Ji Min Kim

When I first arrived in Seoul, South Korea, the lights overwhelmed me. Not just their brightness, but their abundance—neon signs, streetlights, glowing windows. In Hyesan, North Korea, night was a blanket of darkness, interrupted only by the pale moon and the flicker of candles during power outages. Here, the city never sleeps.

I was 18 when I crossed the Amnok River, on the Chinese border, barefoot and shivering, a thin girl desperate to escape a life of hunger and fear. My brother cried when I told him I was leaving. I promised to send for him one day, though I knew even then it was a hollow promise. He was only 12. I still dream of his face sometimes, framed by the doorway of my aunt’s house, watching me walk away.

In China, I wasn’t free. I was sold, like many women from my province, to a man who wanted a wife. It’s strange to think of how we were both trapped—me by my captors, him by his own loneliness in a country where women had become scarce. I don’t feel anger toward him, only sadness for the silence we shared.

It took years to reach South Korea. Years of running, hiding, borrowing money from strangers who demanded repayment in ways I couldn’t always refuse. When I finally stepped off the plane in Incheon, I was 29 and exhausted, but alive. That was my victory.

Now, at 48, I work in a beauty salon, styling the hair of women who talk about vacations and promotions, their lives so different from mine. I smile and nod, pretending to understand. South Korea is my home, but it still feels foreign. People here look like me, but they speak faster, dream bigger.

Sometimes, when I see the mountains on the outskirts of Seoul, I think of Hyesan. I don’t regret leaving; I couldn’t survive there. But I carry its shadows with me—the hunger, the fear, the family I left behind.

When I touch the hair of my clients, I wonder if they realize how fragile life is. If they did, maybe they’d speak more gently. But perhaps they wouldn’t. Freedom, I’ve learned, isn’t a guarantee of kindness. It’s only a chance to begin again. And for that, I’m grateful.