From 'Sir' to 'Dad': A North Korean Daughter's Journey (Part 2)

Today is Father’s Day in the U.S., a day I never imagined would hold meaning for me. Growing up in North Korea, the word “father” often meant fear. But over time, one man began to change that. He never tried to push his way into my life. Instead, he teased me gently, filled our difficult days with laughter, and found small ways to make me smile. Gradually, I began to let him into my world.

One day, he called me over for one of his magic tricks. “Just come over and look at me. Look at my hand.” He was rolling some paper into a ball, pretending to push it through the back of his hand. I watched, suspicious but curious. “Songmi-ya! Look over there!” he shouted. I looked, nothing was there, but when I looked back, the paper ball had moved to under his palm. “No way!”

The magician at the train station was now doing tricks for me. “Do it again!” I said. I even made sure to roll the paper ball myself to stop him from playing any tricks.

He repeated the trick, but I was ready this time. I didn’t take my eyes off his hand. He tried to distract me by pointing at someone who wasn’t there and pretending he was talking to someone who wasn’t there. Then suddenly, he leaned to one side and started grunting.

“Wait, wait,” he said, shifting his body. “One ... two ... three. Okay, okay, almost."

And then — "Bbbbuungggg!"

He farted. It was loud and ridiculous.

I shouted, “Dad! Go to the toilet!” I didn’t realize it, but I called him “Dad” for the first time without Mom demanding it. I had spent so long resisting it. But that moment—the fart, the magic trick, the laughter — broke the last bit of resistance inside me.

“Finally,” he said. “That’s better, I needed to do that.” When I looked, the ball of paper was under his hand.

“Dad! Do you think I’m an idiot?” I asked.

“See, it’s real,” he insisted. “The ball went through my hand. See, it hurts.”

“Then where’s the blood, Dad?”

All of us laughed. And for the first time, I said “Dad” and meant it.

I tried his magic myself. “Let me have the ball. I will show you magic.” I mimicked his every move, even trying to distract him like he did with me. “Dad, what’s over there?” He didn’t flinch. “Dad! Who is she?” He didn’t blink and his eyebrows didn’t move. He stared at my hand.

We were laughing together — Dad, Mom, and me.

I had tried to hate him, but he was doing everything he could to make me love him. I thought to myself, This is what a dad should be like. Someone to have fun with. Someone to care for you when you are in pain. Someone to be patient, even when you are angry at him.

He had lost his previous wife and children while imprisoned at Yodok, but now he had a wife who loved him and a daughter who was starting to love him, too.

“Songmi-ya, let’s play a magic game,” he said.

I rolled my eyes. “No, Dad, I’m not an idiot. I’m not a baby. Your games are for three-year-old babies.”

“This time, it is real. This is a new game.” He laid out 15 cards under the fingers of his left hand and said he would lift all the cards at once with one hand. “That’s not possible, and I don’t trust you, Dad.” But my eyes were glued to his hand.

“One, two…” he counted. The cards floated with his hand. I was shocked. Was this actual magic? I tried the same thing later and failed.

For two months, I tried to copy him, but I could never lift the cards. Then one day, one of Dad’s friends came over and did the same trick. I begged, “Please, please, show me how you do it.”

Finally, he said, “Do you have a needle?”

I ran to Mom. “Mom! Where can I get a needle?”

She was cooking. “Look around, you can find one. Look in the drawer.”

I found one and brought it to Dad’s friend. He showed me that he had hidden the needle in his palm and used it to hold the cards together. That was the secret.

I told him, “Uncle, please don’t let Dad know you taught me this. I am going to play this with him.”

When Dad got home, I said, “Dad, please, come and sit. Let’s do some magic.”

He was delighted to finally receive a request and started getting ready.

“No, Dad, I’m going to do it.” He looked confused. I did the trick and lifted nine cards. His eyebrows shot up. “Who taught you?”

Mom gasped. “Wow! How did you do it?” It was our secret, Dad and daughter.

For the first time in my life, I had a dad I could laugh with, get teased by, play tricks on and yes, even endure his farts. His eyebrows always pointed up, full of life and humor. My birth father had been cold and violent with my mom. My previous stepfather saw me as a worker.

We bought a humble home — one room and a kitchen — but after being homeless, it felt like a palace. And we stopped stealing. I didn’t know then how fragile those moments would be. My parents would later leave North Korea without telling me, crossing into China. They had tried to send money to me, but the broker apparently stole it. Dad returned to North Korea to give the money directly to my aunt to take care of me.

My dad, Mr. Yu Geunsang — the card player, magician, the first father in my life who cared for, protected and laughed with and at me, my “Sir” who became “Dad” — was captured at the border and sent back to the infamous Yodok prison.

Even now, when I think of Father’s Day, it’s not my cold birth father or cruel stepfather I remember fondly. It’s Dad with the eyebrows pointing up when he laughed. If he had been born in South Korea, he probably would have been an entertainer, a YouTube influencer or a magician. But he was born in North Korea. I hope he escaped and that I can meet him again one day in freedom.

Han Song-mi is a North Korean Refugee Author Fellow at Freedom Speakers International (FSI) and co-author with Casey Lartigue Jr. of her memoir “Greenlight to Freedom: A North Korean Daughter’s Search for Her Mother and Herself.”