North Korea –
Living Hell
41’36’’
REPORTER: JUNG-EUN KIM
For more than a year, Kim Kan-Su and his family lived in hiding in the mountains of north-east China. They survived by gathering food from the forest and they sheltered underground in a hide-out they dug into the side of a hill.
KIM YOUNG-HEE: Though we don`t have a house, living like this in hiding, at least we eat rice, which is rarely available in North Korea, even for well-off families. We just hope we don`t get caught.
KIM KAN-SU: Everything else is fine, except for the fear and distress.
The Kims were hiding from Chinese police and North Korean agents after fleeing from a village in North Korea to find a better life in China.
Kim Kan-Su and his wife, Young-Hee, did what they could to give their three children a normal family life. But they knew they couldn`t feed or educate them properly here in their mountain hide-out, and risking arrest, they ventured into a nearby city to hand their children over to an underground orphanage.
Seven months later, the Kims were captured when they were turned in by an informer. They were forcibly returned to North Korea.
The Kims are now hiding in this shed after escaping from prison and sneaking back into the mountains of north-east China. In custody, they had endured appalling beatings and torture.
KIM KAN-SU: They chained one arm to one side of the van and the other arm to the other side. So you just couldn`t move. They took you like that.
REPORTER: They took you to Musan like that? And from there?
KIM KAN-SU: To a local prison. They immediately beat us.
REPORTER: How did you escape?
KIM KAN-SU: We asked if we could visit our father`s grave. The guard came with us. We visited the grave, and went to the village and got him drunk.
REPORTER: How did you get him drunk?
KIM KAN-SU: I`m from that village. I know people there. I got some alcohol from them. We escaped on our way back down from the grave.
Just weeks before, while they were still in prison, they had prepared themselves for suicide with razor blades they had smuggled into their cells.
KIM KAN-SU: I held the razor blade against my stomach. Just two slits, and death would have been instant. But then I`d think better of it. I`d think, "My death will be pointless."
REPORTER: Where did you put it in your mouth?
KIM YOUNG-HEE: Having a razor in your mouth, the skin - how shall I say - it takes all the skin off. I`d take it out at night, wrap it in paper and hide it in my pants` seams. Then, before anyone was awake, under the blanket, I`d put it back in my mouth.
REPORTER: Why did you take it?
KIM YOUNG-HEE: If I slashed my wrist, they`d take me to hospital. I was planning my escape from there, for my children.
Their escape has brought them one step closer to a reunion with their children. But in order to see them, they must leave the relative safety of their hide-out in the mountains and go back into the city where they were captured.
Min-Ho first came to China 18 months ago. It was winter and he had walked three days from the border of North Korea, stopping for shelter at this church hall.
REPORTER: Your mum has been here in China for three years now?
MIN-HO: Three years.
REPORTER: You haven`t found her yet?
MIN-HO: No.
REPORTER: And what about your dad?
MIN-HO: He died last year. In March.
REPORTER: Your brother died too?
MIN-HO: Yes.
REPORTER: How did he die?
MIN-HO: He starved to death.
REPORTER: And how did your father die?
MIN-HO: He starved.
n the 18 months since Min-Ho arrived at the church, he survived in China by begging for money and sleeping where he can. For weeks, he and his friend Hyung-dong sought shelter here, hiding from the police on the eighth floor of an abandoned construction site.
REPORTER: Aren`t you scared?
MIN-HO: No, I`m not scared.
HYUNG-DONG: But at night the police come, so we don`t sleep well.
REPORTER: How cold does it get?
HYUNG-DONG: Very cold. Without the blanket, it gets really cold.
REPORTER: Is this where you caught cold?
MIN-HO: Yes.
Min-Ho and Hyung-dong are part of a 40,000-strong North Korean diaspora now living illegally in China. All have been driven from their homeland by a famine that has so far killed more than 2 million people - 10% of North Korea`s population.
In the last few days, Min-Ho and Hyung-dong have moved to a new shelter - an ethnic Korean has allowed them to sleep in this apartment. Since Min-Ho first came here, he`s been back to North Korea three times - twice by choice and once by force, when he was captured by Chinese police.
MIN-HO: A cop came up on a motorbike. I was with another kid. The cop passed us, looked back and said, "Come here." I was scared and started running. The other kid just stood there and the cop came after me. So I was caught. They took me to the police station. I was put in a van, and was being taken to another prison, and that`s when I jumped from the moving van.
REPORTER: Then what happened?
MIN-HO: When I jumped, I twisted my arm. A man I know got a bandage and treated my arm. Ten days later, I was caught begging at the airport.
>From there, Min-Ho was transported to a North Korean labour camp - punishment for abandoning his motherland.
REPORTER: What was it like being back in North Korea?
MIN-HO: There was nothing to eat, so I was faint from hunger. When I stood up, I felt dizzy and couldn`t see. I felt like I was walking straight, but I was staggering all over the place. The only thing to eat is corn and nothing else.
REPORTER: When you`re there, do you miss China?
MIN-HO: Yes, I do miss it.
REPORTER: What do you miss the most?
MIN-HO: I miss food. And money.
Tonight, Min-Ho and Hyung-dong prepare for another trip back home to deliver their earnings from begging on the streets. Like thousands of children before them, they wrap money into tight plastic packets which they will later swallow for their journey.
The boys know this return home will be the riskiest they have ever undertaken. For those who have already been in prison, like Min-Ho, capture a second time means they may never see freedom again.
MIN-HO: If you`re sent back again, you die.
REPORTER: What do you mean by that?
MIN-HO: If you`re released but escape to China again and get sent back, you have to die.
REPORTER: Do you get shot?
MIN-HO: No, they send you to big prisons.
REPORTER: Political prisons?
MIN-HO: Yes.
REPORTER: And you don`t come out alive?
MIN-HO: No, you don`t. You die in there.
REPORTER: Would you live in North Korea?
MIN-HO: I want to make money and live in North Korea.
REPORTER: What do you want to do?
MIN-HO: I want to be rich.
REPORTER: How will you get rich?
MIN-HO: By making a lot of money.
REPORTER: How will you do that there?
MIN-HO: You make money by going into business.
REPORTER: What kind of business?
MIN-HO: Anything that would give you a big profit. Like buying a bicycle and reselling it. I`d like to do something like that.
It`s been two years since Su-Hee and Han-jin came to China, leaving their four-year-old daughter back home. In their latest hide-out, there is at least some comfort. But they still live in fear of being caught. Since they first came to China, they`ve moved house six times to evade police raids. And repeated efforts to bring their daughter from North Korea to join them here in China have failed. Now, Su-Hee and Han-jin make a living weaving baskets for a local underground aid organisation.
REPORTER: Are you happy to be working?
SU-HEE: Yes. We must live and work diligently to show our appreciation.
The work is providing them with enough money to send care packages back to their little girl across the border.
REPORTER: You must miss your child a lot.
SU-HEE: Yes. When I miss her, I visit my friend who has a baby. She`s probably forgotten what we look like.
REPORTER: But you`re still her parents.
SU-HEE: She was very little when we left her. My parents are old - it`s hard for them to look after her. We`re making a living, so we could manage to feed her. Even if we have to eat less, we want to bring her here.
REPORTER: When will you try to bring her?
SU-HEE: This winter. We`ll have to find couriers again. We have to keep trying. We can`t give up in the middle. We must do everything we can. Then if we fail, we`ll know we did all we could.
REPORTER: I hear there`s a crackdown now. How are you dealing with it?
SU-HEE: When there`s a knock at the door, we don`t answer. As long as they don`t break the door down, we`re okay.
This is a rare glimpse at life on the other side. North Korean women washing seeds in the waters of the Tumen River. The River is all that separates North Korea from China. All who fled the famine have swum its perilous waters. But even those who make it face new dangers the moment they touch Chinese soil. All new refugees are prey to human traffickers, who wade on their shores to kidnap young women.
SUN JA: I was captured by them. After my capture, they sold me.
Sun Ja is one of countless women from North Korea who have been sold as sex slaves here. The Chinese man who bought her called her his wife.
SUN JA: He had two children. Because I was considered a new ‘bride’ they sent the children to his mother’s house, so we could be lfet alone in his house for the first night. I didn’t want to live with him. He was Chinese and we couldn’t understand each other. So I insisted the children be brought back. He didn’t want that but I kept insisting. So he went to his mother’s. that’s when I escaped. He locked me in when he left. When you’re desperate you’re not easily scared. I jumped from the roof but I wasn’t hurt. That’s how I escaped.
The Kims are travelling back from their country hide-out to reunite with their children. This is one of the few times they`ve ridden in a car, and the journey is making Young-Hee feel sick.
REPORTER: How does it feel being back here?
KIM KAN-SU: I`m just happy being able to see my children. We`re able to see them because we came back alive.
The trip brings them back into the city where they were captured and first held in prison, accused of selling their children.
KIM KAN-SU: We kept saying we knew nothing. That we lived in the mountains. We stuck to the story from start to finish. I only wrote a one-page statement. She wrote four pages.
KIM YOUNG-HEE: From women, they think they can get more information. From the first page to the last, I stuck to the same story. We didn`t sell the children, we gave them away because it was too difficult to survive.
The Kims` first stop in the city is at the shed that would be their new home. It`s been offered to them by an ethnic Korean family, a hide-out close to the orphanage where their children are now living.
REPORTER: How does it look?
KIM YOUNG-HEE: It`s okay. We`ll have to clean it out. As long as we`re safe, we`re happy.
KIM KAN-SU: We have to put in heating to make it livable. It`ll take at least three days for me to fix up.
But Kan-su and Young-Hee know that this can only be a temporary refuge - that sooner or later, police will come looking and they will have to move again.
KIM KAN-SU: If the police come, we`ll need a place to hide. We have to have a plan, a place to hide. We`ll clean this out. We`ll dig a hole to one side for one person to hide in. They`ll check everywhere, but maybe they won`t find the hole. We have to make it so they can`t see the person. It`s better that at least one of us survives, rather than both of us getting caught. It`s going to be hard work, but we have to survive.
Just a few kilometres away, the Kims` three children have been assembled at an aid worker`s house and they`re now waiting for their parents to arrive. The house is far enough from the orphanage to be considered safe for their mother and father to visit.
At last, the parents arrive. It`s nine months since they saw their children.
KIM YOUNG-HEE: Mum`s here. Why are you so quiet? Who put make-up on you? Who put make-up on your face?
At first, the children are shy. They seem almost unwilling to talk, and the parents wonder how much of them they remember.
KIM YOUNG-HEE: Do you want to stay with Mum? We thought we`d never see you again. We thought we wouldn`t see you. You can`t imagine what that was like. We escaped just because of you. Do you know?
With their future so uncertain and danger all around them, Kan-Su and Young-Hee know this may be their last time with their children.
KIM KAN-SU: I told myself I wouldn`t cry. I can`t help the tears. Don`t cry. I`ll stop crying too. I`ll stop crying.
The last time the family had the chance to lie together like this was in hiding, underground in the mountains. In those days, they caught their own food in the forest with home-made traps.
KIM KAN-SU: When the birds come to drink, they perch on the twig and when they fly away, their head gets caught.
REPORTER: Do you remember catching rabbits and birds? How did you catch them? Your dad?
KIM YOUNG-SHIN: Yes, Mum and Dad caught them.
REPORTER: And what did you do with them?
KIM YOUNG-SHIN: With them, we ate the meat, the rabbit meat.
REPORTER: Rabbit meat?
KIM YOUNG-SHIN: Yes, we had meat and fish, but we didn`t eat the bones.
The Kims can see that their children are better nourished than they`ve ever been, and even little Young-shin is learning to read and write.
With their children listening on, the Kims recount more of their time in jail and the punishments they received at the hands of North Korean guards.
KIM KAN-SU: They`d grab you by the hair and pull you. And if you made a noise, they`d kick you with their boots on.
This is the new reality for the children - brief, furtive encounters with their parents and ever disturbing tales of their suffering.
KIM KAN-SU: They make you sit like this. Your back and your buttocks have to be aligned. 45cm off the ground! It`s very painful. You`re dripping with sweat. Dripping sweat and tears.
MAN: Women too?
KIM KAN-SU: Yes, everyone.
KIM YOUNG-HEE: Yes, men and women were punished in the same way.
There are just a few hours left now before the Kims` children are returned to the orphanage.
KIM KAN-SU: I wish the children could stay with us. I wish they could stay with us, but that`s not possible.
REPORTER: that day will come eventually.
KIM KAN-SU: There will be a day when we can all live happily together. You study hard till we`re together, okay?
These are precious moments together for a family that may never know this intimacy, this tenderness, this peace again.
The time has come for Min-Ho and Hyung-dong to go back home. They`re travelling along the banks of the Tumen River, the border separating China from North Korea.
HYUNG-DONG: There, that`s where we cross. Where the water is calm.
MIN-HO: I hope we can cross. The water has risen even higher.
HYUNG-DONG: It`s alright, we can do it. We can cross anyway. The border guard - higher, higher, a bit more. Over there. That`s the border guard post. That`s the military.
Beyond this river is the old land - cruel, fragile, desperately poor. But it is still home, and home to these boys` families and friends.
REPORTER: Where`s that?
MIN-HO: Musan.
REPORTER: Can you see your house?
MIN-HO: Yes.
REPORTER: Where is it?
MIN-HO: Over there.
That they are now risking their lives to return is the embodiment of this long and complex struggle for survival and identity.
Min-Ho and Hyung-dong swallow the money they had wrapped in plastic - an important delivery for their starving families back home.
Change is in the wind in the Koreas - these boys both know that a reunited nation may some day relieve them all of their anguish and fear. But it`s not happened yet, and their crossing tonight must take place in darkness. Min-Ho and Hyung-dong will wait here, as they`ve waited before, for the moment to take their chances - to slip past the border guards, to leave the relative freedom they found illegally in China and be home once again.
Living Hell
41’36’’
REPORTER: JUNG-EUN KIM
For more than a year, Kim Kan-Su and his family lived in hiding in the mountains of north-east China. They survived by gathering food from the forest and they sheltered underground in a hide-out they dug into the side of a hill.
KIM YOUNG-HEE: Though we don`t have a house, living like this in hiding, at least we eat rice, which is rarely available in North Korea, even for well-off families. We just hope we don`t get caught.
KIM KAN-SU: Everything else is fine, except for the fear and distress.
The Kims were hiding from Chinese police and North Korean agents after fleeing from a village in North Korea to find a better life in China.
Kim Kan-Su and his wife, Young-Hee, did what they could to give their three children a normal family life. But they knew they couldn`t feed or educate them properly here in their mountain hide-out, and risking arrest, they ventured into a nearby city to hand their children over to an underground orphanage.
Seven months later, the Kims were captured when they were turned in by an informer. They were forcibly returned to North Korea.
The Kims are now hiding in this shed after escaping from prison and sneaking back into the mountains of north-east China. In custody, they had endured appalling beatings and torture.
KIM KAN-SU: They chained one arm to one side of the van and the other arm to the other side. So you just couldn`t move. They took you like that.
REPORTER: They took you to Musan like that? And from there?
KIM KAN-SU: To a local prison. They immediately beat us.
REPORTER: How did you escape?
KIM KAN-SU: We asked if we could visit our father`s grave. The guard came with us. We visited the grave, and went to the village and got him drunk.
REPORTER: How did you get him drunk?
KIM KAN-SU: I`m from that village. I know people there. I got some alcohol from them. We escaped on our way back down from the grave.
Just weeks before, while they were still in prison, they had prepared themselves for suicide with razor blades they had smuggled into their cells.
KIM KAN-SU: I held the razor blade against my stomach. Just two slits, and death would have been instant. But then I`d think better of it. I`d think, "My death will be pointless."
REPORTER: Where did you put it in your mouth?
KIM YOUNG-HEE: Having a razor in your mouth, the skin - how shall I say - it takes all the skin off. I`d take it out at night, wrap it in paper and hide it in my pants` seams. Then, before anyone was awake, under the blanket, I`d put it back in my mouth.
REPORTER: Why did you take it?
KIM YOUNG-HEE: If I slashed my wrist, they`d take me to hospital. I was planning my escape from there, for my children.
Their escape has brought them one step closer to a reunion with their children. But in order to see them, they must leave the relative safety of their hide-out in the mountains and go back into the city where they were captured.
Min-Ho first came to China 18 months ago. It was winter and he had walked three days from the border of North Korea, stopping for shelter at this church hall.
REPORTER: Your mum has been here in China for three years now?
MIN-HO: Three years.
REPORTER: You haven`t found her yet?
MIN-HO: No.
REPORTER: And what about your dad?
MIN-HO: He died last year. In March.
REPORTER: Your brother died too?
MIN-HO: Yes.
REPORTER: How did he die?
MIN-HO: He starved to death.
REPORTER: And how did your father die?
MIN-HO: He starved.
n the 18 months since Min-Ho arrived at the church, he survived in China by begging for money and sleeping where he can. For weeks, he and his friend Hyung-dong sought shelter here, hiding from the police on the eighth floor of an abandoned construction site.
REPORTER: Aren`t you scared?
MIN-HO: No, I`m not scared.
HYUNG-DONG: But at night the police come, so we don`t sleep well.
REPORTER: How cold does it get?
HYUNG-DONG: Very cold. Without the blanket, it gets really cold.
REPORTER: Is this where you caught cold?
MIN-HO: Yes.
Min-Ho and Hyung-dong are part of a 40,000-strong North Korean diaspora now living illegally in China. All have been driven from their homeland by a famine that has so far killed more than 2 million people - 10% of North Korea`s population.
In the last few days, Min-Ho and Hyung-dong have moved to a new shelter - an ethnic Korean has allowed them to sleep in this apartment. Since Min-Ho first came here, he`s been back to North Korea three times - twice by choice and once by force, when he was captured by Chinese police.
MIN-HO: A cop came up on a motorbike. I was with another kid. The cop passed us, looked back and said, "Come here." I was scared and started running. The other kid just stood there and the cop came after me. So I was caught. They took me to the police station. I was put in a van, and was being taken to another prison, and that`s when I jumped from the moving van.
REPORTER: Then what happened?
MIN-HO: When I jumped, I twisted my arm. A man I know got a bandage and treated my arm. Ten days later, I was caught begging at the airport.
>From there, Min-Ho was transported to a North Korean labour camp - punishment for abandoning his motherland.
REPORTER: What was it like being back in North Korea?
MIN-HO: There was nothing to eat, so I was faint from hunger. When I stood up, I felt dizzy and couldn`t see. I felt like I was walking straight, but I was staggering all over the place. The only thing to eat is corn and nothing else.
REPORTER: When you`re there, do you miss China?
MIN-HO: Yes, I do miss it.
REPORTER: What do you miss the most?
MIN-HO: I miss food. And money.
Tonight, Min-Ho and Hyung-dong prepare for another trip back home to deliver their earnings from begging on the streets. Like thousands of children before them, they wrap money into tight plastic packets which they will later swallow for their journey.
The boys know this return home will be the riskiest they have ever undertaken. For those who have already been in prison, like Min-Ho, capture a second time means they may never see freedom again.
MIN-HO: If you`re sent back again, you die.
REPORTER: What do you mean by that?
MIN-HO: If you`re released but escape to China again and get sent back, you have to die.
REPORTER: Do you get shot?
MIN-HO: No, they send you to big prisons.
REPORTER: Political prisons?
MIN-HO: Yes.
REPORTER: And you don`t come out alive?
MIN-HO: No, you don`t. You die in there.
REPORTER: Would you live in North Korea?
MIN-HO: I want to make money and live in North Korea.
REPORTER: What do you want to do?
MIN-HO: I want to be rich.
REPORTER: How will you get rich?
MIN-HO: By making a lot of money.
REPORTER: How will you do that there?
MIN-HO: You make money by going into business.
REPORTER: What kind of business?
MIN-HO: Anything that would give you a big profit. Like buying a bicycle and reselling it. I`d like to do something like that.
It`s been two years since Su-Hee and Han-jin came to China, leaving their four-year-old daughter back home. In their latest hide-out, there is at least some comfort. But they still live in fear of being caught. Since they first came to China, they`ve moved house six times to evade police raids. And repeated efforts to bring their daughter from North Korea to join them here in China have failed. Now, Su-Hee and Han-jin make a living weaving baskets for a local underground aid organisation.
REPORTER: Are you happy to be working?
SU-HEE: Yes. We must live and work diligently to show our appreciation.
The work is providing them with enough money to send care packages back to their little girl across the border.
REPORTER: You must miss your child a lot.
SU-HEE: Yes. When I miss her, I visit my friend who has a baby. She`s probably forgotten what we look like.
REPORTER: But you`re still her parents.
SU-HEE: She was very little when we left her. My parents are old - it`s hard for them to look after her. We`re making a living, so we could manage to feed her. Even if we have to eat less, we want to bring her here.
REPORTER: When will you try to bring her?
SU-HEE: This winter. We`ll have to find couriers again. We have to keep trying. We can`t give up in the middle. We must do everything we can. Then if we fail, we`ll know we did all we could.
REPORTER: I hear there`s a crackdown now. How are you dealing with it?
SU-HEE: When there`s a knock at the door, we don`t answer. As long as they don`t break the door down, we`re okay.
This is a rare glimpse at life on the other side. North Korean women washing seeds in the waters of the Tumen River. The River is all that separates North Korea from China. All who fled the famine have swum its perilous waters. But even those who make it face new dangers the moment they touch Chinese soil. All new refugees are prey to human traffickers, who wade on their shores to kidnap young women.
SUN JA: I was captured by them. After my capture, they sold me.
Sun Ja is one of countless women from North Korea who have been sold as sex slaves here. The Chinese man who bought her called her his wife.
SUN JA: He had two children. Because I was considered a new ‘bride’ they sent the children to his mother’s house, so we could be lfet alone in his house for the first night. I didn’t want to live with him. He was Chinese and we couldn’t understand each other. So I insisted the children be brought back. He didn’t want that but I kept insisting. So he went to his mother’s. that’s when I escaped. He locked me in when he left. When you’re desperate you’re not easily scared. I jumped from the roof but I wasn’t hurt. That’s how I escaped.
The Kims are travelling back from their country hide-out to reunite with their children. This is one of the few times they`ve ridden in a car, and the journey is making Young-Hee feel sick.
REPORTER: How does it feel being back here?
KIM KAN-SU: I`m just happy being able to see my children. We`re able to see them because we came back alive.
The trip brings them back into the city where they were captured and first held in prison, accused of selling their children.
KIM KAN-SU: We kept saying we knew nothing. That we lived in the mountains. We stuck to the story from start to finish. I only wrote a one-page statement. She wrote four pages.
KIM YOUNG-HEE: From women, they think they can get more information. From the first page to the last, I stuck to the same story. We didn`t sell the children, we gave them away because it was too difficult to survive.
The Kims` first stop in the city is at the shed that would be their new home. It`s been offered to them by an ethnic Korean family, a hide-out close to the orphanage where their children are now living.
REPORTER: How does it look?
KIM YOUNG-HEE: It`s okay. We`ll have to clean it out. As long as we`re safe, we`re happy.
KIM KAN-SU: We have to put in heating to make it livable. It`ll take at least three days for me to fix up.
But Kan-su and Young-Hee know that this can only be a temporary refuge - that sooner or later, police will come looking and they will have to move again.
KIM KAN-SU: If the police come, we`ll need a place to hide. We have to have a plan, a place to hide. We`ll clean this out. We`ll dig a hole to one side for one person to hide in. They`ll check everywhere, but maybe they won`t find the hole. We have to make it so they can`t see the person. It`s better that at least one of us survives, rather than both of us getting caught. It`s going to be hard work, but we have to survive.
Just a few kilometres away, the Kims` three children have been assembled at an aid worker`s house and they`re now waiting for their parents to arrive. The house is far enough from the orphanage to be considered safe for their mother and father to visit.
At last, the parents arrive. It`s nine months since they saw their children.
KIM YOUNG-HEE: Mum`s here. Why are you so quiet? Who put make-up on you? Who put make-up on your face?
At first, the children are shy. They seem almost unwilling to talk, and the parents wonder how much of them they remember.
KIM YOUNG-HEE: Do you want to stay with Mum? We thought we`d never see you again. We thought we wouldn`t see you. You can`t imagine what that was like. We escaped just because of you. Do you know?
With their future so uncertain and danger all around them, Kan-Su and Young-Hee know this may be their last time with their children.
KIM KAN-SU: I told myself I wouldn`t cry. I can`t help the tears. Don`t cry. I`ll stop crying too. I`ll stop crying.
The last time the family had the chance to lie together like this was in hiding, underground in the mountains. In those days, they caught their own food in the forest with home-made traps.
KIM KAN-SU: When the birds come to drink, they perch on the twig and when they fly away, their head gets caught.
REPORTER: Do you remember catching rabbits and birds? How did you catch them? Your dad?
KIM YOUNG-SHIN: Yes, Mum and Dad caught them.
REPORTER: And what did you do with them?
KIM YOUNG-SHIN: With them, we ate the meat, the rabbit meat.
REPORTER: Rabbit meat?
KIM YOUNG-SHIN: Yes, we had meat and fish, but we didn`t eat the bones.
The Kims can see that their children are better nourished than they`ve ever been, and even little Young-shin is learning to read and write.
With their children listening on, the Kims recount more of their time in jail and the punishments they received at the hands of North Korean guards.
KIM KAN-SU: They`d grab you by the hair and pull you. And if you made a noise, they`d kick you with their boots on.
This is the new reality for the children - brief, furtive encounters with their parents and ever disturbing tales of their suffering.
KIM KAN-SU: They make you sit like this. Your back and your buttocks have to be aligned. 45cm off the ground! It`s very painful. You`re dripping with sweat. Dripping sweat and tears.
MAN: Women too?
KIM KAN-SU: Yes, everyone.
KIM YOUNG-HEE: Yes, men and women were punished in the same way.
There are just a few hours left now before the Kims` children are returned to the orphanage.
KIM KAN-SU: I wish the children could stay with us. I wish they could stay with us, but that`s not possible.
REPORTER: that day will come eventually.
KIM KAN-SU: There will be a day when we can all live happily together. You study hard till we`re together, okay?
These are precious moments together for a family that may never know this intimacy, this tenderness, this peace again.
The time has come for Min-Ho and Hyung-dong to go back home. They`re travelling along the banks of the Tumen River, the border separating China from North Korea.
HYUNG-DONG: There, that`s where we cross. Where the water is calm.
MIN-HO: I hope we can cross. The water has risen even higher.
HYUNG-DONG: It`s alright, we can do it. We can cross anyway. The border guard - higher, higher, a bit more. Over there. That`s the border guard post. That`s the military.
Beyond this river is the old land - cruel, fragile, desperately poor. But it is still home, and home to these boys` families and friends.
REPORTER: Where`s that?
MIN-HO: Musan.
REPORTER: Can you see your house?
MIN-HO: Yes.
REPORTER: Where is it?
MIN-HO: Over there.
That they are now risking their lives to return is the embodiment of this long and complex struggle for survival and identity.
Min-Ho and Hyung-dong swallow the money they had wrapped in plastic - an important delivery for their starving families back home.
Change is in the wind in the Koreas - these boys both know that a reunited nation may some day relieve them all of their anguish and fear. But it`s not happened yet, and their crossing tonight must take place in darkness. Min-Ho and Hyung-dong will wait here, as they`ve waited before, for the moment to take their chances - to slip past the border guards, to leave the relative freedom they found illegally in China and be home once again.