Long Road Home: Testimony of a North Korean Camp Survivor (25 page)

“Where are you from?” he asked in clumsy Korean.

“We are from Seoul,” I answered.

“Which part of Seoul are you from?” he asked.

We were dumbfounded. None of us had ever been to Seoul.

“We live near the South Gate area.” I finally pulled out an answer.

“South Gate area?” The man paused for a second and then came up with another question. “What kind of cigarette do you smoke?”

“TC,” I answered immediately, recalling the only South Korean cigarette brand I knew. As the Seoul Olympics approached in 1988, the South Korean government had sent TC cigarette packages to North Korea, dangling from helium balloons. However, that had been more than a decade ago and I had no idea if they were what South Koreans smoked nowadays.

“Can you name some other South Korean cigarette brands?” The man kept pounding me.

“Well, I really don’t care about the South Korean brands. I am fond of Japanese cigarettes and mostly smoke Mild Seven.”

“Can you name some of the bridges over the Han River in Seoul?” he turned to the two women and asked. There was no way we could answer that question, so they kept silent.

The interpreter started talking to the Mongolian authorities in a language completely incomprehensible to us. Even though I did not understand a word of it, I could sense that the interpreter did not believe we were from Seoul. After the conversation, the authorities detained us for two days. We were in a city called Dzamyn Üüd, not far from Erenhot. The Mongolian authorities put us in a dark basement cell. We were nervous, as our journey had gotten derailed from the original plan. Hadn’t Mr. and Mrs. M told us that everything would be all right once we reached Mongolia? At this point, nothing looked certain. On the third day, they handcuffed us and ordered us to get on a truck. Besides the three of us, there were two Chinese illegal border crossers. They also had their hands cuffed, and they were blindfolded. As our eyes were not covered, I could see that they were taking us to the legal passage between the Chinese and the Mongolian borders. A straight white line divided two rows of barbed-wire fence. On each side, the Chinese and Mongolian national flags were hanging. Two Mongolian border guards got out of the truck and met two Chinese guards. They stood on each side of the white line and started having a heated discussion. From the truck I could hear a Chinese guard saying, “
Bu xing
,” which I knew meant “no good,” to his Mongolian counterpart. The arguing went on for about half an hour. Then a jeep arrived from the Chinese side of the border and a familiar face appeared in front of us. It was that strange Chinese commander who had voluntarily told us information when we were on the Chinese side. He still looked boozed up. I could see that he was explaining to the Mongolians through an interpreter that we’d originally walked into Chinese territory from Mongolia by accident, which was why we ran back to Mongolia. So the Mongolians should decide what to do with us—whether to hand us over to the South Korean embassy or the North Korean embassy.

The Mongolian negotiator was a rough man, resembling a wild boar. He would not cave in and threatened that they would not return the two blindfolded Chinese men if the Chinese were to reject us. The negotiation failed, and all five illegal border crossers were sent back to the Mongolian post. We were detained another week, the three of us in the same room. The Mongolian police gave us nothing but a blanket for each. They brought us soup and bread, which were hard to touch because of the pungent smell. Whenever the police saw us not eating, they gladly took the food and ate it in a split second. The Chinese police had never touched the food we refused, but the Mongolian soldiers were desperate. I could not understand why the Mongolians blindfolded us and dragged us when we wanted to go to the toilet as if sending a convict to the execution ground. There were neither walls nor doors in the toilet, so the guards could see us taking care of our very basic needs.

After spending a week in these primitive conditions in fearful uncertainty, we repeated the same routine. The three of us and the two Chinese border crossers were again brought to the passage between China and Mongolia. The Chinese and Mongolian authorities started arguing again. Then, in half an hour, the Mongolians, with angry faces, ordered us to get off the truck. It looked like the negotiations had failed. My heart sank. We would be sent back to Beijing! This was a nightmarish scenario.

As soon as we got down, the Mongolians freed our cuffed hands.

“Kim!” The Mongolian guard shouted out my name.

Two guards took my arms and escorted me. They started to walk like robots in ridiculously measured steps, dragging me to the white borderline and stopping there. Two Chinese soldiers approached in equally ridiculous steps, ready to receive the transferred illegal border crossers. The Mongolians pushed my back, and in a second I was in Chinese territory. The world went completely black and I could not see a thing as the Chinese soldiers dragged me to a truck, tightly holding my arms. My heart nearly stopped at that moment. All the risks I’d taken, all the risks my friends had taken, all my benefactors’ efforts to save me from danger—it all came to a silly end like this…. The Chinese guards ordered me to get into the open back of the truck. It reminded me of the moment when I was arrested at the port of Nampo in North Korea. I came back to my senses only when the jolly Chinese truck driver started to offer me watermelon in an incomprehensible language. I looked around the truck and saw the belongings—shoes and backpacks—we’d left behind at the Chinese post. Seeing those things, I was even more assured that the Chinese were going to send us directly to Beijing.

“L!” the Mongolian guard shouted. The same ridiculously measured steps transferred her to the Chinese side and brought her to the truck. The chatty truck driver offered her watermelon. When the third member of our group was in the truck, the Chinese guards started yelling at us to get out of the truck again. When I got out, they yelled at me, pointing at my backpack and shoes. We were dumbfounded, but they kept yelling at us to pick up our packs and shoes. We obeyed. Since the straps of the packs had been ripped off, we held our stuff in our arms. The Chinese brought us back to the white demarcation line. None of us could figure out what was going on. Now, on the Mongolian side, there were the two Chinese illegal border crossers with blindfolds on. The Chinese guards pushed me to the Mongolian side and received one of the blindfolded men, after which each side signed some documents. Then the Chinese handed over L and received the other blindfolded Chinese. Again legal documents were signed in exchange. Then the Chinese finally sent the last in our group. It turned out that the Mongolians had lost their argument with the Chinese and had to accept that we’d originally crossed the border to the Chinese side by accident and had run back to Mongolia. Since the Mongolians had caught us running away from China, they first had to hand us over to the Chinese authorities, who would then legally hand us over to Mongolia. That was the entire charade we were subject to, but we did not know it then.

That was not the end of our border ordeal. The Mongolians took us back to the post and ordered us to strip down. There was no segregating men from women, and the three of us stood completely naked in front of the authorities. The medical inspectors came in to see whether we had any visible signs of disease, even looking into our rectums. L was particularly nervous about her North Korean Workers’ Party membership card. After the inspection, they left us. We were locked up again but this time, we had all our belongings back from the Chinese authorities. They did not take away anything and every personal item we’d received from Mr. and Mrs. M was intact.

Now that we were in safe territory, we had to recuperate our strength. We did not know what the Mongolian authorities were planning to do with us, but we knew that we still had not reached our final destination. We asked the guards to buy us decent food and expensive cigarettes. They complied because they could get something out of us each time they ran errands. The two women once again demonstrated superhuman power when they ate everything with mighty appetites. However, having gone through tremendous fear and stress, I felt my blood pressure surging and felt nauseated. I lay down and could not get up when the police ordered me to. When it was clear that my illness was getting worse, the two women started yelling at the police.

“You savages, he is going to die if you don’t take care of him! Savages!!!”

I did not know where these women got their tremendous vocal strength. The guard, who had been getting chubbier because of us, called his superior. They brought doctors to take my blood pressure and examined me with serious expressions on their faces. They were on the phone for a while, and it was decided that we would be transferred from Dzamyn Üüd, which was near the railroad, to Ulaanbaatar. Two security guards escorted the three of us. While the women were not restrained under their supervision, I was handcuffed and watched over by one of the two guards. When they put us on the train, I could clearly see for the first time the town where we had been detained. There were guards along the railroad tracks and not many regular houses to be seen. All the residents were families of either railroad workers or border guards. If we had ended up here as we’d planned, without going through the Chinese patrol station, we would have been caught immediately. I felt that God had planned it the way it happened, leading us on a safe path toward salvation. When we ended up in China, I could not understand how he’d led us to trouble instead of to a safe haven, but now I could. Only later did I learn that had we been caught by the Mongolian authorities, we would have been transferred to the Chinese authorities like the two Chinese illegal border crossers they exchanged for us. That would have surely meant our deportation to North Korea.

On the train, both women protested against handcuffing an ill person. The Mongolian guard released only one of my hands. Nevertheless, I felt a slight sense of relaxation. But at the post in Ulaanbaatar we were led to an unpleasant basement cell, which was dark and humid. Water dripped from the ceiling. There were no light bulbs, only candlelight. Everything was extremely primitive. On the other side of the wall I could hear a kind of murmur that sounded more like wounded beasts than human beings. We told the authorities that we were South Koreans and needed immediate medical attention. I was close to losing consciousness due to extreme high blood pressure. A female doctor came to check my blood pressure and noted that I was in a precarious condition and needed immediate care. After her visit, I noticed that about 6,000 Chinese
yuan
I’d been keeping in my pocket was missing. It could have been anyone who’d had close contact with me, but I suspected that it was the doctor. She was extremely kind and attentive, urging the authorities to move me to a better place. They put us in an upstairs office, where three beds were set up. The doctor brought a chloride injection and took good care of me, so I decided not to raise the issue of my missing money.

A few days after we’d moved upstairs, the Mongolian authorities called L to their office. She came back after a few minutes, completely pale. She could not open her mouth to explain what had happened but kept shivering as if struggling with a severe case of flu.

“North Korea…people from the North Korean embassy are here to see us…ah…my…”

It took a while for her to regain composure, but then she told us that the North Korean government was looking for that missing midcareer North Korean diplomat and his wife who had been stationed in Beijing. The NSA had issued their photos and was searching for them. When the North Koreans made the request to see us, the Mongolian authorities asked the South Korean embassy their opinion. I learned later that the South Korean intelligence in Mongolia by now had heard about my background from the missionary couple and wanted to protect me, so they told the Mongolian authorities to show only the women, not the man, as they were worried that someone from the NSA might recognize my face. So L was sent out for viewing. She told us that a black Mercedes sedan displaying a North Korean flag pulled over about three feet away. Nobody got out of the car, but someone lowered a backseat window and started to compare her face with the photo. They took their time and kept scrutinizing her. She was wearing fashionable glasses and a fancy black cashmere sweater with elegant white embroidery. Around her neck hung a gold chain and a gold cross, which she had received from Mrs. M. No matter how scared L might have been, she must have looked like anything but a North Korean escapee. The North Koreans kept looking at her for about fifteen minutes, during which time the Mongolian authorities kept pointing at L and repeating, “South Korean, South Korean.” After the deadly inspection, the luxury sedan left L standing there, shaking. I thought about the possibility of an NSA agent inspecting me from the backseat of the car, had I been summoned. If, by any chance, the inspector had been a former colleague, would he have recognized me? I had changed so much since those happy days.

We spent two more days in the office. The female doctor brought us flowers, played music, and took great care of us. In hindsight, I guess I made the right choice of exchanging the money for good care and service, if she was the one who stole it. In the end, the Mongolian authorities took the rest of our money, nearly $4,500, as they charged us a huge sum for services they provided during our stay. The average monthly wage in Mongolia was $100 back then, so it was a large amount for them.

Soon after, a man who claimed that he was from the South Korean embassy showed up. We asked him for his ID, as we were not in a position to trust anyone yet. He showed us a diplomat’s passport. L handed over her party membership card, on which her photo and Kim Il-sung’s photo were displayed, as proof of the past she’d left behind. The man seemed surprised. He left the room and came back five hours later. He told us that there would be an interrogation by the Mongolian authorities and advised us to tell the entire truth, as he thought it was the best way to pursue political asylum. If we insisted that we were South Koreans, it would not help our situation, as the Mongolians did not really believe that. He promised to make arrangements for our safety. Next day, as the diplomat had indicated, the interrogation began. I told everything to an interpreter—about my imprisonment in the political camp, my escape, and my journey to China and Mongolia. Around 5 p.m. a high-ranking Mongolian official came in and talked to me through an interpreter: