LEE HYEON-SEO

Leaving North Korea is not like leaving any other country. It is more like leaving another universe.

My favourite place in South Korea is Jeju Island: it's a tropical paradise with sandy beaches, turquoise waters, and the magnificent Geomunoreum lava tube system of underground caves.

Freedom means everything to me. It is the most essential right that every person deserves. Most people take it for granted, but not North Koreans.

My favourite Korean food is delicious black five-layered pork belly, cooked over a charcoal grill. And Jeju chocolate, in citrus fruits and green tea flavour, which is famous throughout Korea.

My family lived under communism their entire lives. When they arrived in South Korea, they didn't even know how to use the bank system and ATM or the subway, nothing.

North Korean defectors who speak out against the regime always feel nervous. We never know what the North Korean government is planning. It's really difficult for us to show our faces and speak out, but we feel obligated to do something to inform people about the ongoing tragedy inside North Korea.

This is a divisive issue, but I really hope for unification. Even though we have been divided for a long time, we are all Koreans, so we should live together in a united Korea.

I am one of the lucky North Koreans who made it out of China. North Korean defectors in the country are terrified of trying to leave because they are often caught at the borders as they attempt to cross into Mongolia or Laos.

Staying in China provided me with the opportunity to adjust to life outside of North Korea and to gain a sense of perspective, most importantly, by learning that so much of what I had been taught about my country was a lie.

Here in South Korea, I'm continuing to learn English in order to boost my prospects. When North Korean defectors try to get a job to stabilize their lives, their lack of English is a handicap. It was the same story while I was living in China. It took an enormous amount of time and enthusiasm to learn Chinese.

I hate the Chinese government. If you do not want to embrace North Korean defectors in your country, I understand. But we have a country where we can seek asylum. So please, let us freely pass through. Why are you doing your best to try and catch defectors?

Breathing in South Korea, even though the life here is not easy, makes me so happy. I feel that sitting in a coffee shop, having a cup of tea, and looking out of the window at the blue sky - this is happiness. Truly happiness.

People who live in North Korea, they die for food, but living in the free world, the cat even eats expensive sushi.

We refugees, we become always a punchbag. A political punchbag between China and South Korea and North Korea.

When I was little, I thought my country was the best on the planet. And I grew up singing a song called 'Nothing To Envy.' And I was very proud. In school, we spent a lot of time studying the history of Kim Il-Sung, but we never learned much about the outside world, except that America, South Korea, Japan are the enemies.

It was really tiring always pretending to be someone else. Not my life, not my real name, nothing.

North Korea is not the dictator's country; it's 25 million citizens' country, and they are suffering under the dictator. North Koreans are really nice, kind, pure people. I hate the dictator and the regime, but I love my home country.

When I explain to people what was the situation in North Korea, they think, how can such a country exist? They know North Korea is bad in some vague way, not clearly. But when we explain it, they then wonder how can a whole country be modern-day slaves?

We considered the Dear Leader our god. That's huge. He's more than our parents. I thought all of the world respected Kim Il Sung. That's why we were bowing to their pictures.

In communism, we never had any freedom - of movement, of speech, of press. We didn't even make own decisions for our lives, our future. We were human robots.

History has proved that dictators can't last forever.

Family is the most important thing: you can't buy them with money.

Certainly in North Korea, man is always superior to woman. Even the government treats women horribly. What is the slogan? Woman is a flower.

My life is not only mine. I am telling the story of all North Korean people; it is my responsibility to tell it.

I lived near the border with China, and one night, I simply left home and walked across the iced-over river that separated the two countries. I was fortunate that my family had close relationships with some of the border guards, so I was able to cross without incident.