The Girl with Seven Names: A North Korean Defector’s Story

Lee speaks more of individualism than freedom. She spends much time in China, and what China provides for Lee is not freedom, but individualism. As an illegal immigrant in China, Lee’s freedom is shackled by the shadows in which she must live and the limits placed on her opportunities. Lee’s freedom is limited in the workplace, in the arranged marriage she flees, and by police and gangs. Lee’s illegal status also limits her freedom of movement by dictating her move to Shanghai, where she believes she can disappear. In South Korea, Lee is also not free. Her circumstances of birth limit her career options and prevent her from marrying the man she loves; her love is again repressed as subservient to the social system in which she lives. What Lee obtains in China and South Korea that she could not obtain in North Korea is individualism. After leaving North Korea, Lee discovers herself as a person, and discovers that there are many different and acceptable ways to live one’s life. She embraces variety, preference, luxuries, and eventually “a free intelligence” (287). In North Korea, Lee’s individualism is repressed in favor of the collective whole country, but in China, South Korea, and the United States, Lee’s individualism flourishes.

Struggle persists throughout Lee’s memoir. Struggle is presented as universal—an aspect of North Korean society that is not appeased by defecting to the South. Lee and her family struggle to thrive in North Korea. Less fortunate families struggle more, especially during the famine. In China, Lee struggles to survive while others in North Korea do not struggle. Even in South Korea, some North Korean defectors find life preferable in the North and return. In the lower classes of South Korean society, they struggle more than they did in the oppressive North. Lee emphasizes that struggle is universal, and that one system does not guarantee a better life than another. 

Human rights abuses pervade Lee’s book. North Korean atrocities are presented without censorship. Hangings, beatings, disappearances, starvation, and oppression are all presented without bias. Chinese human rights abuses are also presented in Lee’s memoir. She writes of the Chinese policy of searching for North Korean fugitives and returning them to their home country, where they face gulags or death. Even simply relegating defectors to the shadows to live as illegal immigrants and be taken advantage of by sex traffickers, gangs, unscrupulous employers, and shady brokers is presented as a heartless human rights abuse. She presents these acts in a way that exposes the harsh realities of states that could be much more caring of those fleeing oppression, violence, and death. 

Lee’s ignorance, due to a lifetime of isolation and conditioning, is of frequent importance during her journey. In China, Lee is clueless not only of customs and ways of life, but also of her options for survival. Lee discovers after several years of mishaps in China that she could have travelled to a South Korean embassy at any time, claimed asylum, and been a legal citizen. Lee’s ignorance is due to her upbringing in North Korea and is substantially limiting. Her unwillingness to accept simple facts about South Koreans and Americans prevents her from pursuing avenues to happiness otherwise available to her.