Edinburgh Fringe 2024
SELL ME: I Am From North Korea
Sora Baek
Genre: Solo Show, Storytelling, Theatre
Venue: Pleasance Courtyard
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
A spellbinding and heart-wrenching performance, in which we share the experience of a 15 year old North Korean girl attempting to help her family by defecting.
Review
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, better known as North Korea, is generally considered to be a pariah state. Amnesty International regard it as having the poorest record on the planet for human rights. Its nuclear testing gives widespread consternation to USA and Japan in particular. It is a totalitarian dictatorship, a one-party military state with dissent not tolerated. It has a cult of personality around the ruling Kim family, even with its own philosophy, Juche. The population are subjected to systematic indoctrination. Despite the difficulties of reporting, it is known that poverty and hardship are widespread, with famine devastating the land.
Clearly, some of citizens try to escape. The difficulty they face is multi-layered. The border with South Koreas is heavily guarded. The border with China is more accessible ; however, China is pretty much North Korea’s biggest ally and even if citizens manage to cross the border, China does not recognize them as refugees. Instead, they are treated as illegal aliens and forcibly repatriated, with severe sanctions on everybody involved.
In a similar vein to that of refugees in Europe, in many cases immigration is only practicable with the aid of a broker. It is here that we pick up the story of 15 year old Jisun. Her family is desperately poor. Her father was taken by the authorities and died in a forced labour mining accident. Her mother is severely ill but cannot afford the necessary medication. Jisun decides to make an alarming, seismic, sacrifice : she will allow herself to be sold to a man in China, becoming his cleaner, cook and concubine. The idea is fraught with danger and difficulty : they can only cross the border if the guards are bribed and do not shoot, but how do they know if they have bribed all of them ? And will they stay true to their end of the bargain ? Is the journey – at night, across a river, in the snow – safe ? Once over the border how do they know that they have not been sold a lie ?
However, Jisun manages to complete her journey and arrives, bewildered, in China. She is rejected and has to leave the house that she had been supposed to inhabit. She is rescued by a Christian organisation. The shadow of her indoctrination has cast a long shadow, however, and in her paranoia she believes they are fatting her up to eat her liver, so flees once again. Now desperate, she is taken in by a South Korean organisation, who assist North Korean defectors to reach South Korea. We leave her at an airport, trying to reach Seoul, terrified of discovery.
Jisun is a fictional character, created and performed by the outstanding Sora Baek, but her story is regrettably all too real, inspired by those true experiences of North Korean women. Baek’s performance, while dealing with traumatic, heart-wrenching, events is at times spellbinding and some members of today’s sold-out audience shared her tears at the denouement. Baek took us on a journey, charmingly, expressively, touchingly and at times humorously, employing storytelling, film and song to weave her narrative and this piece, giving voice to a small part of the suffering experienced by ordinary North Korean citizens, is highly recommended.
