LY

1
ON
$
K
Entertain Enlighten Engage
H

TM

HONG KONGS FIRST LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE FOR SOUTH ASIANS Volume 6 | Issue 3 May-June 2017

BOXING BEYOND
BOUNDARIES
Taqdeer Singh Dhillon

DELIA
SCHOOL OF
CANADA
Lifelong learning,
Excellence in teaching &

Mothers &
Commitment to literacy

Fathers Day
Special Mom & Dad greetings! WIN THIS
EXCLUSIVE WATCH
FOR CONTEST DETAILS TURN TO PG-42
32 BAUHINIAS VIEW

THE WORST
NIGHTMARE,
THE MIGHTIEST
STRUGGLE FOR SURVIVAL

E
xcept nuclear tests and the
mockeries of Kim Jong-
uns haircut, the world
press at large seldom cast
coverage on the darkest
place on earth North Korea. In is not
their fault, though. Three generations
of the Kim dynasty have chosen a
sealed border to isolate its people from
the outside world. With all information
blockaded from entry into the Hermit
Kingdom and unimaginable terror at
home, its 25 million people are trapped
in the biggest living hell on earth and
vanished from all sights.
There are, however, a tiny few who have lived
to see the lights. Over the decades around
28,000 people have made to South Korea,
often having endured fatal treks fleeing
to China and horrible human trafficking
BAUHINIAS VIEW 33
whilst hiding from Chinas repatriation,
before risking one final attempt to cross
into the likes of Mongolia and Thailand
for rescue. Approximately 300,000 are
trapped in China with mostly women
been sold to peasants as wives and held
as mistresses.
Yeonmi Park, author of In Order to
Live, was on the great escape. She
recently spoke on a gathering at the
Island Evangelical Community Church,
organised by Hong Kong Student for
Liberty when I was in attendance.
It is hard for the rest of us, even those
living under brutal dictatorships, to
fathom what Ms Park had been through
all those years. Unlike any other place in
the world, North Korea is where every
mind and soul is brainwashed, much
34 BAUHINIAS VIEW
like been genetically engineered, to live
only to serve the supreme leader. Do
not even whisper [anything else], even
the birds and mice and hear you, as
Ms Park recalled her mothers warning.
Dead bodies and hungry beggars were
common scenes of Ms Parks childhood
memory, when the countrys food ration
system collapsed following the fall
of Soviet Union. Memories of public
execution and visit of state security
agents were afresh even years after her
flee.
Hope is the only thing stronger than
fear. A smuggled movie Titanic from
China into Ms Parks border town and
lights across the Yalu River planted
curiosity in her young heart that life
somehow was different in another
universe. But Ms Parks eventual flee
wasnt a search for freedom; it was out
of desperation for a bowl of rice. If this
indescribable absurdity is out of your
wildest imagination, think of District 12
in the novel Hunger Games. When I was
reading through the book after Ms Parks
talk, Panems districts often surfaced in
my nightmare.
It was when Ms Parks father was
imprisoned for metal trade and sales
to China that the familys songbun, or
caste, plummeted. If there had been
three meals day, Ms Park and her sister
were only surviving in wild nature
now. But fleeing to China was entering
another hell. With no exposure to sex
ever, a thirteen-year-old Ms Park saw her
mother raped, to protect her, in front of
her eyes the first thing they sneaked cross
the Yalu River. Sold for US$ 260 with her
mothers price tag at only 65, Ms Park
was taken her innocence and kept as her
brokers mistress for almost two years in
exchange for buying her mother back
and trafficking her dying father, who had
developed colon cancer in prison camp,
into China.
Looking back, Ms Parks otherworldly
refusal to accept a pre-ordained life,
even in the worst possible circumstance
when there is nothing of her fault, did
play a part in her continued search for
dignity. And this time it meant to cross
Gobi desert to Mongolia under minus
30 degrees, following the northern
star to freedom. To Ms Park, Julius
Caesars immovable northern star was
the only living being to witness her
existence should her small troupe of
defectors unable to make it. To human
lifes unbelievable resilience, Ms Park
did make it to South Korea and began a
tough yet free new life.
Injustice anywhere is a threat to
justice everywhere. Now a free young
woman, Ms Park, having gone through
unlearning her past to assume nothing
had happened, is a determined voice not
only on her own terrible sufferings, but
on her country people left behind in the
cold. Ms Park is promising to the whole
world, alone but mighty, a Mockingjay on
her free will, that life can go on no matter
how bad the losses, and wounds can heal
and new life can prosper in truth, love
and freedom. Ms Park is also a living
testimony that nothing is here to stay for
ever. However strong the dictators are,
once enslaved people are exposed to the
truth, kindled with love and freedom, all
those efforts of deceit and terror are to
be blown away in the twinkling of an eye.
Coming from where humanity is at
its worst, Yeonmi Park celebrates the
eternal strength of an indomitable spirit
that extinguishes fear, destroys limits
and makes everything possible.
As Ms Park said at the Foreign
Correspondents Club, I could have
been killed many many times before so
I almost take this life as something plus
life. I dont really try to be affected by
that. I really hope even if I am gone that
we remember the people of North Korea
and remember North Korea is not about
politics.
If I die, I am OK. I mean I already
experienced this freedom [in South
Korea]. So I am satisfied. So at least
I can say that I did something for you,
my people in North Korea, said Ms
Park on Special Broadcasting Service of
Australia.
By Hongyu Wang