SEOUL • For about three months before her bizarre return to the country she had escaped from three years ago, home to defector- turned-TV celebrity Im Ji Hyun was a one-room goshiwon, or exam cram room..
SEOUL • For about three months before her bizarre return to the country she had escaped from three years ago, home to defector- turned-TV celebrity Im Ji Hyun was a one-room goshiwon, or exam cram room.
Such rooms, each measuring 3 sq m by 6 sq m, started out in the 1980s as cheap, short-term accommodation for students cramming for examinations, but have become associated with the destitute and poor, and a growing number of South Koreans who are priced out of the property market.
But the 26-year-old was not in dire financial straits, according to South Korean media reports.
Known for her bubbly and cheerful image, she had made a name for herself after appearing in variety and reality shows on South Korean TV. She even has a fan club which threw a birthday party for her in April.
She moved from Namyangju on the outskirts of Seoul to the capital’s affluent Gangnam district in January. JoongAng Ilbo newspaper, citing sources, said her living space – albeit tiny – was well kept.
Her friends and acquaintances said all her belongings in her residence in Gangnam remained untouched, reported Korea Herald.
« If she went back voluntarily, she would have taken care of her assets here, but most of it seems untouched, » lawmaker Cheong Yang Seog from the Bareun Party told a meeting last Tuesday.
In her tearful confession aired on North Korea’s state-run website Uriminzokkiri last Sunday, Ms Im said she had « returned on her own will ». But there is widespread scepticism that Ms Im – or Jeon Hye Sung, as she was known in the North – had returned voluntarily.
In fact, things were looking good for her just before her disappearance in April. She said in a blog post that she would get busier soon because she had just enrolled in a school. And in a message to her official fan club in April, she thanked fans for throwing her a birthday party, writing that it was probably the « happiest birthday of my life ».
