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.

I used to climb a nearby hill and catch beetles in the early-morning dew. At festival time, I’d follow the portable shrine and the dance with the lion’s mask. All my memories are sweet. My family was poor, but my childhood days in Mizonokuchi were the happiest of my life. 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.

later discovered was a prison, to visit a man I didn’t recognize. That’s the day my mother told me who my father was. Eventually the man I’d seen through the window in the visitors’ room showed up at our house. He was notorious in the area for being a rough fellow, and our relatives

liquor. He could polish off a couple liters of sake in short order. What was worse, drunk or not, he’d hit my mother whenever he was at home. My sisters were so frightened, they used to cower in the corner. I tried to stop him by clinging to his leg, but he always kicked me away. My mother

could do nothing. As time went on, I just did my best to stay out of his way—which wasn’t hard since he never paid much attention to me. But it crossed my mind more than once that I’d come after him when I grew up. My mother’s name was Miyoko Ishikawa. She was born in 1925. Her parents

appeared, my grandmother would remove a squawking chicken from its cage and slaughter it on the spot. My grandmother suffered from asthma, so she often had coughing fits. Whenever she spotted me coming home from school or from playing somewhere, she’d arch her back and say, “Mabo,

You mustn’t be like your father. I just can’t understand why your mother made the mistake of marrying him.” I could see why she used the word “mistake.” The Ishikawa family was respected and went back a long way in the area. There were

before I was born, but I was always told he was a good and gentle man who looked after his family and others in his community. He sent my mother to a girls’ high school and encouraged her to learn how to sew. Though the family couldn’t be called wealthy, he did his best to provide

survival instincts. I do know that the local community was stunned when they started living together. Behind their backs, people called them “Beauty and the Beast” and wondered why she’d married such a terrible man.

loved her, but I resented her remark. Though I felt Japanese—and felt it with complete conviction—I was half-Korean, as she knew perfectly well. My mother’s elder brothers, Shiro

and unkempt, like a bunch of gorillas. They never had the guts to say anything like that in front of my father, of course. But when my father wasn’t around, Shiro would often say, “Miyoko had better divorce him as soon as possible.

felt a twinge of discomfort when he said such things, I couldn’t help but agree with them. I had a strong sense of revulsion toward my father, who certainly lived up to the barbaric reputation of Koreans whenever he beat my mother.

used to strut about the neighborhood with twenty or thirty Korean followers in tow. He was one of the top dogs in the Korean community, and he enjoyed picking a fight with any Japanese who got on his nerves. He didn’t care who

Bring it on. Koreans could depend on him for protection, but he scared the daylights out of Japanese people. My father always insisted on doing things his own way. After the end of the

Second World War, he opened a black-market street-side stall with several of his cronies. They sold canned food produced in the munitions factory where my father used to work, and sugar...

his buddies got into a huge brawl with American soldiers over the merchandise he was selling. He was notorious for a reason. Not that my father had many options. The Japanese defeat in World War II left 2.4 million Kore...

go. Once freed, they were simply thrown onto the streets. Desperate and impoverished, with no way to make a living, they attacked the trucks containing food intended for member...

civilian war workers. The soldiers would be sent to the front to be used as human shields against the shells. The laborers would be worked to the bone—and sometimes

father joined what was then known as the General Association of Koreans in Japan, later to be known as the League of Korean Residents in Japan. This community for Koreans

Koreans live a stable and regular life in Japan. But it wasn’t as simple as it sounded. Ever since before the Second World War, many Koreans with “permanent resident” status in Japan had respected the Communist Party. Communist

the war, not long after the Association was formed, a famous Communist by the name of Kim Chon-hae was released from prison, along with several other Communist

release, they had a powerful influence on the Association, which naturally became more left-wing as a result. But the fundamental principle governing my father’s behavior