here are two major powers in North Korea: the military and the government. There is only one political power, as you know, that of Kim Jong-il. The heads of the military are very close to Kim Jong-il. Those people are in Pyongyang. There are also the heads of provinces. These make up what we call the “middle class,” which doesn’t mean the same thing as it does over here—when we say it in North Korea, the term refers to the upper class. The normal class, people like us, are the workers.
I was in the normal class but there was a lot of money in my family. At first, I didn’t think about defecting because my life in North Korea was very comfortable. Even though my family did not have political power, most of my friends were in the middle class. But in 1986, I saw a soap opera in the black market in North Korea. It was a very famous South Korean soap called
Hourglass. It was very big in South Korea, and since it was so interesting, I loaned it to many of my friends in the middle class, and they loaned it to all of their friends, and it spread throughout the middle class. It became a big problem. North Korea was suffering from an economic depression at the time, and the government didn’t want Western culture—what they call “Yellow Culture”—to spread in North Korea. National Security tried to find out who had started spreading the soap opera. Many of the people who saw and copied and gave the drama away were middle-class people, so they had the power. Their parents were working in the government. Although my parents had money, they were not working for the government. They didn’t have any political powers, so I was picked as a scapegoat for the incident, and the government decided to evict me to China. They had to punish somebody and they picked me. The government said, “Evict him to China, and when everybody forgets about the incident, he can come back.”
I stayed in the Wharyong area for a while, because it is near the border. I decided I wanted to stay in China, so I went deeper into the mainland, but then I was caught and sent back to Musan, where I was questioned by North Korean officers for a week. Then I was transferred to Chung Jin and questioned even more by National Security soldiers. I slept in a small concrete room. I wasn’t allowed to lie down at night—the guards would not let me. As part of my punishment, I had to sleep in a sitting position. I was fed once a day with a small bowl of corn, beans, and vegetables. And then daily, for 40 days, I was taken to another room with a desk and two chairs, and I was tortured by two men. I was very scared—scared to death. The investigators’ job was to find anti-Communist spies, and to that end they tortured me. My bones were broken all over my body. They asked the same questions over and over: “Why did you run farther away into China? Where did you get the video tape? Do you have contact with South Korean spies? Do you have any additional tapes? Why are you so anti-Communist?”
When I didn’t answer their questions, or answered wrong, they would kick me or punch me or beat me with big wooden sticks. Also, there is a torture called “pigeon.” They tied my arms and feet together behind my back and hung me by my hands and feet from the ceiling, so I was flying in space like a pigeon. They suspended me like this generally for two or three hours. Your head is heavy, so in the pigeon position, your head goes down, your blood goes into your face, and the brain doesn’t work properly, so it makes you lose consciousness. And then every time I passed out, they dipped my head into water so I would wake up, and then the process would begin again. Often when I was passed out, I would forget where I was, and then I would wake up and remember. But after about ten days of beating and torturing, all you can think about is that you want to die as quickly as possible. So when I woke up and found out that I was in prison, all I could think was, “Why am I still alive? I want to die, die, die.” Many people do die during the 40 days of investigation, so I expected myself to be dead. There was no hope that I could get free, so I just wanted to end everything: the physical pain and the foolishness. I just wanted to die. After getting beaten so many times, there comes a time when you don’t feel anything, not even physical pain, just a dumbness. Like in a boxing match, the boxer doesn’t feel much pain… The body sensors get dumb. So after a certain amount of torture, I couldn’t feel much pain anymore.
When my 40 days were over I was to be sent by train to North Korea to jail. In the train I was depressed. I couldn’t bear the fact I was going to be imprisoned in North Korea and I decided to commit suicide. I stepped outside the moving train and jumped into a river but miraculously, I didn’t die. After that, I made my way into South Korea.
AS TOLD TO AMIE BARRODALE
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