North Korea: In Order to Live

This week I read In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl’s Journey to Freedom by Yeonmi Park. North Korea is located in Eastern Asia and is bordered by South Korea, Russia, and China. Yeonmi was born in the town of Hyesan in 1993, which sits on the North Korean border to China.

The memoir begins with Yeonmi’s childhood in North Korea. She describes her daily life and the various power systems that reigned over her family and everyone else.

Along with her personal story Park also delves into the history of North Korea and its relationship to other countries. I found all of the background she provided very helpful, as it sets up an understanding of how the country works as well as what its citizens have been raised to believe.

The North Korea that Park grew up in was a different country than the one her parents grew up in. When they were growing up the country had the resources to provide its citizens with basic needs such as food, medical care, and clothing, but the end of the Cold War was also the end to the gifts of money and aid from the Communist countries that had been propping North Korea up.

The downfall of the country-to-be began in 1945, when the Soviets and the Americans took control of Northern and Southern parts of Korea respectively and therefore created the divide along the 38th parallel that now separates the area into two separate countries.

People like Park who lived along the borders of North Korea had exposure to the outside world and in some sense knew that the way they lived was different than others. Park remembers looking over the river at China and seeing lights on at all hours, when her town was lucky to have a few hours of electricity a day, if any at all.

Most North Koreans engaged in illegal practices all the time, but they were always aware that they could be caught at any moment, and that “even the birds and mice can hear you whisper”.

Children and adults alike were brainwashed to believe in the dictatorship. At some point in her childhood Park “believed that Leader Kim Jong Il could read [her] mind” and that she would be punished if she had thoughts that went against the regime.

A famous poet and North Korean defector, Jang Jin Sung, calls North Korea an “emotional dictatorship”. The government doesn't only control what people wear, eat, and where they work, but it also controls their emotions and thoughts, “making [them] a slave to the state”. Park explains that with this emotional control, even having the truth right in front of them could not compete against the brainwashing, “North Koreans have two stories running in their heads at all times, like trains on parallel tracks. One is what you are taught to believe; the other is what you see with your own eyes”.

Eventually life in North Korea became unbearable for Park and her family. Her father ran an illegal smuggling business, transporting illegal goods from South Korea and China, but it was getting harder and harder to avoid being caught. He was arrested and sent to a “reeducation camp” where his days were filled with hard labor and his nights with lessons on Kim Il Sung’s teachings and propaganda.

Without his income the family was starving. Park and her sister Eunmi could no longer afford to continue their education, supposedly free in North Korea, due to the costs of uniforms and the expected gifts they were to bring to their teachers.

In her desperation to leave the country, Eunmi left for China alone, weeks before her mother and Yeonmi.

Park and her mom quickly followed, beginning the dangerous journey across the river to China and the unknown life that awaited them. Even once she began to brave the dangers of attempting to leave the country, Park still could not understand why her country and its citizens were struggling, all she knew was that she was starving, and she “wanted to go where there was light and food”.

Next begins the second part of Park’s memoir, her time in China, this is where we learn about “the choices [she] made in order to live” and start to understand where the title of the memoir comes from.

At age 13 Park escaped to China in 2007 along with her mother. They used the same smugglers that Eunmi had contacted, though no one claimed to know her whereabouts, and crossed the dangerous river into China. They had to avoid not only death or injury from the landscape, but also from the border guards that could shoot them or worse, send them back to North Korea where they would be imprisoned.

Park describes the innocence that North Koreans have about the world, due to their isolation. Park and her mother never stopped to wonder why these smugglers wanted to help them or why the price was so cheap. Little did they know they were becoming victims of human trafficking.

In part due to the one-child policy China had at the time and in its past, and the higher value placed on sons, the gender ratio in the country was skewed. This led to a high market for human trafficking and women fleeing North Korea were often bought and sold to Chinese men who could not find a wife.

Like Park and her mother, the women often did not find out they were being bought or sold until they were already in China. If they refused these “marriages” they would be sent back to North Korea. Park and her mother were “caught between fear and hope” and focused only on their immediate needs, getting away from the border, getting away from the broker who threatened and enacted rape, and getting something to eat. Thus began their two year stay in China. The women were separated, Park’s mom being sold to a farmer in rural China, and Park was bought by another broker and was made to help him recruit and sell other girls.

A myriad of factors motivated Park and her mother to leave China. Through her connections in the trafficking world, Park bought back her mother, though the broker she worked for still owned them both, but they were once again starving and malnourished. It was July 2008 and the Beijing Olympics were about to begin. This brought on an increase in law enforcement, especially an increased hunt for North Korean refugees.

One of Park’s friends knew about a way to escape to Mongolia and then on to South Korea, where North Korean defectors were supposedly welcomed and given citizenship. In order to do this, they had to convert to Christianity and join the Christian missionaries, who would provide guidance and funds for an escape. At the time Park and her mother had never heard of “Jesus Christ '', but if being a Christian was what it took to escape, Park was “going to be the best Christian these people had ever seen”.

With the help of the missionaries Park made it to South Korea in 2009 at age 15, along with her mother. There they went through thorough interrogations and investigations to prove they were actually North Korean refugees, which lasted for weeks. After passing the interrogation they were sent to a resettlement center where they would be taught how to be South Korean.

In South Korea, Park had to start her education over from the beginning, relearning history and learning about the world outside of North Korea. Her entire concept of history and the world had been colored by propaganda and omissions. For Park, one of the most difficult things was learning how to introduce herself. She had no idea what a “hobby” was and had trouble answering what her favorite color was, thinking that there was a hidden correct answer.

While South Korea taught her how to be an individual, it also taught her shame. She wanted to assimilate so badly that she hid her history, especially the fact that she was a victim of human trafficking. She thought she could heal by burying all of the bad things that had happened to her.

Her motivation for sharing her truth was twofold. One reason was that by sharing her story on television and in the news she put out the call for her lost sister, who they hadn’t yet found in either China or South Korea. The other reason was to heal herself, “without the whole truth, [her] life would have no power, no real meaning”.

She is now a proud enemy of the North Korean government, as the North Korean media has called her a “human rights propaganda puppet” and an outspoken activist for North Korean defectors, giving speeches all around the world.

Most importantly though, she has found not only her sister, but her freedom through writing and sharing her story. Telling the truth about the horrors of her home country, human trafficking, and being a refugee, let her feel unchained for the first time and “after five years of practicing being free” she now knows that her name is Yeonmi Park, her favorite color is spring green and her hobbies are reading books and watching documentaries, the heavy sky that had been pinning her to the earth had lifted, and she was finally able to breath.