What happens after North Koreans escape to South Korea?

A home in rural North Korea, similar to the one Han Song-mi identified on Google Earth after her escape to South Korea / Courtesy of Freedom Speakers International

I had never been on an airplane before and I did not know anyone who had. After escaping from North Korea and escaping through China, Laos, and Thailand, I was on my way to South Korea.

The airplane took off into the sky and outside the window, the clouds looked soft and peaceful. For the first time in months, I felt like I could breathe. I leaned back and spoke to the woman behind me. “I’m so excited,” I said. “Now it’s all coming true. I’m flying to see my mom.” I whispered to myself, “Am I dreaming?” I then pinched my cheek to make sure it wasn't a dream.

My mom and I had been separated for six years after she escaped from North Korea. I drifted off to sleep watching a movie and was awakened by the plane shaking and announcements coming over the loudspeaker in languages I didn’t understand. The plane came to a stop and we had arrived in South Korea.

I didn't know what it was at the time, but our first stop was the National Intelligence Service (NIS) building. I saw a cafeteria full of North Koreans wearing yellow uniforms. I didn’t know it at the time, but I had arrived during a peak year for defections. In 2011, I was one of the 2,706 North Korean refugees who made it to South Korea. I left my home in North Korea on February 17, crossed the border to China on March 19, and arrived in South Korea on May 20, my mom’s birthday.

We put our bags down and lined up for lunch. I hadn’t eaten a proper meal in weeks and had grown tired of the prison food in the Thai jail. The rice at NIS was so fresh.

“This is the rice I want,” I said with a big smile.

After lunch, we were given health checks. An agent handed me a cup, but I had no idea what I was supposed to do with it.

“Pee in it,” she said.

My face turned red and looking for an excuse, I told her that I had already gone to the bathroom. She probably encountered this often; she told me to drink water and wait.

Next came my first ever blood test.

“Is it okay? You took so much blood,” I said.

Then another agent asked loudly if I was on my period. I was embarrassed and covered her mouth.

“Please whisper,” I said. “In North Korea, we don’t talk about this in public.”

She said, “You’re not in North Korea anymore. You can be comfortable here.”

Behind me was a 15-year-old girl who had escaped with her 14-year-old sister. She got a pink name tag, meaning she was pregnant. The church pastor in China who helped her escape had gotten her pregnant.

After that first day, we were separated and sent to individual rooms. My mother had warned me: “You’re going to be interrogated. Tell the truth. Don’t be scared.”

One week later, I entered the interrogation room. The female inspector had a gentle voice, but she watched me closely. She seemed to know more about North Korea than I did and she seemed to know everything about me.

She had read my statements to South Korean agents in Thailand, checked my mother’s information, and she was looking for inconsistencies. Every answer led to more questions being asked from different angles as I was interrogated for several hours. I felt dizzy, but I knew I couldn’t make a single mistake. I had reached a free country, but I couldn’t relax and felt guilty.

When the initial interview ended, she said, “You will need to stay here for one week. We will give you some paper to write more about your life in North Korea.”

That felt like the first real homework assignment of my life. I had only gone to elementary school for one year so I had learned Korean the way it is spoken, not written, so I am sure I made many mistakes.

The next day, after she returned, she looked over my notes. “You didn’t go to school?”

“I had to work. I had to survive.”

She asked about a family that lived behind a factory for blind workers.

“Why are you asking that?”

“You should answer,” she said.

My mother had told me: “Tell the truth.” I had hesitated because I knew that family worked as spies for the North Korean regime and they had probably made numerous reports about me after my mom escaped.

Later, the agent logged onto Google Earth. It was the first time I had seen the Internet. “Can you find your house?” She zoomed in and I stared at the screen.

“Oh my goodness, this is my house.”

I made it through the tough interrogation, but I had a new problem developing. I had arrived at 85 pounds. I gained more than 20 pounds. We ate well, but didn’t move much. Their solution? Exercise.

“Look at you guys!” the instructor shouted. “You look like soccer balls. If I kicked you, you would roll!”

He pointed at me. “You’re short and fat!”

It was more comedy than insult. We groaned and laughed as we did sit-ups and ran on treadmills.

By late June or early July, my time at NIS came to an end. A few were delayed because agents still had questions about their lives in North Korea. The rest of us were allowed to leave.

We were happy to say goodbye to the NIS — and to the exercise leader, too. My next stop was going to be the Hanawon resettlement center.

Han Song-mi is a North Korean Refugee Author Fellow with Freedom Speakers International (FSI). This blog post is based on chapter 23 of her memoir “Greenlight to Freedom: A North Korean Daughter’s Search for Her Mother and Herself,” co-written with FSI co-founder Casey Lartigue Jr.