Yoon Ha's Story: Part 1 - Life in North Korea
Yoon Ha resettled to South Korea through LiNK’s network about a year ago. She recently shared her story with us. This is part one of three. Continue to part two.
When I was asked, “How was your life in North Korea?” for the first time, I just started crying because my life there was so hard. It was so hard.
When I was a little kid my mom left me, my younger sister, and my dad, because of our financial struggles. I felt so abandoned and unloved.
And even though I was young, I had to start working to contribute to my family’s finances. My sister and I would forage for plants in the mountains and riversides. We carried the herbs, roots, and pinecones on our backs, walking for three hours to get to the marketplace. We sold our stuff so we could get corn powder to eat. And then we would walk the three hours back to our house. It was very, very hard.
In my late teens my father passed away. I was devastated. After a few years of living with relatives, my sister and I moved back to live with our mom again. But we were still very poor. People would make fun of us for being so poor and not having a father around. I felt a lot of shame about my family and living situation.
When I was 22, my mom asked me to start living with a man much older than me to lessen the financial burden on my family. I didn’t like living with him at all.
I decided to leave my hometown to find a better life somewhere else. I walked for a few days to get to Hamhung, one of the biggest cities in North Korea, hoping I could find work there.
In the city, I did a lot of things to make money. I would sell gas lighters and secondhand vinyl. I had to do it secretly because it was illegal. And it never paid well--just enough to buy food. I was staying at homes, cheap inns, empty houses, and even sleeping on the streets and next to graves when I had to. Sometimes I got beaten by people from the city because they didn’t like that I was making money but wasn’t from there.
I worked there for many months, but I couldn’t save any money so I decided to go back to my mom’s place. My mom and my sister were still struggling, and having me back was a burden to them. So I left home again and walked to Pyongyang to find work. In North Korea you need a special permit to move to different cities, and I didn’t have one. I got caught and sent to jail for 10 days.
After I was released, I started walking to other cities again to find work. I knew I might get caught by the police again, but I couldn’t go home. I walked a lot. Walking was the only way I could travel to where I needed to go.
I made it to another town and found work crushing ore to extract gold. The work was illegal and we would do it secretly in people’s houses. In one of these houses, I got beat up and got kicked out. I didn’t do anything wrong; they just didn’t want to pay me. Even after that incident I continued to do the same work in other houses. For the first time in my life, I had made a decent amount of money--enough to buy 100 kg of corn.
I was so happy. I would be able to bring some money to my mom and sister so we could eat food for a while. I also missed my family, so I started heading home.
At a bus station on the way home, a woman and her daughters asked me to get water for them. They stole all of my money and ran away.
I couldn’t handle all the bad things that kept happening to me. It felt like my life was hopeless and pathetic. I went to a river near the bus station to commit suicide. But right when I was about to jump into the river, all of sudden a thought came over me.
“Why do I have to die? Why? I've not done anything wrong. I'm still only in my early 20s.” I made the decision to live and make the better life I wanted.
Instead of going home, I started walking again. I just kept going north. Even though I was so hungry, the hope for a better life drove me to keep walking.
After walking for days, I somehow arrived in Hyesan, a city on the border with China. I saw many people like me, who had been wandering around in search of food and work. I had travelled to many different parts of North Korea, and came to the conclusion that life was difficult everywhere in my country.
A couple in their 30s or 40s approached me and asked how old I was. I told them my age, 23. They asked if I wanted to go to China. They said I could have a better life there.
“A better life? Yeah, I would do anything to have a better life.”
So I decided to go to China with them. I was so focused on having a better life; I didn’t ask many questions. A few days later, in the darkness of night, we crossed the river into China.
Continue reading with part two.
Humans of North Korea: YuSung
The North Korean government made my entire senior class work in the fields during the planting season.
For 40 days straight, we didn’t go to school. We just planted rice in the countryside from dawn to dusk. Even though I hated the work, some of my fondest memories are from that time. I hung out with my friends a lot because we all lived and worked together. We’d sing songs and sneak out to steal corn and potatoes when we were hungry. Then we’d roast them and share them with each other. I loved the feeling of disobeying the rules together.
We’d also hang out with the girls. I had the biggest crush on this one classmate. She had the palest skin and long black hair. In school, it was her job to clean the portraits of the leaders. Every morning she’d take her shoes off and stand on the desk while she wiped the frame with a special cloth. She looked like this beautiful statue standing over the class. It was the highlight of my day watching her do that and I looked forward to seeing her every morning.
She was my first love and while working in the fields I told her how much I liked her. After that, I started stealing corn just for her and we would laugh and talk together. 40 days seemed to go on forever. But the planting season ended and I stopped going to school soon after that because there were rumors my father had defected. I never got to say goodbye and I still think about her and wonder how she’s doing.
"If I saw her today I would walk up to her with a piece of roasted and corn and just say “remember me?”
After my father left for South Korea, the police came to question me and mom nearly everyday. We had to pretend that we had no idea where my dad was even though we knew exactly where he was. The police would sometimes interrogate us for hours waiting for us to slip up. I was still a teenager but I knew that I had to fake my emotions. I would beg the police to find my father and tell them how worried I was that he was missing.
"If I had told them the truth, they would have arrested us immediately.
”We left North Korea a year after my dad made it to South Korea. The police wouldn’t leave us alone so we first went to stay with my grandma. One of our neighbors agreed to let us know when it was safe enough to leave for good. The police bugged our phone so she had to speak in code. One day she called and said “The price of beans has been steadily going down” which meant it was time. When we got that message we left North Korea a few days later. All we had was a small bag and some money with us.
My father is a great photographer and he took a lot of photos in North Korea. We couldn’t bring even a single one with us.
It saddens me to think about all the family photos that are probably gone forever. I wish we just had one.
The first time I saw my father again was in Hanawon (South Korean resettlement center for newly arrived North Koreans). I couldn’t say anything and just started crying because he was crying. He brought me strawberries and the first thing he said to me was “eat this strawberry”.
I had never seen a strawberry that big and my first words to him in years were “Are these real strawberries?!”.
— Yusung Park, escaped North Korea in 2008
