Skip to main content

Ju Chan-yang - what a mighty woman (Korea Times, January 14, 2014)



Ju Chan-yang - what a mighty woman

음성듣기
By Casey Lartigue, Jr.

I was honored to be a featured speaker at the second-annual Asia Liberty Forum, hosted by the Asia Center for Enterprise from Jan. 7-9 in New Delhi, India.

As much as I enjoyed speaking and, as part of the entertainment, rapping to my revised version of Salt N Pepa's 1990s song "Whattaman," that couldn't compare to the thrill I had being able to introduce and moderate the closing address that was given by North Korean refugee Ju Chan-yang.

I first met Chan-yang in March 2012 in Seoul at a rally protesting the repatriation of North Korean refugees from China to North Korea. She was then a recent escapee.

I didn't know then that she had been captured in China and held in a refugee prison in Thailand during her escape to freedom. She was freed, thanks to bribes paid by NGOs.

I did my best to set the context of her speech for those unfamiliar with the plight of North Koreans oppressed by the Kim dynasty.

One, as a teenager, she was making life-and-death decisions. She was subjected to constant questioning by North Korean police eager to incarcerate her because other family members escaped.

She lived on her own in North Korea for three years, working in a factory, unsure of her future, worried if she would suddenly be jailed if she answered a question from police incorrectly.

Two, she escaped after being captured and imprisoned, but let's remember there are many women like Chan-yang who get caught, sent back to North Korea, raped, abused, tortured, even executed.

Even her luck is bittersweet. She is a free woman, but she must think about things that never come to mind to those of us born into freedom.

For example, I reminded the audience that most of us had been inconvenienced by flights to New Delhi being canceled on Jan. 6 due to inclement weather.

For Chan-yang, leaving the airport to stay in Shanghai overnight forced her to return to the scene of her "crime." The "man-stealers and woman-whippers" of North Korea, to borrow a term from 19th century American abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, have an agreement with China that would have brought smiles to the faces of slave owners and slave catchers throughout history.

North Korea still considers Chan-yang to be a criminal, a fugitive, for daring to steal herself away to freedom, and China returns freedom-seeking fugitives back to the prison known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. The price of being born in North Korea means that she is never really free.

"There wasn't a dry eye in the audience," wrote Tom Palmer, a vice president at the DC-based Atlas Foundation. Participants at the Asia Liberty Forum heard the story of a young girl whose family planned to escape for years, motivated by illegal radio broadcasts they listened to secretly. 

Chan-yang offered to be the last to escape, reasoning that her father could make money abroad while she could survive in North Korea making extra money in North Korea's underground market.

Several times during the trip, she told me that she felt she was dreaming. She wasn't just watching an Indian movie (American and South Korean movies are banned, but North Koreans are allowed to watch Indian movies) ― she was in India.

She was thrilled to meet people from around the world, to know that people outside of Korea are concerned about the liberty of North Koreans ― not just, as she said, while motioning with her hands, the "talking, talking, talking" topics of nuclear bombs and dictators.

Once confined to worshipping the Kim dictators, she is now a free woman, trying new languages, food, and cultures with gusto.

It was quite a sight seeing her taking photo selfies with a bindi (the red spot Indian women wear on their foreheads) that she bought while shopping.

She has been speaking in English since 2012 ― four months of formal study overall, self-study and a host of volunteers (special thanks to teacher/speech coach Cho Joo-yeon, as well as teachers Matthew Feinberg and Johanna Poole).

In Seoul, she is on the verge of stardom, bringing new threats to her freedom requiring police protection. She is now a regular participant on a popular cable TV show featuring North Korean female refugees and is active in the NGO community assisting North Korean fugitives.

It is the common things that are blessings for her. She says there are some mornings she doesn't want to get out of bed when she hears her mother cooking, her father in the living room and siblings talking, because she fears she is dreaming.

In my opening remarks, I reminded the audience that I had rapped to the song "Whattaman." But I told them that after hearing Ju Chan-yang speak, they would be saying, "What a woman." 

The writer is the director for international relations at Freedom Factory Co. Ltd. in Seoul and a fellow with the Atlas Network in Washington, D.C. He can be reached at cjl@post.harvard.edu.



















Popular posts from this blog

Obama debating Keyes, 2004, education excerpt

PONCE : Thank you. Let's move to the question of education. Mr. Obama, you've said that you consider education as the most important civil rights issue facing America today. Currently, your children are in private schools. If you're elected to the Senate, will you send them to public schools? OBAMA: Well, my children currently go to the lab school at the University of Chicago where I teach, and my wife works, and we get a good deal for it. But, so - - (laughter, applause) OBAMA: - -it depends on whether we move or not. And that, obviously, hinges on the election and what's gonna happen. We're gonna choose the best possible education for our children, as I suspect all parents are gonna try to do. And that's part of the reason why, consistently when I've been in the state legislature, I've tried to promote those kinds of reforms that would improve what I think is an inadequate performance by too many public schools, all across the state. PONCE : But yo...

Breen's column that outraged Samsung

“What People Got for Christmas” Michael Breen The Korea Times December 25, 2009 At this time of year when Seoul’s bare winter trees are wrapped in beckoning lights ― blue and white are the in colors ― and Merry Xmas signs at hotels and department stores are really saying come-hither-gentle-reveler-and-empty-your-purse, and when expensive restaurants belch noisy year-end office party groups onto every street and the karaoke rooms are full, it is tempting to declare that Christmas has lost its soul. But that would be a mistake. Christmas is a time for giving, and, before they can be given, gifts have to be bought. Commerce is good. Here, as proof, is a round up of some of the gifts given and received today by people in the news. Samsung, the world’s largest conglomerate and the rock upon which the Korean economy rests, sent traditional year-end cards offering best wishes for 2010 to the country’s politicians, prosecutors and journalists, along with 50 million w...

Rating the 10 Magazine speakers

I attended another 10 Magazine speech organized by Barry Welsh. Here are my unofficial grades for the speakers I have heard so far: 1) Shin Dong Hyuk (A+) : The audience was captivated. A few ladies were in tears as he discussed his escape from North Korea, his adjustment to living in South Korea, his difficulty at enjoying life. I first met Shin shortly before the best-selling book (Escape from Camp 14) in America about him was published, and was a bit surprised when he recognized me at an event and struck up a conversation with me even though he is so shy. Even though I was already familiar with his story, it was still great to hear it first hand in an informal setting. I threw a curveball at him, mentioning that that some people have doubted the veracity of his story. He took it in stride. After escaping from a prison camp in North Korea, I guess that there aren't many things that could rattle him. Shin, Lartigue 2) Michael Breen (A): An outstanding mix of humo...

2020-10-31 Those wonderful moments...

That wonderful moment when your organization gets featured by a huge government office. In this case, South Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I am sure they did research about us or have been watching us for a while. http://blog.naver.com/PostView.nhn?blogId=mofakr&logNo=222130813183&redirect=Dlog *********************************************** That wonderful moment when a staffer in your office buys you a drink after she has run an errand. Sharon has been a student at TNKR since 2015 and a staffer with us since2018. She and TNKR co-founder Eunkoo Lee work together closely. *********************************************** That magic moment when donors pledge their support for TNKR. Some donors want to know that an organization is barely surviving and the donor will be the one to save the organization. But Haanong wants to support us and to know that we are growing and getting stronger. *********************************************** That wonderful moment when you go to an...

Race, race, race

On the issue of race: Clinton goes first, (surprisingly) without her Selma accent. Biden doesn’t mention that there is a clean and article black person on the stage. Richardson says the next president must talk about race…we need less talk about race, and more about individual action. Edwards said something, apparently to help us transition to the only somewhat black candidate on the panel. Obama has the home field advantage being at Howard, but doesn’t do much with the initial question. Kucinich says that people are told to raise themselves up by their own bootstraps, but then they steal the boots. He gets the loudest cheers. This will be a long night if that continues... Gravel —who? Dodd —like the 64th team in the NCAA basketball pool, Dodd should be one and done. Brb, I’m checking on the NBA draft… CJL