In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl’s Journey to Freedom

“I am most grateful for two things: that I was born in North Korea, and that I escaped from North Korea.”

In this sentence, Park informs her readers that she has made peace with her identity. Her origins and subsequent experiences inform her story and her perspective.

“I was taught never to express my opinions, never to question anything. [...] I actually believed that our Dear Leader, Kim Jong Il, could read my mind, and I would be punished for my bad thoughts.”

This quote reveals the extent to which North Korean state propaganda can affect the psychology and daily lives of the people. Fear of the government can affect even the most basic decision making.

“In North Korea, if one member of the family commits a serious crime, everybody is considered a criminal.”

Considering the family as a unit reinforces the songbun caste system described in Chapter 2. It means any individual’s lot in life is determined by their birth and constantly affected by the actions of their family members.

“If you grow up in the West, you may think that romance occurs normally, but it does not.”

In this quote, Park demonstrates that acts of love are not innate but learned through observation. In a hostile environment like North Korea, her parents are wed without being taught how to express their feelings.

“But like many loyal North Koreas, she [Park’s mother] was able to separate her ideology from her actions and not see that there was much of a conflict.”

This quote gives practical evidence to George Orwell’s concept of “doublethink.” It illustrates the capacity of fear to push people to ignore contradictory truths presented to them.

“In North Korea, even arithmetic is a propaganda tool. A typical problem would go like this: ‘If you kill one American bastard and your comrade kills two, how many dead American bastards do you have?’” 

This passage uses humor to demonstrate the extent to which state propaganda affects school curricula. In the memoir, Park presents these anecdotes seriously while highlighting their ridiculousness.

“I saw that some of those children were about my age, and many even younger. But I can’t say I felt compassion or even pity, just simple curiosity about how they managed to survive eating all that rotten food.”

This quote paints a bleak picture of the famine in North Korea. Human suffering is so commonplace that it is easy to ignore.

“In North Korea, spring is the season of death. [...] Spring is when most people die of starvation.”

The intention of this passage is to contrast North Korea’s struggle with famine to the common belief that spring is the season of hope and renewal. Winter depletes food reserves, and people who cannot hold on until summer harvests starve in spring.

“My father had been convicted in a secret trial and sentenced to hard labor at a felony-level prison camp. [...] They were places where you are no longer considered a human being.”

This quote emphasizes the inhumane conditions of North Korea’s prisons. With the loss of Park’s father—the primary breadwinner of the family—it also marks the beginning of her financial destitution.

“North Koreans my age and younger are sometimes called the Jangmadang Generation, because we grew up with markets, and we couldn’t remember a time when the state provided for everyone’s needs. We didn’t have the same blind loyalty to the regime that was felt by our parents’ generation.”

Park’s memoir is primarily an account of her own experiences growing up. This quote demonstrates the unique qualities of her generation and the domestic consequences of the end of the Cold War.

“When women escaped to China, the government didn’t get all that upset about it, and their relatives were usually not punished. But if a man like my father was to defect, the government would be very hard on his brothers and sisters and their families.”

Although Park’s memoir does not directly comment on sexism and misogyny, it occasionally offers glimpses of the way North Korean government and society discriminate against women. This quote serves the purpose of highlighting the importance of men over women in North Korean society.

“We never thought to ask why these women [North Korean brokers for the bride trafficking network] were helping us, and why we didn’t have to pay them anything. We didn’t think that something might be wrong. Even though my mother worked in the black market, she trusted people. As North Koreas, we were innocent in a way that I cannot fully explain.”

This passage explains how Park and her mother are tricked into being trafficked. With information controlled by the state and no way of knowing the outside world, they could not have anticipated their fate.

“North Korean women were in demand in the rural areas of China because there were not enough Chinese women to go around.”

This is another instance in which Park sheds light on the inherent discrimination against women that exists in China. The One Child policy and the valuation of men artificially created an unbalanced ratio of men to women, making space for the underground slave-brides market.

“The material things were worthless. I had lost my family. I wasn’t loved, I wasn’t free, and I wasn’t safe. I was alive, but everything that made life worth living was gone.”

This quote shows Park’s emotional growth. Whereas she first left North Korea for food, she now realizes that without her family, she cannot be happy, even if her hunger is satiated.

“It makes me sick to think about what I and so many girls and women had to do to survive in China. I wish it had all never happened, and that I never had to talk about it again. But I want everyone to know the shocking truth about human trafficking.”

This quote is the primary reason Park wrote her memoir. Helping other girls forced to sell their bodies for freedom is the driving force behind Park’s activism.

“In Korea we say that if a person cannot close his eyes in death, it is because he hasn’t fulfilled something in this world.”

This sentence immediately after Park’s father’s death marks Park’s reinvigorated desire to find her sister. Park believes her father’s soul is still searching for Eunmi, and the search for her sister becomes her primary motivation in later chapters.

“So I did what had to be done when the first signs of sickness began. In China, there are medicines you can swallow to stop what has been started. Afterward I felt dead inside, and perhaps I was. But I never imagined that things could get worse. And now it had come to this: I was ready to sell my own mother.”

This passage marks an emotional low point during Park’s time in China. The prospect of additional suffering is unbearable and propels her into seeking employment and a better way of life for herself and her mother.

“I knew in my heart that I deserved to be treated like a person, not a hunted animal.”

Park reaches another turning point in her emotional growth here. Although she does not yet have the vocabulary to express it, she finally realizes she deserves to be treated with dignity.

“But I had trouble understanding how He was a merciful God. I wondered why this God existed in South Korea but not in North Korea.”

Park admits in her memoir that she is not a devout Christian and had difficulty grasping the concept at first. North Korea is atheist, and the only gods are the Kims. In this passage, Park interrogates the concept of injustice.

“I was able to believe that Kim Jong Il lived in luxurious mansions while his people starved. But I could not accept that it was his father, the Great Leader Kim Il Sung, and not the evil Yankee and South Korean invaders, who started the Korean War in 1950.”

This quote demonstrates that deep-seated beliefs ingrained from infancy are not all easily erased. It also foreshadows Park’s difficult journey trying to adapt to South Korean society.

“But I knew that I could work hard, and it excited me to think that I might be rewarded for my effort. I didn’t have a word for ‘justice’ yet, or even understand the concept, but this was an idea that felt right to me.”

Park illustrates in this quote that the idea of justice and equality can be felt and valued without being taught. It stands in sharp contrast to the oppressive society in North Korea and China she left behind.

“I had used my first two years of freedom to work on myself, awakening my mind and opening it to the possibilities of the world. I was safe now, but I couldn’t stop thinking about my family and friends and all the others who were still suffering, and my sister, who was still missing.”

This passage foreshadows Park’s eventual decision to become a public figure and a human rights activist. It is the culmination of her personal growth in South Korea and the final step she takes toward self-fulfillment in her memoir.

“Other than the sacrifices I had made for my family, my life to this point had been very selfish. Now, instead of just focusing on my own needs, working every hour of the day to improve myself, maybe I could become someone useful to others.”

Park’s journey toward emotional and financial stability reaches a milestone when she begins to actively work toward helping others. Compared to the start of the memoir, when her only concern was to find her next meal, this quote indicates how her experiences have shaped her as a person.