The Girl with Seven Names

Post date: Jul 4, 2015 9:52:25 PM

우연히 탈북자 이현서님의 TED발표를 감동적으로 보았다.

얼마전에 미국에서 <The Girl with Seven Names>라는 책도 발간하시고 북한 탈북자를 위한 Activist로 활동하신다니 참 대단하다.

담담하지만 유창한 영어로 북한에서 가족들을 데리고 탈출한 이야기를 묘사하시는데 어떤 액션영화보다 떨리고 긴장된다.

이야기에 담긴 진정성때문이라고 생각한다.

인간은 정말 미약한 존재이지만 동시에 세상을 바꿀 수도 있는 강한 존재이다.

내가 어렸을 때는 귀순한 북한사람들이 영웅대접을 받았던 것 같은데 기억이 가물가물하다.

통일부자료를 살펴보니 현재까지 입국한 "북한이탈주민"이 총 28,054명(2015년 5월말 기준)이고, 여성이 70%이다.

이현서님의 발표를 보니, 28,054명이 입국하시기까지 몇 십배의 희생이 있었겠지..

지금까지 당연히 "I'm a Korean"이라고 소개했는데...

한국사람으로서 깊이 생각해 볼 문제이다.

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My name is Hyeonseo Lee.

It is not the name I was born, nor one of the names forced on me, at different times, by circumstances. But it is the one I gave myself, once I’d reached freedom. Hyeon means sunshine. Seo means good fortune. I chose it so that I would live my life in light and warmth, and not return to the shadow.

....

Leaving North Korea is not like leaving any other country. It is more like leaving another universe. I will never truly be free of its gravity, no matter how far I journey. Even for those who have suffered unimaginably there and have escaped hell, life in the free world can be so challenging that many struggle to come to terms with it and find happiness. A small number of them even give up, and return to live in that dark place, as I was tempted to do, many times. My reality, however, is that I cannot go back. I may dream about freedom in North Korea, but nearly seventy years after its creation, it remains as closed and as cruel as ever. By the time it might ever be safe for me to return, I will probably be a stranger in my own land. As I read back through this book, I see that it is a story of my awakening, a long and difficult coming of age. I have come to accept that as a North Korean defector I am an outsider in the world. An exile. Try as I may to fit into South Korean society, I do not feel that I will ever fully be accepted as a South Korean. More important, I don’t think I myself will fully accept this as my identity. I went there too late, aged twenty-eight. The simple solution to my problem of identity is to say I am Korean, but there is no such nation. The single Korea does not exist.

(from "The Girl with Seven Names")