In Order to live by Yeonmi Park

[florida johny]

In Order to live by Yeonmi Park. She tells how she and her family had to escape North Korea in the early 1990s.
It was well written and it describes the Hell North Korea was at the time where over a million people starved to death and you would be put in a labor camp if you disagreed with the leader on anything.
It describes how neighbors were trained to spy on each other. It also describes her escape to China and then to South Korea.

[MrMan]

I was thinking you ere going to tell us how to live in a location near a park called Yeonmi Park.

[Yohan]

I was thinking you ere going to tell us how to live in a location near a park called Yeonmi Park.

LOL

If I write about anything Korean, I found it always useful to add the Korean original name to avoid misunderstandings.
Transcriptions are not always clear. Names are often very similar etc.

In this case

Park Yeonmi (a person - Mr. Mrs. Ms. = 씨)

박연미씨

Yeonmi Park (green area)

연미공원

[Winston]

How did Yeonmi Park and other N Korean defectors escape North Korea if they aren't allowed to? Wouldn't their government have closed the borders to defectors? Any idea? Also wouldn't they hold her parents as hostage and use them as a bargaining tool to get her to come back?

[Yohan]

@Winston

How did Yeonmi Park and other N Korean defectors escape North Korea if they aren't allowed to? Wouldn't their government have closed the borders to defectors? Any idea? Also wouldn't they hold her parents as hostage and use them as a bargaining tool to get her to come back?

The border between China and North Korea is quite long along the Yalu River, often nobody is living there, the river is frozen in winter time - there are also many Koreans living in China not far away from the border, Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture 延边朝鲜族自治州 for example.

Many defectors have contacts across the border, have some money and if they are able to bribe border guards and pay agents to bring them to Mongolia or Thailand, they might be able to defect successfully.

The problem to leave is less with North Korea but with China - if the Chinese catch these North Korean defectors within China, they will be sent back to North Korea. The Russians, sharing a short border with North Korea, are doing the same. - They are not allowed to continue their trip to Western countries.

So far as I know more than 30.000 North Koreans made it nevertheless somehow over to South Korea. However many have problems to integrate in the Western world. In South Korea after arrival they will undergo training for a few months to accustom to Western life-style. They have no idea, how to apply for a job, how to use an ATM, are surprised they have to pay rent for their room etc.

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Yes, in case family members of these defectors belong to the upper class citizens, they might be forced out of their apartments in Pyongyang and sent to rural areas....never hear from them again.

[Yohan]

In Order to live by Yeonmi Park. She tells how she and her family had to escape North Korea in the early 1990s.
It was well written and it describes the Hell North Korea was at the time where over a million people starved to death and you would be put in a labor camp if you disagreed with the leader on anything.
It describes how neighbors were trained to spy on each other. It also describes her escape to China and then to South Korea.

Most North Koreans who escape remain silent and try to get on with their new life in South Korea.
Often they have still relatives in South Korea or in Japan.

Some of them prefer to move out of South Korea and change their nationality and name - for example here in Japan or in Germany (former East Germany has a North Korean community) and of course also in USA/Canada, and it is not easy to identify them as former North Koreans if they are unwilling to talk about their past.

What Yeonmi Park tells you are US-edited stories, clearly full with exaggerations. Some of her stories are found to be questionable, distorted...
She makes a business out of her escape.

It is better to listen to interviews from other North Koreans who escaped and will give you a more balanced opinion about life in the North and South.

They agree, life is much better in the Western world, but many of them mention that it is stressful and people are not very communicative and helpful to each other compared to North Korea, where the education system kept them together in groups and where they had many friends and also much less pressure to work and more time off for themselves....

Quite a good summary can be found here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korean_defectors