With spring on the horizon and the threat of ice on the Yalu river melting, Eunmi is impatient to escape to China as soon as possible. Yeonmi falls ill just as her sister finds a broker to guide them to China. At the request of their parents, young Yeonmi and her sister Eunmi begin discreetly asking around to find out how to cross the border to China. They hear women can find work in China and young girls are sought after for adoption. In 2007, he bribes a prison guard to let him visit his family due to his deteriorating health.Įconomic destitution and disillusion with the North Korean regime push the family to seek a way out that same year. Later, he is arrested and imprisoned for smuggling metals from Pyongyang and forced to work in reeducation camps. Jin Sik Park’s business cannot shoulder the competition, and the family struggles to pay its debts. Their luck changes when the economic collapse and famine of the 1990s pushes the leadership at Pyongyang to allow limited trading activities in state-managed marketplaces, jangmadang. At first, her family is relatively affluent due to her father’s illegal trading business. Park’s story begins in Hyesan, a small north-eastern rural town bordering the Yalu river, where she grew up. Her sister, Eunmi Park, is older by two years. She is the second daughter of Jin Sik Park (father) and Keum Sook Byeon (mother).

Yeonmi Park was born prematurely on October 4, 1993, weighing less than three pounds and struggling to survive.

In Order to Live by Yeonmi Park