Long Road Home: Testimony of a North Korean Camp Survivor (26 page)

“From a humanitarian stance, from now on I will treat you as a lieutenant colonel of the North Korean Army.”

He asked all of us to get into his sedan and drove us around the city. The car passed the imposing North Korean embassy building in downtown Ulaanbaatar. We all held our breath and looked at the building in the dusk. Then the officer took us to a local grocery store and encouraged us to buy whatever we needed or wanted. I picked up a can of pickled garlic, cucumber, a pack of cigarettes, sauerkraut, and a bag of rice. He then paid for the groceries himself. It must have been with our money that had been taken away, but we could neither say anything nor care too much about it. Then he took us to a hotel in the city, where the manager came out to greet us in a stiff, ceremonious manner. The officer told the manager to take good care of us, as we were South Korean tourists in need of special assistance. The manager checked us into a large suite with two king-size beds and started sending room service whenever we needed it. This was truly a comfortable refuge compared to the border posts and cellars we’d been detained in for almost half a month.

The next day the South Korean diplomat came to see us. He told us that the Mongolian government would protect us until our departure and gave each of us $50, but he did not say where we would be sent. He told us to stay in the hotel area and not venture out for our own safety. When he left, we talked about whether to completely trust this South Korean. L had the phone number of a South Korean pastor in Ulaanbaatar. Mrs. M had given it to her in Yanji in case something happened in Mongolia. That night, she went down to the hotel lobby and called the pastor. He came to our hotel five minutes later. We shared our worries and concerns with him, and he replied that if we felt in danger, he could make us fake South Korean passports and smuggle us out of Mongolia on an express train to Moscow. But when he heard that the South Korean embassy was already involved, he was more relaxed. We could not believe that the same South Korean government could behave so differently in Beijing and here, but the pastor said we need not worry too much. A week passed, during which all kinds of thoughts came in and out of our minds. Then a Mongolian police officer came to see us and suddenly shook our hands in a congratulatory way.

“Kim Il-sen [Kim Il-sung]? No, no more North Korea. To Pyong-yang.”

He was telling us that the North Korean embassy in Ulaanbaatar was now closed down due to North Korea’s financial difficulties.
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We could not believe what he was saying. We had seen its massive building just a week ago. It had sent NSA people in a Mercedes to inspect L not too long before that. When the police officer saw our dumbfounded faces, he asked us to get in the car and drove us to a square downtown, at the corner of which stood the embassy building. Just as he’d told us, there was no longer a North Korean flag hanging by the gates. The displays of leaders’ photos along the embassy walls had all been taken down. The officer said that from now on we did not have to be confined to the hotel and could go out into the city if we wanted.

The following three months in Mongolia was a joyful period, as we were provided with a safe place to stay and were assured by the South Korean embassy that we would reach our final destination soon. Every day we rode buses and visited tourist spots. The women bought cosmetics with their pocket money and urged me to buy a leather jacket in preparation for the cold winter. Every day was like a picnic. We also visited a restaurant called Arirang run by a South Korean owner. Two women told him that we were from North Korea. At first he could not hide his surprise, but having heard the story, he gave us his phone number and urged us to call him if there was any emergency. He then invited us to dine at his restaurant for free. He said he would even pack our breakfast and lunch if we wanted to eat elsewhere. We were the first North Korean refugees he’d ever encountered, and he generously provided kind assistance as he could. He owned a car and took us places whenever he had time. The Mongolian guards who were assigned to protect us also accompanied us. The pastor kept visiting us and we visited his church, becoming close friends.

In late December, when Ulaanbaatar was covered with harsh winter frost, we boarded a Korean Airlines plane bound for Seoul, Korea. All the people who had befriended us—the pastor, the owner of Arirang, the Mongolian guards—came to the airport to see us off. By then we had become close, like a family. They all wished us well and promised to let us know when they came to Korea. The two women cried and so did I, holding their hands tightly as the warmth of our hands communicated our feelings. When the plane took off, I saw the evening sun shining bright over the right wing outside my window. This was the sun I’d been dying to see for six years when I was working in the camp mines. It shone beautifully over the snowy city of Ulaanbaatar. That moment, I felt like part of myself was set free, beaming in the gleaming rays as I flew closer to my destination.

Afterword

UNFINISHED STORY

The first days in South Korea were marked by alterating excitement, relief, and exhaustion. I was immediately escorted to a heavy-security debriefing facility where many South Korean intelligence officers asked me an endless succession of questions—one after another. I told them everything. They paid attention to every detail and treated me with respect appropriate for my rank in the North Korean People’s Army. Although I did not have to worry about imminent danger of being captured or sent back, I felt weary. I felt confined within the white walls of the modern facility, regularly served meals, and polite intelligence officers. Having been on the run and in hiding for almost one year, I found this settlement strangely unsettling. During this time, I seldom saw my two female fellow travelers, since we were being kept and debriefed in different offices. Since I came to South Korea with an experience uncommon among most defectors, my debriefing process was thorough and long, which kept me in isolation for the most part. The occasional break from this monotonous interim period was Ping-Pong matches, which let out my hidden passion for physical activities. The South Korean intelligence officers teamed up, and I joined another North Korean defector in a fiery match representing the two sides of Korea. The matches became so dead serious that they started to resemble hostile exchanges of gunfire across the DMZ. Sometimes, each side’s determination to win became so strong that vitriolic comments were pronounced carelessly. At these moments, I was able to forget about my current reality of being a North Korean defector in a South Korean intelligence facility. At least during these heated matches, I was again a boy athlete in Mansudae Children’s Palace competing feverishly for the glory of the Great Leader and our fatherland.

What seemed like an eternity at the facility also came to an end, and then came the reeducation period at Hanawon—a facility that provided North Korean defectors with a crash course on the details of South Korean life. Brief overviews of the geography and history, the banking system, the basic social skills, and such were taught. There I met North Koreans from all walks of life and learned the details of the hardship and danger they’d endured in reaching this place. Many of them had left family and friends behind in the north, and this weighed heavily on their hearts and minds. Although they were on the brink of starting a new life in the south, many were steeped in memories of the past, haunting them with nightmares in which they were illegal border crossers again and their bodies hung on the gallows in public as a display to inspire horror. Other times, the past returned wearing the faces of their loved ones, pleading to be taken away from North Korea. This was the worst form of nightmare for many, evoking guilt that was more tormenting than physical pain. The haunting memories of their families dragged them back to the abyss of the past, which loomed dark in the face of the present, entirely eclipsing visions of the future ahead of them.

Soon after my release from Hanawon into South Korean society, I came upon a question with which I had to wrestle for a while. The Christian community in South Korea was extremely active in assisting North Korean refugees, not only those still in danger after their escape and before they reached a safe haven but also those who had difficulty settling in South Korea, which was so different from the place they’d left behind. Had it not been for the helping hands of these Christians, God knows what might have happened to me in China. Had they not hid me in safe places there and taken care of me with all their might, I would have found no means to make it this far. I felt forever in debt for their humane and selfless devotion, but it did not automatically compel me to become a believer. After all, I’d spent most my life in a place where Christianity was known to be a poisonous element paralyzing people’s minds. An idea of the religion as a deceptive means to exploit naïve believers was instilled over and over again in North Korea. How could I suddenly fall in love with it, even though I owed my life to Christians I’d met in China? South Korean Christian community workers helped me as much as they could, taking me to their church so that I could be plugged into a community of friends and newly arrived people from the north. They also wanted me to enroll in a Christian university that would prepare me to become a pastor. When these friends at church sent an application form to my home address, I tore it up, not wanting to be forced into something I still had doubts about. Then came another application and I tore it up as well. When the third one came, I finally succumbed to the strong-willed friends who wanted me to go down the same path as they had—to set out on an altruistic mission to save the less fortunate. I thought I’d give it a try.

It wasn’t long after I enrolled in the university that I revisited the unbelievable vision I’d seen in the Gobi Desert. The pillar of fire that had illuminated our path in the thick of the night started to enrapture me and haunt me with questions. Was it the divine providence that turned doubters into men of God? Did Abraham and doubting Thomas see the same vision before they professed their eternal faith in God? When my co-travelers and I saw the pillar that night, we had no doubt that it was not from this world. It was from God and God alone, as a manifestation of his grace leading lost souls to the road toward salvation. But why would he love me, the one who used to deny his presence, who used to doubt his words, even when Mrs. M in China urged me to take his words to my heart and pray? Had he designed a test for me similar to the one he gave Job?

Although there were many helping hands, my first days in South Korea were not easy by any means. Whenever opportunities arose, I spoke openly about how my human rights were abused in the North Korean camps. I also granted interviews with various media to publicize the state-sponsored atrocities in North Korea. No too long after, I started to receive strange phone calls. The man on the other end never identified himself, but he admonished me not to speak of the North Korean camps and hung up. I was frightened. I remember the moment when I’d signed the document not to divulge anything about my experience at Camp No. 14 before being transferred to Camp No. 18. Was the caller directly related to the North Korean NSA? Who was this mysterious person? Regardless of the caller’s identity, one thing was clear: I was being watched closely by someone, which made me wake up at night with a reason to fear. However, I could not live in forced silence after having gone through so much to reach this place. There must be a reason I’d come this far. My life had been in the mouth of death not too long ago, and I had to make a sense of my survival. On behalf of those thousands of North Korean prisoners who perished in silence, I simply had to bear witness.

Another big concern, naturally, was how to make a living. I was obviously not able to use my skills as a military officer earning foreign currency, so with the settlement funding that the South Korean government allocated to defectors from the north, I opened a North Korean noodle shop with a couple of friends who also felt lost in the market economy that was brand new to us. Although I recovered my health to the point that I could get by without noticeable physical discomfort, my face still revealed the scars and pains of the harsh days in the camp when I could not see the sun. My business partners joked that if I were to roam around in the dining area and serve customers, everyone would be terrorized and never come back again. Although they meant it to be funny, I read their minds and gladly retreated to the kitchen area where I could supervise noodle making. The business boomed at first, as shops like ours serving North Korean cuisine were rare, but this initial success soon turned into a problem. The jealous restaurant owner next door started to sabotage our business in numerous annoying ways, which culminated in cutting off our power line. While fighting all of these obstacles and trying to make a living, I was enrolled at the Christian university, taking a full load of classes when I was not shopping or cooking for the restaurant. I was in a permanent state of exhaustion, but it was nothing compared to what I’d had to endure in North Korea. One time when I was driving from my class to the restaurant, I slipped into slumber and had a very minor collision with a taxi right in front of me. It was not a crash by any means, since the traffic was jammed and no car could speed to create a huge accident, but the two female passengers got out of the backseat with an expression of great suffering on their faces.

“Oh, what horror, oh, what pain!”

“I am sorry. Are you all right?”

“Oh my, what a mess…. I will need to have a close examination of my neck for sure.”

“I am sorry…. I hope you’ll be fine.”

“We might need hospitalization in order to get a thorough checkup. This kind of trauma does not get noticed at the early stage. You have to monitor it carefully in the hospital.”

At this point, I said what I really felt like saying.

“Female comrades, with your feeble minds, how could you ever survive a war if North Koreans were to invade South Korea?”