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I was born in 1991, but the course of my life was determined in 1953, near the end of the Korean War. My grandfather, a South Korean soldier, was captured by North Korean forces. He endured imprisonment, beatings, and torture, and after his release, he was forced to labor in a coal mine.

Similarly, my mother was compelled to work in a coal mine, where she met and married a man whose family had also been sentenced to the same fate. As the child of two parents condemned to coal mining, my destiny was predetermined. After completing high school, I too was assigned by North Korean authorities to work in a coal mine.

Being a descendant of a South Korean POW, free will was impossible for me when I was growing up in North Korea.