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

She’s hesitating.
‘I’ll make up for it later with overtime, and I won’t waste your money on
a taxi,’ I said. ‘I’ll go by bus and pay for it myself. I’ll be back here by ten.’
She huffed and puffed. She was annoyed now, and glanced toward the
window. I wondered if she was looking for the man with the blue serpent
tattoo. ‘Be quick. We’re fully booked today.’
‘Understood,’ I said, giving her a cheery salute, as if to say, You’re the
boss.
I walked out of the glass doors.
When I was around the corner and out of sight I ran along the sidewalk
toward the cab rank where we’d been dropped off the previous night after
the karaoke.
I stopped dead in my tracks.
The driver of the first free cab was leaning against his car and talking to
the man with the blue serpent tattoo, who had a newspaper under his arm. I
turned on my heels and walked back the way I had come, hoping he had not
seen me. This meant that I had to walk back past the glass front of the hair
salon. If Miss Ma saw me she would know I was not going to the bus stop. I
hung back for a moment and tried to walk past with some other people, as if
I was with them. I was halfway past the salon when I heard her shout from
inside: ‘Hey!’
I ran – down one street after another. I didn’t know where I was. When I
saw the amber light of a free cab coming toward me I flagged it down like a
madwoman.
I jumped in, and sank low into the back seat. This time there was no
hesitation. ‘Xita. Go, go, go.’

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Chapter 24
Guilt call
I had not slept and had hardly eaten in thirty-six hours, running on pure
adrenalin. I had no possessions. My bag had been left behind in the dorm.
In the cab I counted the last of the cash in my wallet. It was enough to pay
the driver and buy some fried noodles at a market stall. After that, I was in
serious trouble. I had to find a job today.
Back in Koreatown, I decided to try the restaurants, which seemed a safer
option than the casual job market. After walking into a dozen of them to ask
for work, and having no luck, I caught sight of my reflection in a window. I
looked hollow-eyed, hungry and desperate. Just a yard from my face,
however, was a notice in Korean attached to the inside of the glass. It was
advertising for waitresses. I was in front of a restaurant called Gyeong-
hwoi-ru, a large and busy establishment, with about thirty round tables and
at least ten waitresses I could see gliding about in the traditional chima
jeogori dress. The lunchtime rush was on: huge trays of hot food going in
one direction, empty plates in the other. I composed myself, and went in.
‘I want to be a waitress,’ I said to the lady at the drinks counter who
looked like she might be the manager. She wore formal business clothes.
‘You’re a student looking for vacation work?’
‘No, I’d like a full-time job.’
She fetched a form and a pen. ‘Name?’
‘Jang Soon-hyang,’ I said, using the name from the identity Geun-soo’s
family had obtained for me. ‘I’m Korean-Chinese. From Yanbian.’
There was a pause as she wrote this down, and I felt my stomach turn to
water. It had not occurred to me till now that I would need ID to find work.
If her next question was to ask for my ID, the game was up.

---

She seemed to spend a long time filling out the form. ‘I can give you a
job. We have a dormitory for workers who need it. It’s two minutes away.’
I felt relief wash over me. Nowhere in the world could be as squalid as
the dorm I’d just come from.
‘When can you start?’
‘Today,’ I said, tapping the counter in a show of eagerness.
The woman gave me a curious look. ‘Isn’t there something you’d like to
know?’