In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl’s Journey to Freedom

On her journey to South Korea, Park is forced to make decisions and sacrifices to ensure her own survival. From giving up her body to selling those of other girls in the human trafficking network, her actions are at first guided by an instinctual will to live and later by the desire to be treated with dignity. In a hostile environment where she is considered subhuman by the government and the people around her, these experiences highlight the price she had to pay for survival and raise the question: Can the worth of a human being come with a price tag?

In the eyes of the Chinese bride trafficking market, the answer is a resounding yes. Park’s mother is valued at around $2,100 (115). She is forced not only to act as a bride for the first family that buys her, but also to do menial tasks around the farm. Her cell phone is confiscated to isolate her from Park, and she is ordered around like a farm animal (115-116). Between being sent back to North Korea to be tortured and staying in China to be raped, the price of survival is high no matter the road she picks. Park decides to stay in China, where she is at least being fed. However, once her mother is taken away and her broker tries to rape her at night, she realizes even the basic right to eat comes with an emotional toll: “I had lost my family. I wasn’t loved, I wasn’t free, and I wasn’t safe. I was alive, but everything that made life worth living was gone” (119).

The price of staying in China is Park’s childhood and her innocence. She agrees to sleep with her broker, Hongwei, in exchange for having her mother back. With little to bargain with, Park is at the mercy of her broker’s goodwill. When Hongwei keeps to his word and buys Keum Sook back for $2,000, that is the price he pays to have free access to Park’s body. The experience is so painful and disgusting to her that she needed to cause herself physical pain to deal with the psychological trauma: “pinching and scratching myself with a rough cloth became a habit” (123). To survive the debasement of being raped at night by Hongwei, Park emotionally detaches herself from her body and her actions. She endures sexual assault at night and helps her abuser sell girls like herself to support her mother. She is given no choice about her method of living, and she feels as if she has to throw away her humanity to make it through (124). Park’s memoir illustrates the extent to which the systematic oppression of women reduces their bodily autonomy. When their worth as an individual is limited to their reproductive organs, the price of survival is human dignity.

The meaning of freedom is explored in depth in the third section of Park’s memoir—after she reaches Korea—although the theme is present throughout her journey. Park grew up in an environment where the concepts of freedom and free will are not taught. For example, her mother’s career and her area of residence are all decided by the state. She has to divorce her husband to legally move to Kowon. When Park lives in Hyesan, she believes that the sight of starved bodies and public executions is commonplace across the world. She is used to the idea of occasionally going hungry and only having electricity for short intervals. This experience is a result of North Korea’s totalitarian regime controlling the circulation of knowledge and ideas. Domestic media and school curricula are dictated by the state, while foreign media are entirely forbidden from broadcast.

With no understanding of human rights and no avenue for research, Park’s life in North Korea is shrouded in darkness. Her escape to China is not in response to the systematic oppression in Korea as she does not even know the concept of oppression. She is simply tired and afraid of being hungry all the time; she leaves for China on the premise that doing so will prevent her from starving (12). She does not know that the price to pay to stay in China is giving up her innocence and dignity. She is unaware that she will have little choice but to become complicit in working for the bride trafficking network.

The first time Park makes the conscious decision to fight for her autonomy is after the 2008 crackdown in China threatens to throw her back into economic destitution. Park sets out to find a fake ID card that will allow her to work. She has realized that being able to earn her own keep allows her a certain degree of freedom. This is proven once again when she moves to Shenyang with her mother to work from Myung Ok. There, she is no longer afraid of going hungry or being raped. However, Park also realizes that freedom is not simply about financial security. Although she is earning enough in Shenyang, she still lives in constant fear of being found by the Chinese authorities and deported to North Korea. As an illegal alien, she is at the mercy of the Chinese regime.

It is only once in South Korea that Park begins to understand the inhumanity of the North Korean totalitarian regime. With South Korea as a point of reference, she can now paint a better picture of the meaning of freedom. To Park, being fully autonomous and responsible for her own actions is at first incredibly tiring (177). It means she is presented with an increasing number of decisions to make, which were made for her by the state or her broker previously. It also means she has to think for herself—about ideologies, life, and her individuality. In a society that values human life and free will, Park must contend with being somebody who has individual worth. For example, at the Hanawon Resettlement Center, she is often asked to introduce herself and talk about her hobbies or her interests. She struggles to answer these questions because her state of mind has always been focused on survival. Being free means that Park has to take time to learn about herself; this can only be achieved in an environment where her dignity as a human being and her basic rights are protected by the law. In sum, freedom can only be guaranteed through financial security and the protection of human rights. Its cost is equivalent to the effort Park had to make to reconcile with her past and find herself.