I am most grateful for two things: that I was born in North Korea and that I escaped from North Korea. Both of these events shaped me, and I would not trade them for an ordinary and peaceful life. But there is more to the story of how I became who I am today.Yeonmi Park was born in the North Korean city of Hyesan, close to the Chinese border. With only the narrow Yalu River separating the little girl from the periodic fireworks and intriguing cooking smells and the taunts of well-fed children that drifted over to her own side of the border, Yeonmi had nonetheless been sufficiently brainwashed by the pervasively insidious Kim regime to have honestly believed that she was living in a Worker's Paradise; the envy of the entire world. Although her family had suffered along with the rest of the country during the famines of the 1990s, Yeonmi's father was able to make enough extra money smuggling precious metals into China in order for their family to have a relatively worry-free life. When the father was eventually caught and sent away to prison camp, the family's existence became very precarious; and when he was allowed to return home on sick leave, the family made a desperate decision to escape across the frozen Yalu and into an unknown future.
In Order to Live is different from other books I've read about North Korea. The Orphan Master's Son is a fictional account that dips into the lives of people at every level of North Korean society, Escape from Camp 14 is the biography of a man born and raised within a North Korean prison camp, and Yeonmi's story is something entirely different; and mostly because Yeonmi's story is the only one that describes a close and loving family. Yeonmi calls herself a member of the Jangmadang or “Black Market Generation”: the first modern North Koreans to have an underground capitalist economy, and because her parents were successful traders, Yeonmi grew up watching smuggled Hollywood movies and even had a Nintendo game system. Her family was hungry – but not starving – and cold – but not freezing – and despite a low social ranking (because of a grandfather's landowning status at the end of WWII), the Parks didn't live in constant fear of the authorities (and the ability to offer bribes provided much of their security). Because the North Korean government needs to turn a blind eye to some of the black market activity in order to keep their population alive, the idea that there's an increasing exposure to Western culture gives hope that repressed citizens of the Hermit Kingdom might eventually recognise the official lie they've been raised in. On the other hand, when Yeonmi's father was taken away and her mother followed to try and secure his release, base survival became the family's only concern.
Living in a border town leads to fantasies of escape, and when Yeonmi's older sister disappeared, Yeonmi and her mother soon followed across the frozen river. Although their guide had assured them that there would be a community of refugees inside China who would help them, they soon realised the truth: while North Korea was hungry for black market clothes and dvds, China had a thriving market for slave-brides; a direct consequence of the official one child rule which today sees many unmarried Chinese men, especially in rural areas. Right now, there are apparently many thousands of North Korean refugee women who have found themselves sold into such marriages, and as they are undocumented and illegal, they are forced to submit entirely to their new husbands or risk deportation back to North Korea and unimaginable punishment. Although Yeonmi was only 13 at the time of their escape, she and her mother were unwitting victims of such human trafficking. While her mother was bought as a farmer's wife, Yeonmi caught the eye of the rich young broker himself and quickly realised that living out scenes she recognised from Pretty Woman wasn't the escape she had imagined:
I was beginning to realize that all the food in the world, and all the running shoes, could not make me happy. The material things were worthless, I had lost my family. I wasn't loved, I wasn't free, and I wasn't safe. I was alive, but everything that made life worth living was gone.Eventually, Yeonmi was able to make a deal with the broker that saw her reunited with her parents, and after her still sick father died, Yeonmi and her mother started on a path that would see them escaping into Mongolia, and eventually, repatriated to South Korea. It was interesting to learn about the acclimatising that South Korea offers to those from the North – and even though they had spent years in China, the Parks were still in need of deprogramming – and the supports and services that they have in place. It is apparently very rare for a student in Yeonmi's situation to catch up with her peers, but once given access to books and the internet, Yeonmi became a voracious reader who wanted to learn everything that had been denied her. After entering university and appearing as a semi-regular on a popular TV show (that attempts to teach South Koreans about those in the North, and that Yeonmi hoped would somehow lead to a reunion with her still missing older sister), Yeonmi caught the eye of the international community and now finds herself the voice of North Korea; and very much in Kim Jong-un's sights.
Although written with the help of a journalist, the writing in In Order to Live didn't blow me away – there were big jumps in time when I would have liked more detail and many small jarring moments that I attribute to amateur writing – but Yeonmi's story was fascinating, and by the end, I was in tears. Any book I've read about North Korea has intrigued and repulsed me and it's a wonder that we aren't thinking about these people every day – if we can't have any influence on the maniacal Kim dynasty, why aren't we pressuring China to stop propping them up? Or at least pressuring them to stop sending North Korean refugees back for “reeducation”? An interesting perspective on why Yeonmi wrote this book is this interview in The Guardian where she says:
I really hope this book will shine a light on the darkest place in the world. We don’t feel like human beings: people don’t feel that they can connect with North Koreans, that we’re so different. People are making jokes about Kim Jong-un’s haircut, about how fat he is – this country is a joke, really. It is a joke, but it is a tragic joke, that this kind of thing can happen to 25 million people. These things shouldn’t be allowed to happen to anyone, because another Holocaust is happening and the west is saying: “It isn’t happening, it’s a joke, it’s funny – things can’t be that serious.” But we are repeating history – there are thousands of testimonies, you can see the concentration camps from satellite photos, so many people are dying. Just listen to my testimony, to the testimonies in front of the United Nations. I just hope people will read the book and will listen.I, too, hope people will read this book and will listen. To cut to the chase, here's the video of Yeonmin's speech to the One Young World Summit (which also made me cry):
