The Girl with Seven Names: a north Korean Defector’s Story

Food from China? Did the Chinese have more food?
During the famine Hyesan was in darkness every evening, but the clouds
over Changbai glowed sodium amber from so many city lights. I started
noticing that not one of the Chinese people I saw – not the border guards on
the other side, who looked awesome in their green uniforms, or the children
playing in the river – looked thin or hungry. They were clearly doing better
– much better – than we were. This realization began to dislodge one of my
longest-held core beliefs – that our country was the best in the world.
I had no spoken Mandarin at all, but I knew enough Chinese characters to
make sense of some of the subtitles when television programmes had them.
I had been watching illegal Chinese programmes for a few years now. But
even when I couldn’t understand, I was still fascinated.
South Korean pop stars regularly appeared on Chinese TV. Acts like Seo
Taeji and the Boys and H.O.T., a hugely popular boy band, performed
before audiences of screaming girls. I’d never seen anything like them. I
could understand the Korean but I didn’t know what on earth they were
singing or rapping about. Their fashion, hair and dance moves made them
seem like aliens to me, too weird to be interesting. I was more intrigued by
the Chinese TV dramas. Every character seemed to live in a beautifully
furnished home, complete with housekeepers and drivers, and kitchens
filled with such luxuries as microwaves and washing machines. My mother
washed our clothes in the river. Do the Chinese really live like this? I
became more and more curious.
My friend was anxious to cross over with me as soon as possible. The
river was frozen solid. Naively, I expected my mother to give her consent.
She always encouraged me in everything I did. But when I asked her she
became very stern.

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‘Absolutely not.’
I was put out. ‘No one’ll know.’
‘Do not ever, ever cross the river,’ she said. ‘It’s a serious crime.’
‘Min-ho goes.’
‘He’s too young to be punished. Anyway, he’s a boy and a boy needs to
learn how to stand on his own two feet. You’re a woman now. You’ll be
eighteen next month.’
My spirits sank. I must have been the only teenager in the world who
didn’t want to be eighteen.
‘I’m not eighteen yet.’
My mother told me that made no difference. Women had to be more
careful than men in their attitude to everything in life. There was no
persuading her about this. She said only starving parents would agree to let
a daughter go to China. I had no reason or excuse to do something so
dangerous.
‘Well, one day I’m going,’ I said, trying to have the last word.
‘You will not,’ she said, almost in a shout. ‘Don’t you ever leave our
country. Do you understand?’
As if to mollify me, a day or two later she came home with a very stylish
pair of shoes for me. ‘I could have bought seventy kilos of rice for what I
paid for those,’ she said. She so wanted me to be gracious, and grateful, but
could not help spoiling me.
I understood why she was refusing me, but I couldn’t stop longing to go.
I wanted to see something of the world, and for me China was the world.
Most of all, I wanted to see if what I had been watching on television was
real.
Lying on my mat, I thought about that time all those years ago in Anju
when I’d run out into a thunderstorm to wait for the terrifying lady in black
to come down with the rain. I thought of the day I’d pushed my way
through that crowd beneath the bridge to see something a seven-year-old
girl should never have seen, a man hanging by the neck. My curiosity had
always been greater than my fear – not a good trait to have in North Korea,
where fear keeps your senses sharp and helps you stay alive. Part of me
knew very well that crossing into China was highly risky. It could have
serious consequences, and not just for me.

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But I was still seventeen. And in a few months, I would be starting
college. After that, there would not be another chance.
Now was the perfect time.

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Chapter 18