A Thousand Miles to Freedom (13 page)

“I'm coming to Shanghai. I can't stand it here anymore.”

One week after my return to Dalian, I was on my way again, headed south. I left my mom behind, and I hoped that in this strange and mysterious new city a new, more pleasant chapter would unfold in my life.

After reaching the Shanghai station, I follow Keumsun's instructions to find her at her workplace. This city was nothing like Dalian. It was a labyrinth that felt even more immense, with narrow streets swarming with people, and it was very dirty. Finally, I found myself in front of a Korean supermarket. It was there that Keumsun had found a job as a cashier. She worked so hard that she didn't even have time to come pick me up at the station. But I was extremely happy to see her again. After a few minutes of catching up, I realized that she was getting along quite well here, and she shared a room with a coworker.

Later, when the store was a little less hectic, Keumsun told me she had had a hard time at first, when she got here, without any friends or family with her. She did not have enough money to survive without a job. With no better options, she spent several nights sleeping at the station like a hobo. But here there were opportunities for employment if you were willing to look for them. She gave me tips on how to find a job here as well. The first step was to obtain some fake papers for myself. To my great surprise, I discovered that nothing was easier than forging identification in this city. There were flyers everywhere advertising fake IDs for a mere hundred yuan (less than fifteen dollars). All you had to do was call the number on the flyer, bring a photo—and of course some money—and before you knew it, you had a fake residency permit. At the time, ID cards were very rudimentary and it was quite easy to fake them.

In Shanghai, a residency permit, even if it was a fake, opened doors. I quickly landed myself a job as a waitress in a restaurant run by South Koreans. My working conditions were much better than they had been at the bakery, and my coworkers were very nice to me. Little by little, I started to find my niche within the city, largely thanks to my sister.

But one day, four months after I arrived, Keumsun looked simultaneously excited and rueful. She told me, “Mom called. She tried to go back to the farm again, to see Chang Qian … but it went badly. She wants to come join us.”

And so we were all once more reunited. My mother also obtained some false papers when she got here, and the three of us moved together into a room.

*   *   *

In the anonymity of this city in the middle of an economic boom, we started a new life. Keumsun was the first one to be able to take care of herself. She even fell in love with a Chinese boy. I wasn't quite that at ease here just yet, but I became acquainted with the culture of South Korea thanks to my work in the restaurant. It was my first time making contact with our “enemies” to the south, and it went rather well. They spoke Korean with a different accent, but they ate the same things we do. We could understand each other. Growing up, I was taught in school that South Korea was “the puppet regime of the imperialist Americans,” and that it was preparing to invade us at any moment. In Shanghai, for the first time, I was able to form my own opinions. I started to watch South Korean television shows. Over time, I became a fan of South Korean dramas, discovered K-pop, and even became a fan of artists who have become stars in China. I will remember forever the first CD I ever bought.

Our material living conditions were also steadily growing better and better. My mother too found a job of her own. She started working as a housemaid again, this time for two South Korean expatriates who shared a big house. They were very generous and rather pleased to find an employee who spoke their language. There, Mom made eighteen hundred yuan per month, just a bit over two hundred dollars—not bad at all. Whenever they left to go back to South Korea during their vacations, her bosses gave us the keys so that we could stay at their place. What luxury! Especially in comparison to the slums that we had been living in for seven years. One day, the day before the
Seollal
, the Korean New Year, they even gave us a hundred-dollar bill before boarding the plane for South Korea.

*   *   *

Little by little, I started to dream about going to South Korea. In Shanghai, thanks to the South Koreans who treated us so nicely, I rediscovered my roots, my native language, and formed a clearer picture of the world. But I couldn't study, nor hope to find a good job, as long I was here illegally. I didn't want to be an illegal resident, or to live with fake identification, for the rest of my life. Here, we still lived in constant fear of getting arrested. In South Korea, I would finally be able to live my life in the open. Maybe I could even start going to school again. I learned that in South Korea, the government granted South Korean citizenship to all escapees from North Korea, as long as you could prove that you weren't a spy.

The only issue was getting there. The Chinese police closely monitor the South Korean embassy and consulates. It was impossible to go through that route. The only thing we could do was travel through another country to get to our promised land. But how could we do that without passports?

*   *   *

Eventually, we learned that there were smuggling rings that could get people to South Korea. But you had to pay, and pay a lot. And how were we to make contact with any of these smugglers?

A friend and colleague of ours clandestinely gave us the phone number of a smuggler. In 2006, summoning up all my courage, I called this mysterious number. A brusque masculine voice answered. It told me the conditions of the deal: twenty thousand yuan (almost twenty-five hundred dollars) per head, to be paid in cash in China, and then the same to be paid by credit card once we made it to Seoul. It was a huge sum of money for us. I asked him for details.

“Where will we pass through? Is it dangerous? Are we sure to arrive at the right place?”

The questions just flowed from my mouth. But the man was not very talkative and did not want to engage in conversation. He obviously didn't want to stay on the line any longer than absolutely necessary. His answers were very vague. The only thing he was clear about was the price. However, he added that in a few days, one group would be leaving and that if we wanted to join them, we had to make a decision soon. Very, very soon.

I hung up, troubled.

For this offer, the options were either to take it or leave it, with little information and no guarantee of success. And all the risks involved were ours.

For three days, we thought things through. Were we ready to risk everything again? To hit the road once again and give up the comfort that we had finally been able to enjoy for two years in Shanghai? Did we still dare to run the risk of getting arrested at the border and then getting sent back to the hell that is North Korea? Furthermore, the smuggler had seemed a bit sketchy. When we talked to him again on the phone, he asked us for even more money.

Keumsun was hesitant. She decided to remain in China. She did not want to be separated from her boyfriend.

*   *   *

But this time, I was determined. I decided that I was going to leave and hope for better things in South Korea. And seeing how determined I was, my mom decided to come with me. Maybe she just didn't want me to go alone. It was an all or nothing decision. The year was 2006, and it had been nine years that we had been wandering all over. My mom and I did not want to spend the rest of our lives trembling at the idea of getting arrested and once again being sent back to a country that wasn't exactly going to welcome us with open arms. We wanted to have a future, a real future. So we saved up as much money as we could, and told the smuggler that we would accept his deal. I told my boss that I had to quit my waitress job, without giving him any details, and he didn't ask for any. I think he understood the situation.

Over the phone, the smuggler left me private instructions: make your way to the Mongolian border, where you will meet us.

It was the last step before reaching paradise … or another living hell.

 

14

After getting off the bus, I called the smuggler to let him know we were there, just as we had arranged beforehand. In the crowd of the Erenhot bus station, we anxiously waited for our liberator. I still had my qualms. We were in a small town near the border in a Chinese province called Inner Mongolia. It felt like we were in the middle of nowhere. This province adjoins the neighboring country of Mongolia, an independent nation that fought for centuries against China. It was through this country that we had to escape, according to the explanations given to us on the phone. We were at the mercy of many people: the border guards, the Chinese police, and even this smuggler, whom I still wasn't sure I completely trusted.

Mom and I had just traveled through half of China with our savings hidden in our clothing and with fear in our hearts. We had first boarded the train toward Beijing, then gotten on a bus heading northwest toward the Mongolian border.

Erenhot is the last Chinese city on the route toward Ulan Bator, the capital of Mongolia. However, before getting there, we would have to cross through vast deserts. We had no idea if our plan was going to work. And we were always terrified of getting sent back to North Korea in case we failed.

*   *   *

Suddenly, two shady-looking men approached us. They turned out to be the smugglers we'd been communicating with. We started heading toward their car, but once we were in the vehicle, we felt even less at ease. Instead of reassuring us and explaining to us what would happen, they immediately started asking us for the money. These two Chinese men, who were ethnically Korean, threatened us and demanded that we immediately take out our cash. My mother had a bad feeling about everything and took me outside in a frenzy.

“It's a trap!” Mom said to me. “All they want is to take our money from us! We can't leave our fate in the hands of these two thugs.”

Distraught, we went to take refuge in a public sauna in this unfamiliar city. But had we really come all this way just to abandon our plans at the last minute? One of the two men called the cell phone we had saved up for before embarking on this journey and insisted that we complete the deal. Finally, we agreed to negotiate with them.

We made our way through a labyrinth of narrow, deserted streets and headed toward a small, dilapidated house on the outskirts of Erenhot. The two men led us into the first room. It was very dirty, and the only piece of furniture there was a bed. This house did not look like it was lived in very often; it looked more like a crack house. At the end of the room, there was a door that led to another room. There, we found three North Korean women. They were here for the same reason we were. But they had not spent even one yuan, because they were members of a Christian church that was paying for their trip to freedom. They were highly religious, which made us feel a little better, a little safer.

Later I would learn that American Protestant missionaries and South Koreans played a crucial role in getting North Korean escapees to Seoul. They have money, networks, and contacts in strategic places, and were willing to take big risks to help transpot North Koreans safely to South Korea. Their generosity was not without some self-interest, however. One of their objectives was to increase the number of followers in their community in Seoul. But this was hardly too much to ask, considering they were helping us escape from a life of tyranny and hiding.

Meeting these women made us feel a bit more at ease. After all, these smugglers knew what they were doing, right? With no better alternatives, we decided to take the risk. We took out our savings to pay the smugglers. The deal was done. We gave out twenty thousand yuan each to the two men. Had we just gotten swindled? We were about to find out.

*   *   *

Our departure was scheduled for the second day, but we had to wait until night to make our escape, to minimize the risk of getting caught and subsequently repatriated to North Korea. The day seemed to drag on forever, especially since we had no say in our own departure plans. We were still unclear about what was going to happen to us, and how we were supposed to reach Seoul, which was far from here. The smugglers were, as always, taciturn.

Night finally started to descend over Erenhot, and then it was completely dark. Around ten p.m., the two men, still stoic, gave us the signal. It was time to go. In front of the house, an old, beat-up car was waiting for us. There were seven of us total, and we were supposed to fit in this piece of junk that was meant to hold at most five people. The two men took the front seats, and the five of us sat in the backseat, packed together like sardines. Since I was the smallest, I sat on the others' knees. The car jolted to a start and then crept along the deserted streets.

Then we reached the main streets, which were lit up by streetlamps. But after a quarter of an hour went by, they started to dim, until we were completely enveloped by darkness. There weren't any people or civilization around us for miles. Thanks to the white glow of the streetlamps there, I could see that the fields were starting to get more and more arid the farther we went. The trees, which were already sparse, gradually disappeared, and they were replaced with a scenery of rocks and the occasional shrub. We began to feel like we were in the middle of a desert.

After some time, we made our way off the asphalt road on to a bumpier path. Inside the car, you could cut the tension with a knife. The two men remained silent, and each one of us stayed lost in our thoughts, imagining the dangers in store during the next few hours. There was no going back now, but we still didn't know anything about our itinerary.

All of a sudden, in front of us, bright white lights lit up the night. Immediately, our driver turned off the headlights of the car and slowed down. As soon as he found a spot on the side of the road where he could do so, he pulled over and shut off the engine. The other car and its headlights were getting closer. The tension mounted higher and higher. We were desperately hoping that it wasn't the police or border patrols. The border patrols were a regular sight in this region. The vehicle continued approaching us without slowing down. It grew larger and larger before passing us, leaving a cloud of dust in its trail. Thankfully, it was just a regular car, not one containing uniformed men. The red lights on the back of the car started slowly disappearing. Outside, it was total darkness again, and we were enveloped by silence. Our driver turned the key, turned on the headlights, and soon we left our hiding spot to continue on the bumpy road.