Rain lashed a flimsy wooden boat as it tossed through a churning sea, its engine straining against the swell. Under the cover of a stormy night three years ago, the vessel was fleeing North Korea.

三年前一个风雨交加的夜晚，一艘简陋的木船在汹涌的海浪中颠簸，雨水劈头盖脸地打来，发动机在涌浪中吃力轰鸣。借着夜色的掩护，这艘船正逃离朝鲜。

On board were nine people, including two small children and a woman who was six months pregnant. Only a couple of the passengers had seafaring experience. They eluded a patrol ship, speeding across the world’s most heavily guarded maritime border.

船上载着九个人，包括两个幼童和一名怀孕六个月的妇女。其中只有两三个人有航海经验。他们躲过了一艘巡逻船，加速穿越了世界上戒备最为森严的海上边界。

Soon after their boat lurched into South Korean waters, a high-speed warship of the South’s navy bore down on it, tearing the water in aggressive circles. Snipers on the vessel trained their laser sights on the chests of the three adult men on the wooden boat.

就在木船摇摇晃晃驶入韩国海域后不久，韩国海军的一艘高速战舰便迅速逼近，绕着木船划出咄咄逼人的圆弧。战舰上的狙击手将激光瞄准器锁定在木船上三名成年男子的胸口。

Through a loudspeaker, a voice boomed: “Are you lost? Engine trouble?”

扩音器中传来洪亮的声音：“你们是迷航了吗？还是发动机出故障了？”

The North Koreans shouted: “Please help. We are defecting.”

船上的朝鲜人大喊：“请帮帮我们。我们是来投奔韩国的。”

The red dots remained stubbornly fixed on their chests. The South Koreans were taking no chances: The three men were clad in North Korean military uniforms, camouflage for a high-stakes escape. Desperate, the men shouted into the boat’s cramped hold for the other passengers to emerge in order to prove that they were civilians. From below, the two children, a 5-year-old girl and 3-year-old boy, were hauled up first, both pale and wasted from seasickness. Only then did the red dots drop off.

然而，那几个红色激光点依然牢牢停留在他们胸前。韩国方面丝毫不敢掉以轻心，因为这三名男子都穿着朝鲜军装，那是他们为了这场生死逃亡而准备的伪装。情急之下，他们朝狭小的底舱里大喊，让其他人出来，以此证明他们都是平民。最先被拉上来的是两个孩子——一个五岁的女孩和一个三岁的男孩，两人因晕船而脸色苍白、有气无力的样子。直到这时，那几个红点才消失。

The North Koreans, led by Kim Il-hyeok and his younger brother, Yi-hyeok, were bound together by blood and marriage. The brothers, both in their 30s at the time, were accompanied by their mother and their families: Il-heyok’s partner, who was pregnant, and Yi-hyeok’s wife, their two children, his mother-in-law and brother-in-law.

这群朝鲜人由金日赫（音）和弟弟金李赫（音）率领，他们之间或者是血缘关系，或者是姻亲关系。当时兄弟俩都三十多岁，同行的还有他们的母亲以及各自的家人：金日赫怀有身孕的女友，金李赫的妻子、两个孩子、岳母和妻弟。

脱北者金日赫在首尔住处附近，摄于6月。他曾是韩流粉丝，在朝鲜时曾因“资本主义堕落行为”被捕。

The family, who defected in 2023, were among the few who managed to escape North Korea after its leader, Kim Jong-un, imposed a crushing lockdown during the coronavirus pandemic. They arrived in their adopted country with rare insights into a nation that had been choked off from the outside world. Some details of their escape have not been previously reported.

这一大家子于2023年脱北，是朝鲜领导人金正恩在新冠疫情期间实施严厉封锁后少数成功逃离朝鲜的人之一。他们来到新的家园，也带来了一个长期与外界隔绝国家的第一手见闻。他们出逃的部分细节此前从未公开报道过。

“That night,” said Yi-hyeok’s wife, Yu-mi, “we crossed from a sea of darkness to a sea of freedom.”

“那天晚上，”金李赫的妻子柳美（音）说，“我们从黑暗之海穿越到了自由之海。”

A Father’s Wish

父亲的心愿

Over several months of interviews in South Korea, Il-hyeok ​spoke with the same swagger that he had developed as a self-described “troublemaker” in North Korea. Yu-mi ​was reserved, pulling her legs tightly to her chest as she spoke. Her mother, who asked not to be named but agreed to be photographed, weighed every word, fearing how her comments might affect relatives left behind in the North. But they all spoke with conviction about why they had to leave North Korea. (The rest of the extended family declined to be interviewed.)

在韩国接受持续数月的采访期间，金日赫说话时仍带着那股他自认在朝鲜就是个“刺头”时练就的那股桀骜劲。柳美则显得拘谨，说话时总是双腿紧紧蜷在胸前。她的母亲同意接受采访和拍照，但要求不透露姓名，她每说一句话都十分谨慎，担心自己的言论会影响仍留在朝鲜的亲人。然而，他们都以坚定的语气讲述着自己为何不得不离开朝鲜。（其余的家族成员则拒绝接受采访。）

The brothers came from Pyoksong, a county in North Korea’s southwest.

兄弟俩来自朝鲜西南部的碧城郡。

During the famine of the late 1990s, their father, a railway security official, returned with grim accounts from the hardest-hit provinces: The emaciated bodies of children found outside train stations were frozen solid, thumping like frozen fish when they were tossed onto trucks headed to burial grounds. He was the first in the family to lose faith in a ruling class that was unable to feed its people.

20世纪90年代末大饥荒期间，他们的父亲是铁路系统的安全员。他从饥荒最严重的省份回来时，讲述了令人毛骨悚然的见闻：火车站外面那些饿死的儿童瘦骨嶙峋，早已冻得僵硬，被扔上运往墓地的卡车时，像冻鱼一样发出闷响。父亲是家中第一个对这个连温饱都无法保障的统治阶级失去信心的人。

One night after his sons reached adulthood, he took them to a hill and pointed toward a cluster of lights across the South Korean border.

在两个儿子成年后的某个夜晚，他带着他们来到一座山坡上，指着韩国那侧密集的灯火。

“That’s where we should go,” he said. “To live and stand tall.”

“我们应该去那里，”他说，“去活出个人样。”

Yu-mi lived in the ​nearby coastal town of Kangryong. From there, she could see planes glinting in the sun as they rose from Incheon International Airport, just across the water — a shimmering vision of possibility, yet unreachable for North Koreans barred from travel and cut off from the internet.

柳美住在附近的沿海小镇康翎。在那里，她能看到对岸仁川国际机场起飞的飞机在阳光下闪闪发光——那是一幅闪耀着无限可能的景象，却是被禁止出国、与互联网隔绝的朝鲜人永远无法触及的世界。

“Our country felt like a prison without bars,” she said.

“我们的国家就像一座没有围墙的监狱，”她说。

柳美与母亲，摄于6月。柳美形容，脱北是“从黑暗之海穿越到了自由之海”。

Beginning in kindergarten, children sang the anthem “We Have Nothing to Envy,” even as they were mobilized to haul river water or scour hills for herbs and pine nuts.​ After long workdays, adults attended compulsory “life review sessions,” writing self-criticism and pledges of loyalty. When Kim Jong-un visited ​an island near Yu-mi’s town in 2013, soldiers and villagers swarmed into the sea in jubilation. She knew the scene was staged; ordinary residents, she said, had been banned from leaving home.

从幼儿园开始，孩子们便要唱《世上没啥可羡慕》这首歌曲，同时还要组织去河边挑水，或到山上采草药、捡松子。成年人结束一天的劳动后，还必须参加“生活检讨会”，写自我批评和效忠保证书。2013年金正恩视察柳美老家附近的一座岛屿时，士兵和村民们纷纷涌入海中欢呼。她清楚这不过是在作秀——据她说，普通民众那天根本不许离开家门。

In the face of the propaganda, a contraband culture spread. South Korean films and dramas circulated on USB drives smuggled from China. In Kangryong, the devices also arrived inside plastic bottles released by South Korean activists across the water, along with rice and mini-Bibles. Officials warned the bottles contained poison, but South Korean entertainment was winning.

面对官方宣传，走私文化悄然蔓延。韩国电影和电视剧通过从中国走私进来的U盘在民间流传。在康翎，这些U盘也会随着韩国的活动人士从对岸投放的塑料瓶一起漂过来，瓶中还有大米和袖珍版《圣经》。官方警告大家瓶子里有毒，但韩国的娱乐节目依然深受欢迎。

Il-hyeok idolized K-pop groups like Girls’ Generation and styled his hair in a mohawk like BigBang’s Taeyang. He was arrested for “capitalist delinquency” and released only after paying a bribe, his hair razored. He and his friends once secretly watched “Valkyrie,” the Tom Cruise film about the plot to kill Hitler. When the conspirators failed and were executed, his friends wept.

大哥日赫崇拜“少女时代”等韩流组合，还把头发剃成了BigBang乐队成员太阳的同款莫西干造型。他因“资本主义堕落行为”被捕，行贿后才获释，头发被剃光。他和朋友曾偷偷观看汤姆·克鲁斯主演的电影《行动目标希特勒》。当刺杀计划失败、参与者被处决时，他的朋友们都哭了。

The brothers’ notion of deserting North Korea felt just as perilous. Their father forbade them from marrying, reasoning that the larger the family, the greater the risk of being caught while defecting. He then used connections to transfer Yi-hyeok, his youngest, to Kangryong, where he learned navigation, mapped guard posts, and cultivated ties with officials. Yi-hyeok became a helmet diver, who harvests seafood from the ocean floor, breathing fresh air piped through a surface hose. He eventually met Yu-mi.

兄弟俩逃离朝鲜的念头听起来同样凶险万分。父亲不许他们结婚，认为家庭成员越多，逃跑时暴露的风险就越大。随后他利用关系将小儿子调往康翎，在那里他学习了航海技术，绘制了岗哨分布图，并结交官员。金李赫成为了一名潜水员，在海底捕捞海产，靠连接水面的输气管呼吸。后来，他遇到了柳美。

Il-hyeok worked in North Korea’s shadow economy, bribing his way into opportunity and out of trouble. He butchered animals for restaurants, ran a small gold mine and bought rice stolen from state granaries, reselling it at a profit. He also grew disillusioned with the system he was gaming.

大哥日赫一直在朝鲜的地下经济中谋生，靠行贿获得机会，也靠行贿摆脱麻烦。他曾为餐馆屠宰牲畜，经营一个小金矿，还收购从国家粮库偷出来的大米，再转手获利。他也越来越厌倦这个自己一直在设法钻空子的制度。

Then, in 2014, their father died unexpectedly. The South Korean dream seemed to die with him.

然而，到了2014年，他们的父亲突然去世。去往韩国的梦想似乎也随之消散。

Where Il-hyeok, the older brother, was restless, Yi-hyeok was steady. He married Yu-mi in 2017, and the couple soon had their two children. He joined a military-run fisheries company, operating three vessels. Despite a United Nations ban, Chinese buyers worked openly in Kangryong, and on a good day Yi-hyeok could earn more than a typical worker​’s annual salary.

大哥日赫性格不安分，小弟李赫则沉稳踏实。2017年，李赫与柳美成婚，很快就有了两个孩子。他加入了一家军队经营的渔业公司，负责三艘渔船。尽管联合国明令禁止，中国买家仍公开活跃在康翎，运气好的日子，他一天的收入就能超过普通工人一年的薪水。

Il-hyeok began dating a kindergarten teacher. Defection was no longer a priority.

金日赫开始与一名幼儿园教师谈恋爱。逃离朝鲜不再是当务之急。

“When I mentioned it, my brother told me to watch my mouth,” Il-hyeok recalled.

“每当我提起这件事，弟弟都会让我闭嘴，”日赫回忆道。

The pandemic overturned everything.

然而，疫情改变了一切。

Lockdown

封锁

North Korea imposed one of the world’s harshest lockdowns. In Kangryong, access to the sea was closed off with barbed wire and armed guards. Yi-hyeok’s boats rusted and his debts mounted. Officials claimed that South Korea was dumping infected bodies and waste into border waters. Yet boats supplying seafood to the top tiers of society continued to fish.

朝鲜实施了全球最严厉的疫情封锁措施之一。在康翎，通往海边的道路被铁丝网和武装警卫封锁。金李赫的渔船日渐锈蚀，债务越积越多。官方宣称，韩国向边境海域倾倒带有病毒的尸体和垃圾。但与此同时，专门供应高层海鲜的渔船却照常出海。

“The elites still ate whatever they wanted,” Yu-mi said.

“那些有权有势的照样想吃什么就吃什么，”柳美说。

Public executions grew more frequent, targeting those accused of committing violent crimes like murder, which surged during the lockdown, or of distributing “nonsocialist” content such as South Korean dramas. Thousands, including the brothers, were forced to watch as rifle fire cracked across the execution grounds. The crowds dispersed in silence.

公开处决越来越频繁，处决对象包括那些被控犯有谋杀等暴力犯罪的人（这类案件在封锁期间激增），以及传播韩剧等“非社会主义内容”的人。包括兄弟俩在内，数千人被强迫观看处决，枪声在刑场不断响起。人群散去时，一片寂静。

“The goal was to instill fear,” Il-hyeok said. “To erase any fantasy about the outside world.”

“目的就是制造恐惧，”大哥日赫说，“抹去人们对外部世界的一切幻想。”

The Escape

逃离

The brothers no longer argued about whether to leave — only how.

两兄弟不再争论要不要走，只商量怎么走。

By early 2023, North Korea had begun easing its pandemic restrictions. Yi-hyeok’s boats were among the first permitted back to sea. But the window to escape was already closing. The authorities were preparing to install surveillance cameras along the coast to deter defections.

2023年初，朝鲜开始放宽疫情管控。金日赫的船是最早获准重返大海的渔船之一。但出逃的窗口也在迅速关闭——当局准备在沿海岸线安装监控摄像头，以遏制脱北行为。

The brothers spoke in code over the phone. “Good weather” meant a storm was coming, forcing patrol boats back to port. “We’ve got a good catch — come down here” meant Il-hyeok should bring their mother and his girlfriend to Kangryong.

兄弟俩在电话里用暗语交流。“天气好”意思是暴风雨要来了，巡逻船不得不回港。“今天收获不错，下来吧”意思是让大哥带着母亲和女友来康翎。

The weather and the catch were ideal the night of May 6, 2023.

2023年5月6日晚，天气和渔获都很理想。

Yu-mi’s mot​her, a 52-year-old widow, signed up last, just five hours before departure.

柳美52岁的寡母直到出发前五个小时才决定同行。

“I could die trying to escape,” she said. “But if my family reached the South and I stayed behind, I’d be as good as dead anyway — the relative of traitors.”

“我可能会死在逃跑的路上，”她说，“但如果家人都到了韩国，只剩我留在朝鲜，那我也跟死了没什么区别——我会成为叛徒的家属。”

Yi-hyeok’s brother-in-law, his fishing partner, slipped away by boat and waited offshore. The rest of the family crossed a coastal hill strewn with land mines to reach a secluded beach. To carry Yi-hyeok’s two young children more easily, the brothers sealed them inside burlap sacks and hoisted them onto their shoulders. Before they closed the sacks, Yu-mi caught her children looking up at her.

金李赫的妻弟——他的捕鱼搭档——先悄然驾船出海，在近海等候。其余家人翻越一座布满地雷的海岸山丘，来到一处僻静的海滩。为了方便，兄弟俩将弟弟李赫的两个年幼的孩子装进麻袋，扛在肩上。在麻袋合上之前，柳美看到孩子们抬头看着她。

“I thought it might be the last time I’d ever see them,” she said. “I cried, and my husband teared up, too.”

“我当时想，这也许是我最后一次看见他们，”她说，“我哭了，丈夫也流下了眼泪。”

Yi-hyeok’s brother-in-law spotted the prearranged signal — a flashlight blinking three times from the beach — and steered the boat in to pick up the rest of the extended family. Around 10 p.m., the 30-foot-long vessel pulled away, its engine throttled down to little more than a brisk walking pace as it tried to slip quietly toward Yeonpyeong Island in South Korea, just nine miles away.

金李赫的妻弟看到了预先约定的信号——海滩上有手电筒闪三下——便驾船靠近接上大家。晚上10点左右，这艘约九米长的船驶离岸边，引擎收小了油门，速度慢得几乎跟人快步走差不多，他们希望船能悄无声息地驶向仅14.5公里外的韩国延坪岛。

柳美展示部分逃亡路线。在她的家乡，可以看到从韩国仁川国际机场起飞的飞机在阳光下闪闪发光。

Below deck, Yu-mi suddenly felt ​the engine roar to full throttle, filling the hold with black exhaust and leaving the women and children seasick. Her youngest child’s eyes rolled back. She carried him up for fresh air — and found the men on deck in a panic.

在舱底，柳美突然感到引擎全速轰鸣起来，黑色的废气涌入船舱，女人和孩子们相继出现了晕船。最小的孩子翻起了白眼。她抱着孩子上来透气，却发现甲板上的男人们一片慌乱。

“That’s when I saw a searchlight from a North Korean patrol boat sweeping across the waves behind us,” she said. “My heart dropped.”

“就在那时，我看到一艘朝鲜巡逻船的探照灯，正扫过我们身后的海面，”她说，“我的心沉了下去。”

The brothers had already agreed on what to do if they couldn’t outrun a security vessel: strap life jackets and flashlights onto the women and children and send them into the sea, trusting the current to carry them south. The men would steer the boat away as a decoy, making a last stand with 20-inch knives and homemade red-pepper bombs. To lighten the boat, Il-hyeok threw anything heavy overboard — axes, wrenches, fishing net, his brother’s air compressor for helmet diving.

两兄弟早已商量好，万一甩不掉安全船该怎么办：给妇女和孩子套上救生衣，绑上手电筒，推进大海，依靠水流将他们带向南方。男人们则把船朝另一个方向开，吸引追兵，用半米长的刀和自制的辣椒炸弹做最后的抵抗。为了减轻载重，大哥日赫将所有重物扔进了大海——斧头、扳手、渔网，还有弟弟的潜水用空气压缩机。

Gradually, the searchlight behind them faded. The brothers later speculated that the fishing net they had thrown overboard had tangled in the pursuing boat’s propeller.

渐渐地，身后的探照灯消失了。兄弟俩后来推测，可能是他们丢下的渔网缠住了追船的螺旋桨。

Their two-hour gamble ended shortly after midnight, after the South Korean vessel stopped them and all nine family members were brought aboard.

这场历时两个小时的生死赌注在午夜过后不久画上了句点——韩国舰艇拦下了他们，九名家庭成员全部被带上了船。

An officer greeted them: “Welcome to paradise.”

一名军官迎上前来：“欢迎来到天堂。”

New Beginning

新的开始

​In the South, Yu-mi studied to gain an accounting clerk certificate and found work at a school. Her brother enrolled in college, while Yi-hyeok returned to helmet-diving for seafood.

在韩国，柳美通过努力学习拿到了会计助理证书，在一所学校找到了工作。她的弟弟上了大学，金李赫则重操旧业，从事海鲜的潜水采捞工作。

“My brother joked the diving gear here was so advanced he could fall asleep underwater if he wanted to,” Il-hyeok recalled.

“我弟弟开玩笑说，这里的潜水设备太先进了，他要是愿意，甚至可以在海底睡觉。”大哥日赫回忆道。

Il-hyeok’s girlfriend gave birth to their first child in the South. The couple married in 2024 and soon welcomed another daughter. Il-hyeok is finding his footing in the South’s capitalist economy, trying part-time jobs at restaurants and operating forklifts and excavators.

金日赫的女友在韩国生下了他们的第一个孩子。2024年，两人成婚，不久又迎来了一个女儿。他正在努力适应韩国的资本主义经济，一边在餐厅打零工，一边开叉车和挖掘机。

The plunge into the South’s noisy democracy was overwhelming. Televisions offered endless channels — so different from the North, where only government broadcasts existed. Back home, Il-hyeok’s ​used motorbike was a prized status symbol​; now he found himself on highways crowded with modern cars. City squares rang with protests.

一开始，韩国喧闹的民主社会令他们无所适从。电视有数不清的频道，与朝鲜只有官方电视台形成鲜明对比。在朝鲜，金日赫那辆二手摩托车曾是令人艳羡的身份象征，如今他却置身于车水马龙的高速路上。城市广场上不断举行各种抗议活动。

Yu-mi’s mother marveled at faucets that produced both hot and cold water. On her first day working at a nursing home, ​she faltered when colleagues asked for “napkins” — another English word she had never heard. The brothers’ mother was scandalized by a TV drama in which a wife slapped her husband. And when Il-hyeok first ventured beyond Seoul, the South’s capital, he dutifully called a police detective to ask for permission. The detective only laughed.

柳美的母亲惊讶地发现，水龙头竟然既能放热水，也能放冷水。她第一天去养老院上班时，同事让她拿“napkins（餐巾纸）”，这个英语词她从来没听过，一时不知所措。兄弟俩的母亲则被一部电视剧里妻子扇丈夫耳光的情节震惊了。金日赫第一次去首尔以外的地方时，还规规矩矩地给警察打电话，请求批准，结果对方大笑起来。

And then there were elections.

还有选举。

In the North, ​people lined up in formal dress to receive a ballot with only one name. ​They placed ​their vote in the “yes” box with both hands and bowed deeply to portraits of Kim Jong-un’s father and grandfather, who ruled before him. No one dared approach the “no” box.​ When Il-hyeok and his wife voted in June as South Korean citizens, they found voters arriving in shorts and slippers, earphones in place. The ballot was a bewildering list of names.

在朝鲜，人们穿着正式服装排队领取选票，而选票上只有一个名字。他们必须双手把选票投入“赞成”箱，并向朝鲜曾经的统治者——金正恩的父亲和祖父的画像深深鞠躬。没有人敢靠近“反对”箱。而当金日赫和妻子今年6月作为韩国公民参加投票时，他们看到选民穿着短裤、拖鞋，戴着耳机就来投票，选票上密密麻麻印满了候选人姓名，令他们眼花缭乱。

Yet, South Korea was no paradise.

然而，韩国并非天堂。

After 19 months in the South, Yi-hyeok died in a diving accident in late 2024.​ The brothers’ mother and Il-hyeok’s wife were diagnosed with cancer.

来到韩国19个月后，弟弟李赫于2024年底在一次潜水事故中身亡。兄弟俩的母亲和日赫的妻子也相继被诊断出癌症。

Il-hyeok vented frustration at Seoul’s soaring housing prices. He is saving every penny to move his family out of their cramped, government-subsidized rental apartment. Still, he insisted the defection was “100 percent” the right choice.​ Before his death, Yi-hyeok appeared on television, explaining that he fled to spare his children the indoctrination of North Korean schools. His daughter is now a second grader at a South Korean school, and his son is in kindergarten. The children adapted fastest to their new lives, quickly embracing South Korean staples like fried chicken and pizza.

金日赫对首尔飞涨的房价满腹牢骚。他正拼命攒钱，希望带家人搬离现在这套狭小的政府廉租房。但他仍坚持认为，这次逃离“百分之百”是正确的选择。金李赫生前曾在电视节目中表示，他离开朝鲜是为了让孩子免受学校的洗脑教育。如今，他的女儿在韩国读小学二年级，儿子则在上幼儿园。两个孩子适应新生活的速度最快，很快就爱上了炸鸡和披萨等韩国日常美食。

“My husband gave me and our children the freedom he promised before he died,” Yu-mi said.

“我丈夫兑现了他生前的承诺，把自由留给了我和孩子们，”柳美说。

The brothers also honored their father’s final wish: When their boat fled North Korea, they carried his ashes with them.

兄弟俩也兑现了父亲的遗愿：他们的船逃离朝鲜时，带上了父亲的骨灰。

金日赫展示他在首尔举行的婚礼的照片。他们脱北时，他现在的妻子已怀有六个月身孕。