The Hard Road Out Quotes

“When an event is ongoing, it's impossible to mourn it. I'm thinking about having to abandon my dying father when I fled. Grief sets in and stays with you for life. I have never been able to mourn my father. The same goes for our country – the division of Korea into two countries is ongoing, so we cannot mourn it, and that is why we suffer so.”
― Jihyun Park, The Hard Road Out: One Woman’s Escape From North Korea

“As a child I believed I was happy, but I don’t know if I was happy because I was told I was, or if I truly was. My happiness was prescribed, and it came with operating instructions: solidarity, collective life, optimism. The dosage? Take some every hour for twelve hours a day and every hour for twelve hours a night.”
― Jihyun Park, Seh-Lynn Chai, The Hard Road Out: One Woman’s Escape From North Korea