The Girl with Seven Names is Hyeonseo Lee's autobiography. She tells you how her parents met, and how life was like growing up in North Korea. She saw a man get hanged under a bridge at age seven. Her dog got run over by a car, her dad commited suicide in the hospital. She saw people get shot at the airport, and their family had to sit in the front row. She crossed the Yalu River at age seventeen, right before it would be illegal for her to do so. She enters China and goes to stay with her aunt and uncle, who escaped right before the Korean War. Her uncle tells her everything she learned in school was fake. Kim Il Sung wasn't even born on Mount Paektu, he was born in Siberia. Her uncle and aunt try to set her up with a man named Geunsoo, but all he does is play video games. She moves to a different part of China and ends up working at a male hair salon that isn't really a hair salon. She goes to another different part of China and gets a job at a restaurant. She now begins thinking about going to South Korea. The police come and interrogate her about being North Korean. Her Mandarin is good enough that she passes and is set free. Had she failed, she would be sent back to North Korea. Then, someone hits her in the back of her head, and she blacks out. She was hit in the head with a one liter bottle of beer. She begins dating a policeman named Jinsu. He rounds up North Koreans and sends them back so she breaks up with him. She tried to get a connection back to her family but that gets her involved in a gang. The story keeps going, seriously, we're only 1/3 the way through. But basically, more stuff happens, she ends up in Seoul, South Korea. She wants her mom and brother to come over, but Minho (her brother) has a girlfriend who's mom is in the bowibu (secret police). Once Minho and their mom got over the border, Minho couldn't go back. Their journey is much tougher, but shorter than Hyeonseo's. Her family doesn't know Mandarin, so it is tough for them to get around. Hyeonseo sends them to Laos, and they get stuck in a Laotian prison because the broker that had to take them over went as far as he could. So, Hyeonseo has to work with the South Korean embassy, who wasn't being too helpful. She gets them out of prison, but doesn't have enough money to get them plane tickets. Dick Stolp helps her, and gives her lots of money. Hyeonseo is able to get back to South Korea, but has to wait awhile before she can see her family again. She reunites with them, helps them get settled, and teaches her mom about high fives. Hyeonseo meets her future husband, Brian Gleason in a bar. They date. Brian proposes. Hyeonseo asks her mom for her blessing. In the epilogue it talks about them going to the US for the wedding. Her mom orders a coffee in English. The end. If you want all the details, and all seven names, just go read the book. Here's the Amazon link. It's free with Audible.
)So, this book matters because it tells the story of what North Korea is really like. Had Hyeonseo, or Yeonmi or any other defector not written their books or told their stories, we wouldn't know what life was like inside the Hermit Kingdom. We would be believing that everyone lives like how it is like in Pyongyang, for the elites. I guess the most valuable idea from the book that I got, was that the world isn't always as it seems. Hyeonseo grows up believing her country is the best in the world, that others are living in poverty. Though, later in the book, at the time of the famine, it is shown that they aren't really the best. Though that doesn't change her opinion right then. I believe it starts then, though. Here is when Hyeonseo believes North Korea is the best, "This was a very happy time for me. We were the children of Kim Il Sung, and that made us children of the greatest nation on earth. We sang songs about the village of his birth, Mangyongdae, performing a little dance and putting our hands in the air on the word 'Mangyongdae'. His birthday, on 15 April, was the Day of the Sun, and our country was the Land of the Eternal Sun." (Lee, 22). Here is when her uncle tells her the truth about everything, "'You know all the history they teach you at school is a lie?' This was his opening shot. He started counting off all the fallacies he said I'd been taught. He said that at the end of the Second World War the Japanese had not been defeated by Kim Il-sung's military genius. They'd been driven out by the Soviet Red Army, which had installed Kim Il-sung in power. There had been no 'Revolution'. I had never before heard my country being criticized. I thought he'd gone crazy. 'And they taught you the South started the Korean War, didn't they? Well, here's some news for you. It was the North that invaded the South, and Kim Il-sung would have lost badly to the Yankees if China hadn't stepped in to save his arse.' Now I knew he'd gone crazy. 'Were you shown the little wooden cabin on Mount Paektu where Kim Jong-il was born?' His tone was heavy with sarcasm. 'It's a complete myth. He wasn't even born in Korea. He was born in Siberia, where his father was serving with the Red Army.' He could see from my face that I did not believe a word of this. He might as well have been telling me the earth was flat. 'He's not even a communist.' My uncle had worked himself up into a rage. 'He lives in palaces and beach condos, with brigades of pleasure girls. He drinks fine cognacs and eats Swiss cheeses - while his people go hungry. His only believe is in power.' This rant was making me uncomfortable. At home we never mentioned the personal lives of the Leaders. Ever. Any such talk was 'gossip' and highly dangerous... What my uncle said about my country had a depressing and repelling effect on me. I did not want to know." (Lee, 107-108, 109). Here is a part at the end that shows Hyeonseo's full change, "I started thinking deeply about human rights. One of the main reasons that distinctions between oppressor and victim and blurred in North Korea is that no one there has any concept of rights. To know that your rights are being abused, or that you are abusing someone else's, you first have to know that you have them, and what they are. But with no comparative information about societies elsewhere in the world, such awareness in North Korea cannot exist. This is also why most people escape because they're hungry or in trouble - not because they're craving liberty. Many defectors hiding in China even baulk at the idea of going to South Korea - they'd see it as a betrayal of their country and the legacy of the Great Leader. If the North Korean people acquired an awareness of their rights, of individual freedoms and democracy, the game would be up for the regime in Pyongyang. The people would realize that full human rights are exercised and enjoyed by one person only - the ruling Kim. He is the only figure in North Korea who exercises freedom of thought, freedom of speech, freedom of movement, his right not to be tortured, imprisoned, or executed without trial, and his right to proper healthcare and food." (Lee, 288-289) As you can see, the world wasn't how Hyeonseo believed it to be. It was good, kind of, but her country was far from the best. Had this book not been written, had no defector said what it was like, we wouldn't know about the true North Korea. This book is still valuable today because of recent events at the DMZ, with Moon and Kim meeting, what could this mean for the North Korean people? With the peace talks, we still must remember what is going on in the North, or what was going on. Until the North Koreans know what the world is actually like and learn their true history, the rest of us mustn't fall for the propaganda. So, that's what. We must not forget about North Korea and what went on/is going on until peace is reached. Even then, we mustn't forget.
Here's a sing-along version of Mangyongdae.
If you want to do what Hyeonseo did, put your hands in the air whenever you see "만경대" on screen. Transliteration and Google translation of lyrics will be posted soon.
1 Comment
Abby Barton
5/3/2018 06:42:48 pm
Jeez, she had a really tough life. I mean she saw a guy get HANGED at age seven?! Oh my gosh! By the way you do a really good job at describing the books many unfortunate twists and turns in a clear enough way that doesntd make hard to understand, good job! This would also be kind of cool if it was turned into a movie, just my opinion though.
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