의 아내에게 새로운 기회를 주었다는 것이고, 후에 들은바로는 그녀는 재혼하여 살고 있다는것이었다. "그녀는 매우 영리했었고, 그래서 그녀의 재혼에 대해 매우 만족해 하고있다".
그후 그는 SNS상에서 그와 생각이 같은 동성애자를 만나 친한 친구가 됐고, 앞으로 결혼까지 약속한 사이가 돼어가고 있다고 고백했다.
Covid-19때문에 이들 두남자가 서로 더 많이 알아갈수있는 기회가 현재로서는 없지만, 언젠가는 풀리면 같이 앉아 와인잔 들이키면서 그러한 문제들을 해결할 날이 올것을 기대하고있다.
"그친구, '민수'에 대해서 더 많이 알게될수록, 그의 인간성이 매우 좋다는것을 보게된다. 그는 비록 나보다 8세가 연하지만, 그는 남을 먼저 생각하는 사람으로 이해가 된다".
그후 2개월후에 민수는 청혼하기로 결정했다. 미스터 장은 그의 부인과 북한에서 결혼했던 과거를 정리하는 관련문서을 최종 정리하고 있다. 그런후에 금녀말경에 그는 민수씨와 결혼할 희망에 부풀어 있다.
"나는 혼자 살면서 항상 두려움, 슬픔 그리고 외로움에 시달려 왔었다. 나는 성격이 내성적이고 매우 민감한 편이다. 그러나 민수는 매우 긍정적이고 낙천적이어서 우리는 서로 좋은 짝이 될것으로 생각하고 있다"라고 희망을 피력한다. coronavirus가 끝나면 앞날의 삶을 더 넓혀가기위해 미국의 Washington을 방문하여 그곳으로 부터 불과 30분 거리에서 살고있는 민수를 만날 꿈에 부풀어 있다.
"내가 듣기로는 그곳에는 많은 gay bars들이 있다고한다. 그를 만나는 그와함께 그곳에 들려 같이 한잔 하고 싶다."
현재 그는 외곽지역에 살면서 평온한 인생을 즐기면서, 마치 동화속의 환상적인 세상에서 살고있는 느낌이다라고 설명한다. 남은 인생 잘 보내시기를....
Jang Yeong-jin's remarkable story as North Korea's only openly gay defector was covered by the international media after he published his autobiography. Now, almost a quarter of a century after fleeing the country, he tells the BBC that he plans to marry his American boyfriend.
Jang Yeong-jin had never found women attractive. But it wasn't until his wedding night, aged 27, that this made his life difficult.
Jang felt intensely uncomfortable. "I couldn't lay a finger on my wife," he recalls. Although the couple did eventually consummate their marriage, sex was rare. Four years later - his wife still not pregnant - one of Jang's brothers began to quiz him. Jang admitted he had never been aroused by the opposite sex, and his brother promptly sent him to a doctor.
"I went to so many hospitals in North Korea because we thought that I had some sort of physical problem."
It never occurred to Jang, or his family, that there could be another reason for his lack of interest.
Medical tests
"There is no concept of homosexuality in North Korea," he says. If someone is seen running to greet another same sex friend, it's assumed that's just because they have such a close friendship. In fact adults of the same sex often hold hands in the street, he says. "North Korea is a totalitarian society - we have lots of communal life so it's normal for us."
Jang now thinks his experience of being misunderstood was by no means unique.
At one point, Jang was admitted to hospital for a month of tests and got to know some of the other patients. "I figured out many of them had a similar experience to me - people who could not feel anything towards women."
But articulating, or exploring, what it was they did feel, was likely to have been impossible without a frame of reference.
"In North Korea, if a man says he doesn't like a woman, people [just] think he's unwell."
One man Jang had served with in the military visited him several times after they were discharged. He confided that his wedding night, too, had been a disaster - he couldn't bring himself to even hold his wife's hand.
"I think he was also someone like me," reflects Jang.
Park Jeong-Won, a law professor at Seoul's Kookmin University, says that he is not aware of any explicit North Korean law against gay and lesbian relationships. But he adds that the state's laws against extramarital relations and breaching social mores would probably be co-opted into prosecuting any gay sexual act.
Another academic in Seoul, Kim Seok-hyang, has interviewed dozens of defectors on the subject, and says not one of them had even heard of the concept.
"When I asked them about homosexuality, they didn't catch on quickly so I had to explain it to every single person," Kim, professor of North Korean Studies at Ewha Women's University, says.
The defectors all told her they were certain that anyone found exploring same-sex relationships would be ostracised at the very least, possibly even executed.
Jang was released from hospital with a clean bill of health - all the medical tests set in motion by his brother's intervention showed there was nothing physically wrong.
But his wife remained extremely unhappy.
"I thought: 'I should let this person go. We should find a way to be happy for each other,''' Jang says.
So Jang filed for divorce. But this process is not straightforward in North Korea. Permission needs to be granted by the courts, and they prioritise the family unit, says law professor Park Jeong-Won. They will only authorise a split if the union is seen to threaten the country's ideology, he says.
Jang began to realise he had only one option left - to leave North Korea altogether. This would automatically void their union and allow his wife to remarry.
But the final catalyst for his defection was a visit from Jang's best friend, a man called Seoncheol. They had grown up together in their northern hometown of Chongjin. The two had always been close, sharing a bed on boyhood sleepovers. But as they had got older, Jang's feelings for Seoncheol had intensified.
"I really liked Seoncheol so much. I still see him in my dreams."
From time to time Seoncheol would come to dinner, and on one particular evening Jang, concerned that it had got late, persuaded Seoncheol to stay over. A few hours later, Jang found himself creeping out of his own bed and in beside Seoncheol. He was devastated when his sleeping friend didn't so much as stir.
"I don't know what I wanted from him exactly - maybe I just wanted him to hug me tight," says Jang.
But the moment crystallised his feeling that his life in North Korea had come to an end.
Jang arrived in South Korea in April 1997 by crawling across the mine-strewn de-militarized zone (DMZ) that divides the two nations, after his initial route left him stranded in China. Crossing the DMZ is so risky and rare that his escape made headlines in the South.
The atmosphere in Seoul was a world away from the isolationist North, but even here he baffled officials. Every defector who arrives from the North undergoes several weeks of compulsory grilling by the South Korean national intelligence service (NIS) - to check they are not spying for the North. But Jang was questioned for more than five months, having initially baulked at explaining the real reason why he defected. When he finally admitted he was simply not attracted to his wife, he was allowed to stay - but once again was sent to a doctor.
"The [NIS] official told me that there should be a reason to dislike women."
Even in the South at that time, there was little public awareness of different sexual orientations. A few doctors recommended he seek psychological help - advice he ignored.
And then in the spring of 1998, 13 months after he first arrived in South Korea, Jang opened a magazine to read the write-up of an interview he had given about his defection across the DMZ. He turned the page to discover an article about gay men coming out, with a scene from an American film showing two men kissing in bed.
Finally it dawned on Jang that he, too, was gay.
"When I saw that, I knew right away that I was this kind of person. That's why I couldn't like women."
The revelation transformed Jang's life, and he became a regular at Seoul's gay bars.
But a few years later, this new world exposed Jang to devastating fraud. In 2004, the owner of Jang's favourite bar introduced him to a local air steward. They dated for three months and Jang fell in love. The air steward urged Jang to move in, but explained that as he lived with his stepfather they would first need to buy a bigger home. Jang moved out of his own rental and gave him all 90m won ($81,669) of his hard-won savings and all his belongings.
Jang never saw the man again. He went to the police station every day for 15 days until the police told him he should give up.
Jang says it never occurred to him that he could be cheated in this way.
"In North Korea, we live a very controlled life, so if I said I was duped by someone, the party would track him down and punish him hard."
Jang fell ill and had to be hospitalised for a month, which he now thinks was triggered by stress. This meant he lost his job in a factory and was now penniless, homeless and unemployed, in a social climate which has proved a tough welcome for North Koreans.
As he slowly rebuilt his life, taking a job as a cleaner and painstakingly saving enough money to rent a new home, he began to spend his free time writing.
As a boy, he had once won first place in a writing contest, but it had been a requirement that students only wrote in praise of the North Korean regime. Now, finally, Jang could write whatever he wanted. His autobiography A Mark of Red Honor was published in 2015.
But it took a long time for Jang to risk dating again. And then last year, at the age of 62, Jang met Korean-American restaurant owner Min-su on a dating site. Just four months later, he was on his way to the nation he once knew only as "the country of wolves" - Pyongyang's derogatory term for the US.
But when Jang saw Min-su waiting for him in the arrivals hall, his heart sank. Min-su was in shorts and cap, and Jang was not impressed.
"Seeing how he dressed, I assumed he was an ill-mannered and blunt man," Jang says.
The coronavirus lockdown gave the pair the space to get to know each other properly, with picnics and wine drinking.
"The more I got to know this man, the more I could see that he had a very good character. Although he is eight years younger than me, he is the kind of person who likes to care for others first."
After about two months Min-su decided to propose.
Jang is now in the process of finalising documents to prove his first marriage in North Korea is over, and they hope to marry later this year.
"I always felt fearful, sad and lonely when I lived alone. I am a very introverted and sensitive person, but he is an optimistic man, so we are good for each other," he says.
But despite his new-found happiness, Jang remains haunted by the impact his defection had on his family. Several of his relatives were banished to a remote village in the freezing north, a brutally familiar fate for those whose family members are perceived to have been disloyal to the regime. Six of his relatives died from hunger and illness, including his mother and four of his siblings.
Jang says the only way he can cope with the guilt is by committing his thoughts to pen and paper.
"Whenever I think of my family, it is too painful for me, so I decided to write. I believe that is now the only way that I can make it up to them.
But he is comforted that his decision to leave North Korea gave his wife new opportunities. He has heard that she has remarried.
"I always thought she was very talented, so I feel so happy for her."
And he says he is looking forward to expanding his horizons once the coronavirus lockdown eases and wants to visit Washington - half an hour's drive away - with Min-Su.
"I heard that there are many gay bars there. I want to go to those bars with him."
In the meantime, he says he is enjoying the serenity of the suburbs, which he describes as like being in a "fairytale".
We have given Min-su an assumed name, at his request
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