“Ask a North Korean” is an NK News series featuring interviews with and columns by North Korean defectors, most of whom left the DPRK within the last few years.

Readers may submit their questions for defectors by emailing [email protected] and including their first name and city of residence.

Today’s column is the first in a three-part series about the path that led one defector to escape from North Korea.

Jin — who was born and raised in North Korea and lived there until she defected in 2014 — writes about her early frustrations with life in the DPRK, how she found happiness in her marriage and the sudden turn of events that led her to question the society in which she had grown up.

Got a question for Jin? Email it to [email protected] with your name and city. We’ll be publishing the best ones.

Considering its population and surface area, Korea is not all that large. But due to its geographic location, the country can’t help but get tangled up with the world’s most powerful nations, and I wonder if this country was destined to experience so many ups and downs.

Over 70 years have now passed since the country’s division. When a small country like Korea is split in half, the individual destinies that are born in this country are hardly likely to be ordinary. On half of this peninsula, in the land called North Korea, live many people who cannot see though they have eyes, who cannot speak though they have mouths and cannot hear though they have ears.

Even now, I feel like I can still hear the wailing of those who risked their lives trying to escape that hell-like country, ending up in prison or executed. Today, I am writing to tell the story of my own attempt to escape North Korea.

SEARCHING FOR HAPPINESS

In the DPRK, there is a mountain called Mount Paektu, the highest on the Korean Peninsula. I was born near the mountain into a family that was despised by the government, and I did not have any great expectations for my future because I knew my place. Despite this, I dedicated myself to my studies.

Meanwhile, I happened to become recognized for my musical skills, and at the age of 15, I entered an arts university. In North Korea, where everything from your clothes to your hairstyle is controlled, my only happiness was the times at university where I had the chance to sing while playing the piano. But after only a short time, I came to realize that my style of singing did not please the North Korean government.

North Korea, a country where you cannot even sing freely!

In my teenage years, I came to feel that the country was trying to control not only external appearances but the soul in its entirety. I resented the North Korean authorities and lamented having been born in such a place. 

But luckily, someone was on my side. That person was my teacher.

The teacher kept my spirits up by discussing music, and we shared our struggles with one another. The professor’s wholehearted support was a great source of strength for me, but living under a dictatorship, I felt like the world was frustrating my musicality wherever I went. My mind was filled with doubts about the North Korean government. 

But time passed as usual, and soon I was in my twenties. And at some point, as if by destiny, a man came into my life. Although he wasn’t a professional, he loved music more than anyone and was born with musical talent. Time flew when we talked, and before I knew it, we’d fallen in love. 

While our love was not smooth, we overcame our struggles and came to hold a lovely child in our arms. My mother, who ran a business at that time, hugged her first grandson and was overcome with joy, and she devoted everything she had to him and loved him. While I felt like I could not live without music, I had ended up in a marriage with a person I loved and a son who was the apple of my eye. And for a while, I was happy. 

But that happiness was only an illusion. What is happiness in a despotic society like the DPRK, where there is constant surveillance and you cannot be sure who to trust?  Unlike in South Korea where diet fads come and go, in North Korea it is difficult to find anyone who is fat. Can one truly be happy in a society where you have to worry about your next meal? In a way, North Koreans like myself did not know what true happiness was. How could I when I had never experienced true freedom since the day I was born? 

A RUDE AWAKENING

The thing that woke me from this short dreamlike period was the North Korean government’s currency reform in 2009, which caused many people to experience a severe economic shock. My mother lost all her assets overnight and ended up having a stroke. My beautiful mother was only 52 years old at the time and hadn’t even had the chance to get to know her new grandson.

My whole world collapsed. I wanted to go to the government and say, “My mother made this money with her own sweat and blood. Why did you take it from her? What did she do wrong?” Inside, I was screaming, but there was nothing I could do. Seeing my unconscious mother, I had to hold in tears that tried to escape a few times a day. 

Then one day, the teacher from my university days came to find me. The Ministry of State Security had ordered that she spy on me. Both my teacher and I could not understand this. I took my teacher’s hands in mine, and all I could do was cry. 

There are common sayings in North Korea: “Birds may hear you during the day, and rats at night.” “It is an earring if hung on the ear, and a nose ring if hung on the nose.” That is to say, the government watches one’s every move, and if they decide to do so, they can hold you responsible for any sort of crime, no matter who you are. 

In my case, my mother’s involvement in trade with China meant we could afford to eat a little better and wear better clothes than others, and so we stood out to the authorities. The North Korean secret police watched us closely, and not long after, my husband and I were dragged before them along with my teacher, arrested on false charges of divulging secret information. 

This was how I ended up locked up in a secret police prison. This dramatic reversal of life circumstances accelerated the process that drove me to seek a way out.

Edited by Bryan Betts