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

No, I thought. No more names. Hyeonseo it is.
In the summer of 2009, I applied to several universities under my new
name. To gain an added credential I started studying English from a
textbook, but found it extremely difficult. If any universities were going to
invite me for interview or to sit the entrance exam, they would do so in
September and October. I would have to wait a few weeks. If they accepted
me, my next few years would be divided predictably into semesters and
vacations.
But just as life was starting to feel settled and structured, I was pitched
straight back into the abyss.

---

Chapter 41
Waiting for 2012
‘People may be hungry now,’ my mother said. Her voice trailed off
uncertainly. ‘But things will get better. We’re all waiting for 2012.’
I groaned. This date was the centenary of the birth of Kim Il-sung, now
less than three years away. For years, Party propaganda had been
trumpeting it as the moment when North Korea would achieve its goal of
becoming a ‘strong and prosperous nation’.
I knew nothing would change, but how could she? She might grumble
about life, but she had no perspective and still shared the regime’s values. It
is hard for outsiders to grasp how difficult it is for North Koreans to arrive
at a point where they accept that the Kim regime is not only very bad, but
also very wrong. In many ways our lives in North Korea are normal – we
have money worries, find joy in our children, drink too much, and fret
about our careers. What we don’t do is question the word of the Party,
which could bring very serious trouble. North Koreans who have never left
don’t think critically because they have no point of comparison – with
previous governments, different policies, or with other societies in the
outside world. So my mother, along with everyone else, was waiting for the
mythical dawn of 2012.
‘Omma, you said life there is getting worse. It will never happen,’ I said.
‘Listen. I’ve met so many North Korean families here. Usually one person
comes first, then from here they arrange to bring the rest of the family out.’
‘I’ve seen too many executions of people who’ve tried to get out,’ she
snapped. ‘I don’t want Min-ho jailed because of us. I don’t want to be shot
at Hyesan Airport with your aunts and uncles sitting in the front row.’
‘But Omma, life’s so much better here. You can have whatever you like.
The government gives us plenty of money to settle.’

---

‘You said you weren’t happy.’
‘I was just moaning.’ My theme was starting to break her resistance. ‘I
haven’t seen you in nearly twelve years. My twenties have come and gone
and I never saw you once. I want to marry and have children, but what’s the
point if you’ll never see us? If we don’t do something now, we’ll never
meet again in our lives.’
There was a long pause and I realized she was crying quietly. The
thought of being separated for ever was unbearable, she said.
I kept the pressure up over three or four weeks. ‘Come for eighteen
months,’ I said. ‘If you don’t like it, you can always go home. It’ll be easy.’
I was lying, of course, but I had to convince her and I believed the lie
was justified. We’d be reunited, and she would be able to live free from
danger. I pushed this theme because she had already begun researching the
process of getting the records changed to make it appear as if she’d never
left.
Still, she wavered.
Then, a sensational event in Hyesan changed her mind. Wanted posters
went up all over the city with the face of a well-known Party cadre, Seol
Jung-sik, the provincial secretary for the Socialist Youth League. Soon the
gossip was that he’d defected. Locals in Hyesan were astonished. My
mother thought, If a big shot like Seol can leave, why can’t I? The timing
could not have been better.
On the Sunday after it happened she came out with it. ‘I’ve made up my
mind. I’ll go.’ She kept her language vague in case the Bowibu was
listening. She was nervous. ‘Will it be safe?’
I almost yelled, I was so happy. ‘I will make it one hundred per cent
safe,’ I said, knowing this was a promise only the president of China could
make.
‘Your brother won’t go.’
This brought me down to earth. ‘But he must. You must both come
together. It’ll be too dangerous for him to stay.’
‘He’ll be all right. He’s got his own business, and he’s going to marry
Yoon-ji.’
‘Marry?’
This was news to me. I knew about Min-ho’s business. He was
smuggling in motorbikes – the Chinese models Haojue and Shuangshi, but

---

sometimes also high-end Japanese brands. In summer he would take the
bikes apart and float them across the river on a raft. In the winter, he would
ride them over the ice. He paid the border guards 10 per cent of whatever he
made, and gave them cigarettes, Chinese beer or tropical fruits. Min-ho was
resourceful and street-smart – his earliest memory of Hyesan was the
famine, and it had toughened him – but, like me, he was stubborn. Once he
set his mind on a course of action, it was difficult to change.
I should have felt happy for him. Yoon-ji, my mother had told me, was
incredibly beautiful. When she had turned eighteen, special scouts that
selected musicians and beautiful girls to attend upon Kim Jong-il came to
her school and singled her out to join the Dear Leader’s Joy Division. But
to prevent her being taken away, Yoon-ji’s mother had pretended that her
daughter had health problems.
Min-ho said he’d help Omma get into China, but that he was staying
behind. Yoon-ji’s mother worked for the Bowibu, he said. He believed this
would protect him. The family could be trusted with our secret.
There was nothing more I could say. It was clear that Min-ho felt
strongly about this girl.
I started to plan. My first step was to contact the Reverend Kim, a middle-
aged Protestant pastor whose organization demonstrated in Insa-dong, a
popular market area of Seoul, every Saturday for North Korean human
rights. Rowdy demonstrations are part of everyday life in Seoul. Any time
I’d go downtown I’d see a lone protester outside a government building
with a placard advertising his grievance, or workers with slogans on their
headbands singing songs and punching the air. The first time I saw them I
was amazed – citizens here could shout out their complaints without being
arrested and publicly executed.
Using his contacts in China, Reverend Kim had helped hundreds of
people escape. His specialty was shepherding defectors through the
southwestern Chinese city of Kunming and over the border into Vietnam,
from where they could make their way to the South Korean embassy.
The journey across China is more than 2,000 miles and takes a week. It is
dangerous, so much so that some escapers carry poison with them to kill
themselves if they’re caught, rather than face the consequences of being
returned to the North. As South Korea does not wish to antagonize China

---

by accepting North Korean asylum seekers at its embassy in Beijing and its
consulates throughout China, it colludes with the Chinese authorities in
keeping them away. Even if a defector makes it through an embassy gate,
that person may have a very long wait. Some have waited seven years
before China has granted permission for them to leave.
I found Reverend Kim on the sidewalk at one of his Saturday protests.
Over the noisy chanting of a sit-down demonstration he told me that my
mother would have to cross the Yalu River by herself, but that he could
guide her from that point onward. It would cost $4,000. Alternatively, she
could make her own way across China to Kunming and be guided from
there to the South Korean embassy in Vietnam. That would cost $2,000.
She would be in the hands of a Chinese broker arranged by him. I thanked
him, and took his phone number, but I had a sinking feeling.