Returning Home to a Free North Korea | A Glimpse of Reunification in 2045
By: Eunsook Jang
Eunsook is a 2024 LiNK US Scholarship grantee, a Fulbright Scholar, and a North Korean defector pursuing a master’s degree in international development at Brandeis University, where she focuses on post-conflict, economic, and human development. She holds a bachelor’s degree in political science and international peace from Korea University.
In the spring of 2045, on a flight from Incheon to Pyongyang, Emma's hands tremble. Her husband Sam reaches over and, steadily, holds them without a word. She turns to the window and stares into the pale clouds below the wing.
“I’ve waited 30 years for this day,” she whispers. “But now that I’m here… it doesn’t feel real. I hope this isn’t a dream.”
“Maybe it’s both,” Sam replies. “The dream became real.”
She closes her eyes. In 2015, at just fifteen years old, she crossed the frozen Yalu River in a dark March morning, leaving without saying a proper goodbye to her mother. That guilt, its intensity, has never faded, not even after thirty years. It simply learns to live quietly beside her.
“Will Mom recognize me?” she asks. “We parted when I was fifteen. I’m forty-five now.”
“She will,” Sam answers. “How could a mother not recognize her daughter?”
Emma says nothing. Will I... be able to recognize her? She does not say it aloud this time.
An announcement comes through the cabin speakers: "This is the first return flight for North Korean defectors to their hometowns. We know how much you have endured. We will carry you safely home."
It is a rare moment of comfort from a South Korean voice. Moments later, the plane lifts into the sky.
An hour later, the plane lands in Pyongyang. Emma weeps quietly, overwhelmed by the thought that across so short a distance, lives in the South and the North had been so utterly, irreconcilably different. For thirty years, she had not been able to cross it, that gap, so small.
From Pyongyang, the journey to Hyesan continues by bus. As the skyline of Pyongyang passes past the window, its taller buildings, its broad avenues, Emma allows herself the fragile hope: perhaps Hyesan has developed too.
After five hours on the road, the bus arrives at Hyesan Station. The apartments and the lay of the land are almost entirely unchanged from when she had left thirty years earlier, as if time had refused to move, as if it had been waiting for her. Emma found herself hoping the same might be true of her mother.
A thirty minutes' walk from the station: that is where her mother's house is.
As if drawn by a magnet, her feet start moving on their own.
Sam asks if they are going the right way. Without hesitation, "Yes," Emma replies. "I used to walk this road every day as a child. It’s still in my body."
He points to a bus queue down the street. "There's a bus queue over there. Want to take it part of the way?" She shakes her head gently. "If you don't mind, I'd like to walk." "Then we’ll walk," he replies without hesitation. Emma feels another surge of gratitude, grips on his arm and follows her memory home.
Since Emma left her hometown in 2015, the North Korean regime has conducted ten more nuclear tests as of 2045. And yet the face of this neighborhood has not changed by a single detail. The freedom and human rights that should have been the people's return on those tests have been vaporized into the air.
They arrive at a fork in the road. To the left, an alley leads toward the house. A familiar-looking house comes into view, enclosed by a wooden fence. She stops and stands motionless. It is the house, it is her house.
Several minutes pass. Then the door opens. Emma feels her breath catch. For a second, she forgets how to move.
After thirty years, she is here.
This is what the micropolitics of reunification looks like. Grand narratives, speeches, and legal texts may provide its official language, but its lived realities lie in moments, in feelings, like this: a mother and daughter recognizing each other after thirty years apart.
Author’s note: I dedicate this piece to my father in South Korea, who has never once wavered in encouraging my studies, as if realizing through me the freedom to pursue the dreams that were taken from him. And to my mother, who remains in North Korea: This piece is my proof that your daughter has not turned away from your suffering, but is working, in her own small way, to fight against it. I hope to see you, even if only in my dreams tonight. I love and miss you beyond my expression.
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Eunsook is a participant of the LiNK English Language Program (LELP), which serves to not only help North Korean defectors build confidence and skills in English, but develop their capacity as advocates for this issue. To that end, we partnered with select LELP “columnists” to write and polish personal essays through multiple rounds of external feedback and revision. Our goal is to have more North Koreans share their stories directly and lead efforts to change the narrative.
We believe the North Korean people can achieve their liberty in our lifetime.
Opportunities like LELP invest in the people building that future now. Help more North Koreans find their voice, reach their goals, and lead change on this issue.
I Left North Korea As a Child. My Life’s Work is to Return Home to a Free Country | Rose’s Story
As a child in North Korea, I loved quiet, warm mornings. At dawn, I’d wake to the sound of breakfast being made in the kitchen. When my feet grew cold, I’d burrow deeper into my grandfather's blanket. A day that began with the smell of a home-cooked meal was nothing special then—just an ordinary morning.
Growing up, I lived with my grandparents. We worked the fields together, swam in the Yalu River side by side, and grew tomatoes, eggplants, and cucumbers in a small garden. In the summers, my cousins and I played in the mountains and gathered wild strawberries. Every fall, I always looked forward to the corn harvest.
This was the world I knew, and I was quite happy with it.
My mother's work as a broker—helping families separated by the border reunite or at least connect via phone—and her other job selling smuggled CDs containing Korean dramas eventually led to her arrest. She was released quickly but was placed under close surveillance. With no other way to support our family, she made the difficult decision to defect. It was a choice made easier, she later told me, by the countless South Korean dramas she had watched over the years that offered a glimpse into a life outside North Korea.
One winter vacation, my mother said, "Let’s go on a trip." I could barely contain my excitement. I had rarely ventured far from my hometown and thought I was finally traveling somewhere new. My grandmother gave me a warm boiled egg and told me to be safe. I didn’t know that would be the last time I would ever see her.
The journey never stopped. We left in winter and ended up in Southeast Asia, where summer never ends. Only then did I realize this trip was an escape. And it was only one-way.
When we finally arrived in South Korea, I couldn’t accept my new reality. I was only a child, but in my heart, I knew I’d never see my grandparents again. It felt like a cruel trick.
But life carried on, and I found myself adapting to South Korean society pretty quickly. I changed my accent and learned things by asking friends. Even at a young age, I instinctively felt the need to fit in. I was proud of myself for not looking or sounding like a North Korean.
Then one day in our elementary school classroom, the topic of North Korea came up. At that moment, I felt everyone’s eyes on me.
Although no words were spoken, the silence between me and my classmates felt like a wall.
As much as I tried to push it away, that feeling continued to follow me. In middle school, while watching a soccer game with friends and cheering for South Korea, someone said, “Shouldn’t you be rooting for North Korea?” I felt the color drain from my face. Once again, I felt the gap between me and them. And I wondered if I could ever close the distance.
Years later, in university, a professor mistakenly thought my South Korean friend was North Korean. She strongly denied it and took great offense, demanding a formal apology from the professor. Seeing her reaction, I wondered what it said about me. This incident left a deep scar on my heart.
As time went on, I realized that I wasn’t as well-adapted as I thought. I had been living my life avoiding who I was. Whenever the topic of North Korea came up in conversation, I cringed and tried to change the subject. When my family in North Korea would secretly call us, I would hang up the phone after a brief greeting, afraid I’d burst into tears. I couldn’t face how much I missed them, because I didn’t want to accept that I may never see them again.
Amidst these complex emotions, I began my work on North Korean human rights. I wanted to change how North Koreans were portrayed as “pitiful,” or “dangerous.”
But doing this work scared me at first. If I shared my story, would people look at me again with those silent, disapproving eyes? Then I began to understand something important—those fears came from my own hidden prejudice. If I believed that North Koreans would only be seen in a certain way, didn’t that also mean it was how I saw them?
Confronting the deepest parts of myself allowed me to finally embrace who I was. I stopped hiding, and began to explore the thoughts and feelings I had suppressed for so long.
In 2022, I took part in Liberty in North Korea’s Co-Creators program. It’s a unique opportunity for North and South Korean students to work together on advocacy projects. Our team’s project was called “North Korea Travel.” We highlighted different regions of the country and shared facts about life there, leading naturally into conversations about human rights.
As I worked on this project, it occurred to me how much I actually didn’t know about my own country. Due to the regime’s strict restrictions on movement, I never traveled beyond my hometown until the day I left North Korea for good. When I explained this to participants, they listened attentively and said it was their first time learning about it.
Their sincerity caught me off guard. I realized that prejudice often does not come from malice, but simply from a lack of knowledge and understanding.
After that experience, I knew I wanted to continue creating moments of connection and understanding about North Korea. I figured the perfect way to reach people would be through the medium I know best: architecture.
For my graduation project, I designed a North Korean Human Rights Memorial Hall. I chose Imjingak, near the DMZ, as the symbolic location. The space I conceptualized commemorates the sorrow of separation, and allows visitors to experience the "surveillance," "chaos," and "oppression" North Koreans face in their daily lives.
The Pantheon in Rome directs our gaze toward the sky. I turned that idea upside down. In my design, the ceiling collapses into the ground, trapping people beneath, like the crushing weight of the regime’s oppression.
On the opposite wall, the names of loved ones are carved into stone, representing those we miss dearly. Before politics, before ideology, these are mothers and fathers, grandparents and children. This is a space where people can freely miss and yearn for the people they left behind. And it is a reminder that North Korea is home to our families, friends and neighbors.
Last year, when I visited the Holocaust Memorial in Washington DC, I felt that it was more than just a commemorative site. It was a space that showcased how to confront humanity's darkest history to ensure that such things are never repeated again.
Standing there, I hoped that one day, the human rights abuses faced by North Koreans would also just be a memory for us to reflect on.
I no longer hide my identity. My story began in North Korea, in a beautiful city by the Yalu River. Even now, on quiet mornings, my thoughts drift back to my grandparents’ house. I want the world to see North Korea like I do—through the warmth of ordinary days and the humanity of its people.
I dream of returning home one day, when all North Koreans can live free and full lives. Until then, I will continue to speak through the language of space and the power of stories.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights begins with this: "all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights." These aren’t just words on paper, but a reality that we can create together.
Please join me today to advance freedom and human rights for all North Koreans.
In 2025, Rose traveled across the US, sharing her story and advocating for the North Korean people as a LiNK Advocacy Fellow. Our capacity-building programs are cultivating the next generation of North Korean activists and leaders who are bringing change to their homeland.
Help empower more North Korean refugees with opportunities to grow, like Rose.
