{"id":787,"date":"2026-01-02T22:21:38","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T22:21:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thanassiscambanis.com\/sipa\/?p=787"},"modified":"2026-01-02T22:21:38","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T22:21:38","slug":"across-the-tumen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thanassiscambanis.com\/sipa\/2026\/01\/across-the-tumen\/","title":{"rendered":"Across the Tumen"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A North Korean defector on never fully leaving home<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Tumen River bridge. Source: Wikimedia Commons<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Olivia Choi<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The river still visits her in dreams. Sometimes the ice holds. Sometimes it cracks before she reaches the middle. She wakes in her small apartment in Incheon, sweat dampening the sheets, the hum of the refrigerator replacing the wind that once cut her face raw.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I first met Eunji Kim earlier last year while conducting research on North Korean resettlement. I can\u2019t name the organization that connected us, but it supports defectors adjusting to life in South Korea. Until I spoke with Eunji over Zoom, the stories I\u2019d heard had remained abstract \u2014 summaries, case files, statistics. She made those narratives come alive for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eunji crossed the frozen Tumen River in 2014. She was twenty-three and had never left her village in North Hamgyong Province. On that night, the border didn\u2019t look like a line between countries. It looked like something breaking open. She remembers her companion\u2019s trembling hand, the sharp cold, the way her breath wouldn\u2019t steady.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI thought I was dying even before I started walking,\u201d she tells me now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The crossing lasted no more than five minutes, but it split her life in two. On the far bank in China, her shoes soaked through with ice melt, she realized she could never go back. The river was behind her, but something from it stayed inside her, shaping everything that followed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The weeks that followed blurred into a half-awake haze: safe houses, bus rides, whispered instructions from brokers she couldn\u2019t trust. China was both a refuge and trap. She spent months hiding in small towns near Jilin, cooking and cleaning in exchange for food. At night, she practiced new names, new accents. She avoided windows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When she finally reached South Korea through a church network, she imagined it would feel like homecoming. \u201cI thought it would be like stepping into sunlight,\u201d she says. \u201cBut Seoul was too bright. It burned.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She was taken first to Hanawon, the government resettlement center south of Seoul where new defectors spend months learning how to live in a capitalist society. The classrooms were painted pale yellow, with posters explaining things like bank accounts, subway cards, and taxes. She learned that freedom had a price tag and an application form.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey told us we were lucky,\u201d Eunji recalls. \u201cBut I felt like a child again, learning how to cross another border, this time invisible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At Hanawon, she struggled with the noise: doors slamming, phones ringing, the constant announcements over the loudspeakers. The sound reminded her of the spotlights sweeping the riverbank. Even years later, loud noises make her flinch. \u201cI still can\u2019t stand walking over bridges,\u201d she says. \u201cEven the Han River, I go around it if I can.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When she finally left the center, she rented a single-room apartment in Incheon. The NGO that connected us helped her find a job at a cosmetics factory. The work was repetitive, but steady: sorting bottles, attaching labels, sealing boxes. She liked the rhythm, the way it kept her thoughts busy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet even in safety, the past leaked through. Her co-workers were kind but curious. They asked where her accent came from, why she avoided company dinners. One night, a manager asked if she had ever been to Pyongyang. She laughed too loudly, deflecting the question. \u201cYou learn to build a fence around your story,\u201d she tells me. \u201cToo much truth makes people uncomfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She spends weekends volunteering with the NGO, helping newer arrivals navigate paperwork or find housing. She has become fluent in the bureaucratic dialect of the South, subway lines, job portals, health insurance. But she still keeps her apartment sparse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t like having too many things,\u201d she says. \u201cYou can\u2019t carry much when you have to run.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her sense of time fractured after the crossing. \u201cEverything before that night feels like someone else\u2019s life,\u201d she says. \u201cSometimes I forget my own mother\u2019s face.\u201d She pauses before adding, \u201cI think that\u2019s how you survive – you let parts of yourself freeze.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Seoul, she has learned the language of performance. She laughs at jokes about K-pop celebrities and wears muted makeup. But in quieter moments, she feels the river rising again. It comes in flashes: the reflection of wet asphalt, the sharp scent of winter air, the sound of ice clinking in a glass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eunji once dreamed of becoming a nurse, but her education from the North didn\u2019t transfer. Instead, she takes night classes in social work, hoping to help other defectors rebuild their lives. \u201cI want to be someone who listens,\u201d she says. \u201cBecause when you escape, you lose your language. People talk at you, not with you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her classmates are mostly much younger. They talk about politics and reunification like distant theories. When they ask about her background, she simply says she\u2019s from \u201cup north.\u201d Few press further. \u201cI think they don\u2019t want to hear details,\u201d she says. \u201cThey want the version that fits the TV documentaries – the brave defector who finds freedom. But the truth is quieter. It\u2019s the silence that never ends.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once, during one of her first winters in Seoul, snow began to fall as she walked home from work. The flakes melted on her coat, soaking through to her skin. For a moment, she stopped near Incheon Station and looked at the water shimmering under the city street lights: it wasn’t the Tumen\u2014far from it\u2014but for a moment it shimmered with the same pale blue. She leaned over the railing and felt her heartbeat quicken, that old fear rising uninvited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s strange,\u201d she tells me. \u201cYou cross once, but you keep crossing again and again. Every time life changes, the river is there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, nearly a decade later, Eunji measures her life by the distances crossed: between North Korea and China, between the woman who ran and the one who learned how to stay. Between survival and something closer to belonging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I ask her what freedom means now, she pauses. \u201cFreedom,\u201d she says slowly, \u201cis when the river in my head is finally still.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A North Korean defector on never fully leaving home The Tumen River bridge. Source: Wikimedia Commons By Olivia Choi The river still visits her in dreams. Sometimes the ice holds. Sometimes it cracks before she reaches the middle. She wakes…<\/p>\n

Read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thanassiscambanis.com\/sipa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thanassiscambanis.com\/sipa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thanassiscambanis.com\/sipa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thanassiscambanis.com\/sipa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thanassiscambanis.com\/sipa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=787"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/thanassiscambanis.com\/sipa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":789,"href":"http:\/\/thanassiscambanis.com\/sipa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787\/revisions\/789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thanassiscambanis.com\/sipa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thanassiscambanis.com\/sipa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thanassiscambanis.com\/sipa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}