On a Pyongyang summer's day, a man in a peaked cap stood at the North Korean capital's airport, clutching a bunch of flowers wrapped in cellophane.

Key points: Korea was split in 1945 and the two countries remain at war to this day

Korea was split in 1945 and the two countries remain at war to this day Political defections are used to score propaganda points on both sides

Political defections are used to score propaganda points on both sides Some North Koreans want to go home but are forbidden due to spying fears

He wasn't just any tourist to the communist dynasty, but their latest recruit. Choe In-guk is a rare thing; a South Korean who defects to the North.

Mr Choe was reportedly abiding by his parents' dying wish in following in their footsteps — his father, Choe Dok-shin, was a former South Korean foreign minister who defected with his wife to the North in 1986, leaving their children behind.

The Guardian described it as a "minor propaganda coup" for North Korea: his photo was splashed on the government-run website Uriminzokkiri, which quoted him as saying: "To live in and follow a country for which I feel thankful is a path to protect the will left by my parents."

"So I've decided to permanently live in North Korea, albeit belatedly."

Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Watch Duration: 23 seconds 23 s Son of former South Korean foreign minister defects to North Korea

He's by no means the first — there have been a smattering of Koreans in the South uprooting to the North in the past, especially at a time when North Korea boasted a better standard of living and South Korea was under dictatorship.

But such cases are hardly straightforward; on the Korean peninsula, where North and South have been artificially cleaved into distinct nations who are still at war, any defections are deeply politicised.

Some of them are high profile, like economist Oh Kil-nam, who later regretted the switch and sought asylum in Denmark. It's believed his wife and daughters were thrown in a North Korean prison camp as a result of his actions.

Mr Choe's case, too, is steeped in politics and influenced by family ties — North Korea watchers observed that his defection would have come with promises of a comfortable life where he'd be hailed as a hero, rather than living with the stigma of being the son of traitors in the South.

Defections are a polarising issue, leaving little space for nuance, but plenty for propaganda.

Defectors who long for Pyongyang

Kim Ryen-hui is a North Korean defector who yearns to return home.

But she's forbidden from doing so — an official document on her phone, issued by South Korean courts, shows she's blocked from leaving the country.

North Korean woman Kim Ryen-hui says she has lived on the periphery between the communist north and capitalist south. ( ABC News: Erin Handley )

Ms Kim claimed to have been tricked into defecting — she said she travelled to China for medical treatment on her liver, but, shocked by the cost, said she was convinced by a broker to go to South Korea.

She said she was told within two months she could raise enough money to cover her medical costs, but the route for North Korean defectors is rarely simple.

If they escape — typically over the Chinese border, although a dangerous dash over the heavily-guarded demilitarised zone isn't unheard of — they must go to a third country, often Thailand, Laos, Myanmar, Cambodia, Vietnam or Mongolia, before they can get to a South Korean embassy to claim asylum.

North Korean defectors must go to a third country before they can get to a South Korean embassy to claim asylum. ( ABC News: GFX/Jarrod Fankhauser )

"I realised that I was deceived. So I asked [the brokers] to let me go," Ms Kim said.

"But by that time they had already taken my North Korean passport, and the door of the room was locked, so I couldn't flee."

Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Watch Duration: 1 minute 7 seconds 1 m 7 s Ms Kim said she was tricked into defecting to the South and she wants to reunite with her daughter in North Korea.

Defectors then spend up to three months in a South Korean re-education centre, where they are investigated and taught about adapting to life in the South.

Ms Kim was issued with document to prohibit her from leaving South Korea. ( ABC News )

"I said to the intelligence officer that I was deceived in coming to South Korea, and you can't separate a mum from her daughter. I want to go back to my home country," she said.

"So I fasted and I cried, and I begged them to let me go but the intelligence service never did."

As of September, the Ministry of Unification reported 771 North Koreans had fled to the South in 2019, and there are 33,000 living there in total.

The vast majority of those fleeing are women, who made up 85 per cent of refugees in 2018, and many are vulnerable to sex trafficking in China.

It's been eight years since Ms Kim left North Korea, and she's not the only one who wants to return.

Some are seen as second-class citizens or they face other hardships, as spotlighted by the recent death of a North Korean refugee and her young son, reportedly due to starvation.

A North Korean defector and her six-year-old son who reportedly starved to death in Seoul. ( Reuters: Kim Hong-ji )

Teach North Korean Refugees (TNKR) co-founder Lee Eunkoo said "discrimination is a common challenge" — North Koreans are often identified by their accent and can be maligned or passed over for jobs.

Eunkoo Lee said North Korean refugees can face discrimination in the South. ( ABC News: Erin Handley )

"[The perception is] they came from a poor country and they are brainwashed by the dictator," she said.

"But we also were brainwashed [to believe] that the North Koreans are one of the big enemies for us."

Ms Lee's co-founder, Casey Lartigue, added that North Korean new arrivals often described a "terrible experience" at the South's re-education centre, Hanowan, where they are investigated by the National Intelligence Service and "made to feel like spies".

"They felt like North Korea was running that centre because they are tightly controlled," he said.

Everyday life in North Korea

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Most stories from North Korean refugees echo those of Park Yeon-mi, who exploded onto the global stage with a viral speech.

"When I was nine years old, I saw my friend's mother executed. Her crime? Watching a Hollywood movie," she said.

But Ms Kim said stories from North Korea were often "distorted" and "very exaggerated".

"I want to let people know that North Korea is also a place where ordinary people live. There are pains and sorrows, but there are hopes too," Ms Kim said.

"There were times we had happiness, freedom and hopes, and there were hellish times when people died or suffered from disease because they ran out of food."

Between 1995 and 2005, North Korea was ravaged by famine — Ms Kim also uses the communist euphemism "arduous march" to describe this — and she said this is all South Koreans think about.

She said three key things — education, health and housing — were provided by the state. Still, she left the country to seek better medical care in China.

Pyongyang's manicured streets present a facade to outsiders. ( Flickr: Hélène Veilleux )

She described North Korea as a place where you didn't have to worry about job security, because you were assigned employment based on your abilities.

People were given 700 grams of food per day if they had a job, or 300 grams if they didn't, Ms Kim said.

She worked in a factory making Western-style men's shirts, and for meals, she mostly cooked noodles with tofu or kimchi stew.

Pyongyang often deploys kitschy song and dance as a cultural export. ( Supplied: Uri Tours )

The most common thing she'd found between the North and South was a love of music and singing — but in the North, it's more orchestra bands than K-pop.

Koreans in the North also loved South Korean dramas that are smuggled into the country.

"There is no North Korean who has never seen a South Korean drama," she said.

North Korea has also seen an influx of basic capitalism, too, with people turning a profit at markets and through the smuggling trade.

The photographer said this photo of North Koreans on a train was deleted by border guards, but he retrieved it with recovery software. ( Flickr: Tom Frohnhofer )

Ms Kim said North Korean people loved their leader Kim Jong-un — it was a relationship as deep as if bonded by blood.

"It is not all about dictatorship or brainwashing — it is based on trust, loyalty and respect," she said.

"I do not mean that everything is good in North Korea, but it has its own system. There is no absolutely good country, whether it is socialist or capitalist.

"It is a big mistake if you think North Korea is only a country that is ruled by the dictator and is going through darkness and flooded with death."

She wants to be reunited with her daughter, but not in the South.

Despite its thriving economy, she said homeless people were neglected and pointed out that South Korea had one of the world's highest suicide rates.

"The current status of North Korea may be a little bit difficult, but they have a future I can dream of," she said.

"But in South Korea today, the life is luxurious and great, but the future is more gloomy. I also think about my child — my child's future will be also gloomy here as well.

"I have lived as a person who stands on a periphery between South and North Korea.

"I want people to look at North Korea's reality without political stereotypes."

Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Watch Duration: 1 minute 11 seconds 1 m 11 s Ms Kim said North Korea has a bright future, while the South is "gloomy".

'Would you like to go to hell?'

To many in the South, the idea that someone would willingly move to North Korea is absurd, and the picture painted by Ms Kim glosses over human rights abuses.

Former South Korean general In-bum Chun said his military work had never taken him to North Korea, and he has no desire to go.

Former South Korean general In-bum Chun says North Korea has committed untold atrocities abroad. ( ABC News: Erin Handley )

"Would you like to go to hell, and meet Satan?" he said.

"The Kim family has perfected brainwashing … That place is run exactly like a cult. And it's really frightening."

Mr Chun survived a North Korean bombing targeting the South Korean president in what was then Rangoon in Burma in 1983.

He looks at the brazen assassination of Kim Jong-un's half-brother, Kim Jong-nam, at a Malaysian airport, and the development of nuclear weapons, and he wonders what else the North Korean regime is capable of.

"If Stalin was alive, he would be envious, of all the Kim family has been able to do," he said.

For TNKR's Mr Lartigue, the "oddball" cases of Koreans wanting to defect or return to the North pale in comparison to the number of North Koreans fleeing, and he noted North Korea's harsh approach of punishing three generations for dissent.

Mr Lartigue said historical context was key, with some still separated from family members 70 years after the peninsula was split.

"So it wasn't because of any love of the North Korean regime, but about the families being separated," he said.

"Another nuance is that for a lot of South Koreans, it is still just Korea."

North Korea released images of leader Kim Jong-un galloping on a white horse earlier this year. ( Reuters: KCNA )

Oliver Hotham, managing editor at NK News, has observed that both sides propagandise defections — but they cause more of a stir in the North because they are rarer.

Although 33,000 North Korean defectors living in the South sounds like a large number of dissenters, he noted that in the 1960s around 30,000 East Germans were escaping to the West every month.

"There's this idea that North Korea is a monolith, that it's just Kim Jong-un on a horse with nuclear missiles, and that's a very reductionist way to talk about a country of 25 million people," he said.

"They often have complex feelings about the political system they live under … there's probably a fair amount of resentment towards the system, but among a lot of older people especially, there's probably a lot of nostalgia and fondness for the Kim regime in their own strange way."

'We are all prisoners'

At an event held by TNKR, three North Korean refugees spoke about their experiences fleeing the Kim regime, though they didn't want to be identified by the media.

One, tearfully, spoke about the harrowing sacrifices her mother had made to allow her to escape.

Another, in a tongue-in-cheek tone, spoke about how he dreamed of indulging in one simple pleasure — eating fresh watermelon.

The Reunification Arch sits outside Pyongyang in North Korea, but hopes are dimming for the warring nations to re-join. ( Flickr: David Stanley )

The third, who wore her hair cropped short and a red dress patterned with white fans, said she still has nightmares about the country she fled.

"We are all prisoners condemned to a life sentence, just because we are born in North Korea," she said.

When asked why a North Korean refugee would want to go back, she pointed to the pain of being wrenched apart from loved ones since Korea was split in 1945.

"I think it's because of family. There is no other reason," she said.

On that, but perhaps little else, Ms Kim agrees.

"I think the happiest thing and most precious thing in life for humans is family. It can be traded with nothing else," she said.

"I have been separated from my husband and daughter for eight years. How can people take this as if it is nothing?"

Erin Handley was in South Korea for the Walkley Foundation Australia-Korea media exchange program.