Jang Lucia - Stars between the sun and moon : one womans life in North Korea and escape to freedom

Stars between the Sun and Moon

Stars between

the SuN an d Moon

One Womans Life in North Korea
and Escape to Freedom

Lucia Jang and Susan M cC LellanD

with an afterword by Stephan Haggard

Copyright 2014 Lucia Jang and Susan McClelland

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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior permission of the publisher or, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from Access Copyright, www.accesscopyright.ca, 1-800-893-5777, info@accesscopyright.ca.

Douglas and McIntyre (2013) Ltd.

P.O. Box 219, Madeira Park, BC , V0N 2H0

www.douglas-mcintyre.com

Jacket photograph by Tom Tkach

Edited by Barbara Pulling

Jacket design by Anna Comfort OKeeffe & Carleton Wilson

Text design by Carleton Wilson

Printed and bound in Canada

Douglas and McIntyre (2013) Ltd. acknowledges financial support from the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Canada Council for the Arts, and from the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

Cataloguing information available from Library and Archives Canada

ISBN 978-1-77162-035-2 (cloth)

ISBN 978-1-77162-036-9 (ebook)

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Some names, dates and place names in this account have been changed to protect those still living in North Koreaalso known as Chosunwho could possibly be imprisoned, tortured or killed for being connected to Lucia Jang. The author refers to herself as Sunhwa in the pages that follow; Lucia Jang is the name she chose for herself while living in Canada.

For my three sons, so that they may understand their history and their mothers love for them.

For Soohyun Nam, who sat between Susan McClelland and me nearly every Saturday morning for a year, to translate my story.

And finally, for the numerous, nameless North Koreans who attempted to escape to freedom and life, and perished on their journey before they could reach their destination, each with a story filled with as much heartache and pain as well as hope and love as my own.

Lucia Jang

Prologue

Dear Taebum,

I am looking at you now, as you sleep in the crib in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. My eyes are trained on your stomach as you inhale and exhale. I have never prayed before, but now I feel compelled to do so. I raise my hands the way I saw a South Korean man do in China, a man who wore a cross around his neck and whose home smelled of lavender incense and melting candle wax. I close my eyes, then stop before I can say a single word. Youve made a strange sound. I fix the thin sheet around your weak and tired body, and then relax. Your face is calm again.

Taebum, there is so much I want to tell you. You are only a few months old, and I want you to grow wise so that these memories I have decided to place in a diary reach you. I want you to understand the forces that nearly destroyed us, and the force that I now know has kept us alive: love. You were never supposed to live. From the moment you were conceived, no one wanted you: your father, his family, China, the country where you were conceived or Chosun, the country where you were born. There was a forest of people trying to prevent your coming into this world. Even my mother, my umma , wanted me to be rid of you.

Back before you knew life, when I was in the prison camp and I knew the Party would force me to abort the child I was carrying, I began to sing a song. A light snow had begun to fall, but when I stood close to the window in my cell, I saw sun on a cloudless day. Through the chill that had consumed my body since I fled Chosun, I felt heat. I closed my eyes. Jjanghago haeddulnal Doraondanda , I sang softly. A bright sunny day is to come back.

I sang another song in my mind when I lifted you above my head in that plastic bag Abuji, my father, had made for you: the song of the Flower Girl, from the film I had loved so much in my youth. The bag protected you from the cold water and concealed you from the border guards who would have shot us both if they had seen. Only your face was visible, so you could breathe. I carried you across the Tumen River to China. I carried you in my arms here to Mongolia.

I have no idea what life will bring you, my son. We are about to be sent to South Korea, where we will be given an apartment and a new, safe existence. When you are older, I want you to read these words, even though they reveal many things about your mother. I will not hide the truth from you. In the midst of all that I endured I saw the sun, I felt its warmth. You will likely never set foot on the soil of your homeland. Nevertheless, I want you to understand the Chosun that is your soul.

Part One

Chapter One

My mother rarely smiled. But when she did, her head would tilt to one side, her crimson-coloured lips parted slightly and her black pupils danced against the pearls of her eyes.

One time when this happened, we were sitting in our front yard, overlooking the crops of corn, beans and potatoes near our home in the small city of Yuseon.

Daughter, she whispered, pulling me into her arms. The smell of her body mixed with the chamomile scent from the deulgukhwa that had bloomed early and through which we had been walking. It was my fourth birthday, on the fifth day of the fifth month. As was customary, I had had a bowl of white rice for my morning meal to celebrate.

My mother stroked her belly, which was swollen. Her second child was due, she had told me, in the tenth month of this year.

I am all yours for a little while longer, then you will have to share me, she said. Her eyelashes reminded me of the wings of the tiger butterflies I saw in the mornings as they floated around the azaleas in the garden. I want to tell you many things, she continued. I just dont know where to begin.

Umma, I want to know what I love you means. I smiled, relaxing into her arms, feeling her hard stomach against my back. I heard Abuji say this to you once.

Hmm. I will tell you. But before I begin, I beg you not to tell others, she said quietly.

I promise, I said, my gaze falling on some sparrows nearby.

I cant remember all of what my mother said next, Taebum, since I was only a small child at the time. But she told me many stories from my childhood years later and as I grew older, and I will recount some of them for you here.

My family, your ancestors, come from a northern province in Chosun, my mother began. I grew up in a small cement house with my two sisters and three brothers. I was the eldest. I was the bravest. I was... her words trailed off for a moment. The most outgoing. I danced my way to school. I sang songs not only about our great father and eternal president, Kim Il-sung, but about flowers and clouds, smiling children. Of course I sang songs from the Soviet Union, too. We all did.

She smiled. The darkness comes over the garden, she sang for me in her perfect soprano voice. Even the light has gone to sleep. The night in the suburbs that I love. The nights in the suburbs of Moscow. I loved to sit with my mother and listen to her in this way.