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

by Masaji Ishikawa

You don’t choose to be born. You just are. And your birth is your destiny, some say. I say the hell with that. And I should know. I was born not just once but five times. And five times I learned the same lesson. Sometimes in life, you have to grab your so-called destiny by the throat and wring its neck.

The life of an outlaw was a kind of liberation.

They just wanted to assert their own existence. And that meant fighting however they could to gain some kind of power.

The system was known as the “feasibility concept.” Feasibility concept! That’s what happens to language in countries like North Korea. A totalitarian dictatorship is a “democratic republic.” Bondage is known as “emancipation.”

She often broke down and sobbed for hours at a time. I tried to console her, but I could never find the words. They didn’t exist.

That’s how I felt that day. I wanted to demolish the whole universe, but the sad truth was, it had already come crashing down around my head.

And I came to recognize that, no matter how difficult the reality, you mustn’t let yourself be beaten. You must have a strong will. You have to summon what you know is right from your innermost depths and follow it.

Seeing my baby’s face as she slept so peacefully made me determined to work harder than ever. But the reality hit home late that night. I had a wife. And now two children. And however hard I worked, I would always be poor. I would never be allowed to better myself, no matter how much effort I put in. My children would be faced with a life of hardship regardless of what I did.

I just wanted to do something honest and pure, something I couldn’t be reprimanded for.

The black market was also thriving. It seemed the more messed up a country became, the more the black market prospered.