Pak Kim Li is 36, married, and father of a 5-year-old son. He also fathered a daughter, who would be 12 years old today, had she not died of a nutrition-related infection at age 3 -- for lack of appropriate antibiotics during the “arduous march” of 1997, the low point in what the outside world refers to as “The Great North Korean Famine”.
Pak’s father is a retired university professor, formerly head of the music department at Kim Il Sung University. Pak himself did not exhibit much musical talent, so his parents arranged for him to be married to one of his father’s star students. She teaches piano at the Children’s Palace in Pyongyang.
Pak’s uncle was a diplomat, which afforded the young nephew an exceptional opportunity to spend a year in Indonesia when he was ten years old. Attending a private school for the Indonesian elite, he learned some of the official Bahasa, but preferred to speak Javanese with his school friends. He also took an introductory English course and generally discovered a love and aptitude for languages. With his uncle working in the commercial section of the embassy, he decided at an early age that he wanted to become an international businessman.
Back in Pyongyang, he was persuaded to pursue a study of languages. When he graduated from high school, he volunteered for military service like all his classmates, but did not receive a notice of conscription. Instead, he was told that he had been chosen to pursue accelerated language studies. He found this exceedingly embarrassing, especially in his relationship with girls, who admired the young recruits, but considered him a coward.
As the son of a prominent member of the Korean Worker’s Party, Pak was an obedient Young Pioneer and an enthusiastic member of the League of Socialist Working Youth, eventually himself gaining Party membership. He attended self-criticism sessions and political education classes religiously.
His academic achievements led to an Asian languages professorship at Pyongyang University of Foreign Studies, but he continued to study English privately. Following the death of Kim Il Sung, rumors began to circulate that the 1994 Framework Agreement concluded with the USA might lead to increased international trade. On the advice of his uncle, he started taking evening courses in economics, hoping this would prepare him for the opportunities ahead.
Having experienced the outside world, however, he soon concluded that the economics courses he was taking were of no practical value, imparting only dogmatic socialist theory, hopelessly inadequate for the openings he was preparing for in the real world. He quit and studied more English.
1997 was a devastating low point in his life. When he found himself unable to obtain antibiotics to save his daughter’s life, even in the exclusive shops frequented by the Pyongyang elite, he realized that his country was in deep trouble. With his wife increasingly absent from work due to illnesses that he suspected were the consequence of depression, he started to look around for other opportunities. Although he was a competent teacher, he was convinced that he had more to offer in service of his country.
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