In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom

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I never knew freedom could be such a cruel and difficult thing. Until now, I had always thought that being free meant being able to wear jeans and watch whatever movies I wanted without worrying about being arrested. Now I realized that I had to think all the time - and it was exhausting. There were times when I wondered whether, if it wasn't for the constant hunger, I would be better off in North Korea, where all my thinking and all my choices were taken care of for me.” In North Korea, even arithmetic is a propaganda tool. A typical problem would go like this: “If you kill one American bastard and your comrade kills two, how many dead American bastards do you have?” There were so many desperate people on the streets crying for help that you had to shut off your heart or the pain would be too much. After a while you don't care anymore. And that is what hell is like.” Your mother and sister went through journeys as difficult as your own. What did this experience teach you about the importance of family?

we all have our own deserts. Thet may not be the same as my desert, but we all have to cross them to find a purpose in life and be free.” Through helping others, I learned that I had always had compassion in me, although I hadn’t known it and couldn’t express it. I learned that if I could feel for others, I might also begin to feel compassion for myself. I was beginning to heal.” It's not easy to give up a worldview that is built into your bones and imprinted on your brain like the sound of your own father's voice.” I could not feel, smell, see, hear, or taste the world around me. If I had allowed myself to experience these things in all their intensity, I might have lost my mind. If I had allowed myself to cry, I might never have been able to stop. So I survived, but I never felt joy, never felt safe.”as I began to write this book, I realized that without the whole truth my life would have no power, no real meaning.”

Later, I could understand him in some ways. I thought about this a lot. I was going to kill him. I said I’d never forgive him, that there was nothing he could do to make me feel that he could justify what he did. But people can make mistakes. He’d lost his own parents, he knew what it was to live without your parents, so he knew what I was going through. So I cannot hate him any more, but everything is very complex; I cannot say exactly what I feel. But when I was seven or eight years old, the film that changed my life was Titanic. It amazed me that it was a story that took place a hundred years ago. Those people living in 1912 had better technology than most North Koreans! But mostly I couldn’t believe how someone could make a movie out of such a shameful love story. In North Korea, the filmmakers would have been executed. No real human stories were allowed, nothing but propaganda about the Leader. But in Titanic, the characters talked about love and humanity. I was amazed that Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet were willing to die for love, not just for the regime, as we were. The idea that people could choose their own destinies fascinated me. This pirated Hollywood movie gave me my first small taste of freedom.”I was beginning to realize that all the food in the world, and all the running shoes, could not make me happy. The material things were worthless. I had lost my family. I wasn’t loved, I wasn’t free, and I wasn’t safe. I was alive, but everything that made life worth living was gone.” One man, in particular, stands out – Hongwei. He’s a violent gangster, but he also clearly loved you. Do you have mixed emotions about him now? He, after all, helped you escape.

But there was human intimacy and connection, something that is hard to find in the modern world I inhabit today.” I really hope this book will shine a light on the darkest place in the world. We don’t feel like human beings: people don’t feel that they can connect with North Koreans, that we’re so different. People are making jokes about Kim Jong-un’s haircut, about how fat he is – this country is a joke, really. It is a joke, but it is a tragic joke, that this kind of thing can happen to 25 million people. These things shouldn’t be allowed to happen to anyone, because another Holocaust is happening and the west is saying: “It isn’t happening, it’s a joke, it’s funny – things can’t be that serious.” But we are repeating history – there are thousands of testimonies, you can see the concentration camps from satellite photos, so many people are dying. Just listen to my testimony, to the testimonies in front of the United Nations. I just hope people will read the book and will listen.

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when you have more words to describe the world, you increase your ability to think complex thoughts.” Family are everything; everyone understands the strength of family. For me, they were the reason that I managed to get by while I was in captivity and now they are the reason to live in freedom. They are the biggest blessing I have in the world. Of course we won’t let that happen. I’m not going to let that happen. I’ll live longer than Kim Jong-un – he’s fatter than me. He doesn’t like me.

Why does this person, who doesn’t even speak our language, care so much about us that he is willing to risk his life for us? It moved us both to tears. I said a silent prayer of thanks as we became a part of the night.” With a few notable exceptions, the men in your story are monsters, exploiting women for gain or pleasure. and I particularly loved biographies because they were about people who had to overcome obstacles or prejudices to get ahead. They made me think I could make it when nobody else believed in me, when even I didn’t believe in myself.”I learned something important from my short time as a market vendor: once you start trading for yourself, you start thinking for yourself. Before the public distribution system collapsed, the government alone decided who would survive and who would starve. The markets took away the government’s control. My small market transactions made me realize that I had some control over my own fate. It gave me another tiny taste of freedom.”