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By Former Refugee
What it was like
to live in NK
I was born in 1981, in a small town in the Hamkyong Buk-do
province of North Korea. Our family lived more comfortably than
others because my father had ventured in commercial activities,
and because we had connections with some relatives in China.
However, our wealth was not permanent as time after time we were
raided by government inspectors who confiscated our belongings,
and for days interrogated my father. Their pretext was that my
father was running a business without governmental approval.
Around my senior year of high school due to my father’s business
we moved to a smaller town. This is when things took a very bad
turn for our family. The business went bad and we had to sell
our belongings in order to cover debt. Before this time we
always had rice in our house, but circumstances became dire
enough for us to suffer like those that were using tree barks as
aliment. My family made due with what little we had, diluting
the grains in water and modifying our diets.
One incident I will never forget occurred around this time. On
my lunch break from school I was heading home when a few friends
and I heard about a public execution near by. When we got there
four to five people were tied up against tree trunks. A person
was calling down judgments on them, and these included crimes
such as killing and eating goat or lamb not belonging to them,
and selling factory equipment. Their execution was displayed as
an example for anyone who committed such crimes. I could not
shake the image of the execution as I returned home.
After I graduated my father and I ventured off to different
provinces in search for food. For a period of one year we traded
Chinese clothes in exchange for food. During this time we
traveled by train and I got to witness how miserably people were
dying. The trains were packed with people. In North Korea you
need a travel permit to be able to commute. Inspectors would
come around and some would try to escape their capture by
climbing to the top of the train. Here, they would get
electrocuted by heavy voltage, or they would go between cars and
when the train moved they would be tangled and die. I have seen
homeless children lie lifelessly while people, including
government officials passed them without showing concern.
Though there were many that fought for survival, there were also
countless that had no means or energy to fight. Having little
hope of anything else I decided to escape from North Korea, and
one day, without my parents’ knowledge I managed to cross the
border.
In 1999, I crossed the river and for the first time I met a
Korean-Chinese. This person told me that most cars that passed
belonged to security officers. I understood that any form of
public transportation would be dangerous so I decided on Hwaryong as my destination and walked for two straight days,
without any sleep. When I arrived in that city I found my
father’s friend and he took me in for three months. However, my
presence was endangering his family so he sent me to Youn-kil.
There, I did back breaking farm work, taking care of farm
animals and tending a large corn field with the owner. The
farmer was a Korean-Chinese who treated me like a servant,
making me do tedious work, such as putting toothpaste on his
toothbrush or massaging his feet for half an hour every night.
He was condescending and treated me in a degrading manner. I was
not paid anything for all the work that I was doing in his farm,
so leaving was virtually impossible because I did not have any
money. After a while my situation became unbearable so I started
collecting recyclables and I was able to exchange them for some
money. I slipped out of that farm at the first chance that I
got.
For a year after that I worked for a group of people that were
in the smuggling business to and from North Korea. During this
time, I got into a bad car accident that almost destroyed my leg
and left both of my arms injured. The injury on my leg was
grave, the muscle was torn and cut deep enough to see the bone.
They rushed me to the hospital. I was examined, and fortunately
no bone had been broken.
The next year I decided to take the little money I had
accumulated and go find work in Sangdong where there were a lot
of Korean enterprises. I stayed courageous during this time by
focusing on the need to survive through it. At the train station
a security officer asked me for identification. I told him that
I did not have any on me and so he brought me to an office where
he asked me my name and address. I gave him the general address
of where I used to live and my real name. He looked up the
information on his computer and then let me go. I felt like I
had barely made it out. I continued my journey to Chungdo and I
was able to go undetected by using the Chinese I had learned
over the two years I had lived there. When I arrived at my
destination another security officer detained me and asked me
for my identification. I told him that I had not received one
yet because I was underage. He told me to write down my name and
address. I was very anxious by this point and could not finish
writing. He then told me to stay where I was while he questioned
another individual. I took that distraction as an opportunity to
slip out of his sight.
I finally arrived at Chungdo and after some difficulty found my
way to an employment agent who for a fee helped workers get
hired. They charged me and sent me off to an address with a
phone number. Once I got there I realized that I had been
tricked. Angry and desperate I headed back to the people that
had swindled me. I demanded for my money to be returned, and
they instead told me that I could join them in their business.
After spending a few days with them I felt uneasy so I left. I
looked up the Korean consulate and visited it in hopes of going
to South Korea to live with some dignity. There, I spoke to the
consul who told me that there was not much that could be done
and he advised me to go into hiding. By then I had exhausted my
resources so, discouraged and tired at this point I asked if he
could give me some transportation money. He gave me 300won. With
it, I returned to job searching and consulted various places,
disguising the fact that I was North Korean and telling people
that I was Korean-Chinese. After a few days of staying in a
video watching room and eating one meal a day the employment
agent got in touch with me and told me about a job opening in a
hotel.
That’s how I started working for the hotel. I worked harder than
anyone and the owner started noticing my efforts. It felt good
that after a while I was teaching new staff members and earning
their respect, whereas before, I had only been looked down on by
other Chinese people. Six months into my time there a restaurant
from Pyongyang opened on the first floor. Of course at that time
no one knew that I was North Korean. Naturally, even the North
Korean workers believed that I was Chinese-Korean. I became
friends with the workers and I sometimes guided them to clothing
shops, played badminton with them and watched videos together. I
would sometimes pretend to be inquisitive and ask them if there
were any homeless people in North Korea. They would
automatically answer, as they were trained that there were no
homeless people in North Korea and that our country was envied
by all other nations.
During my spare time I went to an internet café and started
looking up information on South Korea. Eventually, through the
internet I got linked up with a Christian group that eventually
led me here. I spent a year traveling through Vietnam, Cambodia,
and Thailand. I will never forget the experiences I had during
this time.
After completing my time with Hanawon the first thing I did was
go visit a friend that really encouraged me through email during
my time in China. She was like an older sister to me and became
a great source of strength during my adjustment in South Korea.
I had to decide on what to do. After completing a computer
course I had various odd jobs. I would return home after a long
day and feel exhausted, lonely and depressed because I did not
see a bright future for myself. I decided that a better course
of action would be to pursue an education. I am presently
enrolled in a Veterinarian Program. The reason I chose this
program is so that when unification happens I will be prepared
with practical skills to help the North, and use my profession
as a tool to share the Gospel.
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