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

Shuttle diplomacy
I opened my mouth but words failed me. My first thought was that this was
some absurd misunderstanding, or that I’d been brought into the wrong
room.
I looked around at each of the officials. They were all watching me.
‘Why am I a criminal?’
‘The North Koreans entered our country illegally,’ she said. ‘They are
criminals. You helped them.’
I’d been feeling a simmering anger ever since we’d stopped outside this
building, guessing that there’d be one more attempt to fleece us before we
gained asylum. But when I heard my family labelled ‘criminals’ my temper
exploded.
I was shouting. ‘Criminals? They are not criminals! Have they killed
anyone? Robbed anyone? I’ve met plenty of robbers in this country and
they’re all police! These people are refugees seeking asylum.’
I should not have lost my calm, because I was no longer thinking clearly.
The woman chief remained unruffled.
‘They’re here illegally. We can’t overlook that. And you helped them.’
I tried to regain my composure, but I was still enraged. ‘This is my first
time in Laos. I’m only trying to help them reach asylum. It is not my job. I
am NOT a broker.’
I felt a stab of fear in my stomach. In my outburst just now had I said the
word ‘family’? I wasn’t sure. Only now was I recalling the warning from
Mr Park the policeman to tell no one that my mother and Min-ho were
related to me. If this woman realized that I too was North Korean, I would
lose the protection of my South Korean passport.
‘We know it’s your first time here,’ she said. ‘But you’re still a criminal.’

---

If my mind had been clear, I’d have guessed, from what I knew by now
of Lao bureaucracy, that she probably wanted me to admit to a charge so
that I would pay a fine. But as I refused to accept that I was a criminal
helping criminals, she couldn’t proceed to the matter of payment. It didn’t
help that I was now clearly starting to rile her.
‘You could go to prison.’
‘I’m just a volunteer,’ I said, taking out my phone. ‘I’m calling the South
Korean embassy.’
‘You’re not calling anyone.’
She gestured with her finger to one of the officials. He stepped towards
me and took the phone from my hand.
‘This is Laos,’ she said. ‘Your embassy has no power here.’
The official who’d taken my phone was now demanding my passport
also. I had no choice but to give it to him.
The woman spoke to the others in Lao for a minute, then said: ‘For now,
you may go. Come here tomorrow morning. We need to talk again.’
I returned to the room where the others had been waiting. They’d
vanished. All the bags were gone except my lone backpack, left behind like
some menacing clue. I ran straight back to the interrogation room.
Again I was shouting. ‘Where’ve you taken them?’
‘To a hotel,’ the Mandarin-speaking official said. The woman chief had
turned her back on me. ‘There’s nothing you can do for now.’
Downstairs, the lobby of the building was deserted. It was lunchtime.
Two long corridors led away from either side of the empty reception desk. I
made sure no one was around and slipped along one corridor, looking into
each of its rooms, then the next. At the end of the second corridor was a
row of iron cell doors. All but one were shut. I peered inside. It was chilly
and smelled of damp concrete. The walls were black with mould, and the
ceiling so low it would have been impossible to stand upright. They were
like livestock pens. Surely they’re not here? There was no sound from
behind the locked doors.
I didn’t dare shout Omma-ya! Min-ho-ya! in case they heard upstairs.
Outside, it was so hot that the streets were deserted. I spotted a
motorcycle taxi rank waiting for fares, and in a mixture of English and sign
language asked a driver to take me to the South Korean embassy. Minutes

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later I saw the South Korean flag, and the embassy itself, but the guard at
the gate told me to come back after lunch.
I wandered further along the street, looking for somewhere to sit. It was
cooler here, beneath a canopy of plane trees. Then just to my left, on the
other side of the street, I saw a flag that made me do a double take. The
embassies of both Koreas were just yards from each other. For the second
time that day I felt caught in an absurd situation. East and West Germany
had long since reunified. So had North and South Vietnam. Why were we
the only nation on earth still suffering from a bizarre division that should
have vanished into history? Why was my family paying the price of that
division in this faraway and unwelcoming country? I stood still in the
empty street, thinking that my whole life lay in the distance between these
two flags.
‘Welcome,’ the consul said. ‘We don’t get many Korean travellers here.’ He
invited me into a meeting room.
I explained to him that I’d come from Luang Namtha, bringing five
people who were now being held by immigration in Vientiane. ‘We
expected to come directly here.’
‘Yes.’ He rubbed the bridge of his nose beneath his glasses. ‘We received
a message from immigration in Luang Namtha that five North Koreans
were on their way. But what’s your connection to them?’
‘I called you a month ago. Do you remember? To tell you that my family
was imprisoned in Luang Namtha. You said that you’d take care of things,
and that I should leave.’
‘Ah. Yes.’ He gave a look of mild surprise. ‘You didn’t leave? I’d never
have thought you would manage this much. And you’ve done it alone? In a
month? Amazing. Really.’
He sounded like a bored uncle trying to show an interest in a child’s
drawing.
‘We were told you’d go to the immigration office this afternoon,’ I said.
‘What’s the next step?’
He gave a small apologetic laugh. ‘I can’t just go there when I like. I
have to wait until they call.’
‘But they’re holding five North Koreans. They took my passport and my
phone. Can they do that?’

---

‘We have no authority here. We can’t tell them what to do. But we’ll see
if we can find out what’s going on.’
On each step of this journey, every time I thought I’d spied hope,
disappointment would plant itself firmly in the way. As I got up to leave, I
told him something my mother had mentioned – that a group of twelve
North Koreans had been caught a few days previously and thrown into
Luang Namtha Prison just before she and Min-ho left yesterday. ‘But I’m
sure you knew that.’
‘No, I didn’t,’ he said, as if I’d told him a crazy-but-true fact. ‘I’ll look
into it.’
I wondered how many North Korean refugees were sitting in prison cells
around the country, waiting for this man to do something.
The next morning a junior diplomat accompanied me to the Vientiane
immigration office. In hindsight, this was not a good idea. The meeting took
on the feel of a summit between two nations. It was held in a large
conference room lined by national flags. Across a long, polished table we
faced five uniformed immigration officials, including the woman chief.
She insisted on conducting the meeting in Lao, and refused to budge
from her position that I had committed a criminal offence by aiding illegal
aliens. I would go to prison if I did not pay a statutory fine of $1,300.
‘She’s really furious with you,’ the diplomat whispered when we’d
stepped outside the room for a moment. ‘She said you were extremely
rude.’
I saw that I’d made a tactical mistake. Had I returned alone and contrite,
and apologized to her, I might have been let off, but matters had gone
beyond that. By bringing a diplomat I had escalated the whole issue up a
level.
I showed my wallet to the immigration officials and explained my
predicament. I had $800 that Dick had given me on the last day when he
realized I didn’t have enough for my fare home to Seoul. It was sufficient
for a one-way ticket. The woman took all the cash and handed back my
passport and phone.
‘Don’t ever come back to my country in this way,’ she said. ‘If you do,
you’ll be imprisoned as a broker. However …’ She gave me the most

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insincere smile I’d ever seen on another woman. ‘You may return as a
tourist.’
I wanted to slap her face.
‘We’ve granted a twenty-four-hour extension to your visa,’ she said. ‘If
you’re still here this time tomorrow we’ll arrest you. Understand?’
‘I’d like to leave your country right now,’ I said. ‘But I have no money
left for a ticket.’
She pressed her lips together. Not my problem.
On the way out of the building, the Korean diplomat reassured me that
my mother, Min-ho and the other three North Koreans would be taken to
the embassy the next day. All would be able to leave for Seoul after that. A
few days, he said.
They say people tend to believe what they want to believe, and I really
wanted to believe this news. It was so wonderful to hear. I thanked him
profusely. I should, of course, have tested the truth of what he was saying
by asking further questions, but I was distracted by another immediate
concern.
‘I’ve got nothing left for a ticket out of here. Could the embassy lend me
the money?’
Regrettably, he said, getting into his car, it was not embassy policy to
lend money.
Stupidly, I thanked him again. I was so grateful that my family’s ordeal
was almost over that it was a few minutes before it occurred to me, as I
stood alone again in the street, that he’d driven away knowing that I was
penniless and had nowhere to go. When I later learned that embassies have
an obligation under international law to protect and support their citizens, I
found the attitude of the South Korean embassy in Vientiane very hard to
understand.
I had no idea what to do. I thought I would have to sleep in the street.
Within moments of me turning on my phone it rang. It was Dick. I was
beginning to think he was some divine being. When I explained the
situation – in broken English – he offered to send more money, but I said
no. He had given so much. I would figure something out for myself.
I dawdled in the street for a while, but I knew I had only one option – to
ask Kim. This was hard to do, harder than asking Dick. My pride did not
want him to see me needy and desperate. It simply confirmed the gulf of

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status between us. I was afraid of repulsing him. He transferred the money,
and again I insisted this was a loan, of which every penny would be paid
back.
I left Laos the next morning.
It was the first week of December. I’d come from the subtropics to a bright,
freezing day in Seoul, with high blue skies and air so cold there were ice
crystals patterned like feathers on the inside of my apartment windows. I
immediately had to shop for clothes. I’d given all my winter wear to that
puzzled taxi driver in Kunming.
That evening I was curled up in Kim’s apartment in Gangnam, cradling a
coffee, wearing his knitted sweater, listening to jazz and describing my
adventure. It seemed surreal, somehow, to be so suddenly back in the
comfort and safety of the other universe, watching Kim, who’d never left it,
stare at me as he tried to comprehend what I’d been through. He was silent
for a long time, and kept shaking his head in bemusement at the sequence of
disasters and the twists of good fortune we’d had in overcoming them. He
was also deeply impressed by Dick Stolp.
‘To meet someone like that,’ he said, ‘at that moment, and in that place?
It’s incredible. You’ve been very lucky.’
‘I’ve been lucky to have you, too,’ I said.
The jazz track we were listening to had ended. Silence filled the room.
I had been away so much longer than I’d expected – two months – that I’d
missed the university entrance tests and interviews. It would be another
year before I could apply. I didn’t really mind. I figured I’d be so busy
helping my mother and Min-ho cope with life in Seoul.
The day after I returned I called the South Korean embassy in Vientiane.
I was in a positive mood, and expecting good news. I got through to an
answering machine telling me in English to press various buttons for
different services. I tried them all day but could never get through to
anyone. It was the same the next day and the day after. I was not too
concerned, however. I expected that my mother and Min-ho would arrive
any day, and knew that once they were being processed by the NIS, they
would disappear off the radar for a while. Even so, I would have liked some
confirmation from the diplomats in Vientiane.

---

After three weeks without news I was anxious. Kim tried to reassure me,
telling me that nothing would happen quickly in Laos. Finally, in the fourth
week, my phone rang with a number I did not recognize. It had an 856
prefix, the code for Laos. The voice was very faint.
‘Nuna?’
‘Min-ho?’
‘Yes, it’s me.’
‘You’re still in the embassy?’
‘I’ve borrowed this phone. Will you call back?’