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The beauty of a free mind
Not long after my family had arrived, Ok-hee introduced me to an
organization called PSCORE (an acronym for ‘People for Successful
Corean Reunification’), which helps improve the lives of North Korean
defectors. One Saturday evening she and I joined a group of PSCORE
volunteers for a night out in Hongdae, a district of crowded bars thumping
with music and clubs popular with Seoul’s students. The others in our group
were South Koreans and, curiously, three young male Westerners. At dinner
I found myself sitting next to one of them. Ever since meeting Dick Stolp in
Laos, I was much more curious about Westerners. If even just a few of them
were as wonderful as Dick, I was interested to meet more. And I confess
that I was also struck by how fine-looking this one was, next to me. He was
fair-haired, with chestnut-brown eyes and a friendly, unassuming manner.
He was in his mid-twenties, I guessed.
His name was Brian, he said. He was a graduate student at Yonsei
University in Seoul. He asked where I was from.
‘A city called Hyesan,’ I said matter-of-factly, as if everyone knew where
that was, and watched with amusement as he scratched his chin.
‘Hyesan, Hyesan,’ he muttered. He was trying to think where it was on
the map. ‘That’s weird. I know this country pretty well.’
‘It’s in the North,’ I said. ‘Near China.’
He turned to me with a look of wonder. ‘You’re kidding me.’ I was the
first North Korean he’d ever met.
He told me he was from Wisconsin. He saw the blank look on my face.
‘In the USA.’
We spent the rest of the evening deep in conversation. I was struck by
how open and honest he was about everything. He spoke without guile or
evasiveness. He wasn’t defensive, or status-conscious. I felt completely at
ease with this stranger. I was honest with him, too, until the very end of the
evening. Foolishly, I’d brought up the subject of age.
‘Well, how old are you?’ he laughed.
‘Twenty-five.’ It was an instant, reflexive lie. I’d snapped straight back
into that cynical mode of calculating every benefit. It also came from years
of lying about my identity. I’d shaved a few years off so that I’d seem more
attractive to him. I didn’t feel too guilty, and didn’t imagine we would meet
again.
What I did not expect was that Brian would call me, that we would start
dating, and that a few months after meeting, we would start a serious
relationship. That small lie did matter now. I kept putting off telling him the
truth until it became unbearable. I had to get it over with.
‘Brian, I’ve got to apologize,’ I said, while we were walking in the street.
‘I lied to you. I’m not twenty-five. I’m twenty-nine.’
‘Oh.’ He gave me a puzzled look. ‘I don’t care about that. But I want you
to know that you can always be honest with me. I’m not going to judge
you.’
Brian was the first to show me a free intelligence, with a humorous,
sceptical mind that took nothing as given. It made me open unexamined
thoughts of my own. He made me realize that the wider world cares about
the suffering in North Korea, and is well informed about it, too. His attitude
emboldened me to confront the stultifying prejudice in South Korea against
defectors – something they would never experience in the United States.
Most defectors I knew in the South hid their identities out of fear of being
seen as low-status. I was damned if I was going to hide mine. Now that my
family was safely with me, I had nothing to hide.
But Brian also presented me with a problem I had not foreseen. It wasn’t
just South Korean prejudices I was confronting. I had to change some
defectors’ attitudes, too, and some of them were very close to home.
My mother and Min-ho knew that I’d got romantically involved with
someone. They wanted to meet him, and wondered why I kept making
excuses, not even telling them his name. As my relationship with Brian
deepened, I realized they would have to know. In the end, I decided shock
would be the best therapy.
And so it was that Brian was introduced to my mother and to Min-ho in a
restaurant, and they found themselves face to face with one of the reviled
Yankee jackals of North Korean propaganda. We sat down in silence. My
mother, normally the epitome of good manners, gaped at him with her
mouth open. She and my brother looked stunned and offended. I knew what
they were thinking. A well-known saying in North Korea goes: ‘Just as a
jackal cannot become a lamb, so American imperialists cannot change their
rapacious nature.’ I acted as interpreter. After a brief and excruciating
dinner, Brian left as soon as he politely could. Min-ho remained silent and
stared at the table. My mother said only one thing, muttering to herself:
‘I’ve lived too long. I’m too old for this shit.’
Later Min-ho admitted to me that he’d hated Brian on sight. He was a
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