I have always been the type to be interested in the cultures of our world. Some major cultures that I love learning about are oriental cultures, Native American cultures, and Russian culture before the 1918 revolution (the reign of the Romanovs). A while ago, I was walking through Barnes and Nobles with my mom, when I noticed a book in the world history section that caught my eye. The book was called “In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl’s Journey to Freedom” by Yeonmi Park. At that time, I recognized the book because it was (1) on my TBR list and (2) I had seen clips of Yeonmi Park talking about her life on YouTube shorts and wanted to know more.
So, my mom and I bought the book and…let me tell you…it was probably one of the best books I’ve read so far. Not only because it was a true story, but also because she, the author, made me realize certain things about my life that I never truly thought about. That is what I want to talk about: her story and what I learned from it, mainly what I, and all of us, take for granted – freedom.
This is one of the biggest things that I learned that I take for granted every day. In her book, she talks about what the Kim regime is like and how there is no freedom in North Korea. I believe we all understand that, but once I read it from the point of view of someone who was raised there, it then finally clicked. Yeonmi talked about this at different points in her book, but one that sticks out to me was an incident from when she was younger. From what I remember, her father was expressing how he felt about the regime and that he disliked the regime. Her mother told him to stop talking like that and warned him that the walls have ears. Later, Yeonmi’s father and mother were questioned because of it. That meant that someone heard them and reported it. That showed that the people did not have the freedom to say anything negative about the regime in fear of being questioned or sent to a re-education camp. Yes…you read that right, a re-education camp.
There is another story that has to do with freedom. When Yeonmi and her sister were younger, her parents decided to sell items on what we would think of as a black market. Sadly, I cannot remember what exactly it was they were selling. But the dad was caught, arrested, and sentenced to hard labor in one of the country’s labor camps. Her mother was also sent to a re-education camp for about six months. Her father, on the other hand, was sent to a labor camp. If you get sent to a labor camp, it is a death sentence. He was originally sentenced to be there for 10 years … yes, TEN years. But due to his declining health, he was only there for about three years. For her family to survive, they had to smuggle goods, but they were arrested and sent to a labor and re-education camp. We, here in the US, do not have those camps.
One last story connected with freedom, is when she made her escape. Yeonmi was extremely sick and needed to have surgery. When she was recovering, she found out that her sister and a friend had escaped from North Korea, via the frozen Yalu River in the northern part of North Korea. She and her mother soon followed to find her sister with the help of human traffickers. Once they reached China, her and her mother dealt with worse issues to reach freedom. Not only were they human trafficked, but they were also sex trafficked as well. One man who was in charge of her, promised that he would do what he could to help get her father into China and to be reunited with her and her mother. He was able to do that, but sadly, his time in China was very short. Yeonmi’s father sadly died of colon cancer. Years later, missionaries would help her and her mother get out of China to Mongolia. How? Not by plane. Not by train. Not by car. By walking the entire Gobi Desert to get to Mongolia to seek refuge. When they were caught by border guards, she said in her book that she and her mother had razors to end it all in case they were sent back. Luckily, that did not happen. She and her mother were taken to South Korea, she went to school, and she was able to find her sister after years of not seeing her. She received word that she had the opportunity to speak about her life in North Korea at a One Young Summit, and she took that opportunity, and she has never looked back. She is now a human rights activist, and she speaks about her story in her books and at universities as well.
Yeonmi Park’s story was inspirational to me, and it has opened my eyes to the things that I take for granted. I know that I have been told that I take things for granted, but it never truly clicked until I read her story. Her story has touched me, and her book will always be the first book that I recommend to people because of how it touched me and how it made me feel.