Somewhere Inside

by Laura Ling

  After a slight pause, Kwon retorted with something that surprised me. “My country and your country had a chance for more normalized relations under Clinton. We like him.”

  “Who likes him?” I quizzed.

  “The North Korean people,” he said.

  I noticed that he, like so many of the North Koreans I met, never talked about his individual likes and dislikes. It was always about the collective; it was about their country.

  Toward the end of his second term, in October 2000, then President Clinton sent Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to Pyongyang for a meeting with North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Il. She was the first-ever American secretary of state and the highest-level U.S. government official to visit the Communist country. The trip was meant to persuade Kim to stop developing, testing, and exporting missiles. Albright was also setting the stage for what would have been an unprecedented visit by President Clinton to North Korea if a deal could be hatched. It was a high point in U.S.–North Korean relations. But Clinton’s term came to an end before he could make the trip, and his successor, George W. Bush, had a very different view of how the United States should deal with North Korea.

  As our bags went through a final check at the airport, my heart was racing. Clear. When the plane lifted off from Pyongyang, I breathed in deeply and slowly exhaled. I was out. I never expected to have any further dealings with the government of North Korea.

  Given how critical my 2007 documentary was of the North Korean regime, I now thought I should try to reduce the possibility of a paper trail to me right away. Even though the North Koreans had probably already seen my documentary, I didn’t want to make an already contentious situation worse for Laura. One of my early calls was to the president of National Geographic, Tim Kelly. Tim hired me to host the Explorer series in 2003 and had become a good friend. I told him I was very concerned that my work in North Korea would adversely affect my sister’s situation and asked him to pull my documentary off its programming schedule and stop selling copies of the video. Within the day, National Geographic had imposed a total moratorium on the sale and airing of my Inside North Korea film and had it and all related clips pulled off of YouTube.

  I also put out calls to my contacts in the media, which had grown quite extensive over my many years working in broadcast television. I called the presidents of a couple of cable news networks as well as a number of producers and correspondents. I acknowledged the need to report the news, but asked if news directors could limit the coverage of my sister’s detainment, as we were dealing with an extremely unpredictable actor in the North Korean government and we were deeply concerned about antagonizing him. In the early days of Laura and Euna’s detainment, we didn’t want to give the North Koreans reason to think they had a political bargaining tool in the girls. Every news organization has dealt with emergencies associated with sending correspondents into the field; therefore, my colleagues in the industry were very supportive of my request, and aside from reporting the basic facts about the detainment, almost all the major TV news outlets reported our story quite minimally.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  the visit

  LAURA

  WHEN MR. YEE ASKED me about whether or not Lisa had been to North Korea, I knew I couldn’t lie. “Yes,” I replied nervously. “She came as part of a medical delegation working on a documentary.” While I had been nervous about the North Koreans learning about my past project there, I was even more afraid of them finding out about Lisa’s work. The reports I helped produce in 2002 were benign compared with Lisa’s documentary.

  “Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?” he asked sternly. “Did you think we wouldn’t find out? We know everything.”

  He then pulled out a dossier he had on Lisa’s visit there.

  Lisa’s documentary for National Geographic was highly critical of Kim Jong Il’s regime, and now the North Koreans saw her as an enemy of their country. Mr. Yee accused Lisa and me of having hostile intentions toward his country. He told me that Euna had a chance of going home because she was cooperating fully, but I, on the other hand, might have to spend the rest of my life in a North Korean prison.

  I was so scared I could barely breathe. If Mr. Yee was trying to terrify me, he was succeeding. How had things gotten to this point? With each moment, my life seemed to be slipping further and further away. It was completely mind-boggling. Yet considering how paranoid the North Korean government is, I could see how they might think two sisters who were journalists could be out to topple the regime. This was made even worse because Lisa had worked on a scathing report about the North Korean system, and now I was being investigated and potentially accused of espionage in the DPRK. I tried to convince Mr. Yee that our assignments in North Korea were unrelated and not part of some intricate plot.

  “Tell me about her documentary,” he said. “What did she film?”

  “I don’t recall exactly,” I said, lying. “All I remember is that a surgeon came here to remove people’s cataracts. My sister had worked with this doctor before in Nepal and wanted to help him raise money for the work he does to restore people’s vision. She only wanted to help him.”

  “Are you and your sister trying to overthrow the North Korean government?” Mr. Yee angrily asked.

  “Absolutely not,” I replied. “The fact that I’m here right now is entirely coincidental.”

  That night, I lay in bed and thought about how Lisa might be coping. I knew she must be terrified and wondering if North Korean authorities had linked her to me and, if they had, what that might mean for me here. I thought back to the morning when she was preparing to go to North Korea and how concerned I was that officials might discover she was on television. I was shocked that her visa to travel with the medical team was approved at all, and I warned her to be ultracautious. We joked that she better not be kidnapped by Kim Jong Il and be taken for one of his wives. Thinking back to that conversation gave me chills.

  During that trip, she managed to call me once from Pyongyang. I knew her phone was being bugged, so I was careful about the questions I asked. I was just happy to hear from her.

  “Are you having a good time?” I asked.

  “Yes!” she replied excitedly. I knew instantly she was putting on an act. “It’s really interesting here. Anyway, I can’t talk long. I just want you to know I’m okay, and I’ll see you soon.”

  I remembered hanging up after that call and thinking that if I lost my sister, it would be like losing a part of myself. I wasn’t able to put my worrying aside until Lisa landed safely in Beijing a few days later. Now I wondered if I might be punished not only for my actions, but for hers a few years earlier.

  THOUGH LISA AND I were brought up by a devoutly Christian grandmother, I’ve never been particularly religious. But like most people in times of crisis, I looked to a higher being for guidance and assurance. I began to talk to God each morning, asking him to help me get through another day. I prayed to the Lord to give me and Euna strength to endure, to watch over our families, and to give my interrogator, Mr. Yee, compassion. I found solace in this simple ritual, and it made me feel less alone.

  For several days, I’d been wondering where I was being held. I figured I had to be somewhere in or near Pyongyang, but I wasn’t certain. The thick mustard-colored curtains in my room had remained closed since the day I arrived, and I wasn’t allowed anywhere near the window. “Lord, show me a sign,” I whispered out loud. “Send me a signal that things are going to be okay.” I felt slightly silly for making such a clichéd request of God, but within minutes, the entire sheet of drapes along with a long metal rod fell to the floor with a thunderous crash. I popped up, careful to stay in bed so my guards wouldn’t think I’d had anything to do with the falling curtains. For the first time in days, I could see outside. I marveled at the birds and the sky.

  Trees surrounded most of the compound, but through the window, I was able to make out the top of the famous pyramid-shaped Ryugyong Hotel, which the builders had intended
to make so high it would be the world’s tallest hotel. I had seen the building when I was in Pyongyang in 2002. Its 105 stories and 1,100 feet of glass make it an impressive sight. The hotel was started in the late eighties, but structural problems and a lack of resources and money caused it to be left unfinished and empty. Back then, our North Korean guides said the building was still under construction, but the absence of workers and cranes made it clear the project had been abandoned. Rather than becoming a source of pride for the country, the structure has become an embarrassment and a symbol of North Korea’s faltering infrastructure.

  This is how I knew I was in Pyongyang, and not too far from the city center. I had never in my life challenged God to give me a sign. Now the first time I asked for one, he seemed to have answered. The guards rushed in to fix the drapes. I wanted to help them and rose from the bed so I could lift the fabric from the ground. They were too flustered to order me away and they seemed to appreciate my help. All the while, I stole glances outside, taking in as much of the scenery as I could. There wasn’t much to look at except for a row of tall trees and some shrubs that were obstructing my view of a building down below the compound. But for me, seeing this small glimpse of nature was a little gift from God.

  About a week into my detention in Pyongyang, which was close to two weeks since my capture, the guards asked me if I wanted to take a warm bath. The bathroom had a tub, but it was always being used to store water for those frequent times each day when the water shut off. Sometimes these outages lasted several days. When that happened, the water in the tub could be used for basic needs such as flushing the toilet and brushing teeth. In any case, there was no hot running water, so the tap water was too cold to use for washing. For the past week, cleaning myself had involved soaking a towel in the frigid water, bracing for the forbidding cold, and rapidly scrubbing myself. I welcomed the opportunity to take a warm bath.

  The way they heated the water was to place an electrified metal rod into the filled tub. I was told it could take several hours to heat, but after five hours the water was just barely lukewarm. It had a number of hours to go before it was bearable, but then the electricity shut off. The guards looked defeated. I thanked them for their efforts and told them I didn’t need to take a bath. Truthfully, the last thing on my mind was my hygiene. As time went on, I developed a system by which the guards would allow me to heat water in a little electric kettle. Just getting this small amount of water to boil took nearly thirty minutes. I would mix the hot water with some cold water from the bathtub, which provided just enough warm water to splash onto my body and rinse off.

  When I wasn’t being interrogated, I was usually curled up in bed. I had nothing to do but think. I also listened intently, straining to hear the slightest sound that might indicate that Euna was also being held nearby in the compound. I faked loud coughs or sneezes, hoping she might hear me. Once in a while, I would ask Min-Jin about Euna.

  “How’s my friend doing today?” I asked nonchalantly, as if I already knew she was somewhere close.

  “Who’s your friend?” she replied with a blank look.

  “Her name’s Euna,” I said dejectedly. “She’s Korean. I think you’d really like her.”

  I couldn’t tell if she really knew who Euna was or not. If Euna wasn’t being held in the same facility, where was she?

  To keep warm and to occupy my mind, I walked in circles around my room, sometimes hundreds of them a day. I thought a lot about my parents. My heart would break every time I pondered how worried they must be about me. Aside from their shared love of shellfish, our parents have nothing in common except Lisa and me—we are everything to them. I wondered what they were doing and how they were dealing with all of this. And were they together?

  Our parents’ relationship had mellowed a great deal since the time when Lisa and I were kids. Lisa teases by saying we’re closer as a family now than we were when our parents were married. The four of us—Mom, Dad, Lisa, and I—have even gone on a couple of family vacations together over the last few years. We laugh when our parents joke about which one of them used to snore the loudest. When we were kids, however, the thought of our parents ever becoming friends was simply unthinkable because all I can remember about their life together is the fighting.

  When I was four and Lisa was seven, my father was driving all of us down a slick road in the dark of night. I was in the front seat of our tan Buick Oldsmobile between my mother and father. Lisa was sleeping across the backseat. I nestled my head in my mother’s lap, but I wasn’t trying to fall asleep. I wanted to drown out the yelling Lisa and I had become so used to hearing. But this evening’s conversation was different. Our mom was telling our dad that she wanted to move to Los Angeles and live with her sister there. She wanted a divorce.

  The screeching sound the tires made on the pavement seemed to go on forever. I struggled for breath as my father’s weight enveloped me. He had taken his hands off the wheel and was reaching for my mother. I tried to scream, but nothing came out. Suddenly I heard Lisa’s voice from the back of the car, shouting, “Daddy, stop! Please stop!” Her little hands reached over the seat, grabbing my father’s hair with all her strength. Lisa’s vigor worked, and Dad calmed down. Then he just started crying. We were all crying.

  Months later, Mom moved to Los Angeles. My dad’s mother was living with us at the time, but Lisa became my protector and I hers…even when it didn’t exactly work to my advantage.

  One day Lisa—age eight—was in the bathroom for a long time. I kept coming back and would stand outside the door waiting for her to come out. She didn’t. Then, from my room, I heard a loud crashing sound from inside the bathroom. Running to the door, I screamed, “What happened, Li? Are you okay?”

  Lisa opened the bathroom door and pulled me inside. She had spilled foot powder all over the room; whiteness blanketed the sink and the dark blue carpet. I heard Dad’s footsteps coming up the stairs.

  “What the hell is going on in there? Open the door!”

  We opened the door, and he looked around to see everything covered in powder.

  “What happened here?” he asked angrily. “Who did this?”

  Silence. Then Lisa looked over at me and in her little voice said, “She did,” and pointed right at me.

  What? I couldn’t believe she was blaming me. I knew she just didn’t want to get into trouble, but how could she? Then my dad looked down at me and asked, “Is it true, Laura? Did you do this?”

  I looked up into his eyes and then looked over to my sister, who was looking down. “Yes…I did.”

  Dad immediately sent me to my room and made me sit in the dark. An hour later Lisa came in and turned on the light. She looked sullen and forlorn as if she’d been crying. I could tell she felt guilty about telling Dad that I spilled the foot powder.

  “Thanks for taking the blame for me, Lau,” she said. “Why didn’t you stand up for yourself?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  Lisa then came over and put her arms around me. “I promise, Baby Girl, that I’ll stand up for you as long as I live.”

  LISA

  THE UNITED STATES HAS a diplomatic relationship with almost every country in the world—some exceptions are Iran, Cuba, and of course North Korea. Without some form of diplomatic relations, the leaders from each country cannot just pick up the phone to call one another. It seems entirely illogical and even archaic, but that’s just the way it is. If the United States ever needs to send a message to North Korea—or vice versa—it has another country, Sweden, as the official liaison. The Swedish ambassador to North Korea is named Mats Foyer.

  Linda from the State Department suggested that we write a short letter to Laura, and she would send it to her through the Swedish ambassador. She said she would e-mail the note to Ambassador Foyer, and he would print it out and deliver it to the North Korean Foreign Ministry in Pyongyang. It was worth a try. My parents, Iain, Paul, and I huddled in my mom’s den for an hour and crafted a meticulously worded l
etter from all of us.

  It was helpful to have Paul’s insights because his father, Won Ryul Song, was from Pyongyang and had fled south to Seoul from the north in 1946 when Communism was starting to take root there. It was seven years before the two Koreas were divided. As my father-in-law told it, it was a time when young men were being rounded up and forced to become part of the Communist movement or face being sent to a labor camp or, even worse, to death. He has not been back since. As I learned from him and from actually being there myself, there is perhaps no culture on earth more obsessed with respect and the idea of saving face than North Korea’s. We had to be deferential and even apologetic in our letter because we knew that my sister’s eyes would not be the only ones to read the letter. We were certain that it would be seen and scrutinized by those holding Laura. No matter what actually happened on the border of China and North Korea, it was imperative that we express great remorse and our apologies. Anything perceived by Laura’s captors as hostile or accusatory could make matters much worse for her.

  One thing that we made sure not to do was refer to God or prayer in our letter. There is one group of people for whom the North Korean government has more contempt than it has for Americans. They are the people the regime believes are fervently trying to overthrow it: Christians. Christian groups in South Korea and along the Chinese border lead the charge in protesting North Korea’s abysmal human rights record. It was, in fact, a South Korean Christian pastor who had helped Laura’s team arrange interviews and plan the shooting schedule. There are reputed to be thousands of underground Christians working along the border trying to help people escape from North Korea. We were therefore careful about not seeming to be aligned with any such groups. We suggested that Michael also write a letter to Euna using the same precautions and guidelines.