Tag Archive for 'Mike Kim'

“I had crossed the line. I was free; but there was no one to welcome me to the land of freedom. I was a stranger in a strange land.” –Harriet Tubman

Little is known about North Korea: what goes on behind the heavily guarded border of the DMZ.  The small trickle of information we get paints North Korea as a fiercely antagonistic and extremely controlled society and North Koreans as brainwashed, mindless drones.  These images of course must be taken in similar light to the intensive anti-American propoganda that Kim Jong Il’s regime pumps out against us… that is, with a high degree of caution and a very large mountain of salt.   It is too easy to draw general brushstrokes across an entire people or culture for the sake of dehumanizing another’s rights or values.  And it is perhaps even easier to believe these generalities without deeper understanding or appreciation of the shades and colorings of the situation.

It is something we Americans are guilty of as much as (if not much more than) any other society in world history.  We did it to African slaves in the South.  To the Japanese during World War II.  And we continue to do the same now to Muslims of all countries and creeds, whether they be Iraqi, Afgani, Persian or the nice kid down the street who happens to wear a turban.  When we choose to believe negative prejudices that have no anchor, we essentially bind ourselves to a negative engagement with the world around us.

Which is why I find the work of Mike Kim so incredibly important.  Here he is talking about it on The Daily Show.

Mike began as a financial planner in Chicago, who in 2001, took a 2 week vacation to China looking for some R&R. Instead he found himself talking to North Korean refugees who had a fleed hunger-starved and oppressed lives in Korea. Their horror stories stuck with Mike, and upon return to America, he abandoned his career, took up Mandarin and Korean language classes and prepared himself for a dangerous mission of charity.

On New Years Day 2003, he grabbed a one-way ticket to the China-North korea border where he has spent the last 4 years listening to refugees stories and setting up shelters to aid them on the perilous journey to freedom. In his new book, “Escaping North Korea: Defiance and Hope in the World’s Most Repressive Country”, Mike recounts the individual stories of the refugee experience and what it is like to live in North Korea.  And propaganda aside, these are real people struggling to survive.  It has little to do with politics or Nationalist sentiments.  When these refugees cross the border, they do so at risk of Capital punishment and execution, and not just for themselves, but for the families they leave behind.

Mike Kim is part of an UnderGround Railroad that runs 6,000 miles from North Korea to Thailand and mirrors in many ways the Underground railroad of colonial American Slave trade.  China is not safe for refugees, as the Chinese secret police actively seek out and extradite escaped Korean citizens (the Chinese government earns reward commissions for capturing refugees).  The work is not safe for an American like Mike Kim either.  North Korean has threatened to send assassins after him.  The Chinese government actively has him on a wanted watch list.

Still, Mike continues to aid North Koreans seeking new life.  And he has become a public champion of raising awareness of sex trafficking and human brutality enacted upon these desperate and vulnerable escapees.  He is the founder of Crossing Borders, a non-profit organization that in the past 3 years has established a network of 25 shelters and 5 orphanages on the China-Korea border and has taken in and saved hundreds of lives.

Thank you Mike for shedding light on a region and a people often overlooked, or worse, disregarded by our own prejudices and lack of understanding.  It is through specific stories from real people that we cast off the negative walls built between cultures and engage in a more direct, positive, and empathetic light.

Superforest salutes you!