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Kumhee runs a Sunshine Coast restaurant. Few people know she escaped North Korea
One of Australia’s smallest migrant communities will celebrate Lunar New Year on 1 February. For North Korean defector Kumhee, the date is an emotional one.
Published 31 January 2022 7:18am
Updated 6 June 2024 3:38pm
By Leah Hyein Na
Source: SBS News
Image: Kumhee Choi. (Dijana Damjanovic/SBS News)
For Kumhee Choi, Lunar New Year is always remembered as a day when she would eat delicious food until she was stuffed. But the rest of her childhood was bleak.
The 38-year-old was born in Aoji, a notorious village in North Korea near the Chinese border, known for being a place of exile.
Kumhee remembers being forced to watch a public execution after being taken there by her school as an 11-year-old, which left her having nightmares.
“I saw some kinds of brain coming out of dead bodies after they were being shot,” she says. “People pushed me to the front row and unfortunately, I saw everything.”
Kumhee (bottom left) in North Korea with her family. Source: Supplied/Kumhee Choi
Like many around them, Kumhee’s family were poor and facing starvation.
“So many people starved to death,” she says.
So many people starved to death. - Kumhee Choi
Kumhee remembers one occasion when her mother even sold her own blood because she and her siblings hadn’t eaten for three days.
“My mother did not come home until night … she came back with a bag of cornflour. Later I found out that she went from hospital to hospital to sell her blood … [so] she was able to buy some food for us. It broke my heart.”
But at Lunar New Year, despite their family’s hardships, Kumhee remembers always being able to eat a bowl of white rice, traditional Korean rice cakes called Songpyeon(송편) and dumplings called Mandu (만두).
“My parents always made sure that we had some foods on the Lunar New Year days,” she says.
That was until the “Arduous March” started.
Kumhee's parents. Source: Supplied/Kumhee Choi
“We didn’t have anything to eat that time, even on the Lunar New Year day. I remembered that I only had a little rice porridge shared with my siblings - even on my birthday,” Kumhee says.
“I saw people next door starved to death and people in front of our house also starved to death.”
“It was the middle of the first Arduous March. We heard the second was about to start.”
Escaping North Korea
Eventually, in the winter of early 1997, 14-year-old Kumhee and her family crossed the frozen Tumen River and fled North Korea into China, where they would live for four years.
Kumhee says she will never forget her first experiences of life outside of North Korea.
“I thought it was a dream. The TV was in colour. People were flying in the box [TV] and animals … I had never seen anything like that before.”
“The taxi was also interesting. It took a while for me to understand the concept of the taxi because I did not know why you had to pay money to a driver.”
Kumhee wearing a Chosŏn-ot, traditional North Korean clothing worn for formal occasions. Source: Dijana Damjanovic/SBS News
But although they had desperately hoped to be in South Korea, Kumhee didn't feel welcomed.
“It was not welcoming … The view towards North Korean defectors was very bad. That was a bit difficult for me at first,” she says.
“I became ... a stranger in the South.”
I became a stranger in the South. - Kumhee Choi
Kumhee says the negative perceptions come from decades of hostile relations between the north and south and continue today.
“It is still in a situation. A war can break out anytime, and in fact, people are only aware of negative aspects of North Korea such as its poverty.”
“Coming from North Korea is not a bad thing, but some people think it is bad, and some people think that it had to be hidden.”
Kumhee and her husband Simon Seo at their Japanese restaurant. Source: Dijana Damjanovic/SBS News
Kumhee decided she wanted a different life for her daughter, and two months after Jiwon was born she came to Australia on a student visa, landing on the Sunshine Coast.
One of Australia’s smallest migrant communities
More than 120,000 Australian residents identified as being of Korean ancestry in the 2016 Census, but it is understood only a handful of them are North Korean defectors.
Kumhee's brother, Keumchun, was told their family was the first North Korean settlers in Australia when he got his permanent residency in 2018 by staff at the Korean consulate general in Melbourne.
“I felt like that I was the chosen one,” he says.
The consulate general and the Korean embassy in Australia couldn't officially confirm that.
Kumhee with her daughter Jiwon. Source: Dijana Damjanovic/SBS News
“I had a hard time in the beginning because I tried hard to be part of the Korean migrant community.”
“But, later, I changed. I told myself that I did not have to be in the community, and focusing on my family was more important. After that, I had no problems.”
Kumhee studied commercial cookery at TAFE on the Sunshine Coast and opened a Japanese restaurant, Sushi Ari, in the suburb of Sippy Downs three years ago with her sister, Kumyoung Choi, who .
“I could not imagine working in a restaurant when I was in South Korea. It is very hard work with low wages … But in Australia, the reward was amazingly great,” Kumhee says.
Kumhee working in her Japanese restaurant. Source: Dijana Damjanovic/SBS News
“When I [am] asked, ‘where are you from?’, I answered, ‘Korea’. Then most of the people said, ‘of course, South,’” she says.
“When I say, ‘No, North’, then, they normally said, ‘you are joking!’ I think these days people instantly think Korea is South Korea.”
One of Kumhee's customers says her story is remarkable:
“It makes me feel very grateful that they have another chance.”
“That they are able to escape from such horrors over in North Korea and were able to start up new journey over here.”
One of Kumhee’s neighbours said she formed a friendship with Kumhee in recent years.
“I was honestly surprised … when she told me her story of how she ended up coming to Australia, I was amazed,” she says.
“She is just such a resilient person and I just think it is so wonderful she could come here and bring her story and her culture here.”
When [Kumhee] told me her story of how she ended up coming to Australia, I was amazed. – Kumhee’s neighbour
Twenty-five years since she left North Korea, starving, Kumhee will celebrate Lunar New Year on the Sunshine Coast with an improved version of the dumplings she used to enjoy.
“There were no meats in North Korea that time. We only used vegetables and tofu,” she says.
Dr Leonid Petrov, a leading expert on North Korea from the International College of Management, Sydney, says North Koreans are relative newcomers to celebrating Lunar New Year and did not officially celebrate it until the late 1980s.
“It was taboo in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea to celebrate this tradition - partly because it was associated with old feudal tradition, which the revolutionary North Korean society would outwardly deny.”
“And, later on, when it was necessary to consolidate the society, particularly after the Arduous March … the late leader Kim Jong-il permitted to celebrate the Lunar New Year in 2003.”
Kumhee and Jiwon on the Sunshine Coast. Source: Dijana Damjanovic/SBS News
“When I came to Australia, all I wanted was one thing; I wanted to live a stress-free life with nature … a comfortable life with my child, and I still do.”
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