The Girl with Seven Names: A North Korean Defector’s Story

by Hyeonseo Lee

  Chapter 35

  The love shock

  Another year passed in Shanghai. I found a well-paid new job, at a cosmetics company in the Mihang District. I was the interpreter for the owner, a Japanese gentleman who spoke neither Mandarin nor Korean very well.

  I moved into a better apartment in Longbai. I liked my new street with its shady sycamore trees. Families lived at close quarters. It was an aspiring neighbourhood that retained a faint edge of slum, typical of Shanghai. Pensioners in Mao-era padded jackets would sit on doorsteps playing mah-jong, oblivious to the Prada-clad girls sweeping past on their way to work.

  Most of the friends in my social circle, with the exception of Ok-hee, were now South Korean expatriates. We dined out often, and made excursions on weekends. I was twenty-five years old. I couldn’t complain about my life. The emptiness in the core of me was something only Ok-hee understood.

  One evening in early 2006, my friends thought it fun to go for upmarket drinks in the sky-bar of one of the luxury hotels on the Bund. Several of these bars had opened, competing to offer the most panoramic views of the Pudong skyline across the Huangpu River. In the group was a man I hadn’t met before. We were introduced. I felt an instant and powerful connection with him, like an electric shock. He was the most flawless man I’d ever seen. Glossy black hair swept back, a beautifully proportioned face, a straight nose that ended in a fine point. Tailored suit and cufflinks. His name was Kim, he said. He was visiting on business from Seoul. We sat in the window and began talking. Almost at once the two of us were in a bubble, as if we were the only people in the bar. We forgot about the friends sitting next to us. The lights dimmed from pink to gold, and the view across the river began to sparkle, illuminating the clouds. He seemed reluctant to talk much about himself, and chose his words carefully, a reserve I found appealing. When one of our friends chimed in that he’d done some modelling, I wasn’t surprised. I liked his manner. He wasn’t trying to flirt, or impress me, but I could see in his eyes that he liked me very much. There was a trace of arrogance – of the confidence that comes with status and money. But that, too, I kind of liked. Something cut me loose from whatever kept me grounded. I was floating on air. After what seemed like minutes, someone said the bar was closing. We had been there more than four hours. I had never before experienced time contracting in such a way.

  He called me next day and asked if I’d like to have dinner. He had one day left in Shanghai before returning to Seoul, he said. I already felt strongly enough about him to know that I would suffer once he’d gone, so I said no. I was afraid of being hurt.

  I lay awake that night, regretting this. You fool. Now you’ll never see him again.

  In the morning I called him back. I asked if he had time for a coffee before his flight. When I saw him waiting for me in a café in Longbai, and he stood to greet me, I thought he had an aura of light. I asked if he could delay his return home. He made a call, and said he could stay a few more days.

  I prayed again, something I only seemed to do in extreme situations. I know this man is not a match for me. We come from different worlds. But please let me date him for a few days.

  The next week passed in a trance. Until now I had never been open to the possibility of romance. My emotional devotion to my mother and brother had always eclipsed all other feelings. The sexual instinct I knew existed inside me was one I’d always kept deeply hidden. In fact, I had hardly ever even kissed a man before.

  Kim’s few extra days in Shanghai turned into a month. That month would turn into two years. Soon he had rented an apartment just a few minutes’ walk from mine in Longbai. We had entered into a serious relationship almost from the moment we’d met.

  Kim had graduated from university in Seoul and was working for his parents, managing a small portfolio of property investments they had in Shanghai. He opened a door onto a world I had only ever glimpsed before. Money had never been a worry for him. His life seemed effortless, his problems all highly rarefied – to do with rental yields, occupancy, presentations to planning officials. He seemed unaware of the respect people showed him, because he’d never been treated differently. He had no difficulty getting tables at fashionable French restaurants on the Bund. When he flew in China on business, he’d take me with him. He had a dark side, I discovered, a reckless streak, which I suspected stemmed from the fact that he’d only ever done what his parents had expected of him and had never made his own choices in life. On one trip to Shenzen he took me to a private country club set in landscaped tropical grounds, with gleaming limousines and sports cars parked outside. The club had a late disco bar where breast-enhanced women got up to dance on tables. I was shocked, but Kim looked mildly bored. A bottle of complimentary champagne was presented to us. I don’t drink alcohol, so Kim drank it all. I saw only flashes of this occasionally. Most of the time he was sensitive, loving and quiet. He was discreet to the point of secretive. He was someone I wanted to trust with my secret. I felt more and more certain he was the man I would marry. And that meant that South Korea was back on my agenda.

  For the first time, I told my mother that I wanted to go to South Korea. She did not take the news well.

  ‘Why do you want to go to the enemy country?’ she said. ‘This could cause us even bigger problems.’

  But I could hear the resignation in her voice. Min-ho and I were the same, she said. Headstrong, disobedient, obstinate. Not even a beating in an army cell had budged Min-ho. She knew the Hyesan stubbornness in me would win out.

  ‘I have no roots in China. It’s not my home. South Korea is at least Korean.’

  ‘But you’ll have to marry soon …’

  With each passing year she was becoming increasingly worried that I was unmarried. She’d been looking for a husband for me, she said – a man of good songbun who could earn money, and whose family she could trust with our secret. She talked of candidates in Hyesan she’d started vetting on my behalf. Again, she was adamant that she could bribe officials and fix documents so that I could return without punishment. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that my reason for going to South Korea was to marry a South Korean man I loved.

  About a year after meeting Kim I quit my job and lived for a while off my savings. With my free time, I started investigating in earnest how I might get to Seoul. Reading the posts on a South Korean website set up by defectors, I saw that dozens of people were asking the question I had: ‘I am illegal in China. How do I get to Seoul?’ Defectors who had made it offered their advice. I had thought there had simply been a rush of people trying to get to South Korea in 2004. Now it was 2007 and the flow of defectors was greater than ever.

  I called the helpline of the website in Seoul. A sympathetic lady gave me a broker’s number.

  With great patience, the man talked me through my three options. Because I had a Chinese ID I could get a Chinese passport, he said. However, as I was single it would be hard to get a visa because I would not be able to convince the South Korean authorities that I would return to China. The easiest way, therefore, would be to marry a Chinese man with relatives in South Korea who could send us an invitation to visit. I dismissed that idea out of hand. But the second option was almost as bad.

  This was to pay for a fake visa and fly directly. It would cost about $10,000. It was expensive and seemed extremely risky to me. If the visa were exposed as fake, I would be sent back to China and investigated by the Chinese police, who would discover that my whole identity was fake.

  The third option was to travel to a third country, such as Mongolia, Thailand, Vietnam or Cambodia, which would give any North Korean who crossed its borders refugee status and allow them to travel to South Korea. That route would cost around $3,000. However, it could involve very lengthy periods of waiting while my status was assessed.

  When the call ended I felt a wave of depression. None of these options appealed. I was no further forward. But I wasn’t giving up now. After almost ten years living in China, I was no longer accepting of m
y indeterminate status. I wanted to resolve it. And I wanted to marry Kim.

  A few nights later Kim and I were dining out with friends. I wasn’t feeling hungry or very social. I was still mulling over what the broker had told me. Waiters served enormous steamed crabs. We messily picked the white flesh from coral-pink shells. When my bowl was cleared away, I saw that my paper placemat displayed a map of the world, with Shanghai at its centre. A red Chinese dragon undulated across the top and another along the bottom. I looked for the other countries the broker had mentioned, Thailand, Mongolia, Vietnam and Cambodia. I wasn’t even sure where they were. It took me a minute to find them. Although all these countries were in Asia, China was so vast that none of them was near Shanghai.

  Kim said: ‘You all right?’

  I told him I was just tired. I folded the placemat and put it into my handbag.

  Next morning I awoke at first light.

  Something was niggling me about that map. I retrieved it from my bag and spread it out on the table. I looked hard at each of the countries the broker had mentioned.

  A tingling sensation spread across my scalp as the realization came to me.

  I don’t need a fake visa. I don’t need to seek asylum in a faraway country. And I don’t need to marry a Chinese man … all I need to do is get to Incheon International Airport in Seoul.

  I called Ok-hee. Her voice was heavy with sleep.

  ‘I think I’ve figured a way,’ I said.

  I knew that with a Chinese passport I could obtain a visa for Thailand. If I could book a flight to Bangkok, via Incheon International Airport in Seoul, then once I was in transit in Seoul I would declare that I was a North Korean and ask for asylum. Visas were for normal visitors. I wasn’t a normal visitor. I was a defector. I would have to book a return ticket in order to allay any suspicions at the exit immigration in Shanghai.

  Next time Kim and I ate out with our South Korean friends I asked one of them if such a route was feasible (without telling him why). He said: ‘Are you nuts? Who flies a route like that?’

  He had a point.

  My ticket would have to be for Shanghai–Incheon–Bangkok–Incheon–Shanghai, a route that defied all logic. How would I explain to exit immigration in Shanghai that I was flying to Bangkok, which is southwest, on a 2,000-mile detour via Incheon, which is northeast, when I didn’t have a visa for South Korea but was only transiting through the airport?

  I would need a convincing story.

  While I thought about this I applied for a Chinese passport. It was processed much quicker than I expected and arrived by mail.

  I then applied for a Thai visa. The travel agent sent my passport to the Thai consulate in Beijing and it was returned a week later, visa included. I was almost ready to take the plunge – buying the round-trip plane ticket.

  Ok-hee, meanwhile, couldn’t apply for a Chinese passport using her fake ID. That would never work. So she paid a broker for a fake South Korean passport. That would at least get her to South Korean immigration control. She opted for a different route – taking the ferry from Qingdao to Incheon.

  One thing remained. The matter I could put off no longer. I had to tell Kim the truth about myself.

  Chapter 36

  Destination Seoul

  On a cold sunny weekend in December Kim was making lunch for us in his apartment. I broached the subject by saying I wanted to live in Seoul.

  ‘Why?’ He turned the gas up and was jiggling the pan, stirring chopped celery with a bamboo spatula. He was pulling a face. ‘Korean-Chinese suffer from low status in South Korea,’ he said over the hiss. ‘You know that.’

  ‘I know.’

  One of my reasons, though I’d hoped I wouldn’t have to spell it out, was so that we could marry.

  I watched him add squid, and mushrooms, and salt and pepper.

  ‘You have a good life here – better than you’d have in Seoul. You’re Chinese. This is your country.’

  This was not encouraging.

  A dash of sake and soy sauce, and lunch was ready. It was delicious, but I ate in silence.

  ‘Is this what’s got into you lately?’ He was speaking with a mouth full of steaming food. His reasoning was that I’d be half foreign in South Korea because I was Korean-Chinese. ‘I tell you, people there don’t make it easy for ethnic Koreans from elsewhere. They treat Korean-Americans as foreigners, and look down their noses at the Chinese.’

  ‘I have a particular reason.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  I took a deep breath. ‘I’m not Chinese.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ He was lifting his bowl to scoop more food into his mouth.

  ‘I’m not a Chinese citizen. My ID is a fake. I’m not even Korean-Chinese.’

  He put his bowl down. ‘I don’t follow.’

  ‘I am North Korean.’

  He stared at me for a long moment as if I’d made a sick joke. ‘What?’

  ‘I’m from North Korea. That’s why I want to go. I was born and brought up in Hyesan in Ryanggang Province, North Korea. I can’t return home, so I want to go to the other part of Korea.’

  He dropped his chopsticks on the table and slumped back in his chair. After a pause I thought would never end he said: ‘I never expected this. I’ve heard you a hundred times on the phone with your family. They’re in Shenyang.’

  ‘No, they are in Hyesan, on the North Korean border with China.’

  He gave a huff of incredulity.

  ‘How could you keep this from me for two years?’ His mouth was taut with hurt. ‘How could you lie to my face all that time?’ He was far more upset at my deceiving him than at learning that I came from the enemy country.

  ‘Please try to understand,’ I said, keeping my voice level. ‘When I was in Shenyang, I had a serious problem and was almost sent back to North Korea because I had told people the truth about myself. I came to Shanghai because no one here knew me. Only one North Korean friend here knows the truth. Now, you do. That makes two people.’

  Again he was silent for a long time, looking at me, seeing me anew. The winter sun slanted into the room, casting his face in sharp relief, and I thought I’d never seen him so beautiful. Gradually the hurt went out of his eyes, and was replaced by curiosity.

  I told him the story of how I crossed the frozen Yalu River, and of my life in China. At the end of it he reached over and took my hands. Then he surprised me by laughing. A relaxed, gentle, would-you-believe-it kind of laugh. ‘In that case you should definitely go to South Korea. Let’s spend New Year here, then go.’

  I think I loved him more at that moment than I even did before or after.

  I booked the ticket for January 2008.

  My mother remained totally opposed, but relented when she understood there was no changing my mind. Kim was too important in my life now, but I still hadn’t plucked up the courage to tell her about him. She still hoped I would one day return to Hyesan.

  At this time, I entered my details into a defector site called ‘people search’ to see if I could find anyone from Hyesan. I put in the name of my last school and year of graduation and left my email address. Within a day, I had received a message from someone who said she was from Hyesan, though not from the same school. We talked by chat. When she said she was in Harbin, I mentioned that I was in Shanghai. I was reluctant to reveal more. I didn’t say it, but I half expected her to be a man, and probably a Bowibu agent operating in China.

  ‘Do you have a webcam?’ she said. She must have sensed my suspicion. ‘I’ll turn on my video chat so you can decide if I am a woman, and not a spy. Okay?’

  The picture came on. In the grey-pink half-light was a smiling woman of about my age, but to my surprise, her shoulders and chest were bare. Kim was sitting next to me and peered closer.

  ‘Are you naked?’ I said.

  ‘Yes. Sorry, I’m at work.’

  Kim and I looked at each other.

  ‘If a customer calls, I’ll need to switch the chat, so I don’
t have time to put clothes on.’

  ‘Uh, what kind of job is that?’

  ‘Video chatting,’ she said brightly.

  She said her name was Shin-suh. She had been trying to get to South Korea but had been caught in Kunming and deported back to North Korea. Kunming is the southwestern city that North Koreans head for en route to Southeast Asian countries that accept their asylum requests. A year later, she had escaped again and was doing this job to make money to pay a broker to get to South Korea.

  ‘You chose that job?’

  ‘No, of course not.’ She gave a sad laugh. ‘Most of the brokers who help defectors are human traffickers. They help women escape, not men. They’re paid to bring us to China either as brides or prostitutes. What I’m doing is a kind of prostitution, I guess, but it’s very new. I’d rather do this than be a real prostitute.’

  By this time, all my suspicions had vanished. ‘I’m going to Seoul soon. If I succeed, I’ll help you get there,’ I told her. I was determined to help this girl.

  As the date of my flight approached I got more and more nervous about the check-in procedure at Shanghai Pudong International Airport. I was booked on a flight for Seoul with only a visa for Thailand.

  Kim said: ‘If you’re worried, call the airport and ask.’

  The official I spoke to at immigration was dubious. It would not be impossible for me to pass through, he said, but it would be difficult.

  ‘First, look at the map. It’s hard for anyone to figure why you would want to fly up to South Korea when you are going south to Thailand. Second, a lot of Korean-Chinese go to Seoul and don’t come back. That’s a problem for both countries. You will need to persuade us why you want to do it this way. If you succeed, we will stamp your passport and you can pass.’