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Rights + Justice

'I Must Stay Alive': Lucia Jang's Escape from North Korea

Pregnant and imprisoned, memoir recounts one woman's journey to freedom.

Lucia Jang and Susan McClelland 18 Oct 2014TheTyee.ca

Lucia Jang lives in Toronto with her two children. Her story has recently been featured as a documentary on CBC's The Fifth Estate.

Susan McClelland is an award-winning investigative journalist and author. Her writing has appeared in the Globe and Mail, Maclean's, Canadian Living, Chatelaine and the Walrus. Her books include Bite of the Mango, The Last Maasai Warriors, and The Tale of Two Nazanins.

[Editor’s note: Before starting a new life in Canada, Lucia Jang endured multiple periods of imprisonment under North Korean dictatorship. With permission from Douglas & McIntyre, the following passage is excerpted from her new memoir Stars Between the Sun and Moon.]

"What do you plan on doing with the baby?" the prison interrogator demanded of me.

I had been back in Jipgyulso Onsung for a few days. The two other women in the interrogation room with me, one seven months pregnant like I was, the other far less along, already knew their babies' fates: abortion.

I closed my eyes tight. I felt like the tiger that wished a rope would fall from the sky and take him away. I didn't want to be the sun or the moon, just the stars in between.

"I've made arrangements," I said finally, making it up as I went. "I've made arrangements for the child to be given away after it's born."

Silence filled the room. I thought the interrogator was going to reach out and slap me. But I held my head high. If my child was going to die, I was going to die with it. That much I did know.

"You two," the interrogator yelled at the other women, "out that door." He pointed to a back exit. "You," he barked at me. "Back to your cell."

The cell was empty except for two elderly women and a teenager with the bottom half of her leg missing. I stood by the window and stared out over the barren field. It was a chilly day, the clouds heavy and black. The window was cracked, allowing the wind to howl through it.

A shiver ran through me as I felt you, my baby, kick.

I wrapped my arms around my stomach. At that moment, a light snow began to fall. But instead of feeling cold, I felt heat. Taebum, for the first time in a long time, I felt heat move through me.

"Jjanghago haeddulnal Doraondanda . . . " I sang softly. "A bright sunny day is to come back."

I didn't move from my position until the other inmates had shuffled in from work. The cell was bursting with prisoners. There were twice as many as when I had first been here. We were boxed in, bumping elbows as we drank our evening soup of mushy corn. China had been cracking down on us since there were so many women leaving Chosun.

"You may have a lucky day coming," the woman on the other side chimed.

I didn't even know the year, let alone the date, I realized. "Why?" I asked.

"Because I've heard that a group called the United Nations has ordered Chosun to stop killing the babies of inmates. It's putting pressure on the Party to release pregnant women, children and the old." My eyes rested on the elderly women in the cell who were coughing and wheezing. They could not eat their soup. Many inmates were sick with diarrhea.

Nothing changed right away. Over the next two weeks, several women died. I cared for the infirm as best I could. When the workers went out in the mornings, I would stroke the heads of the sick, holding their hands when they moaned, their bodies writhing in pain. I used sanitary pads cleaned with soap and cold water as cold compresses for their foreheads when they had fever. In exchange, I took the soup that the sick women were unable to eat. I could feel my baby growing stronger.

'These are the facts'

On a day in mid-summer an interrogator informed me stiffly that I would be moved to the collection centre near my family's house. I didn't have time to think about whether this was a positive omen because I came down with the intestinal illness so many other prisoners had. I woke in the middle of the night, soaked in sweat, pain gripping my body. "She's having the baby," a prisoner screamed at the guard pacing back and forth.

"Wake three other inmates and hold her down," he shouted. Four women each took a part of my body, two my legs, the other two my arms. But my water never broke.

"She's not giving birth," one prisoner said. "She's got the sickness."

The pain got worse. I spent hours crouching over the hole in the ground we used for a toilet, but nothing came. I finally made a request of one of my prison mates, who had been detained for a petty crime. She was assigned to prepare our food and so was allowed to leave the prison during the day to get supplies. I handed her one of my pairs of pants. I had been given them by another prisoner when she was released. "Try and get five hundred won for these. Then, with the money, buy me some pills to make me well."

Late the next day, the woman slipped me ten pills.

I took three a day, and within a few days I started to regain my strength. I felt the baby kicking again. I was recovering.

A few nights later, I dreamed of the tunnel of poplar trees again. This time I was farther along the tunnel. The light that was drawing me toward it was brighter. When I woke, though my legs wobbled and I thought I would faint from the rush of blood to my head, I was able to walk. I managed to stay upright as a guard led me to the interrogation room. He directed me to sign some papers and then he said I could go home.

I felt so faint when the sun hit my eyes, I had to lean against a wall. But I eventually managed, without help, to make it to the front gate. A guard opened it for me, and I walked out and into my mother's arms. She draped a coat around my shoulders and let me lean on her as we moved down the streets.

"Why did they release me?" I asked her once we were on the train.

"I don't know. They just told me to come and get you. The head of the local committee is coming by later. She's been put in charge of watching you. It's Mihwa's mother."

At my parents' house, we ate an evening meal of corn rice and cucumber. My mother did what she always had, giving me much of her portion and taking little for herself. I lay back on my mat and was drifting off to sleep when my mother called for me to sit up. Mihwa's mother had arrived.

"You were released because there are too many prisoners," Mihwa's mother explained, settling into a sitting position on the floor beside me. "You can have the baby at home but Sunhwa, I do not have good news for you. The baby will be killed after it is born."

I clenched my fists in an attempt to contain the anger bubbling up inside of me. I knew my release was too good to be true.

"Sunhwa, a year ago you were sentenced to three years in prison. You were released after nine months on a general amnesty and on your assurance that you would not return to China. You returned, however, so after the baby is born, you will go back to prison to finish your sentence."

"Which prison?" my mother asked. Her eyes were lost, vacant.

"Kyohwaso," Mihwa's mother replied. My mother slumped forward, and my father stood up and started pacing the room. "I have to fulfill my duties," the head of the committee continued. Her eyes bored into mine. "You are under watch. I will be checking in on you."

I nodded to show I understood.

"These are the facts," Mihwa's mother concluded. She shuffled her body right up against mine. "Do something about it," she said so softly, I almost didn't hear.

My body stiffened. I looked at my mother, who shook her head indicating I should not ask questions.

When Mihwa's mother's footsteps had disappeared, my father and mother exchanged glances. My father went into his room closing the door behind him.

My mother took me by the elbow. "Wash yourself, change into several pairs of pants and tops, and then go to your uncle's house in the mountains," she said.

I gazed into her dark eyes, which were filled with tears.

"Your father and I knew what Mihwa's mother was going to say. He believes you should finish your sentence and fulfill your revolutionary duties. He doesn’t want you to keep the baby. But I know now what it is like to lose a child. I know your brother Hyungchul is dead. I can feel it. Go, do whatever you want with your baby, but don’t come back here with it, ever."

'I must stay alive'

When I was a little girl, my family and I would go to my uncle's house each year at the beginning of planting season and the end of harvest season. We helped him in exchange for corn, rice and cabbage that my mother would place in the cupboard beneath the ground.

I had not been to my mother's brother's house since before I married Myungin, but I knew the way well. My mother made me ten corn pancakes to take with me. I wrapped them in a plastic bag I tied around my waist. I left as the half moon rested over the house and my father's snores filled the room. I hurried along the river path until I reached the mountains.

My uncle lived a two-day walk from our home if I went by road and paths. But this time I knew I must follow no path to avoid coming face to face with security. I was terrified of encountering snakes in the long grass and bushes and I sometimes froze in my tracks, listening for the slightest sound that a reptile might be close.

Given my pregnancy, my fatigue and unrelenting hunger, I anticipated it would take me three days to make it. I would have to live on the pancakes and whatever herbs and weeds I could find. I could drink water from the streams.

I passed a few farmers along the way, but by and large I saw no one. I slept for a few hours each day under the trees. On day three, it rained heavily, soaking my clothes and hair and weighing me down even more.

I had to climb one final mountain before descending into the valley that would lead me to my uncle's house. I was suffering from chill. I wanted to curl into a ball and sleep but I knew I had to keep moving. If I rested now, I would never wake up.

Out of breath, I reached the top and began my descent. I could see seven curves on the way down the mountain. The stream that started as a trickle at the top had become a small waterfall by the time I reached the third curve just before the turn in the path. As I continued, I could hear the water gaining force, crashing against rocks and the riverbank.

By the fourth curve, the stream had turned into a river with rapids. As I started to cross the log that had been stretched over the river as a bridge for villagers, I slipped and fell to a sitting position. The waves splashed high, soaking my body and face. I managed to take off my slippers and tuck them into the waist of my pants. Then, as best I could, I gripped the log with my knees and inched my way across. When my hands met the thick moss on the other side, I pulled myself up on shore and rolled onto my back.

I looked up at the trees, the sun streaming down in between the leaves, listening as my heartbeat slowed. My eyes closed, and I saw the boulevard of poplar trees from my dream and the bright light at the end, beaming down on me. I had no idea what tomorrow held, but I felt I was moving toward somewhere I was meant to be.

The rains had been so heavy that the valley I had to traverse had flooded. The tops of trees poked up from the water. For as far as I could see, a lake stretched before me.

I had heard that pregnant women float well, and I held tight to this belief as I waded in. For as long as the water remained shallow, there were small shrubs I could reach and hold onto. When I felt the bottom slant beneath me and the water deepen, I grasped the branches of a submerged tree. The ground dipped again, the water now coming up to my chin.

"I must stay alive," I repeated, first softly and then in a scream. As the water rose to reach my lips, I ground my teeth. "You will stay alive if you stay calm," I told myself.

Finally I made it safely to the other side. I had no energy left, but I knew I had to find refuge for the night. I pulled off my wet clothes and wrung out the water as best I could with my numb hands and swollen joints. Then I forced my sluggish feet to move, one step after the other toward a village I could see in between two hills.

At the first door I knocked on, a man answered and spat at me. "Go away," he shouted before slamming the door in my face.

A candle was lit in the front window of the second house. A woman with a ruddy complexion and clear, sparkling eyes opened the door. I thought she was about to invite me in, but instead she too screamed at me: "We don’t want people from China here!"

I begged her to stop yelling. "Do you think that in my condition," I asked when she had quieted down, "I would be going back and forth to China?"

The woman's eyes moved to my stomach. "I'm due any day now," I continued. "I am going to my uncle's house to give birth. I will sleep anywhere and be gone as soon as the sun rises."

The woman didn't give me a mat or any food. I ate the last of my pancakes and closed my eyes, lying in the midst of her family's outdoor shoes. I left as soon as I heard the sparrows singing the next morning.  [Tyee]

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