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Kang Hyeok (a pen name) remains in hiding in China after his second escape from North Korea. A 28-year-old graduate of Susan College, Sinpo, in North Korea, his experience illustrates why an increasing number of North Koreans are fleeing hunger and oppression, and why many Christians are coming to their aid.

The following is an excerpt from memoirs appearing in the South Korean monthly Sindonga. We enter Kang's story in 1997, as he is waiting for a train between Pyongyang and Keomkol, at Sinseongcheon Station in North Korea.

The waiting room was full of a crowd waiting for the train. A young man was eating bread.

An old woman beside him said, "Excuse me, would you give me some bread? I haven't eaten anything for two days. I am really hungry."

"I am sorry, but look at me," the man replied. "I gave my clothes for food." The old woman dropped her head without saying any more. At that moment someone shouted, "Listen to me, is this the socialism we pursue? No other way but to sit and starve to death?"

Everyone turned their eyes toward the man. How can he dare say that? How will he be treated? A cold silence spread. He closed his eyes and did not move, as if he knew his fate. A security officer appeared and said, "Hey, you, show me your id card!"

Without even looking at the man's ID card and traveling certificate, however, the official handcuffed him—and detained me and everyone else near enough to have heard his comment. Overhearing the ideologically suspicious comment was our crime.

We had waited for three days to take the train in front of us. That moment was the starting point of events that would lead to my attempt to escape to China.

Kang escaped from detention but was apprehended and sentenced to six months of hard labor (reduced to 10 days). Facing food shortages and threats of further imprisonment, in August 1997 he fled to China. Officials there seized him the following year.

March 25, 1998. I will never forget the date for the rest of my life. I was being sent by escort to North Korea on a truck with some other escapees.

Two armed Chinese soldiers were pointing their automatic weapons at us. As soon as we crossed the border into North Korea, the label betrayer or traitor would follow us. My heart seemed to be frozen. Lee Haeyeong, a young woman who had escaped from North Korea five months before I did, touched my hands tenderly. "Can we meet again?" she said. "I am afraid we will be treated harshly." Then she smiled. "Kang Hyeok, I really thank you for the things you have done for me."

While I was thinking about my fate, she was thinking about our fate. She was remembering the days we had together in China. She stopped speaking for a moment and looked at me softly.

"Lastly, I ask a favor of you," she said. "Please kiss me."

I was completely surprised. We did not know what would become of us, and the Chinese soldiers were aiming their guns at us. She asked me to kiss her even on the way to a closed nation where neither love nor life had any meaning.

I had met Haeyeong when entering a house to find a hiding place after crossing the Duman River into China. Looking ordinary and a little short, she was making a fire in the kitchen to boil down grains into taffy. The owner of the house, a Chinese citizen of Korean ancestry, allowed me to stay there.

Haeyeong seemed to know that I was North Korean from the beginning. We began to speak to each other one month after I had arrived. She had escaped from North Korea in March 1997 when she was a student at Weonsan Teachers Training College. Since then she had worked for the owner of the house, who made taffy for their living. We felt like brother and sister to each other.

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October 2004, Vol. 48, No. 10