ON THE BRINK OF SURVIVAL
My name is Lim Chol and my sister is Lim So-yon. I am 10 years old and she is eight. We were born in a small coal mining town at Sudong-gu, Kowon-gun, South Hamgyong Province. For many years we were happy. But a few years ago, our dreams started to disappear. At home, we ran out of rice and corn, which weren’t replenished from the distribution station. My mother made corn gruel for us. Everyday she waited in line to get the rations. She had to wait almost 10 days to get much smaller rations compared to the previous ones. My father always looked sluggish at home because of malnutrition and hard labor in the coal mines. He stopped having the small beer parties he used to have with his friends. As soon as he came home, he couldn’t help lying down.
Meanwhile, my mother roamed around, collecting some edible grass in order to make soup with corn flour. She served one bowl of that soup to my father, sister and me, but took only half a bowl for herself. So-yon and I managed quite well. However, my parents were adults so didn’t seem to have enough. They looked languid and depressed.
After a while, the distribution station stopped rationing so my father also had to go out and get the edible grass. When our parents came back with a full bag filled with grass and herbs, my sister and I welcomed them at the door, jumping around them. My mother started to mix the corn flour and the grass saying, “Aren’t you hungry?” And my father made paste with the mortar sitting next to her. He cut out some pieces from that paste with his coarse hands and gave them to us. How delicious it was!
It was March in 1997. My parents were desperate to find food. They already had sold everything they had to buy corn. One day, my father decided to go to Hwanghae Province to get corn from his relatives after talking with mother because the coal mine stopped to operate and allowed its miners to go out and look for food on that day. We were in such bad shape we couldn’t stop him from his search for food. Before he left, my mother made 10 pieces of corn paste for his meals and wrapped them with papers and put them into his bag. He took out two pieces and put them into the hands of my sister and me as we stood at the door to send him off. He asked us to take good care of mother and we asked him to bring home lots of rice and corn. That was the last time we saw him.
My mother was a real beauty. So-yon was the most popular girl out of 300 kindergarten children because she was very good looking and smart like my mother. People used to say that my mother looked much younger than her age of 35. But her illness not only made her beauty disappear but also the warmth of our home. She got tuberculosis from malnutrition and heavy labor. It wasn’t the active, infectious form, but inactive without the possibility of infecting others. My mother also accumulated water around her ribs because she frequently delivered heavy bags of coal weighing 30 kilograms. When she could barely walk, we took her to the hospital in the mining town. But the hospital did not possess the medicine she needed. Some medicine was available on the black market, but it was too expensive. For my mother to receive one injection of antibiotics or penicillin, we had to give up 10 days of corn flour. Of course we couldn’t afford it. She just lied back suffering everyday. When she couldn’t see me, I cried. I did my best telling myself, “I must be strong to take care of my mother. I can’t let her die in this cold room.”
I walked four kilometers to the old coal mine to get some coal and went to the mountain to get some edible grass and put them in the kitchen. My mother could barely stand up to boil the water to make soup with the grass. She was so weak she couldn’t lift the bar by herself to grind the grass in the mortar. I had to assist her to hold the bar and pound the grass. She wept and murmured, as tears streamed down her face. “Please forgive me for making you suffer like this,” she said.
In front of my mother, my eyes welled with tears, but I never made any sound. We supported our lives with the grass paste mixed with our tears for three months. Everyday we had only two meals instead of three. My seven-year-old sister sat next to mother and put a cold compress on her feverish face. But she passed away on the 4th of June in 1998 after suffering for three months. She said to me, “Chol! So-yon! Forgive me and your father as we can’t stand by until you grow up. Hold out your lives and be great. My Boy! Take care of your little sister. You must always stay together and survive.” And she hugged us with her eyes filled with tears.
I said, “Mother, don’t go away. How am I supposed to take care of So-yon without you?” Even So-yon sensed her last moment and put her small hands over my mother’s face and cried saying, “Mother, don’t go away. I can live without eating. Please don’t go!” She seemed to be nodding, but took her last breath with her eyes open.
My sister and I faced even harder starvation after mother died and father disappeared. We sustained our lives with only grass and became languid. We found our faces, limbs and fingers oedematous. So-yon insisted on staying on her back all the time, but I discouraged this, making her scared. “You will die like mother if you don’t get up,” I said and forcefully lifted her. We often went to the market in the mining town in Sudong-gu, expecting to collect grains for our hungry mouths. Sometimes we begged and ate noodle soup made from corn and sometimes we worked by doing some errands, cleaning and serving. If we were lucky, we would get a leftover bowl of soup that we shared. But sometimes we didn’t even get a bowl of soup.
One day, after finding So-yon lying in the mud at the market, I decided to steal some food for her. First I begged the lady of the noodle shop, but when she refused I stole a bowl and started to run away while she was busy with other customers. I didn’t make 10 steps before the woman caught me. She and two other adult customers in the store beat me and yelled, “You little bastard and useless thief!” But I only thought about my sister. To save her life, I poured noodle soup on my belly that I covered with a cloth. The broth dripped down through my pants, but under the cloth some strips of noodle hung over my belt. I walked to my sister, clenching my bleeding nose with one hand while holding up my belly with the other. The I shook her. She had been lying with her eyes closed for hours and hours. I took off my belt and took the noodles from my belly and put them into her mouth. How eagerly she ate! She licked my exposed belly to taste the leftover broth and search for another piece of noodle. My stealing saved her life. Usually we ate grass for two days, and then noodle and corn paste in the market on the third day.
The famine in Saebyol-gun in North Hamgyong Province seemed worse than the famine in South Hamgryong Province, where many more Kot-chebi were seen on the streets and in the market. Our hunger led us to the market to beg for some crumbs. There were more than 50 Kot-chebi residing in the market and more than 300 beggars like us. There were also many adults called “big Kot-chebi.” They even put their rugs made of rice-straw near the market and slept over there. The market was full of many kinds of edible things and was usually crowded with more than 500 people. The only food we could afford or begged for were “chalttok” (sticky rice cake), “songpyon” (moon cake), corn roots, paste that was mixed with corn powder and ground veal from unborn calves.
At the market, there was a chilling rumor. Three Kot-chebi were kidnapped and secretly slaughtered. Their meat was mixed with pork that was put on the top of the corn noodle soup and fetched a high price because of its delicate flavor. We were so scared we started to imagine that all the meat in the soup was from human beings. But our biggest fear of all was the soldiers and gangs. They abruptly messed up the place and took away food from others and sometimes each other.
One day, we finally got two rice cakes after begging the lady in the market for hours. But those were taken away by a soldier. He slapped our faced and even kicked So-yon in the stomach when I begged him to save one cake for her. He responded, “Soldiers are much hungrier,” and stuffed the two rice cakes in his mouth right in front of our eyes.
We didn’t even think of going to school in Sabyol-gun. Nobody seemed to attend school there. Nine-year-old kids like me even didn’t know how to read.
The Kot-chebi in the market gathered together and informed each other that there was a lot of food in China across the Tumen River. They even said that people in China would give away food to the beggars from North Korea. Those words kept ringing in my ears and never left. The scenery in China across the river was spectacular. The Tumen River was located right in front of the Sambong Train Station. It was 11o’clock in the morning when I reached the bank of the Tumen River with my sister. On the bank, some armed soldiers were on guard duty. We pretended to collect and eat some young grass. I told So-yon that we had to be prepared to overcome some expected whipping in order to go to the better place. During the lunch break, the soldiers left their posts on the bank. On the top of the bank, when I didn’t see any of them, I took So-yon to the other side of the river. I assumed the water was shallow. But it reached my chest and the bottom of So-yon’s chin. We started to cross the river holding hand. It was right after winter and the water was incredibly cold. At some deep point, So-yon lost her balance and water got into her nose. We held hands even tighter as we were scared of drowning to death.
“So-yon, cheer up! Or you will fall and drown.”
“Brother, I am so scared.”
“Don’t be! You will not die. I am with you.”
“Brother, you must survive to the end even though I will not make it.”
We cried out of fear that I might really lose her in this river. Fortunately, we safely reached the other side. Our bodies shivering, we ran to the town squeezing water out of our clothes. When we reached the town, people gave us strange glances. Then a man and a woman looked at us and said, “Let’s go,” and pulled us into their house. When we were inside the gate, they closed the door and asked: “Did you come from North Korea?” We hesitated to answer. But we felt their pity and let them take us into their room. They gave us dry clothes and let us take what we called, “cold medicine.” And then they asked, “Aren’t you hungry?” “Yes, we are,” we said. They provided us with plenty of tasty bread and cookies and full bowls of rice from their kitchen. We exclaimed, “Wow!” and kept on eating all that they gave us. How sweet and delicious! So-yon continuously licked crumbles of bread on her fingertips. They silently stared at us with tears in their eyes. “You both are good looking. There is plenty of food here. Eat as much as you want,” said the lady. They were really gracious people.
We said, “Please save our lives.”
In China, we felt we were on a different planet or in heaven. Wherever we went, there were lots and lots of food around. Since we arrived in China, we have visited one house a week in order to eat and entertain ourselves. But we have started to have another need as starvation is no longer a concern in China. We would like to study. Whenever we meet people, we ask them to give us a chance to study. But they try to persuade us to give up this dream because orphans like us can’t afford the tuition.
Every morning, So-yon and I envy the students carrying books on their backs so that we stare at them until they disappear from our sight. I taught So-yon the Korean language and the basics of mathematics on the bank of the riverside. She can now read Korean quite well and also calculate. She is very smart. Once she hears a Korean song, she can memorize the lyrics and sing it. Everybody loves her singing and they give her big applause. We would like to be somebody in the future as my parents had wished. But we are desperate without having any chances. If there is anyone who can feed us, we promise that we will study hard and will give what we can in return for your support. We don’t mind sleeping outside of the house–if only we can learn more.
Please help me and my sister.
BY: Lim Chol and Lim So-yon in China, July 1999
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