In Order to Live

  One of my great fears has always been losing control of my emotions. Sometimes I feel an anger like a dense ball inside me, and I know if I ever let it out, it might explode and I won’t be able to contain it. I worry that when I start to cry, I may never be able to stop. So I always have to keep these feelings deep down inside me. People who meet me think I’m the most upbeat and positive person they have ever met. My wounds are well hidden. But that day in Dublin, they were there on the stage for all to see. As I walked to the podium with my prepared speech rolled up in my hand, I fought to speak through my tears.

  The audience was already on its feet, and I could see that everybody in the room was crying with me as I struggled to steady myself.

  I abandoned my opening statement and attempted to say that I was here to speak for my people, not for myself. But I instantly lost my command of English and had to take a deep breath and start again.

  “North Korea is an unimaginable country . . .” I began. I told the people in the room that in North Korea you could be executed for making an illegal international phone call. I told them how, when I was a child, my mother told me not to whisper because even the birds and mice could hear me.

  “The day I escaped North Korea, I saw my mother raped by a Chinese broker who had targeted me,” I said, letting the tears flow down my face. I told them how North Korean refugees were vulnerable in China. “Seventy percent of North Korean women and teenage girls are being victimized. Sometimes sold for as little as two hundred dollars . . .”

  I had opened a door and stepped outside into the light of day. I didn’t know where this path would take me, but I could see that I was not alone.

  “When I was crossing the Gobi Desert, I wasn’t really afraid of dying as much as I was afraid of being forgotten. I was scared that I would die in the desert and nobody would know, nobody would know my name or would care if I had lived or died. But you have listened. You have cared.”

  Everybody in the audience was back on their feet, crying with me. I looked around and knew that justice was alive in that room. I felt, at least for that moment, that there was hope for all of us.

  But there was still one more desert for me to cross.

  • • •

  After my speech, I managed to get through the rest of the program before I retreated to my hotel room and collapsed. When I finally checked my phone, my mailbox was brimming with requests for interviews from media all over the world. What followed was a whirlwind—but I was oddly detached from it all, as if a mechanism for survival had kicked in and removed me to a safe emotional distance. Part of me was watching the other half make the rest of my appearances.

  I gave dozens of interviews during my three weeks in Europe. I lost track after a while. I even agreed to be filmed by the BBC outside the North Korean embassy in London, which filled me with such cold, black terror that I could barely speak. I never used a translator, never thought that the journalists might not understand what I was saying or that I might not understand their questions very well. I also believed that by changing a few details about my family’s escape to China, I could continue to hide the fact that I had been trafficked. I thought that if I was truthful about everything else, then it was okay; if what I lived through was real, then the details shouldn’t matter. Mostly I was reacting, improvising like a jazz musician playing the same melody a little differently each time, unaware that there might be people out there keeping score.

  • • •

  Less than a month after my speech in Dublin, I began working on this memoir. It’s an odd thing for someone who has just turned twenty-one to be writing the story of her life, especially someone with a secret she has been trying to hide for years. But as soon as I began writing my memories down, I knew that I could no longer hold anything back. How could I ask people to face the truth about North Korea, to face the truth about what happens to the women who escape into China and fall into the hands of brokers and rapists, if I couldn’t face it myself?

  After I returned to Seoul in November, my mother and sister and I stayed up one whole night, talking about what to do. There were things that happened in China that my mother and I had never told Eunmi. We had never even discussed them ourselves. Now the whole world would know the story. Would it be worth it to come forward? I was sure nobody would ever look at me the same way if they knew what had happened to me, and what I had done to survive. For all its bullet trains and modern architecture and K-pop styles, South Korea is still a very conservative country with old-fashioned notions of female virtue. I couldn’t imagine a place for me here when my story came out. And what difference would it make? Would anyone listen? Would anyone care enough to try to change things?

  My mother and sister and I talked and cried all night. My mother, who once had hoped I would come to my senses and drop my activism, had gone through her own transformation. Now she recognized the potential impact of our story.

  “You have to tell the world that North Korea is like one big prison camp,” she said. She wanted people to know why we had to escape, and what happened to North Korean women who were sold in China. “If you don’t speak up for them, Yeonmi-ya, who will?” she said. My sister agreed.

  In the morning, I made my decision. I would write my story fully and completely, holding nothing back about my own trafficking. If my life was to mean anything, it was my only choice.

  As soon as I decided to tell my secret, I felt free for the first time ever. It was like a heavy sky had been pushing down on me, pinning me to the earth, and now it was lifted and I could breathe again.

  • • •

  A few months after I began work on the book, I opened my laptop and followed a link to a YouTube video created by one of North Korea’s propaganda units. As two newsreaders from the state-run television network spoke to the camera, a large photograph of my face appeared on the screen. Ominous music built in the background, like the soundtrack to a horror movie, while the words came into focus: “The Poisonous Mushroom That Grew from a Pile of Garbage.” North Korean media is ridiculed in the West for its outrageous lies and threats, and this insult might even have seemed funny—except that it was deadly serious and aimed at me and my family.

  My detective was right about at least one thing—the North Korean government had been watching me. In early 2015, the regime uploaded two separate videos calling me a liar and a “human rights propaganda puppet.”

  They had sifted through my interviews and attacked me for supposed inconsistencies in my quotes. When the regime couldn’t dispute what I said, they invented lies about me and my family. They accused my mother of being immoral, and my father of being a human trafficker because he had helped our neighbors escape to China. For some bizarre reason, they tried to prove that I had lied about my father’s death, and they produced a doctor to say he had died of cancer in a hospital in North Korea, not in China.

  Worst of all, they paraded my relatives and former friends to denounce me and my family. I hadn’t seen Uncle Park Jin, my aunts, and my cousins in eight long years, and it was horrifying to watch them being interviewed on camera. The regime propagandists even tracked down Jong Ae, our kind neighbor in Hyesan, who had helped me and my sister when we were alone and desperate. It was painful to hear them all say bad things about us, but at least I knew they were alive.

  • • •

  I spent the early months of 2015 visiting New York City, where I was invited to audit a class at Barnard College—I still plan to get my degree someday—and learning everything I could about human rights. One afternoon, I was speed-scrolling through the hundreds of friend requests that had piled up on my public Facebook page when a familiar smile flew by. I backpedaled like a cartoon character spinning away from the edge of a cliff . . . and there she was, Yong Ja! It was my best friend from my childhood in Hyesan. I hadn’t heard from her since the day I left for China.

  “Is this the Yeonmi Park that I know?” t
he Facebook message began. My hands were trembling so much I could barely see the screen. Yes! That’s me! I messaged her right away, and she sent me a number to call. She had escaped to China and, like Eunmi, had made her way through Southeast Asia to South Korea. She found out I was alive and in South Korea while she was being interrogated at the National Intelligence Center, and later she was able to track me down through social media. It was so wonderful to hear her voice again. We immediately picked up our friendship, and now we talk all the time online.

  I keep hoping that more friends from North Korea will find their way to freedom. My mother had always loved Chun Guen, the boy who wanted to marry me in Hyesan, and she even tried to trace him to help him if he wanted to escape. But we heard a very sad story instead. Less than a year after we left North Korea, Chun Guen’s whole family disappeared. The story going around Hyesan was that his father, an agricultural expert, had been blamed by the regime for a disappointing harvest and had been sent to one of the brutal political prison camps. Chun Guen and his mother were sent into internal exile in a small town deep inside one of the northern provinces.

  Chun Guen had promised me that he would wait for eight years, and then he would find me. As I write these words, eight years have passed. I wonder where he is, if he is still alive, if he remembers me at all. Although I have moved on with my life, I hope that he makes it to South Korea someday. Like the 25 million others I left behind, Chun Guen deserves to be free.

  • • •

  In the spring of 2015, my mother returned to China with her partner to recover my father’s remains.

  After hours of searching the hills above Yangshanzhen, they found the spot where I had carried my father’s ashes in the middle of the night, eight years ago. Someone had been tending my father’s grave and had even planted a tree that, for years, had stood next to him like a sentinel. Hongwei had kept his promise.

  My mother brought my father’s ashes back with her to South Korea. We’re finally together again as a family. I hope someday to honor my father’s final request to bring him back to Hyesan, where he can be buried next to his father and grandfather on the hill overlooking the Yalu River. If that time comes, I will visit my grandmother’s grave as well and tell her that, once again, Chosun is whole.

  Yeonmi’s parents at a zoo in Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea

  Yeonmi at one hundred days old

  Yeonmi on her first birthday

  Yeonmi around age two

  Yeonmi (right), her paternal grandfather (middle), and her older sister, Eunmi (left)

  Yeonmi and Eunmi sledding, around ages three and five, respectively

  Yeonmi dressed for the snow, three years old

  Yeonmi and Eunmi, prepared for a snowy day

  Yeonmi, age three (right), and Eunmi, age five (left)

  Family photo, 1996. Yeonmi is three and Eunmi is five.

  Yeonmi and her family in Hyesan, a North Korean city on the border with China

  Yeonmi at three years old

  Yeonmi and Eunmi dressed for the snow

  Family photo in Hyesan

  Yeonmi and Eunmi in matching outfits

  Yeonmi (third row, second from left) and Eunmi (second row, left) at a family wedding in the countryside

  Yeonmi around eight years old in Pyongyang

  Yeonmi’s father in Pyongyang before his arrest

  Yeonmi and her father before his arrest

  The final photo Yeonmi and her mother took of her father before his death

  Together again: Eunmi, mother, and Yeonmi, Seoul 2015

  Acknowledgments

  Maryanne Vollers, without you, this book would not be possible. You showed me not only your intelligence and grace, but a deep and genuine love for the North Korean people and all humanity. It was a great honor and privilege to work with you and to call you my friend.

  I am deeply grateful to the amazing publishing team at Penguin Books: in the UK at Fig Tree, Juliet Annan and Anna Ridley; in the United States at Penguin Press, Ann Godoff and Sarah Hutson.

  Special thanks to Karolina Sutton, Amanda Urban, Matthew J. Hiltzik, and Carlton Sedgeley.

  Thor Halvorssen Mendoza, you are the big brother I found in this new world. You are the best example of how to stand up for justice and fight against tyranny everywhere. Thank you so much for being my mentor and for teaching me all those interesting new words. My admiration for you is endless.

  Thanks to the Human Rights Foundation staff members Alex Gladstein, Sarah Wasserman, Ben Paluba, and John Lechner.

  To my friends and mentors at Liberty in North Korea, Hannah Song, Sokeel J. Park, Justin Wheeler, Blaine Vess, Kira Wheeler, Tony Sasso: When I needed you most, you all helped me understand this new world, and you taught me what it means to be a spokesperson for the North Korean people. All the advice you gave me helped me grow into a better person and become a better advocate for freedom.

  Thanks to Casey Lartigue Jr. for all his encouragement and support from the very beginning, and to all my English tutors who rocked my world.

  Thanks to Jang Jin Sung, my friend and mentor, who helped me understand and survive life on the other side of darkness. Thank you Henry Song, Shirley Lee, and my family of North Korean defectors and freedom fighters who offer me inspiration and friendship: Joseph Kim, Seong Ho Ji, Park Sang Hak, Jihyun Park, and so many others.

  James Chau, thank you so much for crying with me for my people. Your encouragement meant everything to me at a difficult time. Without your support and belief, I would never be who I am today.

  Joshua Bedell: Your generosity and kindness are immeasurable. Thank you so much for teaching me and guiding me with great patience.

  My English family: Charlotte, Adam, Clemency, Madison, and Lucien Calkin, and my good friend Jai J. Smith. Thanks to Bill Campbell and the rest of my Montana family.

  My good friends Alexander Lloyd, Cameron Colby Thomson, Daniel Pincus, Jonathan Cain, Daniel Barcay, Gayle Karen Young, Sam Potolicchio, Dylan Kaplan, Sam Corcos, Parker Liautaud, Axel Halvorssen, Uri Lopatin, Peter Prosol, Masih Alinejad, Tommy Sungmin Choi, Matthew Jun Suk Ha, Wolf von Laer, Ola Ahlvarsson, Ken Schoolland, Jennifer Victoria Fong Chearvanont, Malibongwe Xaba, and Li Schoolland.

  One Young World: Kate Robertson, David Johns, Ella Robertson, Melanie York, Mathew Belshaw, and all the OYW ambassadors. I’m so honored that you have made me a part of your wonderful community. Your support and deep caring for the North Korean people gives me enormous hope and courage to stand up against tyranny everywhere. Your hard work makes this world a better place every day.

  From Women in the World: Tina Brown, Karen Compton, and all the women who inspired me at the conference to be brave and fight for justice, freedom, and equality.

  From Renaissance Weekend: Philip Lader, Linda LeSourd Lader, Dustin Farivar, Eric O’Neill, Christine Mikolajuk, Kerry Halferty Hardy, Frank Kilpatrick, Linda Hendricks Kilpatrick, Yan Wang, Justin Dski, Ben Nelson, Mark A. Herschberg, Katherine Khor, Stephanie A. Yoshida, and Janice S. Lintz.

  Thanks to the producers and staff at Now on My Way to Meet You. And also my professors at Dongguk University, my friends in police administration who helped and encouraged me when I was having a difficult time, and all the refugee schoolteachers and volunteers.

  Special thanks to Judd Weiss, Suleiman Bakhit, Todd Huffman, Katy Pelton, Barnard College president Debora Spar, Dean Jennifer G. Fondiller, Sue Mi Terry, David Hawk, Greg Scarlatiou, Curtis Castrapel, Beowulf Sheehan, Esther Choi and her loving family, Christian Thurston, Daniel Moroz, Cat Cleveland, Eunkoo Lee, Ryung Suh, Justice Suh, Madison Suh, Diane Rhim, Joshua Stanton, Sunhee Kim, Jieun Baek, Felicity Sachiko, Paul Lindley from Ella’s Kitchen, CJ Adams from Google Idea, Austin Wright, John Fund, Mary Kissel, and Michael Lai from Minerva Schools KGI.

  Andrew Moroz: I’ve experienced several miracles in my life, and you are one of t
hem. You have restored my faith in love.

  There are a few people whose names I have changed out of respect for their privacy and concern for their safety, including my dear friend “Yong Ja,” to whom I give my love and thanks. Thanks also to the missionaries in China, the South Korean pastor, and all those whose names could not appear in this book but are written in my heart.

  Keum Sook Byeon, my mother: To be your child has been the greatest blessing and honor in my life. Without your love and sacrifice, I would not exist today. We crossed the icy river and the frozen desert together, and you are the only person who knows me so well that I don’t need words to express my feelings. You were the reason for me to live when I was a captive, and you are the reason for me to live in freedom. You inspire me and give me strength to fight for change in our home country.

  Eunmi Park, my sister: You are my everything, the greatest miracle and joy I have known. I am so grateful for your giant heart, for all the sacrifices you made for me when we were children, and for how you protected me and comforted me during those long months when we had only each other. You were a mother to me and a best friend. Big sister, thank you so much for coming back to us after seven long years and bringing us happiness again. I am so proud of you. You are my light, and I love you more than life itself.

  Park Jin Sik, my father: You are my hero, and I wish you could be here with me to enjoy this freedom. But you are with me all the time, and so I don’t need to say anything here except that I love you and miss you so much.