Hana Lee is an 18 year old girl who fled her native North Korea on foot in 2000. Fleeing to China, Lee was on the run from North Korean authorities and unsympathetic Chinese officials for five years.

Lee is currently living in Japan and attending a university there. Known as a “dappokusha,” meaning “person who has fled North Korea”, Lee will be one of the first North Koreans to graduate from a Japanese university.

Lee’s parents were Japanese-born Koreans, who moved to the country in the late 1970s in search of greener pastures. In the beginning, their life was good. They lived in a house and had their own car – something unheard of for the non-ruling classes in present day North Korea.

The grass soon discoloured, when in the 1990s a family member of Lee’s was implicated in a crime, resulting in the entire family being banished to the countryside. Living in a country where food shortages are a serious reality, moving to the countryside was seen as a death sentence. The family managed to stay in the North Korean city of Sinuiji, by moving between friends houses and bribing officials. Living on the run continued until all of the family’s expendable resources had run out.

This is when Lee, her mother and her younger brother made a break for the Chinese border, and successfully managed to cross it while hiding in China until 2005.

Lee started blogging about her experiences of living in North Korea, including witnessing a public execution as a little girl, and how that affected her. Even though she was “free” in China, she hid her North Korean background, always saying she was from South korea.

Lee’s comparison of Japan to North Korea provides a sobering insight into the relationship between the leaders of North Korea, and their citizenry.

The thing that surprised me most about living in Japan is that people can freely say bad things about politicians.

I was also suprised that the Japanese prime minister keeps changing on a yearly basis.

[Source: Notaku]