In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom

by Yeonmi Park

In North Korea, you are supposed to share everything. But later, when times were much harder for our family and for the country, my mother told us to chase the children away. We couldn’t afford to share anything.

country I grew up in was not like the one my parents had known as children in the 1960s and 1970s. When

I was taught never to express my opinion, never to question anything.

and true believers—my mother included—thought that Kim Il Sung was actually immortal.

Everybody knew these men could take you away and you would never be heard from again.

In most countries, a mother encourages her children to ask about everything, but not in North Korea.

because in North Korea all of your opportunities are determined by your caste, or songbun. When

The highest is the “core” class made up of honored revolutionaries—peasants,

Second is the “basic” or “wavering” class,

lowest of all, is the “hostile” class,

They outlawed the Korean language and took over our farms and industries.

In North Korea, any history can be dangerous.

In North Korea, we were taught that the Yankee imperialists started the war, and our soldiers gallantly fought off their evil invasion.

While my parents were growing up, the distribution system was still subsidized by the Soviet Union and China, so few people were starving, but nobody outside the elite really prospered.

Like most North Korean men from the middle and upper classes, he was conscripted for ten years of service, although with connections that could be reduced to as little as two.

In North Korea, if one member of the family commits a serious crime, everybody is considered a criminal.

once you become an adult, your status is constantly being monitored and adjusted by the authorities.

Everything about you is recorded and stored in local administrative offices and in big national organizations, and the information is used to determine where you can live, where you can go to school, and where you can work. With

This was a bold move, because any business venture outside of state control was illegal.

My father joined a small but growing class of black market operators who found ways to exploit cracks in the state-controlled economy.

It was unusual for a North Korean woman of her status to get a higher education.

But only students from better families are allowed a say in what they will study.

she never questioned the regime’s authority to control her

She knew only what the regime taught her and she remained a proud and pure revolutionary.

She sincerely believed that North Korea was the center of the universe and that Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il had supernatural powers.

would be many years before she realized that Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il were just men who had learned from Joseph Stalin, their Soviet role model, how to make people worship them like gods.

There was no concept of “dating” in North Korea at that time.

You just had to guess how your beloved felt from the look in his eyes, or the tone of her voice when she spoke to you. The most they could do was hold hands secretly.

According to tradition, their marriage was arranged by their families.

There was no ceremony. My parents just brought their ID cards to the police station to record their marriage, and that was it.

But before that, capitalism was something dirty to North Koreans, and money was too disgusting for most people to mention in polite conversation.

the government stole everything from its people, including their freedom.

my parents knew that with each passing month it was getting harder and harder to survive in North Korea, but they didn’t know why. Foreign media were completely banned in the country, and the newspapers reported only good news about the regime—or blamed all of our hardships on evil plots by our enemies.

Instead of changing its policies and reforming its programs, North Korea responded by ignoring the crisis.

While it had once provided for all our needs, now the regime said it was up to us to save ourselves.

the government diverted most of it to the military, whose needs always came first.

Nothing went to waste in North Korea, and we couldn’t imagine throwing anything out that could be used again,

In the free world, children dream about what they want to be when they grow up and how they can use their talents. When I was four and five years old, my only adult ambition was to buy as much bread as I liked and eat all of it.

She carries guilt to this day that she was not better able to enjoy my childhood;

Every passenger train in North Korea had a special cargo car attached at the end of it called Freight Train #9.

It was the only way to survive.

know this because in North Korea they line you up by your height, and seat you in class by your test scores.

the only books available in North Korea were published by the government and had political themes.

North Koreans are raised to venerate our fathers and our elders; it’s part of the culture we inherited from Confucianism.

You learn that your friends are your “comrades” and that is how you address one another. You are taught to think with one mind.

Sometimes during recess from school we lined up to take turns beating or stabbing dummies dressed up like American soldiers.

“American bastard,” “Yankee devil,” or “big-nosed Yankee.” If you didn’t say it, you would be criticized for being too soft on our enemies.

any mention of the Kims had to be preceded by a title or tender description to show our infinite love and respect for our Leaders.

In North Korea, public executions were used to teach us lessons in loyalty to the regime and the consequences of disobedience.

She couldn’t believe that in her own country a human’s life had less value than an animal’s.