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We started off Thanksgiving weekend with Steph's piece on the status of North Korean refugees here in the United States. We'll close it with a story from one of those people.
Many of our readers probably know Kim Kwang-jin, either personally or by reputation. He defected with his family while working in Singapore for the North Korean state insurer. After a circuitous journey, he and his family ended up here in the US, where his son, Ilkuk (Evan), attends the public schools. He recently passed along the following message, which, with his permission, I reproduce below. There is no reason for me to add any further commentary.
"I asked my son to draw some paintings to remember his days in Pyongyang and tell about it to the others. He has finished several by now and he wrote an essay on that. For me, it is too painful to finish this.
Mr. Downs said that Ilkuk is thoughtful and serious and I should be proud of him and Yes, I am.
Bringing him to the US was my best decision in my life.
Sorry to disturb you.
Many thanks and best,
KKJ
The Things He Carries
Evan Kim
A boy is standing alone in the middle of the art studio, staring blankly through the window. He seems to be lost in thought. What is he thinking? There is his old friend, a tall, wooden easel, standing still and waiting for him. In the boy's hand, there is a picture of a child crying. A child who is desperately extending his small hands to the guards, begging for mercy, when the guards are striking his mother with rifle butts.
Why is he painting such pictures? The boy turns around from the window and opens a paint box and gets ready to paint again.
The boy carries a paint box not because he wants to be a painter. He carries a paint box not because he wants to show off his artistic skills. He carries it because he has a responsibility, a responsibility of telling the unfortunate stories of himself and his family. He paints North Koreans and only North Koreans. Why does he paint them? The answer is simple: because he is a North Korean. People there die of hunger while some of us die of obesity. People there look for fallen beans on the ground while some of us dump any leftovers of food without hesitation. People there drink sewage while we waste water by taking unnecessarily long showers. People there don't know what a cell phone is while we are waiting for new versions of iPad. People there are deceived into thinking the outside world is constantly threatening the country. People there are forced to watch their family and friends being shot dead. People there don't have the rights that even animals have here. People there don't know the word "freedom" while we take it for granted. And he is determined to paint them. He is committed to let the world know people there are living in such miseries.
As he opens the paint box, he finds fresh paints that he couldn't even imagine having in North Korea. He holds a blue paint and starts squeezing it on the palette, imagining how his family would react if they saw these brand new paints. In the place where the boy is from, even a colored pen is something that you wouldn't want to lend anybody because you've been saving its ink for years. He remembers one of his cousins who loved a red pen and thought she had the whole world if someone gave her a red pen as a gift. He had over fifteen cousins, and now he has none. He doesn't have cousins now not because they are dead, but because he will never see them again.
The mark on the paints, "made in the United States," reminds him of his country where people inwardly adore products made in America and outwardly loathe the country. In North Korea, people never express complaints to each other because they are afraid of the invisible witnesses and the law that does not exist; anything that their leader says is law. People are not allowed to talk freely about their leader. Or, they just don't dare. They must say what they have been told to say, and they must know as far as what they have been taught by the country. People there are blind to truths. They believe that the people outside their country are suffering more than they are. The boy once was one of those people, and he has to speak about this. He wants to point at each one of us and question why people there have to live such lives.
The boy looks at the clock and realizes it's 9 a.m. About 7,025 miles away, his family must be preparing to go to bed. He used to sit around with his family and tell them about his day before he went to bed. When he was finished and was on his bed, his grandmother often came and grabbed his small hands and whispered that she loved him. Still, the boy can feel her warmth. As he always did, the boy carries the prayers from his family. His family in North Korea pray for him every day, hoping that he is okay without them and outside his hometown. They pray that the boy will take care of himself while they are being tortured by the regime. They also pray that they will see each other some time in their lifetime. The boy also prays for them, hoping that they will take care of themselves while he is tortured by loneliness and the harsh nature of life. He was only nine years old when he had to leave his family behind.
The boy now grips a brush and smears the paint on the palette. He closes his eyes and makes an effort to recall the memories of his family and the country. Then he writes his memories down with the brushes and fills them with paints. This process is painful, agonizing, and depressing for him to repeat every day, but he does this for one thing: a hope that his paintings will have an effect on the world and that the world will become aware of the reality in North Korea and free them from the slavery, the slavery that will continue for generations to come if we don't extend our hands to them. He carries a belief. He believes that the inhumanity in North Korea will end. He doesn't believe in god. If he did, he wouldn't believe in a god of virtue but in a god of apathy. Finally, he carries a dream, a dream of seeing his family with his own eyes before he leaves this world.
