On Monday, December 19, 2011, at 7:09 p.m. exactly, right around the time I was finishing this book, I received a text message from a North Korean friend, a refugee like me:
“Kim Jong-il is dead!” the text read.
At the time, I just thought it was a bad joke. These kinds of rumors were frequent around here. But my friend confirmed it. The North Korean news anchor, with tears rolling down her face, had just announced the death of the “Dear Leader.” It was true. It was the same woman who had announced the death of Kim Il-sung in 1994. Immediately, I called my boyfriend, the one who had been sent to a labor camp and had suffered so much at the hands of this dictator. Then I called my mom, and I went to meet Keumsun to share this big news. The cruel dictator who had caused so much suffering in our homeland was dead.
“I am so happy to hear that!” my boyfriend told me. But for me, I didn’t feel any joy, nor did I feel avenged. There was only one question on my mind: Would the two Koreas finally be reunited?
But I quickly realized that this wasn’t going to happen anytime soon. Kim Jong-il’s death did not mean the end of the North Korean Kim regime. His third son, Kim Jong-un, was already preparing to take the reins and was ready to do anything to prolong the dictatorship for a third generation. North Korea is the only communist country to have ever been passed down from generation to generation through a hereditary line.
* * *
The new dictator Kim Jong-un was only three or four years older that I was, and he was going to decide the future of my country. When I saw him for the first time, I found his chubby face so unsightly that it made me feel a little uncomfortable. However, his youth gave me a sliver of hope. Maybe he would be the one to change the system? Moreover, he had been educated outside the country, in Switzerland. He knew how the rest of the world worked. Maybe this would help guide him in the right direction? A lot of leading experts expressed their doubts, but I remained hopeful.
In any case, he has no excuse, and no room, for error. Because more and more, North Koreans are getting sick and tired of the regime. More and more of them now know that life is better elsewhere, and that North Korea is nowhere near the “socialist paradise” it claims to be.
* * *
On April 15, 2012, the North Korean regime was preparing to celebrate Kim Il-sung’s hundredth birthday, the birthday of the “Eternal President.” North Korean propaganda had promised the population that the country would become a “rich and powerful” nation by this time. Reading these headlines in the newspaper, I couldn’t help but crack a smile, wavering between sadness and anger. When I was young, and when Kim Il-sung was still alive, he had promised us “rice and beef soup” every day. However, more than twenty years later, this simple objective has still not been achieved. I am in a position to judge, because my grandparents and my father died from hunger. And so the promise of a “rich and powerful” nation was a flat-out lie, despite the lavish celebrations orchestrated by the regime.
In reality, all that Kim Jong-un and his family wanted was to stay in power for as long as possible. They didn’t care about the over twenty-two million North Koreans who were wasting away in misery.
However, I believe that the regime will not remain for much longer. Officially, no one can make such predictions with absolute certainty, but information obtained by illegal smugglers along the Chinese border indicates that the North Korean population no longer has as much faith in the regime. Whenever I hear from new defectors from the north, their stories indicate that the disenchantment in the general population is growing stronger and stronger. I find myself thinking that maybe Kim Jong-un will soon find himself face-to-face with a revolution, similar to those during the Arab Spring.
And if that is ever the case, then I will finally be able to go back and visit my hometown, Eundeok. I will see my childhood home again and, most of all, I hope to see my friends from school again. In Seoul, sometimes I daydream about these reunions. I miss my friends so much! In South Korea, everyone regularly sees friends from primary school; it’s a social circle that follows you throughout the rest of your life and is always there for you during difficult times. Whenever I see my South Korean friends leave to meet up with their childhood friends, I secretly envy them. It’s during these times that I realize that the North Korean regime robbed me of a proper childhood.
But I’m not about to just sit around and spend my days moping. Here in South Korea, I have a future, and I want to be able to give hope to others. Many of my fellow North Koreans have a difficult time adjusting to this ultracompetitive society. They are depressed, because they try their best but don’t always succeed at integrating themselves. They feel inferior compared to the native South Koreans. They try to imitate South Koreans, but South Koreans often look at them with disdain. Often, other refugees like me start feeling resentful and fall into depression.
That’s why I want to achieve my goals, so that I may one day remind others like myself that there is still hope for them. I want to show my compatriots who have settled down in this country that it is possible to be happy, that it is possible to succeed here. I know that my dreams are ambitious, but I am sincere in them, and I believe I can achieve them. Optimism is a trait that has been deeply ingrained in me. It was passed along to me from my mother, and it is without doubt this sense of positivity that helped us both survive all the hardships we’ve ever endured, that carried us all the way to our new lives in South Korea.