A Thousand Miles to Freedom (7 page)

 

8

During that frigid night, a pale glow hung over the trees. At the top of the hill, a wisp of gray smoke rose up in the air until it faded into the darkness. We walked closer to the source of the smoke, since we needed to stay warm. We climbed through the forest toward this mysterious glowing fire. It was bitterly cold out, and the strong February winds slapped me in the face. Around the small fire, we were slowly able to make out two crouched figures: a man and a young girl. After seeing how desperate they looked, I thought that maybe they were trying to do the same thing we were—escape the country. My mother started talking to the man, and he confirmed what I suspected. That night, with his daughter, who was even younger that I was, he was planning to risk it all to leave North Korea.

“The ice is hard enough. I've seen people crossing it,” he told us.

Finally, some good news.

“But it's better to wait until the early morning,” he advised us. “The guards don't patrol as much then.”

We were almost at the top of a hill that looked out over the Tumen River. It was the perfect spot to observe the border guards as they walked back and forth. Right in front of us, through the darkness, was China. Our last chance. Our last obstacle was to cross this frozen river, patrolled by guards armed with guns and with instructions to shoot on sight. Hours passed by. My anxiety started to build. I remembered our previous failure. What if this time the soldiers shot us down?

*   *   *

Five hours later, the riverbanks were eerily calm. There was no one in sight. It was our sign to take off. Silently, the five of us headed down the hill, through the forest, toward the Tumen. There were still no guards in sight. The man tested the ice using his foot, to make sure that it really was frozen. The ice appeared solid, covered with a thin blanket of snow. As a precaution, we walked single file, several meters away from one another, to spread our weight evenly along the ice. My mom was the first, followed by Keumsun, then the man and his young daughter. Finally, I started trekking as well. I was the last and did not dare turn back. Behind my back, the ink-black night looked like it was going to snatch me away. I imagined a border guard appearing at any moment and shooting at us. We only had about a hundred meters to cross, but it felt like an eternity. What would happen if I was the only one who didn't make it to the Chinese side? My heart pounding, I started moving faster. Suddenly, I lost my balance. I fell several times while crossing over this slab of ice. As a result, we started walking more slowly, at a turtle's pace, much slower than we had planned. The light of dawn was already starting to surface. We had to hurry. Just a few more meters to go. I caught up to everyone else, and thought that we were safe.

In reality, we were merely on a small islet on the river. We still had to cross several meters on the other side of the river, where the ice looked less solid.

From there, we rearranged our order. The little girl, the lightest, was to start, with me behind her. Timidly, she approached the other side. Suddenly, we heard a huge cracking sound. The young girl had just sunk through the ice right before our eyes. We started panicking and began to head back to the islet. Her legs were submerged up to her knees. She started screaming.

“Have you reached the bottom?” asked her father.

“Yes,” she responded in a frightened voice.

So despite the cold, we started wading through the icy water that burned our skin. We moved forward … just a few more meters, and my feet touched China.

We had finally made it.

I stopped to catch my breath, but my wet clothes had already started to freeze.

We took a few moments of rest, but soon fear overtook us again. We had to get as far away from the river as we could, because if the Chinese police found us, they would send us right back to North Korea. I didn't even want to think about the terrible punishments we would receive back in North Korea if we were caught. We didn't have a minute to lose. Before us, there were fields of corn stretching as far as the eye could see. We had to pass through these fields as quickly as we could to reach the hills in the forest. But my leg was stiff from the cold and I couldn't run. Using all the strength I had left in me, I tried to follow my mom's pace. The hills felt so far away. Finally, after about ten minutes, we made it. I collapsed beneath the trees as the sky began to get light. The sun was shining. It was my first morning outside of my home country.

The first dawn of my new life.

*   *   *

How would the Chinese treat us? I didn't know anything about this country. Hidden behind the trees, I observed the landscape. On the road below, I noticed some men and women on bicycles. They were most likely off to work. This was the first time I'd ever seen Chinese people. On the other side of the road, there were little houses with gardens. This seemed to confirm what our neighbors had told us: China was a rich country. In North Korea, it was rare to own a house, because people usually lived in apartment buildings. I found this new world both strange and fascinating. As a child, I never would have believed that one day I would leave my country behind.

All of a sudden, a man on a bicycle appeared in front of us. He motioned for us to come closer and said something in a language that I couldn't understand. We started panicking. Would he denounce us to the authorities? Immediately, we took off and headed toward the forest without knowing where we were going. Our only objective was to get as far away as possible from the border. After running for quite some time, we were surrounded by silence. We were in the middle of nowhere. I was terribly cold in my frozen-solid clothes. So we stopped right there. The man who had escaped across the river with us made a small fire. I collapsed from exhaustion near the campfire. The heat from the flame felt heavenly. After such a tumultuous night, it was a blessing to finally be able to sleep.

That afternoon, we woke and began walking again, still without knowing where we were going. Our priority was to find something to eat. We were gripped by hunger. As night fell again, we had still not found anything with which to fill our stomachs. We had come to China in order to find food, and here we were, about to starve all over again.

Desperate, my mom knocked on the door of a house on the edge of a small village. Miraculously, a woman opened the door and offered us something to drink … and she spoke in Korean! Apparently, in this region along the border, much of the population was originally Korean. We had arrived at the house of the village's mayor, who welcomed us in with a feast of rice, dumpling soup, and an especially delicious dried tofu. It was left over from the Chinese New Year celebration. The mayor was friendly, but he also gave us a warning.

“Eat everything that you can, and then return to North Korea,” he told us. “It's not safe here for people like you. You will be arrested.”

We did not listen to him. Returning to North Korea was not an option for us. So we slept that night at a construction site in the village.

*   *   *

At the crack of dawn the next morning, I was awoken by a loud commotion around me. The father of the little girl explained to me that some people from the neighboring village had come to find my mother. They were talking with her quite loudly. I felt uneasy about what was happening. Abruptly, my mom turned toward me and looked me right in the eyes.

“These people know a couple who want to adopt a child,” she murmured.

I could hardly understand what she was saying.

“If you want to go with them, you can…” she said, in a pained voice.

I started feeling lightheaded.

Mom tried to convince me. “You will definitely have a better life with them than with me
.
I don't have much left to take care of you with.”

Hearing these words, I almost fainted. I would follow my mom's suggestion if I had to, but I was so heartbroken to hear those words from her—it felt like she was ready to abandon me.

Luckily, the villagers discovered that I was already twelve years old, despite my young appearance. I was too old for the couple and thus had to stay with Keumsun and Mom.

However, our situation now was just as bad as it had been in Rajin-Sonbong. Later that day, the man who had escaped with us and his young daughter left us to go and stay with his parents. We were alone. We had thought that once we crossed the border, everything would somehow magically sort itself out for us. In reality, we were worse off than we had been back home, because here we were living in hiding and at risk of being arrested by the police at any instant.

In fact, Beijing had signed an agreement with its ally Kim Jong-il, stipulating that China was obligated to send back anyone who tried to escape from North Korea. As a result, tens of thousands of North Koreans still live in hiding in Chinese territory, in fear of being caught by the police at any moment. To this day, Chinese authorities ignore the requests of South Korea and of NGOs to provide asylum for North Korean defectors. When we first arrived in China, we were there without a roof over our heads and without food, in addition to fearing that the locals would denounce us.

*   *   *

How long would we be able to last? I asked myself during my afternoon nap that first day in China, as I lay alongside a rice field. Suddenly I felt a presence there next to me, and I opened my eyes. It was a man, standing right above me. I sprang up, with Keumsun and Mom following me. We saw that there was a woman on a bicycle with the man, as well.

“Don't be afraid, I can help you,” she said in Korean.

Instinctively, we fled to hide in an empty farm. But the woman found us again.

“I will help you, I swear! Come with me!”

She sounded kind enough. And at that point we didn't have much to lose, so we followed her. At her house, we celebrated her mother-in-law's eightieth birthday. We were embarrassed about our dirty clothing, so we just stuck to ourselves in a corner. The woman found us some new, clean clothes and then sent us in a taxi that dropped us off in a small village where everything was unfamiliar.

We were shivering the entire journey. But once we arrived at the village, we were put in a small house and provided with food from our guardian angel for three days. I started to recover my strength. It felt so good to be warm again. We stayed in a farmhouse, protected by metal bars. I learned that we were in the middle of Hunchun, one of the important towns of this region that shares a border with North Korea, not very far from the Tumen River. In front of the house, there was no garden, but there was a pigsty where several pigs were grunting and rolling around in the mud. Inside the farmhouse, there were only two rooms. The smaller one was reserved for our savior's two children, whom she took excellent care of. In the bigger room, the five of us—Keumsun, my mom, and I; as well as the woman taking care of us, and her husband—slept on mattresses on the floor.

We felt very lucky—this woman seemed so generous. After meeting her, I felt my spirits lift. I was anxious about our future, so I clung to her in the hope that she could save us. In the span of just a few days, I had realized that life in China was dangerous for refugees like us, living in hiding. Without our hostess, we would be at risk for the worst dangers, particularly arrest. Furthermore, I could not take the chance of crossing the walls next to the pigsty. Behind the walls was the street, where we risked being denounced. So we snuggled comfortably behind these protective walls. But I quickly started to grow bored, since there was nothing to do and no games to play. All I could do to keep myself entertained was to watch the pigs play around in the mud. At least they didn't have the same worries that we did.

Little by little, the woman earned our trust, and she and my mom started developing a friendship. They talked a lot in the bigger room. Secretly, I listened to them as they spoke.

“I know how to ensure your future,” said the woman one morning to my mother. “You will be able to live in safety, send your daughters to school … and even obtain a
hukou
.”

A
hukou
? Was it possible? The
hukou
is a registration document that would grant us permanent residency in China, which would have let us emerge from our lives in hiding.

I listened carefully.

“Marry a Chinese man,” our hostess informed my mother. “You know, they look like they wouldn't make great husbands, but they have money and will treat you well.”

Mom stayed silent. I was shocked. I listened even more attentively. My mother looked like she was giving this wild proposition some serious thought over the course of their conversation. Our hostess told my mom not to spend too long deciding, and then she gave us a few moments alone to think.

My mom felt a little uneasy as she discussed our options with Keumsun and me. Her thought process was very pragmatic: to survive in this country, she needed to find a job. But how did you find a job without documentation? Getting paid under the table seemed too risky. She also thought it would be better to get married because that would ensure, financially, the education of her two daughters. In China, just like in Korea, society frowned upon a mother living alone and raising her children by herself. If getting married meant obtaining a residency permit, then yes, to find a good husband seemed like the perfect solution to our problems.

At first, I was a bit perplexed by my mom's decision, but I decided that I would respect it and trust her judgment. It was my duty as her daughter, and besides, she knew better than I did what was good for us. Over time, I started to believe as well that marriage was our best chance.

In retrospect, I can say today that this willingness to marry a Chinese stranger might seem difficult to understand, but we were desperate. We wanted to ensure our safety at any cost. In China, we felt like we were being watched at every second. How were we supposed to leave this country without help? The solution proposed by our “savior” seemed to me the only possible option. It was either get married, or get arrested and be repatriated to North Korea, where prison or worse awaited us. Besides, this Chinese woman who'd welcomed us in seemed so nice and so helpful—and she promised us a kind and considerate man. What did we have to lose?