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Hello I am Hana Song, I am a North Korean defector. I grew up during the great North Korean famine of the 1990s. Well, North Korea has been one long famine, and there’s no food now, but yes, we were especially hungry in the 90s. My Father worked hard in the farms for my Sister, Mother, and I. I had stole a rubber-band gun and some rubber-bands from a store. I trained with this gun planning to overthrow enemies of my great nation. I spent long days in the forest training while my father toiled the fields. In the summers he would sneak some of the watermelon harvest for us to eat huddled and hidden away in our one room home. He labored so hard to create this fruit, but we could never afford to buy it. The only people who could afford such luxuries were the democracy and those in the military, perhaps their gippeumjo were able to get a taste of the sweet life.

One year the army was suddenly in our small village to construct an underground missile bunker. They told us to leave our property and they began bulldozing my father’s fields for land to build the missile bunker. My father attacked one of the guards with a pick-axe, he and my mother were shot to death immediately. The guards grabbed my sister and I and threw us into a van. Tears ran down my face as I screamed for my mother and father. My cries of distress angered one of the guards and he knocked me unconscious with the butt of his rifle.

I woke up in a town, it looked just like mine, but was not. My sister was nowhere to be found and as I was coming out of my fog the guard dragged me out of the van by my hair. I fell to the ground screaming and crying and they kicked me in the head and I was again knocked unconscious. I woke up in a dirt road laying in a pile of manure as starved elders picked through the droppings. As I rose up I asked them where I was and they quickly shook their hands at me and ran off. A guard walked up to me and shouted. He put a rope around my neck and tugged me along to a mine. It was a large mine full of starved and pained people working to pull out the coal from the earth. I was told to go to end of the mine and to wheel back carts of coal. He shouted again and I hurriedly shuffled into the darkness. The mine was pitch black, and it smelled like the earth, tears, sweat, and a stench of death. There were numerous martyrs in the mines, rotting and mummified corpses every couple of dozens of feet. I cried and ran through the mine.

I reached the end and with tears and snot running down my face and asked a young man where the cart was. He smiled and without saying a word, pointed to a cart full of coal. I tried to get through the mine ignoring the corpses and the tears of the men and woman working along my sides. Over time I got used to the corpses and began giving them names, mostly from the few cartoons we had in North Korea. Every time I made it to the end of the shaft the young man was there, always with his pleasant smile, and no worded point. I found comfort in him, a kindness, a light at the end of the tunnel. He was a reassurance in my hard situation that there was still good in this world. I came to call him Geumsaegi, my favorite cartoon character.

In the village we lived in, I never saw the man. The few hours I wasn’t working I looked through the town for my sister and the man. As I looked through the village I heard a faint wailing. I looked around and found my way closer to the sound to find that the source was an elderly woman. She was sitting on the ground behind a building, and looked at me with one of her eyes clouded with cataracts. She had tears down her face. She looked at me, staring at my face, the only sounds were her sniffling and the village workers. She reached out her hand and had a small package of smuggled candy. With her shaking hand she placed it into my hand, then she looked away. I quickly shoved the candy down into my pocket and stayed with her for a few minutes. I heard a guard yelling so I quickly returned to my station.

As I traveled down the mineshaft I could feel the candy rubbing against my leg in my usually empty pocket. I made it to the end of the shaft. “Geumsaegi!” I called out as I left the cart and fumbled my way to the end of the shaft. I pulled the candy out of my pocket, in a much more quieter voice I said “Geumsaegi, look, look.”. I looked and Geumsaegi was collapsed in the bottom of the shaft. I dropped the candy and quickly ran up to him, I grabbed him and he was cold and stiff. I lifted his head, and he still had the smile he always had. My world felt like it had just come to an end. My eyes quickly flooded with tears that fell on his face like rain.

I cried in silence, then began to scream. The other workers looked at me, but they didn’t dare to cease their work. I cried and I cried. A guard from within the tunnel heard my cries and began shouting. I quickly scrambled and picked up the candy and began pushing the cart. As I passed the guard he grabbed me by the shoulder and asked if I was causing the disturbance. I looked away and he hit me in the face and dragged me out of the mine. He through me down in the clearing outside of the mine and told me I would pay for my actions of interfering with the work flow. He drug me out into the woods and locked me in a metal box. I stayed there for five days.

One day another guard arrived and asked me if I understood not to cause another disturbance. I told him I understood my wrongs and he let me out of the box and sent me back to the mines. The next day I went back to where the old lady was who had given me the candy. I still had the candy uneaten in my pocket, and wanted to return it to her. I found her in the same spot where I found her before, with a stench of urine around her. She slowly opened her eyes and looked at me, and I looked at her. Her breath was shallow, and she was in a daze. I knew she was dying and that she would escape this hell. I felt the spirit of Geumsaegi in my soul. I looked at the woman, and without saying a word gave her a bright warm smile. She looked at me, slowly smiled, then her head slowly lowered. With the smile still plastered on my face tears began to roll down my cheeks. I stood up, wiped my face, and went back to the mines.

I survived for many years, living in these mines, and being the light for many sorry souls who have perished in the kwalliso. I cannot go into the details so that the North Korean government do not know our ways, but I had the opportunity to escape North Korea. I initially escaped to China, and over three long years made it to South Korea. A family had taken me and they were very welcoming to me. I was so thankful that these people had taken me as one of their own. One day when we on a trip in the summer, we stopped at a small store. I saw a can in the cooler, with a watermelon print. I purchased the drink, stood out in the heat of the day, opened it, and drank. As I tasted it tears immediately began to run down my face. The taste of the watermelon brought me back to my father and his farm, how much he loved us and the cruel way he died. It brought me back to Geumsaegi being the light at the end of the tunnel and giving me a reason to live. It brought me back to the kind old woman who I comforted as she died. It brought me back to the countless people I met through my life. I collapsed to my knees crying out loud. My new family ran up to me and told me it was ok.

I got back up and hugged them. They told me if they could continue on our trip, and I said yes. We drove through the countryside, and down into a town by the sea. I had never seen the ocean before and it was so large and beautiful. I took in a deep breath of the ocean breeze and my foster parents told me we were almost there and walking the rest of the way. I walked with them to beach, chit-chatting along the way. We got there and the sun was bright and the sand was warm. I saw someone standing on the beach. I was so excited about the ocean I ran straight into the sea. I began splashing in the waves and the person ran into the water. I yelled that I wasn’t drowning and was just playing. The person ran up and grabbed me, I yelled and quickly looked, it was my sister. She held onto me tight, with tears streaming down her face. I looked at her, into her eyes, and gave her a smile.

AKA I got this soda in a small shop in Chinatown. They had a tremendous amount of interesting unknown drinks and a fine selection of known Asian classics. This can stood out due to the loud colors and the giant Korean text (most of the drinks there were Chinese with the obligatory Ramune in the pack). I picked this soda, Sang Il, the next leader of the reunified Korea (how many North Korea jokes are going to be on this blog?). This is hands down one of the best sodas I’ve ever consumed. The soda tastes tremendously like real watermelon juice, but like sweeter. The drink is seriously just like you took a super sweet watermelon, juiced it, then carbonated it. The drink was extremely flavorful and fragrant and simply just amazing. Its so watermelon-y in a realistic way that I wonder if it has real watermelon juche, I mean juice, in it. Mountain Dew has orange juice in it, so all things are possible right? This thing is also loaded down with that classic “nutrition taste”, a high quality product. Put on some BS, I mean BTS, and enjoy this amazing soda~! (I would personally rather put on some 오정선 though :> )

One of the best sodas ever made/10