A North Korean girl who no longer exists
A teenage girl who fled North Korea 15 years ago no longer exists. She escaped in a hail of bullets from border guards chasing her and two human smugglers. Han Song-mi escaped on March 19, 2011, to join her mother, who had escaped six years earlier.
Fifteen years later, she is a different person. When Song-mi first arrived in South Korea, she was unprepared for this competitive society. She had attended elementary school for only one year in North Korea. She had spent years doing physical labor for relatives, who saw her as a worker.
When Song-mi escaped in 2011, the global conversation about North Korea looked very different. Most discussions focused on nuclear weapons, missile tests and geopolitical tensions. Personal stories from North Koreans themselves were relatively rare in international media. When the country appeared in headlines, it was usually through the lens of diplomacy or security concerns.
Today, the landscape is different. Over the past 15 years, audiences around the world have become more familiar with the personal experiences of North Koreans. Memoirs, public speaking events, documentaries, and online platforms have made it easier for North Korean refugees to share their stories.
For the first 11 years after arriving in freedom, Song-mi gave no interviews and never gave a speech. She had reasons to keep her identity concealed and was not interested in telling her story publicly.
Consider what her life might have looked like if she had stayed in North Korea. With only one year of education, she would likely have ended up as a farmer's wife, living in poverty, with little prospect of anything different. She guesses that when she lived in North Korea, she only knew about six countries in the world. She lived in poverty in the countryside, had never seen a computer, and didn’t have a phone or TV at her home.
In South Korea, she graduated from college in 2024 with a degree in social welfare. Freedom Speakers International (FSI) co-founder Lee Eun-koo and I attended her graduation along with her mom. Song-mi is now the manager of external relations at FSI, handling initial outreach to companies, schools, organizations, foundations and embassies. She did not give her first public speech until early 2022, but today she delivers speeches without notes. She has spoken in the United States, India, Switzerland and Poland, attended an international conference in Indonesia and lived in Canada, matching the number of countries she knew about when she was in North Korea. She co-authored her memoir, "Greenlight to Freedom," with me.
She insists I join her for speeches and interviews, saying, “Mr. Casey! You are my co-author and my hero! Please join me. Who made me like this? Mr. Casey, you did it.” I mention this because some people working with North Korean refugees, mainly South Koreans, say they aren’t grateful, but that is not true of Song-mi and other North Korean refugees working with us.
We first met in 2019 when she joined FSI to study English. She was going through a deep depression and on the verge of committing suicide. After we hired her as a part-time assistant, she told some humorous stories during lunch. She initially rejected my suggestions that she write a book, saying her story was “too sad,” that she had attended elementary school for only one year, was not part of North Korea’s elite, and had gone years without even touching a book as she farmed and did housework for her aunt’s family. Her mom agreed with me and encouraged her daughter to tell her story.
Song-mi, who wasn’t interested in telling her story when she first joined us, now encourages other North Korean refugees to share their stories. Her best friend won first place in our most recent speech contest, the same one where Song-mi won the grand prize in 2022.
Today we are celebrating Song-mi’s 15th anniversary of freedom by giving a speech at the DMZ. On March 19, she will give a speech online to high school students in the United States. On March 20, she will give a speech at an embassy here in South Korea. On Friday, we jointly signed 35 copies of her book that were requested by Americans visiting South Korea.
Fifteen years is a long time — long enough for a teenager who followed her mother across a frozen river under gunfire to become an author and public speaker, and now a mentor for other North Koreans.
The teenage girl who crossed that border in 2011 no longer exists. Neither does the world she crossed into. What replaced her is still being written.
Casey Lartigue Jr. (CJL@alumni.harvard.edu) is chairman of Freedom Speakers International, adjunct professor in public speaking at the Seoul University of Foreign Studies, co-country director of Giving Tuesday Korea and a member of the board of directors of the Korea-America Association.