by Hyeonseo Lee
In Korean it said, I just made a phone call to a friend in Australia. After talking it over, I’ve decided to help you.
My defences shot up. Why? Why would a white, fifty-something male all of a sudden care about the problems of some Koreans he’d never met?
I searched his face for a clue. I dismissed the thought that his motives were sexual – I think I would have detected that in his eyes. I decided that he was probably making some feel-good gesture that he would end up not honouring. I told myself not to get any hopes up.
‘Thank you,’ I said, in English. He seemed to sense my doubt.
He again tapped into my phone. It said I met two North Korean women while I was travelling in Thailand. Their story moved me very much.
He again made the Wait here gesture.
I watched him walk across the street to the ATM. He returned holding a thick wad of green bills.
To my astonishment he was putting hundreds of US dollars into my hand. ‘This is some of the money for the fines. I’ll withdraw the rest tomorrow.’
Was I dreaming? I was struggling to comprehend what had just happened and express gratitude at the same time.
With the help of the cellphone dictionary and our translator waiter, the tall man explained that he was on a two-year journey around Southeast Asia. He’d intended to leave for Thailand tomorrow, but was willing to stay and help if I wanted him to, and visit the prison with me.
‘Of course,’ I said, when I finally understood.
This kindness and willingness to become involved completely floored me. My next thought was that if this impressive man came to the prison with me, I would not have to face that superintendent alone.
‘Great,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you move to my guesthouse? It’s easier to talk there. We’ll go to the prison together in the morning.’ He said this very carefully, and in a way so that I would not misunderstand his good intentions.
I nodded dumbly.
‘We’ll have dinner later if you like,’ he said. ‘Bring your bag.’
‘Sure,’ I said blankly.
He held out his hand. ‘My name’s Dick Stolp. From Perth, in Australia.’
I shook his hand. I had not even asked his name. He turned to walk away but I held on to him. In halting English I said: ‘Why are you helping me?’
‘I’m not helping you.’ He gave an embarrassed smile. ‘I’m helping the North Korean people.’
I watched him go.
Something marvellous happened as I walked outside. All that locked-up beauty I’d seen in this country, and felt I was being denied, suddenly opened. I could smell the scent of jasmine in the trees; the sun and the stately white clouds were celebrating my mood. The whole world had just changed.
Dick’s guesthouse was far nicer than mine. I had not expected him to pay for my room, on top of what he’d already done, but he did. When you’ve lived your whole adult life as I had, calculating the cost of even the smallest decision, such generosity wasn’t easy to accept. It involved a loss of control. All I could do was say thank you. Not once did he ask for anything in return. I had never before experienced such detached generosity without some connection or debt attached. If we had been two lone Koreans from Hyesan meeting in Laos, or two young people in a crowd of old people, I might have understood the impulse. But Dick’s simple kindness took no notice of age, race or language. It crossed my mind that perhaps he was so rich that money meant little to him, but I learned later that he was not a rich man.
At dinner I joined Dick at a table with five others: a German couple in their fifties, a middle-aged Chinese woman who made documentary films, and a young Thai woman with her German boyfriend. Everyone spoke in English. I had a very hard time following, but I didn’t care. I was so relieved not be alone. I realized I would have to learn English. It was the world’s common language. It was a relaxed and enjoyable evening. I laughed and smiled for the first time since leaving Seoul.
Dick and I rented a scooter to go to the prison. We took fruit, food and blankets.
He didn’t know the lady in prison was my mother, and that her son was my brother, and that I was North Korean myself. But if he had, it wouldn’t have changed anything. I wanted to tell Dick the truth about my identity. He deserved to know. But North Koreans wear masks from such long habit that it’s difficult to cast them off.
I held on to him as he drove the scooter. On the way he stopped at the ATM to withdraw the rest of the money for the fines.
My most basic assumptions about human nature were being overturned. In North Korea I’d learned from my mother that to trust anyone outside the family was risky and dangerous. In China I’d lived by cunning since I was a teenager, lying to hide the truth of my identity in order to survive. On the only occasion I’d trusted people I’d got into a world of trouble with the Shenyang police. Not only did I believe that humans were selfish and base, I also knew that plenty of them were actually bad – content to destroy lives for their own gain. I’d seen Korean-Chinese expose North Korean escapees to the police in return for money. I’d known people who’d been trafficked by other humans as if they were livestock. That world was familiar to me. All my life, random acts of kindness had been so rare that they’d stick in my memory, and I’d think: how strange. What Dick had done changed my life. He showed me that there was another world where strangers helped strangers for no other reason than that it is good to do so, and where callousness was unusual, not the norm. Dick had treated me as if I were his family, or an old friend. Even now, I do not fully grasp his motivation. But from the day I met him the world was a less cynical place. I started feeling warmth for other people. This seemed so natural, and yet I’d never felt it before.
Reverend Kim had warned me of many checkpoints along the road to Vientiane. The journey by road would take eighteen hours and pass through three provinces, each governed independently enough for us to risk being jailed and fined another three times. His advice was to hire a police van for the whole journey. This sounded like a good idea. If the uniformed immigration police took us, we would have protection.
The immigration police chief told me it was possible, but the sum he asked for was exorbitant. I pleaded poverty and bargained him down to $150 a head for the six of us: my family plus the three other North Koreans. But I still did not have enough.
Once again, Dick stepped in and paid.
The police told Dick he could not go with us to Vientiane. He insisted, thinking his presence would help protect us, but they were adamant. They didn’t want him there. In the morning he rented a scooter and followed the van to the prison. The van, a new Toyota, was at least comfortable.
The five prisoners were led out and I saw Min-ho for the first time in weeks. He was very pale and his face was covered in terrible acne. But he grinned at me, as if there’d been nothing to complain about. My tough brother, I thought. I felt proud to be the sister of such a man.
By this time, they all knew who Dick was and what he had done. One by one they shook his hand and bowed with gratitude and disbelief. The old lady managed to say in English: ‘Thank you very much.’
The van’s engine was running; we were ready to go.
Dick said he was leaving for Thailand. He gave me his phone number and email address, and then one final, overwhelming gift: the money for my flight home. ‘You need this more than me.’ He was saying goodbye to me before I could thank him properly. He swung his leg over the scooter and rode away, shouting: ‘Get in touch if you need me.’
My angel vanished as suddenly as he’d appeared.
We set off for Vientiane, six of us accompanied by a senior policeman, the prison translator and a police driver. As part of the deal, I had to pay for the meals of all three of them along the way, and they ate gluttonously when we stopped for lunch and dinner.
As Reverend Kim had warned, there were regular checkpoints along the road, but the van was waved through each time. This gave us a tremendous feeling. We passed through hilly countryside dotted wi
th mahogany trees, and small picturesque villages. The windows were open to let in the breeze, and everyone seemed to breathe deeply, scenting freedom.
Min-ho told me what had happened after I’d last seen him and my mother in Kunming. Near the border Mr Fang had guided them to the foot of a hill. ‘This is as far as I take you,’ he had said. ‘The border’s over that hill.’ Min-ho listened carefully to his directions. ‘Keep going straight and you’ll come to a small, empty house. Go inside. A man will come. Follow him.’
He and my mother were shocked to find themselves suddenly alone, and in complete darkness. They started to climb. The terrain soon became thick jungle, and a light rain was falling. It was extremely slippery and there was no path to follow. They had to pull themselves up by grabbing at branches and vines until their hands and faces were scratched and bleeding. In pitch dark they had no sense of where they were; they tried to keep moving in a straight line, up what now seemed like a mountain, not a hill. It was almost too much for my mother. She said that if Min-ho hadn’t been with her, she would have lost her way and died.
After a couple of hours, when they were almost down the other side of the mountain, a figure sprang up in the darkness in front of them. A man had been crouching in the undergrowth and stood to block their way. Min-ho could make out the glint of a badge on a uniform. The man held up the fingers of one hand and rubbed them together to mean money. Then he made another gesture to indicate two cuffed hands.
Money, or I arrest you.
Min-ho had separated the money I’d given him and put it in different pockets. He took out 300 yuan ($45). ‘No,’ the man said in English. Min-ho gave him another 500 ($75). The man smiled and let them on their way.
Shortly after, and by some miracle, they found the empty house the broker had described. It was hidden in thick forest. Another man was indeed waiting there. He gestured for them to sleep, spread out some flattened cardboard boxes, and lay down. They watched as he fell asleep. He looked poor, my mother thought.
When it was light, he loaded them into a tuk-tuk and drove them to a bus station. He pointed at a particular bus and told them to get on. Min-ho assumed the man would board it with them, but he disappeared. Again they were on their own with no idea where they were heading.
‘One of the broker’s men is sure to be on the bus,’ Min-ho said, trying to reassure my mother. ‘He’ll make himself known at the right moment.’
In fact, the broker’s man, a policeman, was supposed to be at the next checkpoint, but due to a mix-up was not manning his post when the bus arrived. My mother and Min-ho were handcuffed and put into a police car. I was glad I only learned this now. The thought of my omma in handcuffs would have tormented me. At the prison, Min-ho’s remaining cash was taken off him by the gangster inmates who helped the guards maintain control.
We arrived in Vientiane in the early morning. It was not like any capital city I’d imagined. There were no tower blocks. It was almost entirely low-rise, with buildings separated by lush tropical greenery. There seemed more gardens than buildings.
We turned onto a leafy street of large, official-looking buildings topped by flagpoles. I assumed this was the embassy quarter. My eyes were scanning the road ahead, searching for the South Korean flag.
We stopped outside one of these buildings, which had a plaque written in Lao. There was no South Korean flag.
‘What’s this place?’ I said to the translator.
‘The Vientiane immigration office,’ he said. ‘Let’s get out.’
I was immediately on my guard. ‘Why?’
‘Just procedure. Someone from the South Korean embassy will come this afternoon.’ In my dealings with the prison superintendent, I had built up a rapport with the translator and had slowly won his sympathy. He seemed decent and more honest than the others. I watched as he got into a long conversation with the senior police officer. The translator had told me we would go directly to the South Korean embassy. He did not seem pleased with what the senior police officer was telling him.
‘What’s happening?’ I said.
‘Don’t worry. Please get off.’
We took our bags from the van and were taken to the second floor of the immigration office. We left our bags in a corner and sat down to wait in silence. I had an uneasy feeling about this. Then an immigration official entered and called my name. ‘Please follow me.’
I told my mother and Min-ho I’d be back in a few minutes. One of the North Korean women asked me to buy toiletries.
‘We just have a few questions,’ the official said as we walked along a corridor.
‘I don’t want to be separated from the group.’
‘It’s all right, I’ll take you back.’
He led me to an air-conditioned conference room where four officials in green uniforms were waiting. One was a lipsticked woman in her mid-forties who was introduced as the chief of the immigration office. Her epaulettes had gold stars. She spoke in Lao. One of the officials in uniform translated into Mandarin.
‘Do you know why we’re questioning you?’ she said coolly.
‘I have no idea.’
‘Because you’re a criminal.’
Chapter 49
Shuttle diplomacy
I opened my mouth but words failed me. My first thought was that this was some absurd misunderstanding, or that I’d been brought into the wrong room.
I looked around at each of the officials. They were all watching me. ‘Why am I a criminal?’
‘The North Koreans entered our country illegally,’ she said. ‘They are criminals. You helped them.’
I’d been feeling a simmering anger ever since we’d stopped outside this building, guessing that there’d be one more attempt to fleece us before we gained asylum. But when I heard my family labelled ‘criminals’ my temper exploded.
I was shouting. ‘Criminals? They are not criminals! Have they killed anyone? Robbed anyone? I’ve met plenty of robbers in this country and they’re all police! These people are refugees seeking asylum.’
I should not have lost my calm, because I was no longer thinking clearly.
The woman chief remained unruffled.
‘They’re here illegally. We can’t overlook that. And you helped them.’
I tried to regain my composure, but I was still enraged. ‘This is my first time in Laos. I’m only trying to help them reach asylum. It is not my job. I am NOT a broker.’
I felt a stab of fear in my stomach. In my outburst just now had I said the word ‘family’? I wasn’t sure. Only now was I recalling the warning from Mr Park the policeman to tell no one that my mother and Min-ho were related to me. If this woman realized that I too was North Korean, I would lose the protection of my South Korean passport.
‘We know it’s your first time here,’ she said. ‘But you’re still a criminal.’
If my mind had been clear, I’d have guessed, from what I knew by now of Lao bureaucracy, that she probably wanted me to admit to a charge so that I would pay a fine. But as I refused to accept that I was a criminal helping criminals, she couldn’t proceed to the matter of payment. It didn’t help that I was now clearly starting to rile her.
‘You could go to prison.’
‘I’m just a volunteer,’ I said, taking out my phone. ‘I’m calling the South Korean embassy.’
‘You’re not calling anyone.’
She gestured with her finger to one of the officials. He stepped towards me and took the phone from my hand.
‘This is Laos,’ she said. ‘Your embassy has no power here.’
The official who’d taken my phone was now demanding my passport also. I had no choice but to give it to him.
The woman spoke to the others in Lao for a minute, then said: ‘For now, you may go. Come here tomorrow morning. We need to talk again.’
I returned to the room where the others had been waiting. They’d vanished. All the bags were gone except my lone backpack, left behind like some menacing clue. I ran straight back to t
he interrogation room.
Again I was shouting. ‘Where’ve you taken them?’
‘To a hotel,’ the Mandarin-speaking official said. The woman chief had turned her back on me. ‘There’s nothing you can do for now.’
Downstairs, the lobby of the building was deserted. It was lunchtime. Two long corridors led away from either side of the empty reception desk. I made sure no one was around and slipped along one corridor, looking into each of its rooms, then the next. At the end of the second corridor was a row of iron cell doors. All but one were shut. I peered inside. It was chilly and smelled of damp concrete. The walls were black with mould, and the ceiling so low it would have been impossible to stand upright. They were like livestock pens. Surely they’re not here? There was no sound from behind the locked doors.
I didn’t dare shout Omma-ya! Min-ho-ya! in case they heard upstairs.
Outside, it was so hot that the streets were deserted. I spotted a motorcycle taxi rank waiting for fares, and in a mixture of English and sign language asked a driver to take me to the South Korean embassy. Minutes later I saw the South Korean flag, and the embassy itself, but the guard at the gate told me to come back after lunch.
I wandered further along the street, looking for somewhere to sit. It was cooler here, beneath a canopy of plane trees. Then just to my left, on the other side of the street, I saw a flag that made me do a double take. The embassies of both Koreas were just yards from each other. For the second time that day I felt caught in an absurd situation. East and West Germany had long since reunified. So had North and South Vietnam. Why were we the only nation on earth still suffering from a bizarre division that should have vanished into history? Why was my family paying the price of that division in this faraway and unwelcoming country? I stood still in the empty street, thinking that my whole life lay in the distance between these two flags.
‘Welcome,’ the consul said. ‘We don’t get many Korean travellers here.’ He invited me into a meeting room.
