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.

From my perspective, there wasn’t much difference between a socialist movement, a nationalist movement, and a brutal brawl in the black market. All of these people had a couple of things in common. They all had their own personal histories in Japan—and they were all poor. They just wanted to assert their own existence. And that meant fighting however they could to gain some kind of power.

We were taught that Kim Il-sung was “the king who liberated Korea from colonialism.” He’d waged a war against US imperialists and their South Korean lackeys—and had won. It was thoroughly drummed into us that Kim Il-sung was an invincible general made of steel. I could tell the teachers were proud of his role as the Great Leader of an emerging nation.

Meanwhile, in North Korea, Kim Il-sung proclaimed he was building a socialist utopia. It was called the Chollima Movement.

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.

So yes, the mass repatriation was great news for both governments—the perfect win-win situation for everyone except the real human beings involved.

the journalists spectacularly naive. Oh sure, they felt guilty about Japan’s colonial past, but this guilt, far from sharpening their judgment, clouded their thinking and befuddled their critical faculties. I mean, this was the second half of the twentieth century, for pity’s sake, and they still saw communism as the road to utopia. I wonder

“If you come back to your homeland, the government will guarantee you a stable life and a first-class education for your children.” For the countless Koreans who were unemployed, underpaid, and laboring away at whatever odd jobs they could get, the abstract promises of socialism held far less sway than the hope for a stable life and a bright future for their children.

The rictus grins of the brainwashed.

Everyone in North Korea had to join a group affiliated with the Workers’ Party. These groups and unions didn’t produce anything. Their sole purpose was to indoctrinate members. Everyone had to understand the words of Kim Il-sung and have a thorough knowledge of party policy.

I soon learned that thought was not free in North Korea. A free thought could get you killed if it slipped out.

guess we posed a double threat. We’d brought some dangerous items with us from Japan when we moved—things like bicycles and electrical appliances and half-decent clothes.

We also had to learn about the miraculous revolutionary changes the divine Kim Il-sung had brought about.

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

The village farms were administered by local “instruction committees.” These committees were in charge of everything—machinery, irrigation, materials. Farmers had no choice but to follow the committee’s instructions. 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.”

Bathing was an act of bourgeois self-indulgence; so was changing our clothes every day.

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.

North Koreans didn’t have anything to compare their country with because they’d never experienced anything else.

Basically, if you were clever and your birth and background were good enough, you were sent to university. If you were physically strong, you went to the military academy or became a common soldier. The rest were sent to workplaces as laborers. The most important factor in path determination was not how hard you worked but your assigned caste.

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.

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 suffer long enough, it almost becomes funny, and you can find yourself laughing at the most miserable situations. I guess it’s a kind of hysteria.

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.

In practical terms, the new “speed strategy” meant that we had to create farms wherever there was soil and turn mountains into terraced fields. To achieve this, more laborers were needed.

But that’s the trouble with propaganda. It constantly contradicts itself.

many Chinese Koreans and Chinese had tried to escape to North Korea during China’s “Great Leap Forward” and Cultural Revolution, that country’s own attempt at mass starvation. Now the whole migration had been thrown into reverse.

People didn’t keep dogs in North Korea. They ate them.