Word: ryu
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...When she was a child in the coastal North Korean town of Kyongsong, Ryu and her five siblings enjoyed a comfortable life. Her father was second-in-command of a battalion, and four of the kids went to college. Ryu, now 35, majored in electrical engineering and even studied English. "Happy family," she says, remembering a few faltering words of English. In 1996, however, two years after North Korea's founder Kim Il Sung died, the famines worsened and Ryu's family was soon reduced to one meal...
...February 1999 Ryu headed to Hyesan, where with the help of a middleman who assured her he'd bribed the border guards, Ryu waded across the river. She walked straight into a group of Chinese police staking out the area. After a night in jail, Ryu was forcibly repatriated back to North Korea and sent to a refugee-detention center. The camp consisted of five or six underground cells, each packed with about 80 people. Meals comprised a handful of boiled corn kernels and salty water. The good days, Ryu recalls, were when a guard with big hands dispensed...
...Because Ryu had a college education, she was allowed to work as a secretary at the camp, transcribing interrogation notes and doing basic bookkeeping. Beatings were common, especially if a detainee was suspected of dealings with South Koreans or Chinese. Ryu remembers a woman six months pregnant arriving at the camp. The baby's father was Chinese. Four guards grabbed the woman's limbs and threw her toward the ceiling over and over until the woman aborted the fetus. Ryu helped clean up the blood afterwards. "The guards said they hated Chinese babies," says Ryu. "The North Koreans hate...
...After just two months, Ryu was released, she believes, because of her obedient service as a secretary. On the night of May 16, she and another North Korean woman crossed over to China, with the help of a different middleman. An hour later, the pair were ensconced in a safe house and gulped down an entire washbasin filled with rice and chives. It was the most satisfying meal Ryu remembers ever eating. Soon after, she was sold by the North Korean middleman to a Chinese smuggler for $36. In turn, the Changbai dealer sold her to a Chinese farmer...
...Just down the street from Ryu lives another North Korean bride, whose tale has less of a storybook ending. Kim was a nurse back in North Korea and first tried to come to China seven years ago. Instead of crossing into a city, where she could melt into the crowds, Kim hiked up into the rugged mountains surrounding Changbai. Up in the alpine tundra, there were no border markings, and Kim wandered for days, unsure at first if she had reached China or was still in North Korea. To protect her chapped feet from the snow, she wrapped grass around...