Yang's father was an influential member of the GAKR (General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, or "Chongryon" which is also sometimes referred to as "Soren") — a controversial organization in Tokyo that ostensibly helps North Koreans in Japan with travel or legal problems, or acts as a pipeline between North Korea and their families in the archipelago.
Her father's decision was motivated by the well-intentioned desire to spare his sons the social discrimination suffered by North Korean boys in Japan, but sending her brothers back to the fatherland tore the family apart.
[3] Yang first visited North Korea as part of a high school field trip, and she returned there several times, and got to know her niece, named Sona.
In it Yang lingers over Sona's guileless infant-hood followed by a no-choice induction into the rigidly disciplinarian North Korean educational system, highlighting the innocence of her niece in the brief period before school changed her, and she could recite party line rhetoric and songs to celebrate the glory of "our father.
[1] Her first feature film, Our Homeland is based on her experience of a tearful reunion with her brother Seong-ho, who returned to Japan 25 years after leaving for North Korea, during a three-month visit to get medical treatment for a brain tumor.