Geum-young Choi’s life in Australia is a world away from South P'yŏngan province in North Korea where she was born and raised.
Up until the age of 17, she lived near the notorious Aoji-ri Chemical Complex, a region of the country known for its oppressive quality of life and extreme lockdowns.
More than two decades after her family’s daring defection from the rogue state, Geum-young is living a “completed opposite” life in Australia.
It was during the COVID-19 pandemic that she decided to create a YouTube profile called ‘Aoji sister’ which has grown to more than 20,000 subscribers.
Her motive for starting the YouTube profile is to tell her North Korean compatriots that “freedom can only be gained at the risk of your life” and to inform the world what living in that country was like.
Daring escape
During North Korea’s severe famine between 1994-98 - known as the ‘the Arduous March' - Geum-young’s father, who had been excavating coal at the Aoji facility, decided to defect with his family, believing that there was “no difference between starving to death and being shot dead”.
At midnight on 26 February 1997, the family escaped to China by crossing the Duman River which marks the natural border between the two countries.
Geum-young’s family initially believed they would be able to live comfortably in China once their status was secure, but this was far from the case.
They were forced to endure three years of uncertainty, living with a terrible fear of being sent back to North Korea by Chinese authorities.
Due to this fear, they made several attempts to defect to South Korea by knocking on the door of the Korean Embassy in Beijing.
Geum-young recalls that the family’s appeals for help were repeatedly refused by the Korean Embassy.
Desperate to find security, the family decided to make the perilous journey to Thailand on-foot and Geum-young and her father separated from her mother.
Once they got to Thailand, The Korean Embassy in Bangkok reunited the family, and they were finally granted refugee status.
In 2001, their dreams came true when they arrived in Seoul, the South Korean capital.
In Seoul, Geum-young finished her bachelor’s degree in Chinese and Chinese literature at the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, and then tied the knot with her Seoul-born boyfriend.
Geum-young and her husband migrated to Australia in 2016 and settled in Queensland.
She says her new life is completely opposite to her former life.
“It was a blanket change. Everything changed in South Korea and Australia,” she said.
“I feel I have been moved up from the dark basement to the bright rooftop like from hell to heaven.”
She describes her time in North Korea as a teenager as a “nightmare”.
“From time to time, all of the schoolgirls had to assemble during the school hours and were forced to witness a public execution. Now I have realised it was absolutely unacceptable and child abuse in ordinary nations.
“I have learned that the agony more desperate than hunger is when we do not have hope.
“When we did not have rice at all at home and were not sure if we could have food soon, we plunged into despair which made us hopeless and fearful.”
In Australia, she says, “It is an irony and I cannot believe I have to care about how to lose my weight here.”
“My old friends in North Korea would not believe that I now give the priority to my diet over other things.“
Focus change during the pandemic
Geum-young Choi's Youtube channel Source: SBS Korean
Raising her children in Queensland and running a sushi shop, she decided to shift her focus to advocacy due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The COVID-19 pandemic made me begin a YouTube channel to share my experiences in North Korea so as to show some kind of hope to people.
“I have learned there are approximately 70 North Korean defectors living in Australia at present. Most of them are very reluctant to identify themselves as North Korean defectors due to the social preoccupation with or antipathy against them.”
One of the hopes of her new-found advocacy work is to encourage Korean Australians to embrace the defectors.
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