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

is one of them, you bastard.
I knew I had no real affection for him, that I was using him for
protection. But far from being clever, I realized I was courting danger.
I would have to end my relationship with Police Sergeant Shin Jin-su.
But while I sat there listening to him boast about his role in the round-ups,
it gave me satisfaction to know that I finally had a North Korean plan of my
own.
Almost four years had passed since that final call from my mother. On each
anniversary of that date a valve in my heart would open and flood me with
sadness. But as the fourth anniversary approached, in the winter of 2001, I
had hope for the first time. Four years of frugal living meant that I had
saved enough to pay a broker to find my family in Hyesan. Even if a
reunion with them could not be arranged, I was desperate to get a message
to them. To tell them I was alive, and thinking of them every day; to ask
them if they were safe; to say that I loved them very much.
I had no choice but to travel to Changbai, turn up at Mr Ahn’s house, and
hope the Ahn family still lived there. Their phone number had not been in
service for years.
That is why I also formed a Plan B.
A wealthy Korean-Chinese businessman who came to the restaurant for
dinner most weeks often chatted to me. He was generous and much liked by
the staff. One evening he noticed that I seemed low. He was relaxing after
dinner with a cigarette and a whisky. On an impulse, I told him I had
relatives in North Korea that I needed to speak to. ‘Why didn’t you tell me
sooner?’ he said. ‘I have contacts, I know people.’
He discreetly introduced me to a Chinese broker with experience of
getting people out of North Korea – those who could afford his fee. He was
a small, tough man who seemed honest. He spoke in the cautious manner of

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someone with a realistic attitude to risk. But I also thought I would not want
to get on the wrong side of him. He asked me what I wanted to achieve. ‘A
reunion with my mother and brother,’ I said. I reasoned that having this
second channel would increase my chances of success.
Plan B would turn out to be a disastrous mistake.

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Chapter 28
The gang
The frail woman who opened the door was Mrs Ahn. In four years she had
aged a decade. She clasped her hands to her mouth when she saw me, and
told me on the doorstep that Mr Ahn was very sick – bedridden, and unable
to stand without help.
His ‘jolly fat fish’ face was unrecognizable. It was contorted in pain. He
had difficulty speaking.
Mrs Ahn explained that North Korean border guards had caught him
delivering contraband on the Hyesan side of the river, bundled him into a
sack, and took him to their station. They said they knew he helped people to
escape, and beat him black and blue. They knew he wouldn’t say a thing to
the Chinese police because he was a smuggler. ‘He should never have gone
back over there after that,’ Mrs Ahn said. But he did, and was almost caught
a second time when the guards spotted him. They aimed a shot at him as he
fled back over the river, and he suffered a gunshot wound to his arm. On top
of his injury, he now had severe diabetes.
This was shocking enough, but her next piece of news horrified me.
Their next-door neighbour, Mr Chang, who had been so angry that time I
phoned him, had been convicted of selling North Korean women as brides
and prostitutes for Chinese men. That explained his reaction to my call. He
was under investigation by the Chinese police at the time. He died soon
after starting a ten-year prison sentence, and his wife had gone insane. Mr