For as long as I can remember,
I was always taught,
"my country is the greatest in the world!”.
It almost became common sense
that it was a privilege to live in this great nation,
because everyone, our parents, teachers, television,
taught us that, compared to the outside world,
our country was a paradise.
I was taught that our leaders were Gods
and, like most families at the time,
grew up worshiping our “Dear Leader”.
We knew very little of the outside world.
My entire childhood,
this is all I was taught in school,
and it was all I knew.
Until I turned 12.
That's when I dropped out of school to help make ends meet,
by working with my mother at her small hairdressing salon,
our family’s only real source of money.
Since coming back from the army,
my father had been left ill and unable to find work after the Great Famine.
Because of this, our family was looked down upon,
our salon got fewer customers, and we grew poor,
just barely able to pay for food, water, and rent.
Out of options,
we were forced to ask for help from others in the country,
despite knowing that,
even in the slight chance they were willing to help,
we weren’t sure if and how that was possible with the country’s many laws.
Winter was approaching like a train,
and now without enough for food and heating,
it looked like it would be my last winter with my father.
Then my uncle, hearing of our situation,
decided to risk it all to help his brother’s family get through winter and see spring together.
He was a farmer, and so,
he began hiding some of the rice he had been growing,
and sending it to our home for two and a half months.
But then, right before the dawn of spring,
he was caught.
Within days, we received a notice,
they would give him the ultimate punishment in front of the public.
This is common in my country,
and people are often forced to watch,
but I always believed that these were bad people,
who might have deserved punishment.
And now, for the first time in my life,
I questioned my country.
They did this to my uncle simply for showing love to his family.
After that, I was told that our family was considered “lucky”.
In other similar cases,
the families of "wrong-doers" were often taken to prisons or camps to live out their lives.
I would later find out,
that our family would have likely not survived
of poverty and starvation anyway, so they didn’t bother sending us to these places.
After what they did to my uncle, my faith in the country was shaken.
I was shocked, disgusted, and in mourning.
Finally, I began asking questions.
Instead of answering, my parents,
knowing how dangerous questions can be in the country,
only told me to stop “or we will all end up like Uncle”.
I left school at 12,
I knew how little I knew,
so I couldn’t stop,
I needed to know the truth,
is my country really the greatest in the world?
Finally, after failing to stop me from asking questions,
my father handed me an old box for my 17th birthday
filled with history books, photos of my family...
…and DVDs of foreign movies from the South.
And my eyes were opened.
I saw freedom, life, and happiness outside our borders for the first time!
I couldn’t believe it,
I knew what I saw could have been fake, but
it was too foreign, too impossible to be made up by anyone in my country.
The people in the movies spoke Korean, but it was different,
it was more relaxed, more passionate.
I knew from that moment on that I had to leave,
find out what was true of our country, and maybe help my family’s situation.
Still young and barely educated,
I asked my father for help, expecting him to refuse.
But to my surprise, he supported me,
telling me that,
“what we have here,
it's broken, and I want you to go live a better life wherever you can find it.”
After that, we grew closer than we had ever been before.
But my mother, she said it was just “too risky”,
telling us stories she had heard from old customers of people who had tried to escape,
failed, and been captured.
She told us these people were horribly mistreated in prisons for months
before eventually being released and watched by the secret police.
But what choice did we have?
Either the government takes us, or poverty does.
With me finding a life somewhere else,
my parents could live with what they had for a little longer,
and maybe one day I could lead them to freedom too.
I can’t say too much about what happened next,
but 4 months later, I was on a small boat
sailing on the Tumen river heading toward China with my country behind me.
Dark and surrounded by other scared souls,
the realization that there was no turning back brought me to tears.
For the past few weeks, I had been running on adrenaline and very little food.
But now, exhausted and alone, I cried,
reliving my memories with my parents, as difficult as life was at the time.
I knew that if my escape was successful,
I hopefully would be able to help them find a better life outside of my country.
But if I was caught,
we would all have little time left to live.
And so, the last thing I said to my parents before leaving that night was
“I will see you soon”.
When I arrived in China it was like a surreal dream of the future.
We were taught this is what hell looks like,
yet I was drawn to it,
the buildings, the lights, the people. I was completely speechless.
But I was not a tourist,
I was a defector,
and so I had to remain hidden,
from the police, the border control, and spies from my country.
My plan was to reach South Korea,
but that could take months or years for some defectors,
so I had to find a place to live, to work, and to hide.
Finally, I moved to a safer village in the countryside working on the farm,
pretending to be South Korean and a few years older.
At night I wrote down my thoughts in a diary in case I was ever captured.
I thought about my parents a lot and kept a photo of them with me at all times,
reminding me of the promise that, I would see them soon.
But for nearly 2 years, I stayed in that village,
saving up the little money I made from working on the farm,
until I had enough to make my way to South Korea.
Before leaving, I thanked the farmer who had let me eat and sleep in one of his spare rooms,
and told him as well as I could through my Korean,
that he has done more for me than he will ever know,
and finally left.
I was now again in danger of being caught and sent back to my country,
having wasted my last two years.
For the next few weeks, I was paranoid.
I felt like I was being watched all over again,
and in the few private moments I had,
I broke down in tears.
I cried because I was lonely,
and because I was afraid.
But at last, I reached Seoul, South Korea,
and even though I knew my journey was far from over,
I felt relief for the first time since my uncle sent us food that winter.
I became a refugee,
meaning I was safer now than ever before.
All the while I found a job and studied to learn more about what was never taught to me.
A year later,
my mother told those asking that my father had passed,
when in reality he joined me in Seoul after saving enough money to secure his escape.
With my mother still in my country,
we now work to reunite her with us,
and finally, fulfill the promise I had made to her that I would see her soon.
I can’t reveal my birth-name,
but now I’ve decided to be called Hope,
because that is what I think my story represents.