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

by Hyeonseo Lee

  Later he took me to a big cinema complex in Yongsan. He suggested buying snacks to take into the theatre, and asked me what I wanted. I read the illuminated menu above the counter. It was in Korean. I couldn’t understand a word. What were na chos, pop corn, and co la? Of course I knew these snacks, from China. But English transliterated into Korean words baffled me. And, as I soon found, there were many more. When people mentioned that they were in the elebaytoh, leaving their apateu to catch a tekshi to a meeting, I felt embarrassed. I had no idea what they were talking about. I needed to learn. In fact, I needed a new education.

  I had grown up in a communist state where the Fatherly Leader provided for all. The most important quality for all citizens was loyalty, not education, nor even the capacity for hard work. Social status was fixed by the songbun of one’s family. In South Korea, too, social status matters a lot, but here it is not hereditary. It is determined through education. And although education is a great leveller in South Korea – even the children of the wealthy get nowhere if they do poorly at school – it brings with it oppressions of its own. It is partly the reason why South Koreans are, according to surveys, the unhappiest people in the developed world.

  Everyone I seemed to meet was desperate for a good education in order to avoid sinking to the bottom of the pile. In the stampede to avoid this fate, 80 per cent of school students go on to university. Even K-pop stars and athletes take degrees to avoid being perceived as the other 20 per cent. Mothers enrol their children in extra tuition from kindergarten to give them a competitive edge. The pressure mounts so much that school years can be torture. Because so many are awarded degrees, extra credentials are needed if a job candidate is to shine – proficiency in English, and so on. If, after all this struggle, a student gains a position in one of South Korea’s star conglomerates, such as Hyundai, Samsung or LG, then they have made it.

  North Korean defectors flounder because the education they received back home is worthless in a developed country. If they are too old to return to school, they have to opt for menial work. If they are young enough, they find themselves lagging far behind, and lacking confidence. I had been vaguely aware of this while living in Shanghai, but the reality began to bite during those first weeks in Seoul. I knew then what they meant at Hanawon when they said life would be ‘challenging’. Without a university degree, I would be no one.

  Because North Korean defectors are usually in low-paid, low-status jobs, they are looked down upon in South Korea. The discrimination and condescension is seldom overt, but it is felt. For this reason many defectors try to change their accents and hide their identity when looking for work. I was deeply hurt when I learned this. I had kept my identity secret for years in China. Would I have to hide it here, too?

  With Kim’s help, my adjustment was going more smoothly than it was for the other defectors I’d known at Hanawon, some of whom were looking for service industry or blue-collar-type jobs where they’d be fed at work. I didn’t want to do that. I was done with waitressing. I wanted a life that wasn’t day-to-day and hand-to-mouth. This took a little time to figure out. After a few weeks, I made the decision to enrol in a six-month course to become a certified tax accountant. I was good with figures, and thought this would position me well for a job. My fellow students were all women. I would soon learn from them how hard it was for South Koreans themselves to be happy in their own society.

  Many of them had failed to find jobs with prestigious companies and had become depressingly resigned, believing that fate was against them. Minor flaws – being too plump, or too short – and misfortunes in love became exaggerated and were perceived as causes of failure. Still, I couldn’t help feeling sympathy for them. Every country has worries of its own. Sometimes their complaints sounded like plotlines from TV melodramas.

  Within only weeks of being reunited with Kim, I began experiencing a romantic melodrama of my own. When Kim and I had lived in Shanghai, our feelings for each other were so strong I was convinced we would marry. I’d waited for him to propose. But after two and a half years, he had not proposed. Now, I understood what had been stopping him.

  Kim had grown up in Gangnam, the affluent, fashionable district on the south side of the Han River. His family had profited greatly from the boom years, becoming millionaires from soaring property values. He was highly educated and his parents were also graduates of prestigious universities. As crucial as education is in South Korea, it is not an end in itself. It is the means toward status, and social status is the insurance against the fear that everything may one day turn upside down. In a country that went from being third-world to the world’s fourteenth-biggest economy in the space of one lifetime, hunger and instability are still lingering memories. If all else fails, a person with status will have family and connections to fall back upon. Kim’s friends came from similar backgrounds. Some were well-known actors and models – part of Seoul’s beautiful set. When we’d go for a night out, some of the girls my age would arrive in luxury Western sports cars. Their parents had impressive job titles in the Korean conglomerates. Yet I had nothing – no family, no job, no degree, no money. I had no back, as the South Koreans say, from the English word ‘background’, meaning that I had no connections, no support.

  I didn’t feel sorry for myself. I’d shared a similar belief system in North Korea. Uncle Poor had grown up in a high-songbun family, but he’d ignored family advice, married the girl from the collective farm, and had sunk in the social scale. Kim could rebel against his parents, run away with me, and marry me. We might even be happy for a year or two. But the romance would fade. The disappointment he had caused his family would gnaw at his conscience. Life with me would wear him down until, as I imagined had been so with Uncle Poor, he’d conclude that his marriage had been a big mistake.

  Kim had realized this before I had – probably when we were living in Shanghai – and had been trying to think of a way forward.

  ‘I want you to go to university,’ he said, driving me home after one of these nights out with the beautiful set. ‘If you could pass the exams to be a doctor or a pharmacist, it would really please my parents.’

  I stared ahead and said nothing. I had not even been introduced to his parents.

  The next day, however, I investigated. The medical courses were expensive, and only the very brightest students passed the exams. Worse, the NIS had told me that because I’d left North Korea without graduating from secondary school, I would have to take a two-year course to become sufficiently qualified merely to apply for college. This titanic effort to please Kim’s parents would take a decade.

  In that summer of 2008, I watched the Beijing Summer Olympic Games on television with Kim and a large group of his friends at an apartment in Gangnam. When the South Korean athletes were winning, they cheered tumultuously, as did everyone watching in nearby apartments. I heard the roars rising across the whole neighbourhood. They chanted ‘uri nara!’ (Our country!) and ‘daehan minguk!’ (Republic of Korea!) I was cheering, too, but I couldn’t shout uri nara. I tried to, because I wanted to fit in, but my heart went quiet, and the words wouldn’t come out.

  My heart was rooting for North Korea. I was proud to see my country winning gold medals. But I couldn’t cheer. North Korea was the enemy.

  Later, I turned down Kim’s offer of dinner and went home to my little apartment, where I could still hear distant cheering and celebrations from the other blocks. The experience had depressed me. That night I lay awake on my mattress, watching the reflected glow of the city on the clouds. The sky over Seoul was a thick amber broth that obscured the stars. In Hyesan, I could see the Milky Way from my bedroom window.

  The Olympics sparked a full-blown identity crisis in me. It had probably been building for a while, fuelled by the insecurity I was feeling over Kim, and by my lack of education.

  Am I North Korean? That’s where I was born and raised. Or am I Chinese? I became an adult there, didn’t I? Or am I South Korean? I have the same blood as people h
ere, the same ethnicity. But how does my South Korean ID make me South Korean? People here treat North Koreans as servants, as inferiors.

  I wanted to belong, like everyone else around me did, but there was no country I could say was mine. I had no one to tell me that many other people in the world have a fragmented identity; that it doesn’t matter. That who we are as a person is what’s important.

  As if reaching for a well-thumbed book, my mind turned again to thoughts of going home to North Korea. But now that I was a South Korean citizen it was illegal for me to go to the North. If I did go, at best the North would parade me for propaganda purposes as someone who’d rejected the South (this happened with some people who decided to go home); at worst I’d be imprisoned or shot.

  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.

  Chapter 41

  Waiting for 2012

  ‘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.

&n
bsp; 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.