In Order to Live summary

While the Park’s illegal trading business kept them afloat for some time, it wasn’t long before state-managed marketplaces called jangmadangs came into the picture. The competition put Yeonmi’s father out of business, and the family soon found themselves eating only a single meal a day. Desperate for a means to survive, Yeonmi’s dad came up with another business venture: smuggling precious metals.

Unfortunately, it was a much greater risk than smuggling Chinese products. For one, there was no easy way to bring the metals from Pyongyang to Hyesan. And two, smuggling metals was a serious crime that could lead to the death penalty.

Immediately after making it over the border, Yeonmi and her mother learned that life in China wouldn’t be easy after all. The broker who’d helped them was part of a chain of human traffickers, who made money from selling North Korean women as brides to Chinese men.

As women moved through this human trafficking system, they’d be sexually abused by each and every one of the brokers who handled them. Then, they’d be paired with cruel husbands with physical or mental health problems.

With the help of a Christian missionary team based in the Chinese city of Qingdao, Yeonmi, her mother, and their group of fellow North Korean defectors made it to Mongolia. It still took a few more weeks for the South Korean embassy to fly them to Seoul, but once they were on the plane, Yeonmi couldn’t help but smile. She’d finally get a real taste of freedom.

But first, the group of North Korean defectors had to spend a couple of weeks in the National Intelligence Center – a secured facility where the government holds all refugees to check if they really are defectors or possible spies.

With Eunmi home and her mom finding a new and loving partner, Yeonmi was finally at peace with herself. This renewed her passion to continue what she’d started. She signed up for an intensive English tutoring program to improve her language skills, then went back to university to finish her degree.

But life decided to take her in a different direction, and that happened to be becoming a human rights advocate for her people. It all started with a simple speech at the Canadian Maple International School in the South Korean capital. Yeonmi’s English tutor encouraged her to give the speech to practice her English-speaking skills, but for her, it was so much more than that. It was her way of advocating for the millions of other North Koreans.

Yeonmi Park’s story opens the world to the cruel and inhumane living conditions North Koreans endure under the Kim dictatorship. She stands as an advocate not only for those who are trapped in the Hermit Kingdom but also for those who’ve escaped but have gone through the horrors of the human trafficking system in China. With her story, she hopes to be the voice of the oppressed and a catalyst for change.