Twee Koreanen: Achter de verborgen wereld van Noord- en Zuid-Korea
Jihyun Park
Two Koreans: Behind the Hidden World of North and South Korea
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The Hard Road Out: One Woman’s Escape From North Korea
The Hard Road Out: One Woman’s Escape From North Korea
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Jihyun Park
4.26
1,077 ratings
121 reviews
Jihyun Park grows up in North Korea, the most isolated and strict communist country in the world. According to propaganda, it is a perfect utopia, the most beautiful and strongest country in existence. But as Jihyun grows older, she sees the reality behind the story: North Korea is a dictatorship where famine reigns. As a teacher, she sees children in her class dying of hunger.
When Jihyun decides to flee to China, she begins a difficult journey. The escape to China brings new hardships with it. She is sold as a bride, locked up in a camp and forced to leave her child behind. Still, she refuses to give up. Jihyun does everything she can to regain her freedom and find her son.
Seh-Lynn Chai, a South Korean author, gives Jihyun's story a voice and sheds a different light on their shared background. As she delves into Jihyun's life, she is confronted with her own feelings of guilt and the immense rift between North and South Korea.
Two Koreans shows how Jihyun Park – against all odds – tries to survive, despite the hell she finds herself in. It is a gripping tale of hardship, strength and the unbreakable will to escape a world that holds her captive. At the same time, it is a reflection on how fate and birthplace can shape a life and how two women – despite their very different worlds – together tell a story of courage and resilience.
Genres
Nonfiction
Memoir
Biography
Asia
History
Autobiography
Audiobook
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253 pages, Paperback
First published May 26, 2022
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4.26
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 121 reviews
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Katie.dorny
1,115 reviews
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March 29, 2023
A haunting and brilliant read - blows my mind the author joined the tories though.
2023
non-fiction
28 likes
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Isabel
29 reviews
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December 1, 2022
A brilliant read, but I cannot make sense of the fact that the author, so conscious of her status as a refugee and so set on (rightly) highlighting the importance of asylum, is now a member of the Conservative Party: the very same party that is trying to criminalise her experience and make it near impossible for anyone to reach the UK in need of help. She joins the bizarre list of North Korean defectors who have since fallen prey of right-wing hysteria in the West: the author of The Aquariums of Pyongyang whose name I can’t remember (praising His Lord and Saviour G. W. Bush) and Yeonmi Park (besties with alt-right lunatic Jordan Peterson) being the other two.
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fatherofdragons113
206 reviews
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September 13, 2023
It feels like it kind of ends abruptly, but still an incredible story and very humbling when you realize how deeply some people struggle to survive in this world.
15 likes
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Jasmine
329 reviews
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April 13, 2024
I picked up this book to educate myself with a first hand account of what North Korea is really like. I’m shocked.
Jihyun’s and her family made some difficult decisions and I don’t blame or judge anyone for making any of them. Living in a regime like that, being brainwashed, being faced with incarceration and death; who am I to judge what others have done under those conditions when I myself have never had to face such duress? They had to do what they had to in order to live.
On the back of the book, Daniel Tudor describes the book as “moving without being sentimental” and I believe that’s very accurate.
I admire Jihyun’s determination and her strength. I can’t imagine going through what she’s been through.
The first few chapters didn’t get me, but after chapter 3 I couldn’t put the book down and stayed up until 3am! It was well-written and fascinating book.
I can’t even villainize Jihyun Park for now being a conservative. She’s been through absolute hell at the hands of a communist dictatorship, can you blame her for not even wanting to hear the word socialism?
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Amerie
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February 6, 2023
The Amerie's Book Club selection for the month of February is THE HARD ROAD OUT by Jihyun Park and Seh-Lynn Chai!
Follow @AmeriesBookClub on IG, and watch the chat between me, Jihyun Park, and Seh-Lynn Chai on YouTube (youtube.com/AmerieOnYoutube) February 28!
THE HARD ROAD OUT is a harrowing read but also a hopeful one. From Jihyun Park’s recounting of her terrifying days in North Korea and her time as a trafficked human being in China, to Seh-Lynn’s exploration of her relationship to North Korea as a South Korean woman, this collaborative work is certainly momentous. It is not, however, solely important due to its first-hand accounting of life in North Korea, but rather to the idea Park and Chai pose: that the road to reunification rests not ultimately with the governments of North and South Korea, but in the hearts of the two nations’ peoples, and that perhaps therein lie the first steps.
Jihyun Park’s short film with Amnesty International @amnesty THE OTHER INTERVIEW: https://www.amnesty.org.uk/north-kore...
Seh-Lynn Chai’s website: https://www.sehlynn.com/en
๐
ABOUT JIHYUN PARK
Jihyun Park was born in Chongjin, North Korea, in 1968. She experienced acute poverty, famine, illness, and intimidation. She first escaped at the age of 29. After her second escape from North Korea, with the help of the UN, she was granted asylum seeker status in 2008 and moved to Bury, Greater Manchester, where she lives with her husband Kwang and three children. She has been outreach and project officer at the European Alliance for Human Rights in North Korea and is a human rights activist.
ABOUT SEH-LYNN CHAI
Seh-Lynn Chai lives with her family in London but still spends considerable time in Seoul, where her parents reside. A South Korean diplomat’s daughter, Seh-lynn was born and raised from an early age in Korea, France and West Africa. Her first career was at JPMorgan before she became a writer. Seh-lynn has a Bachelor’s and a Master’s degree in French Literature from L'Universitรฉ Paris-Sorbonne (Paris IV). She finished her PhD coursework at New York University before completing an MBA at Columbia Business School in 1994.
@AmeriesBookClub #AmeriesBookClub #TheHardRoadOut @seh_lynn #JihyunPark @harpercollins
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kate
1,593 reviews
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July 25, 2022
A haunting, brave, fascinating and insightful memoir that will stay with me for a long time to come.
(not rating this as I always feel a bit uncomfortable rating a persons life story but this is a book I would highly recommend.)
adult
non-fiction
little-rep
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Emma
313 reviews
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March 19, 2025
For a North Korean memoir I’d say this one is fairly typical, but I’m bumping it up to four stars because I really appreciated the reflective chapters throughout that transcribed her conversations with the interviewer. Overall the writing is solid but not amazing, the takeaways are nothing new. And I was confused by the abrupt ending, we don’t actually get any information about Park’s escape South Korea, which apparently took two attempts and was very elaborate. Considering her commitment to human rights activism, I was really surprised that she didn’t want to highlight the human rights abuses that make it so difficult to escape China as a North Korean.
And then, right after emphasizing her passion for human rights and the stories of survivors and how she personally handed out masks during COVID, she briefly mentions that she joined the right-wing party in the UK because, quote, “Don’t speak to me of socialism!” I’m sorry, what? So now I’m left on the last page thinking that she has no idea how governments work. Oh no, I just talked myself into a three star…..but I’d still recommend it to someone wanting to know the typical experience of a North Korean woman who survived the 90s.
north-korea
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Elizabeth
109 reviews
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August 15, 2023
I really liked this book. As the author mentions, North Korea to me too is like a black box, I never really learned about its going ons so this book was definitely an eye opener. It was very captivating and interesting to read throughout, her whole life story and how drastically her point of views changed.
Chapter 11 (her letter to her dad) absolutely broke my heart. I cried a lot.
The only reason I give it ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ and not ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ is because sometimes the writing of the book just wasn’t rly it for me. For example… 90% of the book is written in Jihyun’s perspective but then all of a sudden for like 1 or 2 chapters is switched to the author’s perspective and it kinda gave me whiplash, it took me a while to understand who’s perspective it is.
Also I thought the ending was very abrupt, like the story is going, going, going, and then all of a sudden it ended and I was like ๐ค oh ok.
But overall amazing book.
book-club
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James
451 reviews
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October 27, 2024
I’ve read a few of these first-hand accounts of life in North Korea — and escaping from it. It’s always a good reminder that everyone’s story is different, and in this case the author lived a relatively privileged life in North Korea (and even that was full of paranoia and cruelty). And learning about her life in China, which should have been a relief, was its own horrendous experience of exploitation. All in all eye-opening and worth reading.
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Barbara
95 reviews
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February 9, 2023
I am ashamed that I judged the people of North Korea by clips I’d see of them lining up to glimpse their commander President, where they looked more like 15 year old girls trying to see Elvis Presley. Absolutely crazy, with tears and clutching their face in awe,etc.
Now I understand the truth of it.
This book was very well written. I felt like I was right there, nearly hyperventilating over the horrors these people go through.
If there was ever a time I nonchalantly looked at socialism as in any way acceptable, I would certainly regret it and vow to be a fighter against communism with everything in me!!!
I am so thankful to God to have been born in a free country.
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