The Girl with Seven Names: A North Korean Defector’s Story (30 page)

My mother could tell I was lonely and unhappy. I spoke to her every Sunday. But I did not want to burden her. She had worries of her own. Ever since armed troops had searched her house after I’d sent the money over with the three sacks, she’d been living under a cloud. The incident had drawn the attention of the
Bowibu
,
and whenever a crackdown was ordered from Pyongyang she’d find herself on a list of people to be banished to internal exile in some remote mountain village. Each time she’d have to pay an enormous bribe to the investigators to have her name removed, but feared she could not go on doing this for much longer.

Had they known the truth – that her daughter had defected to the South – they would have had no hesitation in arresting her and Min-ho.

Life in Hyesan was getting worse, she said. And hunger had returned.

I began to feel desperate for her. Surely it was time for her to come to South Korea?

Gently, each Sunday, I began to raise the possibility of her coming to Seoul.

‘I will never, ever leave,’ she would say.

Slowly, I pulled myself out of my despondency. I had taken such risks to get to here. I couldn’t give up now. I had made a promise to myself, on that bright morning on the way to Hanawon, that I would succeed in this country and make it proud of me. I would steel myself to succeed – no matter what. There would be no failure.

After working very hard, I obtained my accounting qualification at the end of 2008. A law firm offered me a job with a monthly salary of 1.3 million won (about $1,200), a respectable sum. But after some thought I turned it down. I figured that without a degree I would never be able to move on to anything greater.

I started to contemplate the gruelling university entrance exam.

By the time I qualified for university I would be thirty years old. I would be thirty-four when I graduated. Could I do it? I posted the question in an online question forum. It provoked a lot of comments. ‘It will be tough working alongside people ten years younger than you,’ one said. ‘Give it up and get a job,’ was another. Another common response was: ‘Your best bet is to get married.’ They might have added
before it’s too late
.

The one person who encouraged me was Mr Park. He really wanted me to succeed, and encouraged me to go for it. Before applying, however, there was something I thought I should do – get a new name.

In Hanawon I had heard about defectors whose family back home had been punished when the
Bowibu
learned they were in the South. There were almost certainly spies among the defectors, who reported back to Pyongyang. For these reasons, many changed their names. This wasn’t the only motive. Others did it because fortune-tellers told them a name change would bring better luck.

When I told Mr Park I wanted to have a new name with a special meaning, he introduced a
jakmyeongso
, a professional name-giver. I paid the lady 50,000 won
($45) and gave her my date of birth and the two parts of my given name.

‘One of these names has brought you ill fortune,’ she said softly.

I couldn’t help smiling. I was thinking of my mother taking me to Daeoh-cheon all those years ago for a dawn reading with that grizzle-headed mystic. This one was more presentable, a middle-aged lady with a bubble perm. I immediately found myself in a familiar frame of mind when I watched her close her eyes. I thought the whole thing was ridiculous, yet I wanted to believe every word.

I decided to help her.

‘I’m always feeling cold.’

‘Yes,’ she said, taking the hint. ‘Yes, you have a yin not a yang constitution, so you need to warm yourself with a warm name.’ She presented me with five choices of name. I chose Hyeon-seo.

‘With this name, the strength of the sun will shine on you.’
But she warned me: ‘This name is so strong it could bring you great fortune, or it could overpower you and bring great misfortune. Therefore, I suggest you also take a nickname, to balance out the overwhelmingly positive force of “Hyeonseo”.’

No,
I thought.
No more names.
Hyeonseo it is.

In the summer of 2009, I applied to several universities under my new name. To gain an added credential I started studying English from a textbook, but found it extremely difficult. If any universities were going to invite me for interview or to sit the entrance exam, they would do so in September and October. I would have to wait a few weeks. If they accepted me, my next few years would be divided predictably into semesters and vacations.

But just as life was starting to feel settled and structured, I was pitched straight back into the abyss.

‘People may be hungry now,’ my mother said. Her voice trailed off uncertainly. ‘But things will get better. We’re all waiting for 2012.’

I groaned. This date was the centenary of the birth of Kim Il-sung, now less than three years away. For years, Party propaganda had been trumpeting it as the moment when North Korea would achieve its goal of becoming a ‘strong and prosperous nation’.

I knew nothing would change, but how could she? She might grumble about life, but she had no perspective and still shared the regime’s values. It is hard for outsiders to grasp how difficult it is for North Koreans to arrive at a point where they accept that the Kim regime is not only very bad, but also very wrong. In many ways our lives in North Korea are normal – we have money worries, find joy in our children, drink too much, and fret about our careers. What we don’t do is question the word of the Party, which could bring very serious trouble. North Koreans who have never left don’t think critically because they have no point of comparison – with previous governments, different policies, or with other societies in the outside world. So my mother, along with everyone else, was waiting for the mythical dawn of 2012.

‘Omma, you said life there is getting worse. It will never happen,’ I said. ‘Listen. I’ve met so many North Korean families here. Usually one person comes first, then from here they arrange to bring the rest of the family out.’

‘I’ve seen too many executions of people who’ve tried to get out,’ she snapped. ‘I don’t want Min-ho jailed because of us. I don’t want to be shot at Hyesan Airport with your aunts and uncles sitting in the front row.’

‘But Omma, life’s so much better here. You can have whatever you like. The government gives us plenty of money to settle.’

‘You said you weren’t happy.’

‘I was just moaning.’ My theme was starting to break her resistance. ‘I haven’t seen you in nearly twelve years. My twenties have come and gone and I never saw you once. I want to marry and have children, but what’s the point if you’ll never see us? If we don’t do something now, we’ll never meet again in our lives.’

There was a long pause and I realized she was crying quietly. The thought of being separated for ever was unbearable, she said.

I kept the pressure up over three or four weeks. ‘Come for eighteen months,’ I said. ‘If you don’t like it, you can always go home. It’ll be easy.’

I was lying, of course, but I had to convince her and I believed the lie was justified. We’d be reunited, and she would be able to live free from danger. I pushed this theme because she had already begun researching the process of getting the records changed to make it appear as if she’d never left.

Still, she wavered.

Then, a sensational event in Hyesan changed her mind. Wanted posters went up all over the city with the face of a well-known Party cadre, Seol Jung-sik, the provincial secretary for the Socialist Youth League. Soon the gossip was that he’d defected. Locals in Hyesan were astonished. My mother thought,
If a big shot like Seol
can leave, why can’t I?
The timing could not have been better.

On the Sunday after it happened she came out with it. ‘I’ve made up my mind. I’ll go.’ She kept her language vague in case the
Bowibu
was listening. She was nervous. ‘Will it be safe?’

I almost yelled, I was so happy. ‘I will make it one hundred per cent safe,’ I said, knowing this was a promise only the president of China could make.

‘Your brother won’t go.’

This brought me down to earth. ‘But he must. You must both come together. It’ll be too dangerous for him to stay.’

‘He’ll be all right. He’s got his own business, and he’s going to marry Yoon-ji.’

‘Marry?’

This was news to me. I knew about Min-ho’s business. He was smuggling in motorbikes – the Chinese models Haojue and Shuangshi, but sometimes also high-end Japanese brands. In summer he would take the bikes apart and float them across the river on a raft. In the winter, he would ride them over the ice. He paid the border guards 10 per cent of whatever he made, and gave them cigarettes, Chinese beer or tropical fruits. Min-ho was resourceful and street-smart – his earliest memory of Hyesan was the famine, and it had toughened him – but, like me, he was stubborn. Once he set his mind on a course of action, it was difficult to change.

I should have felt happy for him. Yoon-ji, my mother had told me, was incredibly beautiful. When she had turned eighteen, special scouts that selected musicians and beautiful girls to attend upon Kim Jong-il came to her school and singled her out to join the Dear Leader’s Joy Division. But to prevent her being taken away, Yoon-ji’s mother had pretended that her daughter had health problems.

Min-ho said he’d help Omma get into China, but that he was staying behind. Yoon-ji’s mother worked for the
Bowibu,
he said. He believed this would protect him. The family could be trusted with our secret.

There was nothing more I could say. It was clear that Min-ho felt strongly about this girl.

I started to plan. My first step was to contact the Reverend Kim, a middle-aged Protestant pastor whose organization demonstrated in Insa-dong, a popular market area of Seoul, every Saturday for North Korean human rights. Rowdy demonstrations are part of everyday life in Seoul. Any time I’d go downtown I’d see a lone protester outside a government building with a placard advertising his grievance, or workers with slogans on their headbands singing songs and punching the air. The first time I saw them I was amazed – citizens here could shout out their complaints without being arrested and publicly executed.

Using his contacts in China, Reverend Kim had helped hundreds of people escape. His specialty was shepherding defectors through the southwestern Chinese city of Kunming and over the border into Vietnam, from where they could make their way to the South Korean embassy.

The journey across China is more than 2,000 miles and takes a week. It is dangerous, so much so that some escapers carry poison with them to kill themselves if they’re caught, rather than face the consequences of being returned to the North. As South Korea does not wish to antagonize China by accepting North Korean asylum seekers at its embassy in Beijing and its consulates throughout China, it colludes with the Chinese authorities in keeping them away. Even if a defector makes it through an embassy gate, that person may have a very long wait. Some have waited seven years before China has granted permission for them to leave.

I found Reverend Kim on the sidewalk at one of his Saturday protests. Over the noisy chanting of a sit-down demonstration he told me that my mother would have to cross the Yalu River by herself, but that he could guide her from that point onward. It would cost $4,000. Alternatively, she could make her own way across China to Kunming and be guided from there to the South Korean embassy in Vietnam. That would cost $2,000. She would be in the hands of a Chinese broker arranged by him. I thanked him, and took his phone number, but I had a sinking feeling.

Brokers.

That evening I mulled this over in my apartment. Kim called and asked what I’d done with my day. I opened my mouth to tell him, and changed my mind. He would not understand. He would tell me it was insanely dangerous, and wonder why I wasn’t content to let things be. He understood little about North Korea. It was the same with his friends – most of them did not want to think about the North, let alone talk about it. I would see a shutter come down behind their eyes if I mentioned it. The North was their mad uncle in the attic. A subject best avoided.

I had hoped Reverend Kim could somehow avoid using brokers, but I knew that even humanitarian organizations had to rely on some unsavoury characters at local level. As these brokers were breaking the law and their motivation was money, they were seldom trustworthy or pleasant. If a situation turned dangerous, they’d vanish like morning mist and leave their clients in the hands of the police, or worse. I would never forgive myself if that happened to my mother; if she were returned to the North. After talking it over with Ok-hee, I decided to use the broker only for the very final part of the journey – getting out of China.

I would go to Changbai, and meet my mother on the riverbank. I would guide her across China to Kunming myself.

I pressed the bell feeling that familiar flutter of nerves. Suddenly I was seventeen again, standing outside this very door, at the start of my adventure. I shivered. It was much colder in northern China than it was in Seoul. I was wearing a thick, hooded sweatshirt, jeans, sneakers, and carried all my stuff in a backpack. I heard someone coming, and a latch jangling.

‘My goodness,’ my aunt said, looking me up and down. ‘You’ve changed. You were only a girl when I saw you last.’

The difference in her appearance surprised me, too. She had become an old lady, thin and stooped, with swollen, rheumatic fingers. It immediately made me think how much older my mother must have become.

My aunt invited me in. She had redecorated the apartment, and showed me around. The guitar was still in my old room. My uncle was away on business, she said.

I had long repaid the debt I owed him, and had stayed in touch. I hoped time had healed the hurt I’d caused all those years ago when I’d fled this place to avoid marrying Geun-soo. I’d heard that he’d married, and was glad for him. It had released me from my penance never to marry. I wondered whether he had provided his fearsome mother with the grandchildren she’d wanted. I didn’t dare ask.