Yoon Ha's Story: Part 3 - Making it to South Korea
This is the third part of a three-part story. Read part one about the hardships Yoon Ha experienced growing up in North Korea, and part two about being trafficked in China.
After connecting with LiNK’s network, I had to hike up more mountains to get out of China. It was very difficult being eight-months pregnant. My legs hurt and began to swell up a lot. It was really dark and I fell a few times. It was so hard - I was completely exhausted.
There were other North Koreans escaping China with me and they were pulling me and helping me up. Whenever I wanted to give up, they encouraged me.
“We must go. We must go to South Korea to live. To live…”
I felt like it was my responsibility to keep going and to survive for myself and my daughter. The journey getting out of China was so tough. I was worried that my unborn baby might have died because I didn’t feel the baby moving in my stomach for a while.
After many months in government processing and after going through the Hanawon resettlement education center, I was finally able to live freely in South Korea. I was overjoyed.
Thankfully, my baby survived and I had a beautiful baby daughter right after I came to South Korea. More than a year later now, I am thankful that she is growing well and is in good health.
In North Korea, the police oppressed me, keeping me from doing what I needed to do to survive. And in China, the police were trying to find North Korean refugees who were living in hiding. They wanted to send us back to North Korea, even though they knew we would be brutally punished by the regime. Whenever the police came around, I locked all the doors and hid in fear until they left town. So at first, I was scared of the police in South Korea.
I got to know my assigned police officer and realized he is just a person like me and we are not that different. (Every resettled North Korean refugee in South Korea is assigned a police officer for their first five years. They check in on them on a regular basis, and provide basic legal advice and special protection if necessary.)
We talked openly and he shared about the challenges he had when he was younger. He calls me once a week to see how my daughter and I are doing. He has brought us fruit and diapers for my daughter. He is so sweet. He also helped me with paperwork, paying bills, and getting my phone fixed when it broke. I really appreciate him and now he feels like a friend to me.
Thanks to people like him, I can sleep well.
I have been surrounded by many good people from my church community, the Hana Center (the local South Korean government resettlement assistance center) and my designated police officer.
It felt so good to talk freely with many people in my first language--Korean. I had lived in China for many years and when I first went there, I knew no Chinese. I struggled so much with communicating and I couldn’t talk to people freely either because of the fear of getting caught.
Now I can talk to anyone without worrying about getting caught.
I am so glad I came to South Korea. My life here is much better than my life in North Korea or China. I feel very safe and free in South Korea.
I am still learning the meaning of freedom as I experience it in this new society. I can do what I want and go where I want to go. I can go somewhere just to have fun and no one stops me.
That is freedom to me, and I am living it right now.
Lost Stories from North Korea — A Life With No Exit
By Jane
Jane is a participant of LiNK’s Intensive English Program (LIEP), designed to build the capacity of North Korean English speakers at the intermediate level. In partnership with the British Council, LIEP aims to cultivate participants’ communication and critical thinking skills in English. LIEP is complementary to our broader LiNK English Language Program (LELP), which supports speakers of all proficiency levels.
When I was young, we lived in the countryside. Like the other kids, I had to help my mom with farming. It was hard work. From spring to fall, everything was difficult. Carrying a heavy load on my back, climbing up the mountain, my hands covered in blisters from using farming tools—I would often return home late, completely exhausted.
Our field was located at the top of a high mountain. From there, I could look down and see the Amnok River flowing, with a railway track stretching beside it. One spring day when I was around 13, I was resting at the top of the mountain, looking down at the train passing by below.
Watching it move slowly like a caterpillar, I thought to myself, "I want to get on that train and go somewhere far away." That was the first time I dreamed of escaping. We were living in a prison with no exit, no hope.
Eventually, I managed to escape from that life in that prison. But my mother must have continued climbing that mountain and working in that field for many more years. Perhaps, during her moments of rest, she would look down at the river and the railroad. Perhaps, she thought about me, who had left for a place far away.
Now, I am living well in South Korea, as a mother of one myself. I carry dreams and hope in my heart. But not everyone has been as fortunate as I have in finding a way out.
I have a friend, a North Korean defector now living in the United States, who once shared a story that moved me to tears. A few years ago, she fled North Korea with her two young daughters and eventually made her way to America. She attempted to reach South Korea twice. The first time, she set out with her daughters, ages seven and eleven. They wandered for days through the vast Baekdudaegan mountains. When their water ran out, she dug into the earth with her bare hands, squeezing out a few drops to moisten their mouths.
Along the way, they came across the bodies of two people, sitting with their backs leaning against each other in the middle of a field. From their clothes, she could tell they were North Koreans, their bodies already beginning to decompose. Fearing that she and her daughters might meet the same fate, she decided to turn back and return to North Korea.
As I listened to her story, I couldn’t hold back my tears. Who were those two souls lost in the mountains? Where had they been trying to go? How long had they wandered? They might have been so exhausted that after sitting back to back, they couldn’t get up again. What thoughts filled their minds in their final moments?
That’s why I want to be a writer—to share these stories with the world.
For the people in North Korea who still dream of breaking free from a life with no exit, and for the nameless souls who never made it to freedom.
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Opportunities like LiNK’s Intensive English Program (LIEP) are helping North Koreans find their voice, reach their goals, and lead change on this issue. Your support can help us continue to make an impact in the lives of North Korean refugees, like Jane.
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