The Girl With Seven Names: A North Korean Defector’s Story Quotes
"I chose it so that I would live my life in light and warmth, and not return to the shadow."
"Leaving North Korea is not like leaving any other country. It is more like leaving another universe."
"By the time it might ever be safe for me to return, I will probably be a stranger in my own land."
"We can do without almost anything – our home, even our country. But we will never do without other people, and we will never do without family."
"The simple solution to my problem of identity is to say I am Korean, but there is no such nation."
"My country is my family and the many good people I knew there. So how could I not be a patriot?"
"I thought life in North Korea was normal. Its customs and rulers became strange only with time and distance."
"Kindness toward strangers is rare in North Korea."
"The irony was that by forcing us to be good citizens, the state made accusers and informers of us all."
"Most kids at the ceremony were wearing the state-issue black shoes."
"In North Korea family is everything. Bloodlines are everything. Songbun is everything."
"By now the red scarf I’d longed to wear had become an irritation to me."
"My mother had come to my school to have lunch with me. We were sitting in the sun just outside the school building, eating rice balls on the riverbank."
"History lessons were superficial. The past was not set in stone, and was occasionally rewritten."
"Everything we learned about Americans was negative."
"Mass games marked the most sacred dates in the calendar."
"Reading was a habit I’d picked up from my mother."
"I adored this mush. It was about teenage love, and touched my heart in a way that filled me with longing."
"Our country is sealed shut from neighbouring countries."
"The television would expand my horizon, and Min-ho’s, dramatically."
"She treated requests for help with extreme caution."
"Our guide showed us bullet holes on the old police station, circled in white."
"‘Look.’ In a voice full of wonder the teacher said: ‘Even the dragonflies are sad at the Great Leader’s death.’"
"I was proud that he wanted to go out with me when so many other girls wanted him."
"‘I’m hardly going to be long if I’m wearing these,’ I said, pointing to my feet."
"‘You will not,’ she said, almost in a shout. ‘Don’t you ever leave our country. Do you understand?’"
"By the time you read this, the five of us will no longer exist in this world."
"‘Why has this suffering fallen upon our people?’ he said. Tears were rolling down his plump cheeks."
"The entire country was being mobilized, and everyone was on a war footing."
"‘We have the most amazing weapons, Min-young.’ His voice was excited, like a little boy’s."
"I didn’t feel guilt now – just a rushing, hair-raising danger."
"I realized now what an extraordinary imposition I was making on him and what a kindness he was doing me."
"The very things I’d regarded as symbols of our backwardness I now missed the most."
"I knew I had no real affection for him, that I was using him for protection."
"Ordinary people are made persecutors, denouncers, thieves."
"Once I was on the mend, I went back to work at the restaurant, but I was no longer enjoying the job."
"The gang knew that an illegal like me wouldn’t try anything stupid, like calling for help."
"I told myself that if I stayed in its light I would be safe."
"With the stress of my ordeals... I fell sick."
"Just days into January 2002, I packed everything I had into two light bags, bought a one-way ticket to Shanghai, and boarded the fast train."
"You get three chances in life. This time, I’d seized one."
"The city opened doors to those with nerve, ambition and talent. It was uncaring and cruel to those with no right to be here."
"Without an ID, there was no chance of better-paid, more meaningful work."
"The safest option was to buy a real ID from someone."
"The elite in Pyongyang had access to beauty surgery? It seemed almost obscene given the poverty and hunger of most of the population."
"I was not so safe from my past. It could catch up with me at any time."
"I felt financially more secure, though there was still the enormous debt to my uncle, which I repaid in monthly instalments."
"I felt more confident. I no longer lived in the shadows."
"The prohibition on drug-dealing, a serious crime in most countries, is not viewed in the same way – as protective of society – by North Koreans."
"I was on the other side of my divided country. I was in the parallel Korea."
"Freedom – real freedom, in which your life is what you make of it and the choices are your own – can be terrifying."
"I would succeed in this beautiful country, no matter what. I would make it proud of me."
"Some suffered breakdowns, or panic attacks at the thought of the super-competitive job market they were about to enter."
"Paranoia, a vital survival tool when neighbours and co-workers were informing on them, prevented them from trusting anyone."
"Eat as much as you like, the staff said. Once you leave here, it may not be so easy to eat well."
"The path to a happy and successful future was winding and obscure."
"I thought of him every day at Hanawon. I daydreamed about him in classes."
"North Koreans pride themselves on their directness of speech, an attitude that had been encouraged by Kim Jong-il himself."
"Without a university degree, I would be no one."
"Because North Korean defectors are usually in low-paid, low-status jobs, they are looked down upon in South Korea."
"I’ll do whatever it takes. Humans are selfish and care only for themselves and their families. Am I any different?"
"I couldn’t find the words. I gestured for him to join me, and opened an English–Korean translation function on my cellphone."
"Slowly, and with many embarrassed laughs and pauses, we communicated."
"My defences shot up. Why? Why would a white, fifty-something male all of a sudden care about the problems of some Koreans he’d never met?"
"I decided that he was probably making some feel-good gesture that he would end up not honouring."
"To my astonishment he was putting hundreds of US dollars into my hand."
"Was I dreaming? I was struggling to comprehend what had just happened and express gratitude at the same time."
"With the help of the cellphone dictionary and our translator waiter, the tall man explained that he was on a two-year journey around Southeast Asia."
"My next thought was that if this impressive man came to the prison with me, I would not have to face that superintendent alone."
"He held out his hand. ‘My name’s Dick Stolp. From Perth, in Australia.’"
"‘I’m not helping you.’ He gave an embarrassed smile. ‘I’m helping the North Korean people.’"
"All that locked-up beauty I’d seen in this country, and felt I was being denied, suddenly opened."
"When you’ve lived your whole adult life as I had, calculating the cost of even the smallest decision, such generosity wasn’t easy to accept."
"Dick’s simple kindness took no notice of age, race or language."
"I laughed and smiled for the first time since leaving Seoul."
"My most basic assumptions about human nature were being overturned."
"I was clutching the phone so tight my nails dug into my palm."