There's A (Korean) Sucker Born Every Minute

Pssst! Hey, buddy, wanna get some paradise on earth? ... Yeah? ... All you gotta do is move to ... North Korea!

I don't think anyone's ever really fallen for a line like that and bought the Brooklyn Bridge, but Yumiko Chiba actually did fall for the line above.

OSAKA, June 13 (AP) - (Kyodo)—A woman who fled North Korea and lives in Osaka Prefecture filed an 11 million yen damages suit Friday against the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, or Chongryon, over its responsibility for a program that promoted the emigration of Korean residents of Japan to North Korea.

Yumiko Chiba, 47, who moved to North Korea in 1963 under the program and defected from the country in 2003, lodged the suit with the Osaka District Court, insisting that she suffered physical and mental pain in a North Korean concentration camp because the pro-North Korea group neglected to explain the reality of the situation in North Korea.

Chiba moved to North Korea with her parents, Korean residents of Japan, after her mother was persuaded by Chongryon members that the country was a "paradise on earth" and that the family would live there "free of worries."

But in reality, the family endured numerous hardships, including being sent to a concentration camp, according to the suit.

Actually, the story is not as bizarre as it seems. In the pre-WWII era, Japan occupied Korea in that nasty kind of occupation that's so different from the "occupation of Iraq" hoo-hah the anti-war Lefties throw around. The Japanese forced a goodly number of Koreans to Japan for menial labor.

In Japan, the Koreans were subject that really nasty kind of racism that's so different from the "you're racist"drivel the PC Lefties throw around.

So it seemed to the Chibas that Chongryon's offer might not be all that bad ... only to discover that even bad treatment in a liberal democracy beats standard treatment in a Communist totalitarian dictatorship.