Hyeonseo Lee

This is an account of the author's childhood growing up in the North Korean town of Hyesan, on the banks of the Yalu river that borders China. The horrors of life in North Korea are vividly recounted, but in some ways in a matter of fact way, as these experiences were normal for anyone growing up there in the 80s and 90s, with no point of comparison - witnessing her first public execution at the age of 7 and seeing starvation during the 90s as the economy collapses after subsidies from the show more fallen Soviet Union dry up. She escapes to China in late 1997 just before her 18th birthday and spends several years in Shenyang and Shanghai, including various narrow escapes, but she shows great resourcefulness and is able to thank her lucky stars that she learned some Chinese characters as a child. She eventually ends up in South Korea. She eventually succeeds in persuading her mother and younger brother to escape. But there are powerful drivers pulling the family members in all directions - her mother, now in her 50s, has grown up, married, raised children and lived her life in a society with an utterly different mentality and after a while yearns to return to the North, regardless of the risks of capture, imprisonment or death; and her brother pines for his fiancée, whom he fails to persuade to follow him into China, owing to the risk it will cause for her parents. The author encapsulates the dilemmas in her introduction: "..... I still love my country and miss it very much....Even for those who have suffered unimaginably there and have escaped hell, life in the free world can be so challenging that many struggle to come to terms with it and find happiness... a small number of them even give up, and return to live in that dark place, as I was tempted to do, many times." Migration, even to what is objectively a much better life situation, still carries with its own contradictions and conflicted emotions. show less

An astounding memoir of a woman who crossed the border from North Korea to China at seventeen, intending to return, but found herself stuck, separated from her mother and brother. She survived on her own, spending many years in China before eventually making her way to South Korea, and finally convincing her mother and brother to join her - an arduous, dangerous journey, full of twists of good and bad fortune - but ultimately, with the help of a kind stranger, the family members were show more reunited.

Quotes

The irony was that the new communist state had created a social hierarchy [songbun] more elaborate and stratified than anything seen in the time of the feudal emperors. (6)

One of the tragedies of North Korea is that everyone wears a mask, which they let slip at their peril. (20)

Kindness toward strangers is rare in North Korea. There is risk in helping others. The irony was that by forcing us to be good citizens, the state made accusers and informers of us all. (38)

...every child learned to subordinate their will to that of the collective...mass games helped to suppress individual thought. (51)

I had believed [the Chinese were worse off than North Koreans] for years, even though evidence to the contrary was everywhere before my eyes... (90)

My curiosity had always been greater than my fear - not a good trait to have in North Korea, where fear keeps your sense sharp and helps you stay alive. (91)

In truth there is no dividing line between cruel leaders and oppressed citizens. The Kims rule by making everyone complicit in a brutal system, implicating all, from the highest to the lowest, blurring morals so that no one is blameless. (150)

...the two Koreas had diverged into two quite separate cultures.....We were no longer the same people. (213)

...such generosity wasn't easy to accept. It involved a loss of control. All I could do was say thank you. (261)

One of the main reasons that distinctions between oppressor and victim are blurred in North Korea is that no one there has any concept of rights. To know that your rights are being abused, or that you are abusing someone else's, you first have to know that you have them, and what they are. (288)

Dictatorships may seem strong and unified, but they are always weaker than they appear. They are governed by the whim of one man, who can't draw upon a wealth of discussion and debate, as democracies can, because he rules through terror and the only truth permitted is his own. (290) show less

"The hours in each day when we were not being watched, by someone, were few"
By sally tarbox on 26 June 2017
Format: Paperback
Quite an interesting account of a N Korean defector. Min Young (later she took the name Hyeonseo Lee) lived a relatively privileged life in N Korea, with a stepfather in the military, a clever mother able to make a living in trading over the border (illegal but the guards could be bribed) and relatives in China.
She describes her childhood near the border - the show more conformity, the secret police, the almost religious devotion to the leader - and the executions and famine. As a rebellious teen, she planned a 'holiday' over in China by crossing the river by night. How her life panned out here - and later in S Korea - and how her later effort to help her family escape fared, makes an at times nailbiting read. show less

What struck me most about this story is not the major acts of bravery or the astounding instances of luck, but how leaving North Korea presented more personal challenges. It is hard to live with freedom when it is something you never had; making choices and taking responsibility for those choices. It is hard to leave family at any time, but leaving and knowing you will never see them again must take such a toll. Learning that everything you'd been taught about your country and its leaders is show more a lie, as is most of what you'd been told about foreigners. What a toll it must take on an individual's sense of self, having to question everything you'd been taught to believe. Ms. Lee bravely faced many physical dangers and displayed remarkable intelligence and courage. Her inner courage, too, is much to be admired. show less