A River in Darkness: One Man's Escape from North Korea

by Masaji Ishikawa

I became obsessed with all the things I had taken for granted before,

When you find yourself caught in a crazy system dreamed up by dangerous lunatics, you just do what you’re told.

Sad

“Your mother made them for you, so just eat them!” he said. And to my amazement, he burst into tears. I’d never seen him cry or show much emotion. So of course I started blubbering

“I’m sorry too. I always make your life so hard,” my father said.

This was laughable, of course, but that’s always the way with totalitarian regimes. Language gets turned on its head. Serfdom is freedom. Repression is liberation. A police state is a democratic republic. And we were “the masters of our destiny.” And if we begged to differ, we were dead.

I wasn’t crazy. Work was my only refuge.

“Sadness and gladness follow each other.”