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

by Hyeonseo Lee

  By coincidence, it was at the time I was having these thoughts that something happened that no defector expected.

  My mother and I were watching television on the evening of 17 December 2011 when news came through that Kim Jong-il, the Dear Leader, was dead. He had died on his private train, the distraught North Korean news anchor said, from the ‘excessive mental and physical strain’ of his lifelong dedication to the people’s cause.

  I turned in shock to my mother. We were yelling. Her palm was raised. She was giving me a high five. Ok-hee was on the phone straight away. We wanted to celebrate. Naively, we thought major changes were about to happen in the North.

  We couldn’t believe it. He was seventy. We’d all thought he had at least ten more years in him. An entire scientific institute in Pyongyang was dedicated to his longevity. He had access to the best healthcare in the world, and the best food. Every single grain of rice he ate was inspected for imperfections.

  Our mood soured a few days later, however, when we saw footage of the forced public outpouring of crying and wailing for this callous tyrant. Kim Jong-il had been a disastrously bad ruler, doing almost nothing to alleviate one of the worst events in Korean history, the Great Famine. Yet from his point of view, he’d been highly successful – his power had remained absolute, he’d died peacefully, and he’d passed the reins to his youngest son, Kim Jong-un.

  Brian brought stability to my life. I felt settled and less distracted; I attacked my studies and began to gain confidence at school, especially in English. I continued speaking out on behalf of defectors, and then something else occurred that I could never have anticipated. I was chosen through a worldwide talent search to give a talk at a TED conference. (TED stands for technology, education and design, and holds annual conferences to present interesting ideas to a broad audience.) In February 2013, I was flown to California to tell my story before a large audience.

  To my astonishment the talk received an overwhelmingly positive response from people all over the world. Some of the most inspiring messages came from China, a country I love but which caused me so much hardship. Many expressed their shame at the complicity of their government in hounding escaped North Koreans. I also received hate messages, calling me a traitor, and worse. Brian laughed those off and suggested I did the same.

  Later that year, I was invited to New York to testify before the United Nations Commission of Enquiry on Human Rights in North Korea, alongside some defectors who had survived the North Korean gulag. The international outcry that followed the Commission’s verdict on North Korea’s crimes against humanity finally brought me to the attention of the regime in Pyongyang. Its Central News Agency, in its inimitable style, proclaimed this: ‘One day, the world will learn the truth about these […] criminals. The West will be so embarrassed when they realize they invited these terrorists [to testify].’

  Behind the bluster, I sensed fear. Dictatorships may seem strong and unified, but they are always weaker than they appear. They are governed by the whim of one man, who can’t draw upon a wealth of discussion and debate, as democracies can, because he rules through terror and the only truth permitted is his own. Even so, I don’t think Kim Jong-un’s dictatorship is so weak that it will collapse any time soon. Sadly, as the historian Andrei Lankov put it, a regime that’s willing to kill as many people as it takes to stay in power tends to stay in power for a very long time.

  So when might this suffering end? Some Koreans will say with reunification. That should be our dream on both sides of the border, although, after more than sixty years of separation, and a radical divergence in living standards, many in the South face the prospect with trepidation. But we can’t sit on our hands while we wait for the miracle of a new, unified Korea. If we do, the descendants of divided families will reconnect as strangers. Reunification, when it happens, and it will happen, may be less turbulent if the ordinary people of North and South can at least have some contact, be permitted to have family vacations together, or attend the weddings of nephews and nieces. The least that could be done for defectors is to ensure that they know, when they risk everything to escape, that they will not be lost for ever to the people they left behind, that they have supporters and well-wishers the world over, that they are not crossing the border alone.

  With the wide publicity I received after these events, my mother could no longer ignore the fact of my relationship with Brian. He had been so supportive of me. What’s more, the attention I was receiving for my work was causing a change of attitude in her and Min-ho. Through me, circumstance was forcing them to take a more international view of their lives. Slowly, they were starting to see themselves as citizens of a larger world, rather than displaced people from a tiny area of Ryanggang Province, North Korea.

  Nevertheless, the next step was a major one for my mother to accept. She became quiet and forbearing when I told her the news.

  ‘Omma, Brian has asked me to marry him. It means so much to me that I receive your blessing.’

  Epilogue

  Incredible as it may seem in our connected world, I lost touch with Dick Stolp shortly after leaving Laos. The email server I was with went out of business, and with it, all my addresses. I wrote letters to the editors of several Australian newspapers hoping that they’d be published and that Dick would see one of them and get in touch. I wanted him to know what his kindness and his heroism had achieved. None of my letters was published. It was only after the attention generated by the TED talk that an email eventually appeared in my inbox. ‘Hyeonseo, is that you?’ Dick wasn’t sure that it was me he was writing to, since he’d had no idea I was North Korean. An Australian news programme, SBS Insight, got wind of the story and flew me to Australia to thank Dick in person. TV cameras were there to film the reunion. Normally, such public pressure would have kept my North Korean mask firmly on my face, but the moment I saw Dick’s towering figure and the same gentle, kind smile I’d seen that day outside the Coffee House in Luang Namtha, I threw my arms around him and wept.

  I know that the mask may never fully come off. The smallest thing occasionally sends me back into a steel-plated survival mode, or I may ice over when people expect me to be open. In one edition of the popular South Korean defectors’ show, each woman’s story was spoken through floods of tears. But not mine.

  I still go through bouts of self-loathing. Somewhere, years ago in China, I stopped liking myself. After leaving my family behind, I felt I didn’t deserve to celebrate my birthday, so I never did. I am perpetually dissatisfied. No sooner do I achieve something than I become unhappy with myself for not doing better, and achieving the next thing.

  I try to appreciate what I have and keep a smile on my face. I have recently graduated from university, thanks to that friendly encouragement from Mr Park the policeman. Min-ho is at university, speaks English, and these days is best of friends with Brian. Both of them laugh, now, at that dinner when they first met. In many ways it symbolized the ludicrous misconceptions created by politics.

  And my mother, my wonderful omma, cries far less. She even manages to smile from time to time, especially when Brian mangles something in Korean. Those she left behind – my uncles and aunts – still appear to her in dreams. She tries to be strong for me, but some nights I hear her weeping quietly.

  Perhaps the most remarkable step in my mother’s own journey came when we asked her to Brian’s hometown in the Midwest to attend our wedding. She surprised me by neither objecting nor complaining.

  And so, my mother accompanied us on a journey into the belly of the Yankee imperialist beast, the United States of America. Had her mother, my grandmother, who’d hidden her Workers’ Party card in a chimney from American soldiers sixty years before, and worn it for the rest of her life on a string around her neck, been able to see my mother marvel at the view from the hundredth floor of the John Hancock Center in Chicago, or watch her, as I did, sitting in an American diner, sampling American food, she would not have believed her eyes. She would surely also h
ave been astounded, as Brian and I were, to see her asking a waitress, in English, for another cup of coffee, and humming to herself, gazing across the sunlit canyon of skyscrapers, completely at her ease.

  List of Illustrations

  1 Hyeonseo with her mother, or ‘Omma’, 1984, at a photography studio.

  2 Hyeonseo’s mother with Aunt Pretty, her younger sister.

  3 The Mansudae complex of skyscrapers in Pyongyang. Courtesy of breathoflifestar

  4 A housing estate on Kwangbok Street in Pyongyang. Courtesy of breathoflifestar

  5 Placards from the vast, extravagant performance of the Mass Games that captivate foreign audiences. Courtesy of breathoflifestar

  6 Visitors bow to the bronze statues of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il on Mansu Hill. Courtesy of breathoflifestar

  7 A procession float featuring a painting of Kim Jong-il. Courtesy of breathoflifestar

  8 Factory workers going to work together in the city of Hyesan, on the border of China’s Changbai County. © REUTERS/Reinhard Krause

  9 A building in Hyesan pronounces slogans as Kim Il-sung looks over women working in front, 2009. © REUTERS/Reinhard Krause

  10 Hyesan, from the Chinese border. Photograph by Hyeonseo Lee

  11 An infamous picture, seen around the world in May 2002, taken at the Japanese consulate in Shenyang, China. Kim Han-mi, aged two, watches her mother being dragged by Chinese policemen as her family attempt to enter the Japanese consulate in order to seek asylum. The Han-mi family, including her uncle and grandmother, had dashed into the Japanese consulate gate in Shenyang, China in May 2002. Two male relatives had slipped through successfully, but the two women and the girl were forcibly apprehended, sparking a diplomatic incident between Japan and China. This image of Han-mi looking on as her mother was being wrestled to the ground was broadcast worldwide. © REUTERS/Kyodo

  12 Hyeonseo and her family at Navy Pier in Chicago.

  13 Hyeonseo’s mother and brother in their first water fight. Photograph by Hyeonseo Lee

  14 Hyeonseo (misspelled on her identification panel) testifying at the United Nations Security Council in April 2014.

  15 Hyeonseo with the US ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power.

  Picture Section

  This studio photo of me on my mother’s back was taken when I was three. It is the only photo I have of me in North Korea.

  My mother and Aunt Pretty pose for a photo just before my mother escaped North Korea. They were extremely close, but like many divided families on the Korean peninsula, accept that they may never meet again.

  These towers in Pyongyang were completed in time for the centenary of Kim Il-sung’s birth in 2012, the year in which North Korea was to become ‘a strong and prosperous nation’. They house high-ranking members of the Workers’ Party and their families.

  However, even for families of the ‘loyal class’, housing can be poor.

  Portraits of Kim Il-sung and his son, Kim Jong-il, are formed by thousands of children holding up cards in unison during a mass games display. In the stadium at Hyesan my classmates and I rehearsed for hours in the card section without being allowed a toilet break. We had no choice but to urinate in our clothes.

  Citizens bow before the colossal bronzes of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il on Mansu Hill, Pyongyang, a major shrine in the cult of Kim. Foreigners visiting the capital are brought here and are asked to bow. In this way the regime creates the impression on ordinary North Koreans that the Kims are respected and admired the world over.

  A propaganda painting of Kim Jong-il adorns a float in a parade. He is depicted on a rainswept terrace gazing into the dawn. The symbolism here is that he steered the country through tempestuous times towards a bright future. A slogan on a f oat in the background says ‘Regeneration through self-effort!

  Factory workers in Hyesan march to work behind their unit leader. Children set of to school in the same way.

  A slogan on a public building in Hyesan reads ‘Unification of the Fatherland. Our Great Leader Kim Il-sung is always with us.’

  A picture from Changbai, China, across the border into Hyesan, North Korea. The river separating the two countries is very narrow here, and when it is frozen over, it is easier for North Koreans to escape. Because North Korean train schedules are so irregular, numerous people have died on the stretch of railroad tracks in the distance, jumping of to avoid an oncoming train.

  In China a woman and a girl attempting to enter the Japanese consulate to seek asylum in South Korea are dragged out of the compound by the police. Due to international pressure, China later allowed the group to leave for South Korea. Since then, China has intensified security around foreign embassies. China regularly repatriates defectors to North Korea, where they are severely punished.

  Our family at Navy Pier in Chicago. It was my mother’s first visit to America and she was frequently surprised by America’s development, and that many people were so friendly. She had been taught the opposite.

  My mother and brother experiencing their first water fight. They said this was the most fun they had had in years. North Korea is a conservative society, so a water fight among family members is almost unheard of. My mother and brother have vowed to have a rematch in the future.

  Testifying at a special session of the United Nations Security Council in April 2014. The session was historic, as it was the first time the Security Council specifically focused on North Korean human rights abuses.

  Meeting the US ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power. Ambassador Power has been a strong advocate for the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), and endeavours to promote human rights.

  Index

  The page numbers in this index relate to the printed version of this book; they do not match the pages of your ebook. You can use your ebook reader’s search tool to find a specific word or passage.

  Ahn, Mr

  as trader in Hyesan 41, 90

  visited by Min-ho 89–90, 166, 230

  visited by Min-young 95, 101–3

  takes Min-young to see her relatives in Shenyang 103–4, 105–6

  phone disconnected 115, 144

  health of 146

  hears but does not answer cellphone 151

  death of 177

  Ahn, Mrs 146–7, 177, 237

  Americans 7, 22, 50, 59, 201, 288, 293

  Anju 91

  relocated to 15

  family house in 16–18

  bribery in 19–20

  ideological indoctrination at kindergarten 21–4

  outings and picnics 25–6

  hangings in 27–9

  departure from 29

  Anseong 208–11

  Aunt Old 13, 29, 65–6

  Aunt Pretty 13–14, 29, 39, 169, 282

  Aunt Sang-hee 109–10, 115–16, 131, 138

  Aunt Tall 13, 29, 281

  Baek Kyeong-sul 28

  Baekam County 11, 66

  Beijing Summer Olympics (2008) 200, 216–17

  Bowibu (secret police) 23, 76, 111, 135, 169, 181, 191, 209, 222, 225, 226

  Brian

  meets Min-young 286–7

  impact on Min-young 287

  meets Min-young’s family 288

  asks Min-young to marry him 291

  makes friends with Min-ho 293

  brokers

  paid by film documentary team 133, 173

  tough but apparently honest 144–5, 163

  hire thugs to ensure payment 148–9, 150–4

  buy IDs for a fee 157–8

  as marriage brokers 158

  prepare documentation for apparently ‘lost’ passports 174–5, 181

  talk through options for getting to South Korea 186–7

  arrange fake South Korean passport 188

  as human traffickers 191, 278

  avoidance of 207

  money owed to 210

  as trustworthy 223

  used only to get out of China 223, 225

  agree to take Min-young’s family to Laos
244–8

  fails to meet Min-young’s family in Laos 264

  Carter, Jimmy 108

  Chae Mi-ran see Park Min-young

  Chai In-hee see Park Min-young

  Chang, Mr 41, 90, 95, 101, 115, 146

  Changbai 39–40, 41, 89–92, 131, 144, 148, 225, 228

  Changbai Binguan hotel (Changbai) 225–6, 229

  Changbai–Hyesan International Bridge (Friendship Bridge) 39, 64, 238

  Changchun 148

  China, Chinese

  proximity to and trade with 11, 39–41, 56, 58

  opium trade 24

  propaganda concerning 50

  Cultural Revolution 65

  reaction to famine in North Korea 82

  illegal visits to 89–90

  crackdown on illegals in 200

  difficulties for defectors 222–3, 225, 247

  National Day 236

  support Min-young’s views 290

  Chongchon River 16

  Choon-hi 136

  Clinton, Bill 108

  Coffee House (Luang Namtha) 255, 258, 259, 292

  Cold War 5

  Daeoh-cheon 41

  Fang, Mr (broker) 244–8, 250, 263

  father (biological)

  marriage and divorce 8–9

  sees photo of Min-young 45–6

  has twin daughters 46

  remarries 46

  father (step-father)

  love and courtship 4–7

  marriage 9–10

  promotions and transfers 15, 29, 31–2, 37, 39

  military life 20

  loyalty of 23–4