Memoirs from communist states: harrowing tales of survival

Jean Seah

November 04, 2024 2 Reactions

Li Na was deemed “politically unfit to become a student in a university” as his father was still seen as a traitor, and summarily dispatched back to Hong Kong, reeling from the shock. There, he acquired tutoring jobs and became relatively rich, splurging on fine apparel and sumptuous meals with his friends and students. But conspicuous consumption did not satisfy his spirit, and he ended up seeking his fortune in America, the subject of his sequel, The Turbulent Sea: Passage to a New World.

The Hermit Kingdom

Kang Chol-hwan’s memoir, The Aquariums of Pyongyang, was the first published account of life in Kim Jong-Il’s reclusive communist regime of North Korea. His book sent shockwaves through the world, though it met with disheartening scepticism in South Korea. He was invited to meet President George W. Bush in June 2005 and discuss the terrible plight of North Koreans.

Again, as with Li Na’s tale, Koreans in the diaspora, particularly in Japan, were taken in by communist propaganda and willingly returned to their ancestral home. Kang’s grandparents and their children were prospering in Kyoto, but Kang’s grandmother was an ardent member of the Chosen Soren, the Korean Communist entity in Japan.

Kang recounts:

“In June 1949, the Koreans who previously had belonged to the Japanese Communist Party migrated en masse into the newly created Korean Workers’ Party, as the North Korean communist party was called. Like its counterparts all over the world, the KWP showed a formidable knack for creating associations with the allure of democracy and openness to the public. There were women’s associations, movements for the defence of culture and peace, sports clubs, and various other groups which the Party could influence from the shadows. My grandmother was among the Party’s most active organisers and eventually became director for the Kyoto region.”

Although his grandparents resided in “an opulent house”, Kang’s grandmother insisted on raising her children as though they were poor, with threadbare clothing, believing it would instil a “sense of justice” in her progeny.

Eventually, lured by the siren call of their homeland, the Kangs joined the stream of Koreans leaving for North Korea. Kang explains:

“Koreans never had an easy time integrating into Japanese life and often were targets of prejudice. The North Korean propaganda thus resonated with many in the diaspora, and thousands responded to Kim Il-Sung’s call to return. Well-to-do Koreans such as my grandparents could be expected to be wooed with an equal measure of ideological arguments and fantastical promises: there were managerial positions awaiting them, they were entitled to a beautiful home, they would have no material worries, and their children would be able to study in Moscow.”

The Kangs’ eldest son tried to flee to a cousin’s house at the last moment, but his mother collared him and forced him aboard with the family.

Kang reflects:

“I have since learned that at other latitudes and at other times, the same Communist powers created similar traps for making people believe and hope in illusions. This led to the misery of countless peoples: in France, in America, in Egypt, and perhaps most notably, in Armenia. Tens of thousands died there in 1947 under the spell of Stalin’s propaganda, which had painted the Soviet Socialist Republic of Armenia as the land of milk and honey. The Soviets… promised that the ancestral culture and religion would be respected and that the newcomers would shortly see a new generation rise and flourish in social justice.”

After fifteen hours, the ship docked in Chongjin in northeastern Korea. Kang’s youngest uncle recalled:

“It was like the city was dead – the strangest atmosphere. The people all looked so shabby and aimless in their wandering. There was a feeling of deep sadness in the air…”

Some Koreans who had arrived from Japan a few months ago approached the newcomers, furtively asking:

“What happened? We sent our family and friends letters warning people not to come! Why didn’t your family listen? … You’re not going to build a new life here; your parents will be stripped of all their belongings, then left to die. You’ll soon find out what these North Korean Communists are all about.”

Due to the Kangs’ standing, it took several years for these dire predictions to manifest. Indeed, they enjoyed a life of relative prosperity at first; the young boy Kang could even afford to maintain ten fancy aquariums in his room, hence the title of the book.

However, after some party intrigue where Kang’s grandmother picked the wrong side to support, her husband was spirited away to a concentration camp, and the rest of the family was soon sent to another one – except Kang’s mother, the daughter of a Communist hero martyred in Japan. She was forced to divorce her husband.

Satellite view of Camp 16, one of the most notorious prisons in North Korea.
No ground-level pictures of the camp are known to have made it out of the country.

The nine-year-old Kang, his grandmother, seven-year-old sister Mi-ho, father and youngest uncle were incarcerated for ten years, surviving gruelling slavery, daily indoctrination, self-criticism sessions, and a terrible diet of meagre portions of corn, supplemented with salamanders and rats. They were eventually released when his grandfather probably died, or possibly because they still had relatives in Japan, and North Korea depended on foreign remittances.

Kang later managed to flee his homeland with a friend, sneaking over the border to China with the aid of a smuggler, then finding passage to Seoul in South Korea. Reflecting on the smuggler’s trade, he wrote:

“It’s clear: North Korea is a total sham. Officially, it outlaws private business, but in the shadows it lets it thrive. Since there are hardly any markets, merchants warehouse their Chinese products at home and sell them to their neighbours and acquaintances. This farce is the only thing preventing the bankruptcy of the North Korean state and the pauperisation of its citizenry.”

Kang Chol-hwan and Charles N. Li have written remarkable accounts of the political forces and ideologies that shaped their lives and sundered their families, and how they overcame unimaginable hardship and cruelty to build new lives in democratic nations away from the communist regimes that decimated their countries.

Their autobiographies also contain incisive self-reflection on their states of mind while growing up in the cradle of East Asian families defined by traditional Confucian values, yet influenced by other strains of thought, like Li’s mother’s and aunt’s evangelical Christianity, and Kang’s grandmother’s communist ideals.

These books are masterpieces capturing historical events along with the tragedies and triumphs of the authors’ families, living through societal upheaval, under corrupt governments and totalitarian systems. Also, among other things, Li’s second book narrates his fight for social justice during the Vietnam War. Li and Kang have produced tomes that serve as a poignant warning to those who dream of Marxist utopias on Earth.

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Jean Seah is a freelance writer, social media manager for News Weekly, managing editor of The Daily Declaration and The Daily Dad, and social media editor of Mercator.

Image credit: Frank Schulenburg/Wikimedia Commons