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

by Masaji Ishikawa

Even now, when I think about my hometown, I can’t stop the tears from welling up. I would give anything to go back to that happy time, to feel so innocent and full of hope once more.

But our house didn’t have a bathtub. Nobody’s house did. In 1960. In paradise on earth.

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.

If you were sick or old, you were penalized. But the reality was even worse. The reality was “no work, no dinner.” So old people had to work until they died. They truly did.