Dear Leader (24 page)

Such was the background to Kim Jong-il’s ignoring of the UFD’s advice. To make his point, he had sent us the Foreign Ministry’s summit agenda at the last minute, as a token reprimand for our arrogance in criticising him. This was received as a clear warning, because by default Kim Jong-il usually trusted the UFD on every aspect of North Korea’s engagement and diplomacy with the outside world. Emerging from tense give-and-take games sustained for decades, the UFD was in fact a peerless, finely tuned organisation, whose mission was to create the best possible circumstances and context for ensuring that all kinds of ‘diplomacy’ and ‘engagement’ were conducted in a way favourable to the Party. In the context of our special relationship of trust, it had been humiliating for the UFD to have to refer to an agenda prepared by the Foreign Ministry. Nevertheless, we had been concerned that the prospect of US$11.4 billion of aid would blind Kim Jong-il to the long-term implications.

In the end, the summit of September 2002 that culminated in Kim Jong-il’s apology was a disaster for him in every way possible. As the extraordinary news spread throughout Japan and beyond, both the US$11.4 billion in aid, and the Jochongryon, which functioned as an outpost and foreign currency safe in Japan for North Korea, came to be at risk. Kim Jong-il allowed five kidnapped Japanese to visit their homeland as a gesture of goodwill, but that didn’t help. Adding insult to injury, the five refused to return to North Korea. Kim Jong-il was enraged, and insisted that there would be no further summits with Japan during his lifetime unless Japan paid him the foreign currency he demanded. He reaffirmed the rule that ‘Diplomacy is a counter-intelligence operation’ and removed from the Foreign Ministry the right to diplomatic involvement on any issue connected with the kidnappings, returning control of these matters to the UFD.

BY THE TIME
I had finished outlining the Seed-bearing Strategy, Mr Shin was leaning forward, listening intently. He had kept a somewhat condescending distance from us since our first meeting, but seemed to soften after my account. As if to introduce himself to us for the first time, he told us that he was thirty-two and that he had been born in Yanji. He had worked for five years as a broker helping North Korean refugees escape from China, and boasted that he had contacts in the intelligence agency in South Korea. He added that anyone working with North Korean refugees was monitored by the Chinese authorities, and that he had already had to move house several times.

He glanced over at his wife as he told us this. The many moves explained why the apartment was so devoid of personal belongings even though they were newlyweds building a new life together. He now wanted to settle in South Korea and have some stability, even if it meant doing menial jobs there. He sighed as he spoke, and I felt that we still weren’t safe in his hands. However, on learning that Mr Shin’s wife was from North Korea’s North Hamgyong Province, my trust in him increased, though Young-min did not yet seem convinced.

‘Breakfast is ready!’ Mrs Shin declared from the other room.

As soon as we joined her, I exclaimed that it was wonderful to meet another North Korean, and Young-min and I both asked eagerly about her story and her hometown. But her face remained blank, as
if to ask why we were making such a fuss about her past. She spoke only to tell us to tuck into our food, and we fell silent.

She brought out steaming rice and a tofu stew with red chilli oil floating on it. The chopsticks and spoon were carefully placed next to our food. Even if she was a bit unfriendly on the outside, she was clearly a warm-hearted woman. This was the first proper sit-down home-cooked meal we’d been able to enjoy since crossing the river, so I immediately picked up my spoon. Then I realised that the low table was too small for four adults, and that only three places had been set. I noticed a bowl and chopsticks placed on the floor in the kitchen area and saw that she had already sat down beside them. Before I could ask her to join us, she put a spoonful of rice into her mouth.

‘Come, let’s all eat together out here,’ Young-min called out. She lowered her eyes and turned away from us. North Korea is a patriarchal society, which went straight from feudal Confucianism to Kim dynastic rule. The plight of women becomes much worse the further north you venture from Pyongyang, and the cold and harsh climate only makes their domestic work harder. But to witness such an example of North Korean provincialism in a foreign land embarrassed me. Mr Shin sighed too, saying they needed to buy a bigger table. To cover the awkwardness, he explained at length that when there were guests, there wasn’t enough room. But I felt grateful that this man had married a poor North Korean woman for love, and this made me respect him more.

Mr Shin finished eating first, rose and put on his coat. Slipping our statements and photographs and copies of our identification documents into an envelope, he said, ‘The Chinese authorities sometimes check the post. That’s why I’m going to give this directly to a boatman who will sail to Incheon port in South Korea. Within five days, we will get a call or a visit from the South Koreans. Then you’ll be able to make your way to Seoul.’

Before he left the house, he turned and told us that South Koreans
would on such occasions of uncertain hope shout
Pa-ee-ting!
– which means ‘Fighting!’ in Korean. Young-min and I looked at each other and shouted ‘
Pa-ee-ting!
’ and gave each other a high-five. We were going to shout it again, but Mr Shin’s wife spoke first. ‘Be careful!’ she warned him.

About three hours later, the doorbell rang. Mr Shin had not yet returned, and any unexpected sound made us jump. Mrs Shin peered through the peephole before opening the door. Even this precaution made us nervous and, as she undid the bolt, I was concerned that she might be about to let trouble into the house. When the door was opened, there was a loud racket as several women kicked off their shoes and walked in. It looked like they had all bought their clothes cheaply in the same shop, and they were wearing flimsy coats, one with a tacky yellow zipper. One of the women had a baby on her back. Speaking in a heavy northern accent very similar to Mrs Shin’s, they asked her to shut the door quickly, saying that there were police everywhere today, and that they had almost been stopped.

When they noticed us, the women fell silent. As she bolted the door, Mrs Shin called out from behind them, ‘Don’t worry, they’re North Koreans too, friends of my husband’s.’ I was a little worried that she might be carelessly giving away our identity.

With the arrival of the women and their conversations, Young-min and I withdrew into our smaller room and closed the door. I was curious to hear what they were saying, but with their heavy accents and Chinese words mixed in here and there, it was almost unintelligible.

Mr Shin returned an hour later. He seemed to know the women well, because the gathering burst into life when he came in, but he left them immediately and came to see us in our room and return our documents.

‘How did it go? Were you able to send our papers?’ I asked as soon as he came in.

‘Yes, I’ve sent copies of everything,’ he answered.

More than the words he said, his confident smile was reassuring. I asked who the women in the other room were, and Mr Shin checked to see if the door was closed behind him before answering. He then leaned in and spoke in a low voice.

‘They’re victims of human trafficking who have managed to escape.’

‘Human trafficking? What’s that?’ Young-min asked, and I was just as curious.

Mr Shin replied, ‘In China there are fewer women than men and some villages have no women at all. These men, they can’t get married unless they have money. And Chinese women are said to be quite daunting. Remember Empress Cixi who ruled this place a century ago? She was very fierce. Anyway, there are quite a few men who specialise in kidnapping North Korean women as soon as they cross the border into China. Lots of people who speak Korean in the border area have connections with criminal organisations.’

‘But not Chang-yong?’ Young-min asked, hoping that the answer would be no.

Mr Shin replied, ‘I’m not saying this because he’s my uncle but, really, he’s just a simple farmer who only knows about his cattle and his crops. People like him will never get on in life,’ he added bluntly. ‘You two are really lucky. If you had met the wrong kind of people, you might have been held hostage until the South Korean spies could produce enough ransom money.’

I remembered Chang-yong’s face on the way to his mother-in-law’s house, when he’d told us how lucky we were to have met a simple farmer like him. Mr Shin slid closer to us as we sat on the floor. He continued, ‘Do you know what they call North Korean women over here?’

We shook our heads.

‘Pigs. In the Chinese countryside, pigs are valuable, so people call the women pigs. They’re graded according to their age and
appearance. A grade one ‘pig’ fetches around 200,000 won; grade two goes for 150,000 won; and a grade three will bring in 100,000 won. The brokers, who act as middlemen, take half the selling price as their fee. Grade one is equivalent to about US$1500. If you get sold for that amount, at least you go to a better house.

‘Below that amount, the women get taken to very remote farms or are married to disabled men who can’t find wives. They spend the rest of their lives rotting – the countryside here is a miserable place. Some women are shackled at night so they can’t run away. Think about it – a farmer who has bought a woman has made a big investment, and these North Korean women are already risk-takers who’ve crossed the border. Do you think they’d not run away? Well, they do keep running away, and because everyone knows this, they’re kept in chains, at least until they’ve had their first baby.

‘While most North Korean women get sold on, the North Korean men end up in one of two ways. Either they get caught sleeping rough and are sent back to North Korea; or, if they have enough money and meet a decent broker, they eventually make it to South Korea. But in the eyes of traffickers, the women here are worth at least 150,000 won each.’

Even as I listened, I doubted what I was hearing, and could not believe it was true. Perhaps it was better to be sold into marriage than starve to death in North Korea, but for human beings to be priced like pigs was obscene. And to think that these ‘wives’ were kept shackled – I was shaken by the idea that foreign men could treat our women in this way. I was even angrier at the brokers who made money from this. But most of all, I felt disgust for Kim Jong-il, who didn’t seem to be humiliated at all by what he had reduced his nation’s women to, or to care enough to intervene.

Young-min was shocked too. He seemed at a loss for words, and looked restless as he lay down on the floor, and then sat up again. He asked how many women were trapped in this network, and Mr
Shin said that all he knew was that there were some 100,000 North Koreans caught in limbo in China. I couldn’t believe that no one in Pyongyang talked about a situation as grave as this.

Then the door opened a crack and a woman with dyed brown hair poked her head round. ‘Are you from Pyongyang?’ she asked. ‘My friend just said you were.’ Then she went back behind the door and whispered, ‘You say it – I can’t.’

I didn’t know what they wanted, but they seemed to be nudging each other. Mr Shin asked in a loud voice, ‘Alcohol? Do you want a drink?’

‘Yes!’ came the chorus of replies, and we ended up having a boozy lunch together. In Mr Shin’s small Chinese flat, there were now five North Koreans and we started by introducing ourselves in turn. The woman who had first opened the door to our room said she was from Chongjin; the woman next to her was from Hamheung. We added Sariwon, Pyongyang and Yanji in turn, and then we lifted our cups to toast all our homes. We drank three bottles of strong Chinese alcohol, eating only pickled cabbage and leftover tofu, but it made for a wonderful and rich feast when enjoyed in their company.

Perhaps because we were all North Koreans and shared our fugitive status, the topic of conversation soon turned to how we’d kept out of sight and evaded the Chinese authorities. The women all seemed to agree on the importance of dyeing their hair. In North Korea, since the idea of pure ethnic identity was strong, everyone’s hair was black, and the first thing women did after crossing the border was to dye their hair another colour. This helped them feel like someone from the outside world and not conspicuous as a North Korean on the run. That was when I realised that all the women had indeed dyed their hair different shades of brown. The woman who had the baby on her back returned after putting her baby to sleep, and her hair was brown too. When Young-min said they looked like Westerners with their light-coloured hair, the women smiled, delighted with their disguise.

For refugees, there is often more pain caused by the things we can’t take with us than by the things we are running away from. So when the conversation turned to talk of home, everyone spoke and listened solemnly. After each person’s story had ended, we toasted the memory of loved ones left behind. Then it became the turn of the youngest of the women to speak, the one with the baby. She hadn’t yet spoken and Young-min, perhaps wanting to make it easier, asked a question.

‘We missed you when we took turns to talk. How old are you?’

‘Sixteen,’ came the quiet reply.

In fact, Young-min had suspected that she was young, and had been urging her not to drink too much. But she kept sipping at her cup, and now her cheeks were bright pink.

‘You’re lucky to have got out with your little sister,’ he said. ‘Where’s your mother?’ I’m sure Young-min spoke without thinking. But the girl narrowed her eyes, shot Young-min a sharp look and tutted angrily. Then she filled her plastic cup with soju and downed it in one go.

Young-min tried to apologise, ‘Sorry, I realise your mother didn’t manage to cross with you. I hope you’ll be able to see her again …’

Before he could finish, the girl threw the empty plastic cup across the room.