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

by Masaji Ishikawa

The Japanese defeat in World War II left 2.4 million Koreans stranded in Japan. They belonged to neither the winning nor the losing side, and they had no place to go. Once freed, they were simply thrown onto the streets.

The General Association of Korean Residents was deemed a terrorist group and ordered to disband in 1949. The League of Koreans in Japan served as a replacement for many, but times had changed. By then, public order had been restored, and someone like my father, an impulsive and poorly educated street fighter, simply wasn’t needed anymore. What the newly launched League really needed at that time were skilled administrators—there was no place for my father, who couldn’t even read, in the new order. I can’t help but wonder now whether his rejection from that group ultimately made him more vulnerable to the promises he started hearing about a great life to be had in North Korea . . .

In the early days of the so-called repatriation, some seventy thousand people left Japan and crossed the sea to North Korea. With the exception of a brief three-and-a-half-year hiatus, the process continued until 1984. During this period, some one hundred thousand Koreans and two thousand Japanese wives crossed over to North Korea. That’s one hell of a mass migration. In fact, it was the first (and only) time in history that so many people from a capitalist country had moved to a socialist country.

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

Once beyond school age, individuals were all expected to carry out two functions: to contribute to production and to take part in military operations. The whole system was based on the “Four Military Lines.” The key tenets were “arm the entire people,” “fortify the entire nation,” “build a nation of military leaders,” and “complete military modernization.” So various militias were formed.

The three castes were “nucleus” (or “core”), “basic” (or “wavering”), and “hostile.” Three criteria determined your caste: your birth and background, your perceived loyalty to the party, and your connections. Academic achievements had nothing to do with it, no matter how excellent they were. Your whole life was determined by which caste you’d been consigned to. If you were deemed “core,” a rosy future awaited you. But if you were deemed “hostile,” you were the lowest of the low and would remain so for life. No career path. No chance of bettering yourself. No way out.

“Don’t worry!” she said, knowing what he must be thinking. “Come to think about it, I couldn’t eat a rice ball if I tried. I don’t have enough teeth. My rice-ball-eating days are over.” And then she just laughed. I hadn’t heard her laugh for ages. It was contagious. We all began to laugh together—until tears sprang to our eyes.

I used to hate violence, especially since I had witnessed my father brutally beating my mother when I was a child. But after the confrontation with the doctor, my attitude changed. Violence began to seem like the only answer. I felt so helpless as I stood by, watching good people being purged and exiled and destroyed.

Life was just as hard, even harder than before, but my son took my mind off my mother’s death. Apart from him, I had nothing to live for. And if I thought too much about that, well, I moved toward the abyss. So I struggled desperately just to make it from one day to the next.

I kept stumbling and slipping on the muddy ground. Finally I stopped and placed the tiny body on the ground. I started digging with my bare hands. I tried not to think about anything as I dug and dug in the darkness. Whenever the lightning flashed, I could see the baby’s body beside me. A ghastly, tragic sight. It was the last straw. I stood up and shouted into the void, “Why do we have to bear such suffering? What did we do to deserve this?” Hot tears coursed down my already soaked face.

Eventually, I couldn’t help but ask her how she was getting the rice. At first, she didn’t say anything, but I pressed her until she admitted the truth. Apparently, when she said she was going to her grandmother’s house, she was really going to a blood-transfusion station in Hamhung City. She sold her blood to buy the rice. I just gazed up at the sky. Let me tell you what we were taught in school in North Korea. “People in South Korea can only survive by stealing things and selling their blood.” The irony!

Here’s how to make it. First, boil the pine bark for as long as possible to get rid of all the toxins. (Many people botched this stage and died in agony as a result.) Next, add some cornstarch and steam the evil brew. Then cool it, form it into cakes, and eat it. This was easier said than done. The pine oil stinks to high heaven and makes it almost impossible to consume it. But if you wanted to live, you choked it down. That’s when the real fun began. Crippling gut pain that brought us to our knees; constipation that you wouldn’t believe. When the pain became unbearable—there’s no delicate way of putting this—you had to shove your finger up your anus and scoop out your concrete shit. I’m sorry. You didn’t need to know that. Except you did. It’s the only thing that shows how desperate we were.

The situation grew more and more dire. Starving people wandered around hopelessly, while others simply lay in the street. Soon there were corpses too, lying out in the open, unclaimed and left to rot. Women. Old people. Kids.

No one thought or talked about anything except food. When we could manage to get around, we spent all our time searching and searching for anything remotely edible. We were nothing but a bunch of ravenous ghosts. The barely living dead.

When you’re starving to death, you lose all the fat from your lips and nose. Once your lips disappear, your teeth are bared all the time, like a snarling dog. Your nose is reduced to a pair of nostrils. I wish desperately that I didn’t know these things, but I do.

I looked around and wanted to weep at what I saw. The telephone on the table. A radio. Some fruit in a bowl. The dog snoozing by the window. Compared with North Korea, this was Shangri-La.