Extract 4 from 'Stars Between the Sun and Moon' by Lucia Jang and Susan Elizabeth McClelland

My father spent most of each spring living on a plot of land on the mountain where he now grew vegetables. He had built a shed there, half of it underground. By the time I arrived, dawn was casting its end-of-summer haze. My father was boiling rice on a small stove. The baby began to cry, and for the first time since I had given birth, I did not try to quiet his wails by placing him on my breast or running into the forest. The plot of land my father was farming was located in the farthest reaches of the mountain. No one could hear us there.

My father greeted me coolly. But he pulled down an extra bowl from a small shelf and began serving me some food. As I ate, he covered the baby with a clean sheet and blanket. I slept for most of the day, waking only when the baby cried to be fed or changed. When my father returned at sunset, he gave me some baby clothes he had received in trade from the farmer tilling the land below us.

As was his way, my father said little to me for the first month I stayed with him on the mountain. He didn’t order me to perform my revolutionary duties and return to prison, though, and he didn’t shun the baby. Instead, he showed himself to be the man villagers so respected when he travelled in the rural areas selling machines.

“If you are hungry, eat anything you want from the farm— there are cucumbers, turnips and green onions,” he had told me on my first evening there. Whenever he went to fetch water from a stream higher up the mountain, he returned with a handful of raspberries, all of which he gave to me. I cooked rice and vegetables for us for dinner, and we passed most evenings in silence, listening to the cicadas.

My mother came to visit in the middle of the harvest season. “I see your son being faced with a tough life,” my father said as we sat around our cooking fire. “So I have chosen a name that will give him strength. Taebum is a strong name, a big name.”

My mother, her pockets full of garbage, rocks and sticks she had collected along the way, had come to let me know a friend of Hyungchul’s had agreed to take me to China.

“Something has been organized for you. It is best we do not know what. But I have been assured you will be safe,” she told me. She left the next morning, not wanting to arouse suspicion in Mihwa’s mother by being away too long.

One day about a week later, my father didn’t go to work. We sat outside the shed together, looking over the fields. After a while, he began to speak.

“Your mother and I are very much apart,” he said. “When you were younger, she threatened to leave me many times because of my anger. But she didn’t. She knew her life would be no life without a husband. But now she is lost in that mind of hers that lives in the past, as was her own mother in her final years.

My father cleared his throat. “I don’t want you to think about us anymore,” he continued after a long silence. “You go where you need to go and forget about all of us.”

I was too stunned to know how to reply.

“I’ve made you something,” he said. He circled around the back of the shed and emerged with a thick grey plastic bag. “The water will be too cold for the baby so when you were sleeping, I sewed this for you. I tested it in the stream several times. It will not leak. You can put Taebum in it. See?” He showed me how the bag could be tied near the baby’s neck. “He can breathe if you do it this way.”

“Why?” I asked, my eyes searching his pale expressionless face. “Why are you helping me leave? I thought you didn’t want me to go.”

“Hyungwoo is never home. His wife has returned with her son to her own parents’ house. Your mother is dying. Your other brother is probably dead, but we’ll likely never know. Your sister has her own struggles. I have not always been a great man but I want to end my time on earth by doing the right thing. I want you to give Taebum what I failed to help you provide Sungmin. You can’t stay close to the border with Chosun waiting for the day you will find Sungmin again. You need to go somewhere where you will be safe.”

I bit my lip to stop myself from crying as we sat in silence for a time listening to the sounds of the world around us. “I have received a message from a farmer in another field that it is time,” my father said eventually. “Go back to our house in the middle of the night. Your mother will take you to your brother’s friend, and he will take you into China.”

I wanted to stay on the farm with my father, comforted by his scent of leaves and fresh air. But I knew I would be discovered if I didn’t leave, and Taebum’s life was at risk as long as we remained in Chosun. My father’s parting words that night were instructions on how to place Taebum in the plastic bag so that he would not slip down and suffocate, but also so his face would not poke out enough for his cries to alert the border guards. My father cleared his throat as his goodbye, and he had returned to sleep by the time I left the hut with my infant son.

Stars Between the Sun and Moon by Lucia Jang and Susan Elizabeth McClelland, pp. 259 - 261, published by W.W. Norton

Chongjin Jipgyulso was a labour camp, too. But the city, located on the coast of the east sea, was a major port of entry to all of Chosun. Our jobs were not inside the prison, but at the harbour. Some prisoners unloaded supplies from the ships onto wagons, which would then be taken to the train station. I volunteered to work at the train station, where I would unload boxes of supplies from these wagons and stack them in a room. I assumed this was for storage, until a train came that would take the supplies to the rest of the country. I never opened the boxes, and I could not tell if they contained food. But there was a lot coming into Chosun—boxes upon boxes in ships upon ships every day. I knew better than to ask questions, though I wondered where those supplies were going when the people in Chongjin had so little.

Every few days, at midday, the guards would give me some noodles and kimchi. At night our meals were broth with a few pieces of cabbage. I had vowed to stay alive, inspired by the source of light at the end of the poplar trees, so I forced myself every day to carry more, to move faster, to be as diligent as I could be in stacking the boxes. The guards, pleased with my work, started giving me a little extra kimchi.

In my cell was a woman who did no labour and rarely left the prison. She was already three months pregnant when I arrived, and the father of her child was in the men’s cell. But she could not visit him. She cried every night, holding her belly, and screamed with night terrors. She told me that she was afraid the guards would abort her child.

“Surely they wouldn’t do anything that vicious!” I exclaimed. “But you’re going to lose the child if you do not have better food. A child can’t grow on a wilted piece of cabbage and broth.” I played the food game with her. We ran our tongues over all the words for foods we longed to taste when we were released.

That night, my dream of the road came again, but this time I was farther down the corridor, amidst the poplar trees. I awoke hopeful, as if a golden light was pulling me forward. In the rays of that light, I realized that survival was far more than just having enough food. Even where there was a bounty of food, like in China, if there was no love, no compassion, there was only death in life. In that dream I came to see that my survival would be based on how much I became one with the others. From that day on, whenever I worked at the train station, I grabbed extra rations of kimchi and hid it in my underwear. I gave it to the pregnant woman when I returned to our cell. I watched her stomach swell. As I started to see life again inside her, life pulsed through me, too.

I encouraged other women who were strong and fit like me to take extra food, to stuff it in their underclothes and give it to the older women in the prison cell who walked with limps or could not see because of cataracts. As if the food we were giving away had become the Chinese foods of our imagination, we all appeared to grow stronger in spirit.

A few times a week, some other women and I were given the task of carrying the heaviest boxes and bags from the port to the train station, many weighing as much as twenty-five kilos. As reward, we were given unprocessed rice. We took twice if not three times as much as we were allotted. We ripped open the seams in our jacket pockets and hid the grains in there. Back in our cell, we used a brick to crack open and remove the heavy casing. Our cell bordered the kitchen, and when the cooks had left, some of us snuck in there to cook the rice. We ate some ourselves, but most we gave away to the weakest among us.

The guards rotated the position of putting each one of us in charge of the cell. Whoever was in charge had to settle the bickering, the name-calling, the hair pulling and the fistfights that erupted and made us forget our bonds with each other.

One such incident involved Sooil, a heavyset woman from a village not far from where I grew up, who had moved to China to marry a Chinese man. She would sit during our lice checks with a straight back and neck and wave her long fingers in the air as she talked. She rattled on nonstop, like a chicken cackling, about how good her husband was, how many pastries and rice cakes she had eaten in China, and how her husband and his sister were so wealthy they had showered her with jewellery, including gold rings and earrings. “Which I swallowed,” she said once. “It’s all inside my belly. My husband loved me so much,” she exclaimed, closing her eyes and wrapping her arms around herself to mimic his affection, “he even gave me jade.” I smiled, for I knew this was Sooil’s version of the Chinese food game.

“My sister-in-law, the rich one,” she announced another time, “lives in Guangzhou.” A collective gasp filled the room. I knew she meant the capital city of Guangdong province. I knew Chinese geography because at night Jungsoo had taught me. But I saw some of the younger women wink at each other. They had their own version of a golden light . . . revenge.

The next day, Sooil was forced to stand at the front of the cell, beneath the poster of the Ten Commandments. She had to announce her name and tell us that she had committed the most heinous of crimes, though we would not be told what her sin was for another few days. No one knew her betrayer, but betrayed she was. For two days after that, she was made to stand outside in a thin shirt and pants in the shadow of the doorframe, where the wind was strongest and the sun could not penetrate. She was not allowed to speak to anyone. Her teeth chattered, and her skin turned blue.

On the morning of the third day, she was made to stand underneath the Ten Commandments again. The other prisoners interrogated her in much the same fashion as my comrades at school had me during saenghwalchonghwa.

“You have ties to South Korea,” spat one of the women.

“Gwangju City, I heard you say,” another yelled. “Your sisterin- law lives in South Korea.” Fingers were pointed at her. Some of the women spat.

I was pushed to the back of the room as Sooil’s attackers hurled insults at her. Sooil sobbed like a baby, saliva dripping down her chin and onto her chest. “Braggart! Arrogant! Cheater! You think you are better than us!”

I yelled too, asking a question, but my voice could not be heard over the women in front.

“I wish the guards would cut you open to find that gold you say you swallowed,” a stocky woman with bowlegs yelled.

A hush fell over the room. The prisoners put in charge of settling disputes that day shook their heads. The stocky woman’s words went too far, since the guards might actually do what her attackers described. That comment might have condemned one of our own to death, and even those among us who were the most bitter didn’t want that crime on their hands.

A tall woman with elegant features spoke up at the same time I did. “Does your sister-in-law live in Gwangju in South Korea or Guangzhou in China?” we asked.

Sooil looked up, her eyes red and swollen. “China,” she said, clamping her clammy hands together.

The woman who had revealed Sooil’s claim of swallowing gold told the guards she had lied. For her penance, she had to spend one day outside in the cold, exactly as Sooil had done.

In the days that followed, the elegant woman and I began talking. She told me she had been in the Chosun military, something quite rare for a woman. That winter, the elegant woman got into trouble over soap. We were given one bar to share among us. The woman who had been in the military saw another woman slip the tiny bar inside her vagina, stealing it for herself. The military woman accosted the thief, pushing her when she refused to disclose the truth. Eventually, the thief pulled out the bar of soap and gave it to the guard. But the military woman was punished for fighting. Both she and the woman who had stolen the soap had to stand outside our cell, their backs straight, their knees locked, from sun up until sunset for three days. They weren’t given food or water.

I felt so sorry for them I didn’t eat my lunch at my job. I hid the mushy noodles in my jacket and some kimchi in my pants. When I got to the cell, I dug the food out and gave it to them. “I will repay you,” they said in unison.

“Repay me by living,” I replied. “You stay alive, and we will meet again in China.”

By the end of one month in prison, I had made more than twenty such pacts with other women.

Stars Between the Sun and Moon by Lucia Jang and Susan Elizabeth McClelland, pp. 204 - 209, published by W.W. Norton

1. What knowledge did you have of LGBT issues/homosexuality, if any, growing up in North Korea? Whilst you were in North Korea, what was your impression of homosexuals in the Western world?

North Korea is a communist system. There are no true cultural exchanges with other countries. It’s a closed society. You don’t know how the world goes around. I considered my homosexuality as a pathological condition. When I finally learned who I am, it wasn’t even easy to regret how my life turned out. I had to accept who I am. It is a tragedy to live without knowing that you are gay.

2. What was your understanding of the fate of homosexual people in North Korea? Did you have any experiences of encountering any other LGBT men/women in North Korea? Was it easy to speak with them about being LGBT, or did you have to keep it a secret? When was the first time you recall seeing homosexuality depicted or discussed in North Korean media? Was the portrayal positive or negative?

As there is no such concept as homosexuality, there is no awareness of the issue. In open societies, people have at least a consciousness of different sexualities. There is no hope for the sexual minorities in North Korea. There should be a number of North Korean sexual minorities but economic or political problems are emphasized the most [in North Korea], so it is difficult to solve one’s personal problems first.

In North Korea, separation of men and women is great. Especially when men spend a long time in the military, physical contact is frequent between the same sex and they experience special emotional bonds. One company is composed of 90 men, and works as a single family. This is not to say that all these men are gay. Rather, they are tied by a special comradeship (revolutionary comrades).

3. According to your book, you were coerced into a heterosexual marriage - would there have been penalties/punishment for you if you had refused to marry this woman?

Marriage and childbirth is taken as granted, something natural. It’s rigid and almost uniform: Kingdom (Confucianism) + Communism.

If I were born as a woman, however, I don’t think I would have married. It would have been too harsh.

4. When did you realise that you were homosexual? How did that make you feel? When did you first become aware of LGBT rights and issues?

<A Mark of Red Honor, p.312-314>

An interview of me was put in the April 1998 edition of Segye-hwabo. As I leafed through the pages, I discovered an article titled ‘Homosexuality, another kind of love’.

“A movie scene where two naked men made love was pictured. Strangely, I felt roused and somewhat sad. It was something indescribable by words. This was it. I was gay. So that was why I hold Sun-cheol so dearly in my heart and followed him. That was why my life as a married man was so stressful, boring and uncomfortable. I was glad. I felt helpless and infinitely sad whenever I thought of living alone. But now I knew that there were people like me. I could be together with someone like me. It seemed like I had a new hope. Whether homo- or hetero-sexual, isn’t it the same that a human being loves another one?”

5. Why, in a country that otherwise denies the existence of homosexuality, do you think that a “blind eye” was being turned to same-sex relations in the army? Did the fact that officers and senior soldiers would often give you gifts and bribes in exchange for company make your life in the army easier or more difficult?

We hug each other, sleep together and even kiss one another on the cheek. My feminine appearances were beloved in the company and I was treated exceptionally well. Because you live with the same people for a long period, there can be no hazing or beatings. We get along as a single community. Because the ration system has collapsed, we get a sense of stability inside the company. That comradeship is important for the survival of each and every person of the group. So it is impossible for a higher officer in that group to physically abuse a junior. It will create great disruption.

6. Michael Kirby, author of the UN report in to Human Rights, is an openly gay man. Following the publication of the COI report, the Korean Central News Agency published an article that contained many homophobic slurs aimed directly at Justice Kirby. As a gay North Korean man, how do you feel when you hear your country’s state media use homophobic insults to discredit Justice Kirby and the report?

They are morons. This is a worthless topic to talk about. It is still early for the communist system of North Korea to change. One can see as much as one knows. North Korea cannot see LGBT rights in the right light yet. For example, North Korea used to criticize America that the women there participate in wrestling games. Now, women in North Korea also do wrestling. In that sense, history flows slow in the North Korean society.

7. Do you think the fact that Kirby is a gay man will help or hinder the furtherance of gay rights in DPRK?

North Korea criticizes Kirby as of now, but will get to know better in the future. A general knowledge (about human rights) must be formed. People will come to accept sexual minorities naturally after curiosity and interest broaden horizons.

8. You were infamously “outed” by a South Korean newspaper report. Do you now feel pressured to speak as a gay rights activist? How has this affected your relationship with other North Korean defectors?

LGBT rights movement in South Korea is highly politicized. Human rights are politically utilized. I know the many burdensome plights of LGBT groups in South Korea and they have tried to recruit me. However, if I succeed as a writer, I will have greater influence and will be able to have an independent voice. I want to be a good writer.

<A Mark of Red Honor, p.344-346>

“I saw an article that made my eyes open wide with surprise, my heartbeat race and my face blush instantly. I wanted to crawl into a hole if I could. My story was featured in the newspapers with my picture under the title ‘Gay defector crosses the DMZ’.... That day, a number of newspapers including the Dong-a Ilbo reported my story as if it was something funny and weird. Now, I was a weirdo known not only by North Korean defectors but to everyone - a weirdo would never be understood by certain people. I was forced to come out like that, regardless of my own will.”

9. South Korea recently came under criticism when Seoul’s police force recently tried to ban the “Korea Queer Culture Festival”. How do you feel about LGBT rights in South Korea, compared to North Korea?

A lot has changed since my arrival here. For example, Han Chae-yoon's work. North Korea limits and oppresses the liberty of humans. This is truly barbaric. In South Korea too, although a democratic society, LGBT people are discriminated against and oppressed. Yet all human beings are equal, whether disabled or LGBT. If you look at North Korea, a lot of people live oppressed, a regrettable situation. Unification may benefit North and South Korea.

Interview translated by Jumin Kim.

An alien North Korean escapee in South Korean society and an alien sexual minority in a heterosexual society….this was my identity. Would society accept me? Would I be able to accept myself first? Would I be able to love who I am? Fear washed over me. This was a different kind of fear that took over me when I risked my life crossing the demarcation line. (pp.17-18)

Something wonderful happened, something that was more glorious than the two or three occasions a year where I was able to eat pork. To celebrate the birthday of our Dear Leader, we nine-year olds were given the honour of joining the Korean Youth Corps. I had so long desired to be a member of the Youth Corps, with their red neck-ties. (p.58)

The morning session of our sports day was finally over. The entire class sat in a circle under the shade of a white poplar tree and unpacked our lunch boxes. I proudly opened my lunch box for the other students to see, because I had packed eggs for lunch. My homeroom teacher Chae Chong-ja, with an empty lunch box in her left hand and a long pair of chopsticks in her right, began walking towards the students.
“Now, let’s see what delicious lunch boxes everyone brought. If you have a delicious side-dish (ban-chan), I will collect one of each!”
Chae Chong-ja extended her arm in front of me.
“Wow, what delicious eggs you have!”
With her long chopsticks she picked up both my eggs in one swift motion. Like a dog chasing a rooster, my mouth fell open and I peered up to my teacher’s face. I had been looking forward to it so much. I had been counting down days when I would be able to eat the egg. And now, without so much as a single bite, it had become a pie in the sky. (pp. 86-87)

The students dived into the sea and collected mussels and clams attached to the rocks. Teacher Choe Yong-ho, after having finished his swim, laid down on the sandy beach. He peered into the mirror and with a tweezer, began to pluck the beard on his chin. I had been laying near his feet, staring up at the blue sky, but my eyes kept wandering to my teacher. His bronze chiselled face, smooth forehead with a few wisps of wet hair, shapely nose, and the firm contours of his lips. His chest was muscular and his waist was lean. His thighs and calves were bold and the fitted blue swim suit revealed his masculinity, and his firm buttocks…
I also took out my mirror and tweezers, and began to pluck the soft hair on my chin. I kept stealing glances at my teacher. It was odd. My entire body felt wiggly and I felt a jolt in my heart. An unfamiliar emotion filled my chest. My desire to become an adult burst like a flame in my heart. (p.130)

Even from my first day in the squadron, I received special attention from my commanders. When I passed by the canteen, the army cook would pull me to the side and place a delicious treat in the palm of my hand. The platoon commander, who was a bachelor, would tell me I was cute, and plant kisses on my cheeks. The political guidance officer would climb into my blanket and hug me as we slept. My comrades would pull out an apple from their pocket and offer it to me saying, “Tonight, you have to sleep next to me.” (p.158)

Everyone had left, and it was just me and her, deep in the night. It was the first night where we would be allowed to explore our bodies. It was a secretive and natural time, just for the two of us. I turned off the light and laid side by side with Mira.
All of a sudden in the darkness, I imagined Sun-cheol’s face. He was smiling a brilliant smile. No matter how I tried to erase it, his face become more and more vivid in my mind….
I had thought marriage was a formula of life that everyone would accept without objection. Men and women of a certain age would get married and have sons and daughters. For example, similar to a math formula, man plus woman would equal sons and daughters. This was accepted as a natural thing. (…)
But what of this. The wedding ceremony was just finished and between the newly promised husband and wife was Sun-cheol….I was in a hopeless situation. I could not lay a finger on her. (pp.251-252)

Upon my arrival in Beijing, I went to the South Korean embassy. I was chased out like a dog.
“Shut up, I don’t even need to listen to you. Go away.”
And so that day, I boarded a night train to Qingdao.
The train ran for a night and day, and arrived in Qingdao. I had to ask for directions from several people and made my way to the South Korean consulate. However, their responses were no different.
“Get lost. Don’t even roam near here. You can be captured and taken away. Do you think this is an inn?”
I headed for Shanghai. The consulate in Shanghai gave me the same answer.
“Please go away. You cannot meet the consulate general.”
During my time in the army, I served at a camp near the demarcation line. In the mornings, there were white leaflets scattered across the barracks. “Cross over. If you cross over, we will take you in…..” The leaflet printed the happy lives of Man-cheol Kim’s family and other North Koreans who defected to the South. As a radio operator, I had heard broadcasts urging North Koreas to defect every day. “Cross over. If you cross over, you will be able to enjoy wealth and honour. You can find freedom…..”
(…..) I had thrown away my parents, my flesh and blood, and risked my life in search of freedom. When the South Korean embassy in Beijing and consulates in Qingdao and Shanghai treated me like a beggar, I was in extreme shock. I was filled with a sense of loss and betrayal. (pp.282-283)

He did not appear. There was no way he would. I vacantly stood where I was until it became dark. As if a slightly eccentric person, I held a puppy in my arms and repeatedly called Song’s cell phone, but he did not answer.
And so that was how I spent the night. Messages of how he would always love me, and that we would be together till the end, those texts and phone calls were a thing of the past. (…..)
He disappeared with everything that made me who I was. A tranquil life in the South, fantasies of love, day to day happiness, my treasured piano….. Everything faded into dust. What was left was betrayal and shame. It was despair; I wanted to disappear into the earth, just like that. (pp.334-335)

Overnight street cleaner. 7pm to 5am. Monthly salary of 825 pounds……I ended up doing the lowest regarded job in South Korea as my profession. It was a dangerous and tiresome job. It was a job that many people, who start work after being introduced through the job centre, couldn’t last a day doing. (p.340)

The newspaper had an article about me and a picture of my face. The headline read “Gay defector crosses demarcation line.” (…..) I calmed my nauseous heart and bought a different newspaper and opened the pages. There was an article about me under the headline “Gay defector crosses demarcation line to escape wife.”(…..) It did not end there. The 9pm news featured my story.
“Next, we covered a story on a North Korean defector who crossed the demarcation line because of his sexual orientation and in order to depart his wife….”
(…..) I now became a peculiar person, who everyone in the entire country – not just North Korean refugees – know about. A person, who could never be understood by certain people. With no intention of my own, I ended up coming out. (p.346)

Extracts from A Mark of Red Honor by Jang Yeong-jin. Translated by Saeme Kim.

I was called Ga-No.92 in the labour camp.

After receiving a fortnight of training given to newcomers at the main camp, I was sent to be part of the Female Division No. 3 (farm) of the No.9 labour camp. Two prison guards – we were told to address the warders in a respectful way, using the equivalent of Sir and Madam in Western countries – escorted me and I walked 30km (60 Li; 1 Li = 500m) to the labour camp.

I entered a two-story prison cell made of dirt and stones. It had an earthen floor and around 50 to 60 female prisoners aged from twenty to sixty stayed there. People used many Japanese-borrowed words which I could not understand well in the beginning.

In the past, prisoners were given uniforms, but during the famine we had to repair our own clothes according to the prison’s regulation. Families were allowed to visit once a year – for those people whose families never came, their garments were indescribably miserable. Our heads were covered with a triangular shaped white cloth. Since no hair could be shown, our hairs were shaved like men so when we took off the cloths it was hard to tell between men and women. Whenever we went out of the prison gate we needed to put on our head cloth and wear our badges on the left part of our chest.

If I may pause here to share my impression of watching a WWII movie after coming to Germany, I was very surprised to see the clothes and behaviour of Russian female prisoners in the movie because it resembled so much of the North Korean prison system. I realized that North Korea copied the style from the Soviet gulags.

Looking back at the three years of my life inside the prison, my heart aches so much with immense pain that I get choked up with emotion and my hand trembles to the point I cannot write any more. Because I didn’t even want to think about what had happened, I had shut my ears to every proposal to write books about my story. But I’ve decided to force myself to sit down and start to write it. I’ve spent days agonizing and asking friends whether I should write about my story. I have too deep a resentment to bury the memories in my heart. So with the help of Ji-hyun’s encouragement, I’ve decided to have the courage to put out the bitter experience which have rankled in my heart and tell the world about it.

Inside the iron bars of the prison – living in hell-like conditions – the most difficult part to endure was hunger. Compared to the urges of hunger, hurling insults, abuses, onerous labour, psychological and mental sufferings and even agonizing pain from frostbite which made the black, rotten skin weep from sores were all bearable. Inside the hell, we had no names, no ages. Our resident registration numbers were erased and we were nothing but talking savages. The warders called us “brutes, bastards, assholes and scums of the earth”.

In the labour camp, every day started at five. When the warders walked through the corridor and shouted out “get up”, two people on toilet duties from each cell would respond by repeating the phrase “get up”. Then within ten minutes prisoners must kneel down on the floor in a line and report for roll call to the guards. Following the roll call, every member of the cell must then line up in the front yard for another roll call, and then went out to morning duties. If anyone needed to walk out the walls of the camp to go to a workplace, it must be reported and approved by the sentries. And travel was to be arranged under the escort of a security guard and a guard in charge standing at either ends of the group.

Each morning we worked for an hour until half past six. Before entering the cell to eat breakfast another roll call was carried out. By eight o’clock we were called out to the front yard for morning assembly led by the section chief or the secretariat. After the assembly each member returned to their workplace. Lunch was between twelve and one, then work continued until six. We returned to the cell and had dinner until eight and got ready for party ideology class. At ten o’clock, those who passed the bed check were released to go to sleep while leaving two inmates awake for two hours each to stand sentry in front of the doors and the toilets. During the sentry period, when one heard the sound of the warder’s tramping, one needed to shout “No. XX, XX people all clear”, then must wait until the warder’s reply, which was “at ease”. Only then the report was finally over. If the inmate on duty dozed off or replied late, all the cell members had to get up and received punishment for hours depending on the warder’s mood. There were times when we had to stay up all night.

For bed covers and blankets, we used georgettes, which were made of rice sacks filled with ground corn husks brought by family members during visits. We used whatever was left and stuffed them together into “pillows”. For those who didn’t have visiting family members, they either bought the rice sacks in exchange of two portions of rice or for those who couldn’t afford they just slept on the ground with only the warmth of the next person.

Only on seldom occasions could I see any lights. We sometimes had oil lamps using diesel brought by a visitor. In times when we didn’t have any oil, we burned pieces of pine tree. Every morning we were given two bowls of water by one of the inmates on duty for washing faces, brushing teeth and even doing laundry.

Meals we had in the labour camp consisted of unpeeled chopped corn, which was hard as rocks, with soybeans, which made up 30% of the dish, mixed together. Meals had three grades. The first grade went to male inmates or those who were favoured by the warders. The second grade ones went to average inmates and the most inferior grade went to those who were sick and unable to work. When it was time for distributing rations, cooking staff put in one portion of the corn/soybean meal and soup in vinyl bowls for each person through what looks like a dog flap in normal households. We called the soup “raven wing” and were given it about ten months per year.

Even if someone was dying of sickness, he got dragged out to the work site and got dumped on the ground unless he was approved by a medical officer the night before during party ideology class to stay and receive treatment. At the end of the day if he was still alive, he got dragged back to the camp. If not, his body headed straight to the hill behind the campsite to be buried.

Since inmates were less than beasts, we weren’t allowed to lift our heads up straight. We followed a military command which was the opposite of what the normal society followed. By this I mean we must raise our head when we were told to be “at ease” and bow our heads down when we were told to “pay attention”. So when we walk, sit or work, before we were commanded to be “at ease”, we were obliged always to bow our heads and only look down at the ground. As sinners we were unqualified to look up at the sky.

If someone accidentally made eye contact with the warders, he could not complain even if he got battered to death on the spot. When one was walking on the street or along the corridor and came across one of the warders or visitors, he must, at the word of a command, step aside, turning his back with head down and stand still until they disappeared. When we were called by the warder we must first respond with a loud voice “yes!” and run to the warder, then fall to one’s knee with heads down and say “Ga-No. 92 responding to your order, Sir.” If one got too close to the warder and approached within 3m, the warder could assume that the inmate had evil intentions and had the right to execute the person on the spot.

Group baths were carried out once a week during spring and autumn and twice a week during summer. We walked to near the riverside in two to three groups. While the warders stood in a circle around the riverside and watched, the inmates took baths in the river. Depending on the mood of the warders that day, we were given five to ten minutes to wash everything including our clothes. As soon as we heard the command “stop and fall in” we had to come out and gather i lighting speed to be roll called. The last five people to come out got punished with food taken away from them – it was one meal or two meals depended on the mood of the warder. When we took baths in the public river, there were cars and pedestrians passing along the road, but our feelings had long forgotten what shame and humiliation was.

We said to each other that from the moment we took our step inside this cage, we were no longer humans but mere beasts stripped of emotions and feelings on our trial day. Since the hardest part to bear was hunger, starvation meant a step closer to death. So when one got punished to starve, we would make a great effort to sell their garments or shoes for some food. Food was the currency inside the labour camp: a new pair of trousers was exchanged for 4-7 portions, winter clothes for 5-9 portions, knitted clothes for 3-5 portions, one big knitting needle for 1 portion, a small needle for half a portion, winter gloves for 2 portions, etc. All needlework was done by hand and all the materials were made by one’s own effort. Nothing was impossible to be made in there.

In order to stay alive and not to starve to death I stayed up all night doing needlework so I could exchange with food or something I needed. I did it away from the warders' notice, but when I was unfortunate and got caught red-handed, I was beaten, starved and forfeited everything I had. Those days repeated but I had no other choice.

When the green shoots started to come up, two inmates from each cell who were too sickly to work got appointed as cooking staff. The staff went out to the field or mountainsides to pick sprouts then put an iron tub over two stones by the brook and boiled the sprouts. After rinsing it in the stream water, they then divided it by the number of the cell members and gave it out to eat during the breaks. It was a mixture of weeds and grass without a single grain of salt added, but it helped to ease my hunger.

During the work time, whenever I could avoid the warders’ watch, I picked up anything I could eat and stuffed it into my mouth. Whether it was discarded pieces of corn, potatoes, cabbage leaves, radish or wild edible greens and so on…I ate everything I could find, and at one point, I had a delusion that corn, potatoes and beans were actually meant to be eaten raw. I even ate too much of corn smut that I couldn’t go to the toilet for days.

Seon-I's Memoir: Part 2
Name: Kim Seon-I
Location: Germany
Translated by Christina Kim.

Kim Seon-I is the Director of German organisation Verband nordkoreanischer Flüchtlinge in Deutschland (German Association of North Korean Refugees).

Bang! Bang!

The blasts of gunshots shred the silence of the winter in the Yeonbong neighbourhood to pieces.

Yeonbong is an area in Hyesan, Ryanggang Province - a province in North Korea facing Changbai Korean Autonomous County in China - which is known for its public executions. It's already been five years since I escaped North Korea to come to the South, but the place still haunts my dreams now and then. Yeonbong is the living testimony of the human rights abuses of Kim Jong-Un and his dictatorship.

What I saw on the cold winter day of November in 2008 still makes my heart choke. On the day of the public execution, all the people in the village, including merchants and office workers, walked to the site of the execution. A public notice from the People’s Committee saying, ‘The market is closed today due to public execution. Please go to the execution site in Yeonbong.' was at the entrance of the market.

I went to the public execution site following the party secretary. The path to Yeonbong in Hyesan was filled with people, even the roads for vehicles. The site is actually a field of hop, belonging to Hyesan Hop Farm. After the harvest, it often became the execution site. I have seen many executions there. I walked along with the crowd and stood there, thinking about who is facing death and under what charges.

The crowd had gathered. At 10 am, a Russian RV pulled up and five 'criminals' were thrown out of it, blindfolded and handcuffed.

I'd always seen executions at the back of the crowd, but on this day I was at the front because I had arrived early. I wanted to move to the back but couldn't because there were too many people. A long desk was placed at the front of the hop field. A judge, the director of security for the province, the director of judicial affairs of the People's Committee for the province, and the head of the court for the province lined up. They were staring at the crowd in a threatening manner.

One of the five criminals unloaded from the car was a woman. Policemen were holding onto their hands that were handcuffed behind the criminals' backs, as if they could not stand up by themselves. I heard that they were nearly beaten to death just before being taken to the execution site to prevent them from crying out in front of the public.

I could hear the weeping of the small woman under her blindfold.

The snow that falls in November in the northern part of the country doesn't melt until spring. The criminals were wearing shoes made out of fabric because they were arrested in the middle of the hot summer. The snow had melted into the shoes and their feet must have been freezing, but they wouldn’t feel anything very soon.

The judge who was in the centre read aloud their wrongdoings: "These bitches sold two women from Hamhung to China in the border area near Hyesan. According to Article 62 of the Republic's Criminal Law, those who surrender, escape or give over the state's secrets to another country will be considered as traitors. They will be either sentenced to correction-through-labour indefinitely, executed or their possessions will be confiscated."

The judge said that they received 700 RMB (approximately 100 USD) in return for handing over two women. They were arrested because these women had confessed after being arrested by the security police in China and were sent back to North Korea.

Two men, aged 18 and 21, received imprisonment for life because they had helped out with some of the activities. The 36-year-old woman and the two men in their late 20s were sentenced to execution.

The young men sentenced to imprisonment were dragged back to the car. The other three were taken and tied to the posts in the middle of the field. They were tied one by one. Pebbles were put in their mouths and straps were put around them. The woman was at the post in the middle, and the men were on either side.

The way criminals are tied to posts is the same now as before - they are tied around their heads, chest, and knees. The woman struggled in the tightly bound ropes. One of the men didn’t respond much. Maybe he knew there was no use.

The three policemen in uniform walked forward with a rifle on their shoulders. They stood only 20 metres away from the criminals. 'Why are they standing so near when the shooting range of a rifle is 400m?', I wondered.

Another policeman with an epaulet shouted the command, "Shoot at the traitors of our people!" With this came three gun shots. The head of one of the men burst with noise, and the blood and bits of brain splattered on the white snow. With only his bottom jaw left, the man bent down as if bowing.

"Shoot!"

With each shouts, the ropes around the heads, chests and knees snapped and the corpses fell on the ground. One of the ropes at the knees failed to snap, so the whole body bent forwards at 45 degrees from the post. A policeman cut the rope with a knife and the blood from the upper body fell on his gloved hand. So he picked up some snow from the ground and wiped off the blood on his glove and his knife. Blood from the heart sprayed out and bones snapped. Soon the headless corpses were unrecognisable. The white snowy hop field had turned red.

My whole body shook. I saw all this very closely. The air was filled with the smell of blood and terrified people scuttled back to the town without much energy. They all looked nervous and scared, and nobody spoke.

The corpses were wrapped with straw bags and were put on to a truck. These bodies are not to be returned to their families, but would be disposed in secret by the security forces.

They were all of a similar age to Kim Jong-un. They all have parents and children. Did they really do something so bad? They risked their lives for the money you can earn in just one day in South Korea. Had they been able to receive public distribution or work at the factory so that they could make a living, they would not have done such things.

They helped the women from Hamhung only because they had been asked for help to reach China. It wasn't human trafficking through deception. The women wanted to leave their hometown and go to China because there was nothing to eat in Hamhung.

Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-Il starved around 3,000,000 innocent North Koreans to death in the mid 90s. Private possession was not allowed and their entire people depended on public distribution and system of coupons. The loyal people were brainwashed to believe that soon their country will become strong and prosperous if they endured just a little more, but they ended up with famine and mass death.

This started a series of defections where people escaped risking their lives, and is still on-going. North Korean women are sold to Chinese disabled men who cannot get married, and if they are caught and sent back to Korea, they are killed either by torture or execution.

North Korea is the kingdom of modern slavery. The Party's propaganda department has a full grip on the only TV channel of the country, and brainwashes the whole nation according to the wish of Kim Jong-un. Radio frequency dials are removed so that people cannot listen to South Korean channels, and people who dared to listen South Korean radio or watch TV are sent to political prison camps or executed. It's a land of hell, void of any human rights. It's a closed off country where internet only exists for Kim Jong-un and the top elite.

Human beings are born with a set of eyes, ears and a mouth. Each one of us has a right to see, hear and speak as we wish. The military aggression of Kim Jong-un may block our eyes, ears and mouths, but he cannot stop the flow of democracy to the public who desire justice.

Fair and stern judgement of history will soon come to these slaughterers of human rights.

Hyeongsoo's Memoir: Public Execution
Name: Kim Hyeongsoo
Location: Republic of Korea
Translated by Sumin Hwang.

From an early age in North Korea, people live a routine life while loyalty towards leaders Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il is imposed on them.

People tend to ask what my happiest time in North Korea was. It is difficult to remember whether I had a happy time in North Korea at all. After considerable thought, I think the happiest time for me was when I was not in "organised" life, but when I was able to hang out with my friends and family, just talking and laughing together - but especially the days when I played with my friends.

In North Korea, chances to play were rare as even on holidays we had to go to rural areas to work, train in taekwondo, etcetera. We hardly had time to play at all. But on those rare days, we used our rice allocation and exchanged it for bread, got pocket money from our mothers, bought cigarettes and alcohol, and then went to the mountains and played guitar, while avoiding adults or teachers, of course. This was the happiest time for me.

When we went up the mountain, we sung songs from South Korea and it was like a competition to see who knew more songs. This was the happiest time for me because it was an escape from organised life and compulsory education.

Some people ask that as North Korean people are used to living an organised life, does being free feel awkward or uncomfortable. This is not so — my happiest times, and those of my friends, were when we were free. We enjoy being free and having the ability to enjoy the freedom.

People have also asked me about beggars in North Korea.

When I remember my time in North Korea, and reflect on what I have seen and experienced, my body still gets shivers.

In order to eat a decent amount of rice - an amount about the size of my fist - beggars have to find it on and eat it from the ground. They go to where soldiers eat rice, but wind up getting beaten for begging for food. Once, I saw a beggar steal bread from a merchant and get beaten to death. These sights are miserable beyond words and break my heart.

Some beggars go to rural areas and steal corn; some eat someone else's leftover food; some go to a place and beg to have just a spoonful of food to eat; and some eat food from the ground.

It is mostly the young, especially girls, who cannot beg from people and settle for eating off the ground. Often, they catch an infectious disease and some die. I can’t help but cry when I recall this.

Usually the beggars’ parents have passed away or cannot maintain a living so the children have been abandoned. In other cases, the children have run away from home because they do not want to live in a poor home.

Beggars usually spend their days in a Jangmadang (market), or near restaurants , and at night, in station waiting rooms. Usually, they stay there for around two nights, which makes them unhealthy and unsanitary, and causes them to become ill.

Some children leave home and travel, by train or foot, in search of a place to eat. There are not many sympathetic people though. Therefore, beggars often die from starvation whilst trying to seek sympathy from people.

This leads children to start committing crimes — they go to rural areas to steal and pickpocket. There is a big risk in committing these offenses though and many beggars get beaten until they die if they get caught.

Children have nowhere to express their frustrations and have to overcome the hardships on their own. North Korean society does not feel at least a little bit guilty about the crimes the children are causing. Instead, people say all the beggars do is steal and therefore they do not pity them or want to give them food, so the beggars die of starvation.

This is how far North Korean society has come in feeling numb to the whole situation of crime. Of course being in North Korea under a dictatorship, it is not a surprise that being a beggar is a crime.

This is all not to say beggars do not have any talents though — some showcase their skills by singing in front of a crowd and some even write their own songs. I can recall a song a beggar wrote about their life:

The snow is falling… in the streets. There is a boy selling cigarettes, wearing the cigarette case on his neck. Even in these struggling times, his mother cannot be seen, and his brother is crying from starvation and is slowly dying. Oh, when will the unification door open.

I cannot help but pity the innocent child who sung this song. The poor innocent North Korean children who believe the reason for them starving to death is economic restrictions put in place by America, not because of the regime.

This shatters my heart.

"Happy Times and Beggars in North Korea"
Name: Kang Sung Won
Country of Residence: Republic of Korea
Translated by Susie Lee. Edited by Sarah Marquet.