Long Road Home: Testimony of a North Korean Camp Survivor (6 page)

There was no shortage of anything in the new household. Plenty of everything. Plenty of food, plenty of toys, plenty of clothes, and plenty of well-to-do guests poured in. All the guests brought something for us children—sweets, pocket money, and other things—while they asked our parents for favors: to recommend their sons and daughters for a promotion in the party, to hire their relatives at the department store, to secure certain goods from the department store for them, et cetera, et cetera. It looked as if I had everything I needed for a perfect childhood—a large, comfortable house, busy but influential parents, and the prestige of belonging to the powerful circle of children whose families ran the country. A particularly happy memory from this time period is associated with my first pet. Back then in the 1960s, it was extremely rare for North Korean urbanites to own a family pet, as it was only in the late 1980s that some well-to-do North Koreans started keeping pets. I happened to be lucky enough to rescue a monkey from the city zoo during a terrible flood. All civilians, including schoolchildren, were drafted to clean up the mess left by the flood and my class was dispatched to work at the zoo. I saw a tiny baby monkey at the top of the metal cage trying to stay away from the wet ground. All the other animals had already been evacuated, and I did not know how this one remained behind, but I took him home with me and reared him with care and love. The monkey became a friendly follower of mine. He came to sleep with me every night and often cleaned my ears with his tiny agile fingers. I was so fond of this monkey that I sometimes took him on a bus ride. He would usually sit quietly on my shoulder, busily rolling his eyes and turning his head, observing people sitting nearby. One time there was a child sitting next to me eating cookies. The monkey sat still and studied the child for a while, and then quickly snatched the cookie from the child’s hand. Next moment, the bus resounded with the child’s shriek and cry. The little monkey was a fun creature but also a troublemaker, and it started to bother me when it came to clean my ears while I was sound asleep. So upon my parents’ recommendation, sadly but necessarily, I returned him to the zoo after few months of building intimate friendship.

O and I got along well. I truly believed that she was my younger sister, so I protected her from mischievous boys in our neighborhood. She sometimes came home crying after being harassed by the boys. Every time it happened, I made sure that those little tormentors of my sister got their share of bitter tears. The children in my neighborhood all had prominent parents—vice-premiers and revolutionary fighters—and were shielded from the slightest misfortune. The group of kids I knew then included Go Sin-ja, the sister of Go Yeong-hee, who later became the third wife of Kim Jong-il. Go Sin-ja was older and looked out for me as if I were her younger brother. Most children in Namsan district had a sense of entitlement and arrogance, but many were merely overprotected brats who had no clue about real life. Some of them, barely out of childhood, were sexually curious, watching pornographic films their parents secured from Japan and carelessly left within their children’s reach. Some of these kids were even sexually active, which was surprising given the astringent, asexual culture of the North Korean society. When their parents were away, these children would get together in well-protected private residences to drink, smoke, and have sexual adventures. Even if they were caught, nobody could punish them because of their prominent parents. Children of Namsan would sometimes fight against groups of not-so-privileged children from the south side of the Daedong River in bloody hooligan matches. These fights would involve literally about a thousand kids who carried clubs in the back of their pants. There were so many participants that we had to line up in regiments as if we were getting ready for a military battle. Young as we were, we learned organizational skills from a construction project of a TV tower under way in the Mansu Hill area of Pyongyang. Schoolkids—rich or poor, privileged or not—were all drafted to participate. We were organized into groups and rotated, from which we learned how to manage people and work in groups. This experience turned out to be particularly useful in group fights when collaboration and communication were key to victory. When these fights broke out, the district police came to arrest those involved, but the officers were not really after the tireless troublemakers of the privileged Namsan district. They knew all too well who would come to rescue us in case we were arrested, so there was not much they could do but issue mild admonishment.

The children’s world in our privileged district was a miniature of the adults’ world. It did not take long to learn the hierarchy by observing how other children behaved. Although I was outrageous, I nevertheless did not challenge kids whose fathers held higher posts than mine. By the same token, kids whose fathers were subordinate to mine knew better than to mess around with me. But when occasionally the hierarchy among the children was upset and conflict erupted, it always had some sort of repercussions among the parents. When an entire family was accused as anti-revolutionaries, they were stigmatized by the community. If there were children in the household, my friends and I made sure to give them good beatings. The persecuted family would soon disappear from the neighborhood, never to return. One day, the family of one of my close friends, Cheol, was rounded up as antirevolutionaries and sent to the penal labor camp. But ten-year-old Cheol was playing at another friend’s house when the arrest took place. Next day, he was captured by the police and sent to the camp to join his family. But even before that, Cheol’s ordeal had already begun in Pyongyang, as neighborhood children beat him and broke his arms, accusing him of being the son of a filthy antirevolutionary. Even though I did not participate, I had no sympathy, thinking that the beating served him well. I had no doubt that his family members were poisonous elements in our Democratic People’s Republic and deserved to be punished. All the children who witnessed such events never had second thoughts about the crimes of the arrested families.

As the children of the Namsan district entered high school, most of them had to deal with the pressure of preparing for a college entrance exam. Having prominent parents ensured them a good future, but they still had to get into prestigious universities, which required a lot of preparation time. Although a troublemaker and prankster, I wanted to succeed and please my parents. During this time I attended the Mansudae Children’s Palace (
Mansudae sonyeon gungjeon
), where I immersed myself in mastering all kinds of sports. What a wonderful place that was! I was particularly talented in judo. The Children’s Palace ran a program to recruit and train gifted youth who showed promise in music, dance, and athletics. Children who attended had to have a proven good class background—in other words, they had to be descendants of revolutionary soldiers, peasants, and workers. Go Yeong-hee, Kim Jong-il’s third wife, also studied at the Children’s Palace then and went on to become a dancer in the Pibada
⁴
Music Theater Troupe. Three qualities were constantly emphasized to, and required of, the children there—knowledge, virtue, and strength. I was not an academic type, so as far as knowledge was concerned, I was never an advanced student. As for virtue, I was too young to understand the true meaning of it. But then, the society in which I lived defined virtue as loyalty to the Great Leader, which made me a virtuous child. As for strength, physical ability was my genuine forte. I was neither tall nor strong, but everyone feared me for my unflinching spirit. I knocked out numerous opponents, sometimes legally in the wrestling arena and at other times illegally on the streets. Most of them were much larger than I. Life at the orphanage had taught me important skills of survival—when to challenge opponents and how to please supporters—at an early age, and compared to the mostly sheltered children who attended the Children’s Palace, I was a different sort, fearless, street-smart, and impudent. Kids in our neighborhood feared and revered me at the same time. I was afraid of nothing, and the whole world seemed to be coming together to prepare for my undoubted success.

Disclosure

“You should care more for the children even if they did not come out of your own belly. Lately you seem too distant and cold toward them.”

One night, as I was walking upstairs to my room, I overheard my father’s voice coming from behind the closed doors of the master bedroom downstairs. My heart instantly froze. On behalf of O and me, Father was reprimanding Mother. I vividly remember that Mother was in the prime of her life, beaming with health and beauty. Just a month earlier, all the family members had been excited to find out about her pregnancy, and I had just started my second year of junior high school. It had been four years since Mother had found us and brought us home, where I grew to be a carefree and confident child who cherished life and the prospects of a bright future. That sense of a perfect world now silently collapsed. My legs were frozen and uncontrollable tears started to pour down my face. A strong sense of betrayal overwhelmed me. Till that moment, I honestly thought she was my real mother. The day she appeared in that elegant black Pobeda at the orphanage vividly unfolded in my mind. How could it be? Why did she lie?

Some years later, I came to understand why I ended up with these parents for some years. My adopters were merely following the instructions of the Great Leader. Kim Il-sung had just told party leaders to adopt war orphans and raise them as their own children. My adoptive parents were young members of the party who had bright futures ahead of them, so they couldn’t afford to ruin their chances of success by not paying attention to Kim Il-sung’s instruction. After scrutinizing orphans, they picked a girl and a boy for themselves and cared for them according to the leader’s wishes.

Until Mother found out about her own baby, she took good care of O and me. I was genuinely happy, and despite my occasional hooliganism, I was a compliant child. But everything changed. After the disclosure of the truth, I was not the same kid. It did not take long for my parents to notice the troubles I was going through, and they must have guessed the reason. But we never openly brought up the issue in conversation. I simply avoided talking to them. The sense of perfect happiness was irreversibly damaged. After school was over I stopped returning home to attend extracurricular classes at the Children’s Palace and often ended up sleeping in parks and at friends’ houses. The district police woke me up in the park once and took me home. That night, I had a conversation with Father. He asked me if I would be interested in attending the Revolutionary School (
Hyeokmyeong hakwon
), where promising students were educated in a military-style setting to become the elite leaders of North Korea. It was painfully obvious to both my parents and me that it would be in everyone’s best interest if I left the house. After that, I never saw my adoptive parents again.

I am not certain if O had figured out what was going on when I decided to leave, but she remained with the family afterward, until she got married and started her own family. The day I packed and left for the Revolutionary School, my heart ached as much as it had when I was in the orphanage envying the children with their parents at a track meet.

I was again on my own.

As the car took me to the tall gates of the Revolutionary School, I was burning with a strong desire to find out about my real parents. Who were they? Were they alive or dead? How did I end up in that particular orphanage? Here I was again, all alone in the world with questions that could not be answered.

Revolutionary School

The Revolutionary School was a special institute where teenagers of good class background were given education and training in a military setting. In retrospect, it was an awesome place for a confused kid like me who had plenty of positive energy but did not know how to direct or cultivate it. It was a place for youth who showed signs of leadership. All the students had immaculate backgrounds according to North Korean standards—they were the children of revolutionary partisans or anti-Japanese guerrilla groups under Japanese colonial rule. I was an orphan, and at the same time, my adoptive father had a good background, so I was a natural candidate for admission. We all wore military uniforms and lived together in units like military platoons while other middle school students wore regular clothes and lived with their own families. My gloom at having discovered the truth about my adoption was dispelled somewhat when a brand-new military uniform was handed to me. Those shining buttons neatly sewn along the scarlet red trim of my jacket! The slight smell of benzene when the perfectly folded outfit was entrusted to my eagerly waiting arms! The thrill of putting the handsome cap on my shaven head! The excitement increased when the officer explained to us that the difference between our uniform and the regular military uniform was minimal; ours was distinguishable by a small letter “student” inscribed on the shiny buttons.

In the mornings we studied and in the afternoons we worked on military drills. The North Korean state was invested in grooming future military strategists. The majority of my classmates at the Revolutionary School ended up taking important posts in the North Korean Army. We were often treated to expeditions or excursions. Every child in North Korea has to participate in a pilgrimage commemorating the footsteps of our Great Leader Kim Il-sung. We were told that when the Great Leader was 12 years old, he crossed the Aprok River and walked 1,000
li
⁵
to attain learning. When he reached 14 years old, he again walked 1,000
li
from Mangyeongdae
⁶
to Samjiyeon
⁷
to unify his homeland. These were remarkable achievements for a boy of his age, but our Great Leader showed unusual determination and perseverance from early in his life, which we all must emulate—as the teachers would say. Children participated in the walking pilgrimage every year—the same distance our leader had covered in his journey at our age. We would post revolutionary maxims of the Great Leader on the knapsack of the student walking in front, so that we could walk and learn at the same time. Not all children in the rural areas could participate. They had to be selected and endorsed by their school to join a march to Pyongyang. It was a great festival for all, even though by the end of the march, our feet were raw and our toenails bruised. But if our Great Leader had done it, so must we—so must all of us if we were to carry out his great legacy and fulfill his wish to unify Korea.