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

Whatever it takes
At last I was getting somewhere. ‘Can I see them?’
‘You’ll have to make an official request. At the police station,’ the man
said. ‘There’s no point doing that until we’ve completed the paperwork.’
Nothing about the attitude of these men suggested that paperwork was
given any priority. But I was finally on familiar ground.
I spent the next seven days going back and forth between the police station
and the immigration office, establishing relations with the officials, working
on them to build a rapport. I knew I would have to bribe. I tried to think
how my mother would have dealt with this – with a combination of charm,
persuasion and cash. I was friendly. I flattered them. I learned their names
and their foibles. I went to the immigration office early each morning,
before anyone else, and waited on the bench outside, so that mine was the
first face they saw. I took packets of cigarettes for everyone. If I didn’t do
that, if I just sat and waited until I was called, I knew I could be here for
weeks, or months. Here, an administrative matter that could have been dealt
with in minutes would stretch to hours, or days. The humidity of the
afternoons sapped the life out of everyone. But each day, I felt I was inching
closer towards my goal.
The officials in immigration wanted Marlboro Reds, they had told me,
the most expensive cigarettes. Once it was plain to them that I was
agreeable, and opening a channel to them, their corruption became naked.
At every one of my visits they’d ask how much money I had withdrawn
from the ATM.
‘A hundred dollars,’ I’d say. Or: ‘Just fifty.’

---

With a flick of the hand they’d ask to see it. Then I’d hand over the wad
of kip, the local currency, to show them; they’d take about half the notes,
sometimes more, and give the rest back to me.
After a few days of this extortion, and the cost of my meals and my
lodging, my money was almost gone. I had no choice but to make the call I
was loath to make – to Kim in Seoul, who immediately transferred funds. I
was immensely grateful, and told him this was strictly a loan. I would repay
him, just as I had repaid my uncle in Shenyang.
After my morning visit to immigration, I had little to do in the
afternoons, so I would sit and read in a place called the Coffee House, a
Western-style café that served Thai and Western food. I could remember a
little English but could not read the menu, so I asked a waiter what another
customer near me was eating.
‘Noodles,’ he said, using the English word.
I ate noodles every day. After a week, I wanted a change and rang Kim to
ask him the English word for bab.
‘Rice,’ he said.
‘Lice,’ I repeated.
‘Not lice, rice. They’re two different things. You must ask for rice.’
‘Got it. Lice.’
I had my lunch every day at the Coffee House and dinner at Yin’s Chinese
restaurant. To cut down on spending, I started skipping breakfast. I didn’t
care. It made me feel solidarity with my mother and brother. I didn’t dare
imagine what they were eating, or how little. One afternoon at the Coffee
House I saw the tall sandy-haired man again, who had gone very pink from
the sun. His eyes met mine in greeting as he lumbered by, like a giant. I
smiled.
After seven days, the immigration office chief, a big lazy man whose gut
strained against his green uniform shirt, said that he would take me to
where the two North Koreans were being held. I felt an enormous relief.
We got into his car. He said: ‘How much money are you bringing?’
I showed him what was in my wallet. Without counting, he helped
himself to half. There was no pretence about a fee or expenses. This casual,
shameless robbery by one of the town’s senior officials angers me now, but
at the time it didn’t. I had a single-minded strategy to reach my family.

---