Defector's story: A stark look at North Korea's secretive, communist regime (Book Excerpts) (To go with IANS Interview of Hyeonsee Lee)

Following are excerpts from the book: The Girl With Seven Names - A North Korean Defector's Story, by Hyeonseo Lee.

Family and Relatives

My mother was one of the eight siblings - four daughters and four brothers - all of whom possessed the characteristic Hyesan stubbornness. They were to have curiously diverse careers. At one extreme was Uncle Money. He was an executive at a successful trading company in Pyongyang and could obtain luxurious Western goods. We were very proud of him. At the opposite end was Uncle Poor, who had sunk in the songbun system after marrying a girl from a collective farm. He was a talented artist.

The other brothers were Uncle Cinema, who ran the local movie theatre, and Uncle Opium, a drug dealer. Uncle Opium was quite an influential figure in Hyesan.

* * *

Growing Up

I believed that I could get pregnant if I kissed a man, or held hands with him. My girl friends thought the same. The boys' ignorance of sex was just as bad. I once saw a group of youth in their early teens near the pharmacy opposite Hyesan Station blowing up condoms as if they were balloons, and kicking them about in the street. If someone had told them what those items were for, they would have run away red-faced.

* * *

Disappearance of Father

A group of men from Pyongyang were waiting for my father at the bridge. They were officers of the Military Security Command. This organisation is separate from the Ministry of State Security, the Bowibu. It is a secret police that watches the military. Another ten days went by with no news. We knew only that he had been detained while investigations were made into his business conduct. To the outside world my mother presented the hardened, no-nonsense mask she always wore. At home, she became brittle and tearful. She began to steel herself for the worst. She knew that few people ever emerge from such detentions unharmed, or even emerged at all. I had never seen her like this.

* * *

Kims' brutal regime

Sympathetic People I'd met in China would sometimes express their bewilderment that the Kim dynasty had been tyrannising North Korea for almost six decades.

The Kims rule by making everyone complicit in a brutal system, implicating all, from the highest to the lowest, blurring morals so that no one is blameless. A terrorised Party cadre will terrorise his subordinates, and so on down the chain; a friend will inform on a friend out of fear of punishment of not informing.

* * *

Famine in the country

A shadow began to fall across Hyesan. Beggars were appearing everywhere, especially around the markets. This was a sight I'd never seen in our country before. There were vagrant children, too. At first, only in twos and threes, but soon many of them migrating to Hyesan from the countryside. Their parents had perished of hunger, leaving them to fend for themselves, without relatives. They were nicknamed kotchebi (flowering swallows) and, like birds, they seemed to gather in flocks.

* * *

Night of escape

The date I chose was in the second week of December. I was resolved to leave after dinner. there was little I could take. I had no Chinese currency, and I could hardly let my mother see me leave the house with a bag of spare clothes.

That evening my mother was cooking an unusually elaborate meal.

'Why've you made so much food?' I said.

She had prepared much more than we normally ate. The kitchen was warm and smelled wonderful, of spicy stew and marinated pan-fried meat. she had even made bread in the steam pot. Her back was towards me as she stirred the pan.

'I just want to give you both a nice meal,' she said simply. My heart missed a beat. I don't think she'd guessed what I was about to do, yet it felt like a farewell supper. That evening I ate as much as I could. After the bowls were cleared, I put on my coat, as if it had just occurred to me to go out.

* * *

Crossing over

I began to walk. My footsteps seemed very loud. Eventually, there, about ten yards ahead, I could make out the figures of Chang-ho in his long coat, patrolling the riverbank with his rifle on his back. Luckily, he was alone.

There was just enough light to see by. The river beside me was a winding road of ice - pale and translucent, as if it were absorbing the starlight.

I called Chang-ho's name in a low voice. He turned and waved and switched on his flashlight.

Before he could say a word I said: 'I'm crossing over to visit my relatives.' I saw his eyebrows shoot up. I'd never mentioned relatives to him before. He thought about this and shook his head slowly.

'No,' he said dubiously. 'Too dangerous.' His mouth turned down with concern. 'You could get into big trouble. And how would you get to where your relatives live? You don't speak Chinese. And you're alone.'

'I know people just there who'll help. I nodded in the direction of Mr Ahn's house. He stared at me for several seconds. It was as if he was seeing a different person.

'All right,' he said slowly. 'If you're sure.' He was extremely reluctant about this. 'Don't be longer than a couple of hours.'

* * *

In dragon country

Far from being happy to see me, her (soo-jin's) eyes were darting about, as if she thought she was being followed. She said the police had come to her apartment and asked for her ID. She didn't have one. They arrested her and processed her at the Xita Road Police Station, then deported her back to North Korea. She was imprisoned for three months in a Bowibu holding camp. Hygiene was non-existent and each meal consisted of ten kernels of corn. New arrivals quickly contracted diarrhoea, which, with starvation rations, killed many in a matter of days.

On her release she was made to sign a document vowing never to escape again. She knew that if she was caught a second time, she would not survive the punishment. Scars from kicks and beatings were livid on her legs. She said that China was too dangerous for her now. She was determined to get to South Korea.

* * *

Haven for defectors

My nightmares had stopped, but curiously it was here, in this haven, that many defectors' ordeals caught up with them, and tormented them in dreams. Some suffered breakdowns, or panic attacks at the thought of the super-competitive job market they were about to enter (in South Korea). Psychologists were on hand to talk to them, and medics too, to tend to chronic, long-neglected ailments.

* * *

Settling down

To prevent the creation of a North Korean ghetto, the South Korean government disperses defectors to towns and cities all over the country. We can't choose where we are sent. Ninety-nine percent would prefer Seoul, but given the shortage of housing, only a few were selected. Each of us was given a grant of 19 million won (about $18,500) for housing expenses.

(Excerpts carried with permission from HarperCollins India, the publishers)