In a country that calls itself the "greatest nation on Earth" ruled by then "benevolent god-leader" Kim Il-sung and now his son Kim Jong-il, "kindness towards strangers is rare," said a North Korean defector and now-human rights advocate.
Hyeonseo Lee, who grew up in North Korea and left the secretive state at the age of 17, said she was forced to watch executions and denounce her friends for made-up offenses, wrote Reuters.
Despite these, she and her schoolmates lived in what they believed then was the "greatest nation on Earth" and venerated "Respected Father Leader Kim Il-sung" and his son, whose portraits had to be hung in every house to be cleaned after and prayed to for gratitude before eating.
Those who show the faintest sign of political disloyalty disappear along with their whole family, she said.
"Their house would be roped off; they'd be taken away in a truck at night, and not seen again," said Lee, who wrote about her experiences in the book "The Girl With Seven Names."
Life turned around when her father, who was part of the military, was arrested by the secret police for unknown circumstances and released into a hospital as he was severely beaten. He died soon afterwards.
Lee said one of North Korea's tragedies is that the state made everyone turn against one another.
"Kindness towards strangers is rare in North Korea. There is a risk to helping others," she wrote. "The state made accusers and informers of us all."
To keep everyone in line, executions are made publicly. There were some who were executed when they were accused of not mourning enough after Kim Il-sung's death in 1994. She saw her first execution at the time.
Lee crossed the narrow stretch of frozen river by her home to China through the aid of a friendly guard, mainly as a prank. She only wanted to see China, but when her mother tracked her down to a distant relative's home in China, her first words on the phone were: "Don't come back."
But she was not safe in China either, as she was in constant danger of being deported back to North Korea, where she would have been jailed or killed. She was a survivor who changed her names many times. She nearly got hooked to a fixed marriage, almost became a slave in a brothel, was abducted by criminals, and caught and questioned by police. Thanks to her wits and mastery of the language, she convinced authorities that she was Chinese.
After many years on the run, she was given asylum in South Korea. But she missed her family, so she came back to the North Korean border to save her mother and brother and led then through China into Laos and from there to South Korea.
Outside the state controlled by the "Respected Father Leader," she found kindness in a stranger—an Australian backpacker named Dick Stolp. He withdrew £645 to bribe authorities and help Lee's mother and brother escape prison in Laos for illegal border crossing.
Asked why he helped her, he told Lee, "I'm not helping you. I'm helping the North Korean people."
"The kind stranger symbolised new hope for me and the North Korean people when we needed it most," Lee said during her TED2013 Talk.
Today, Lee has settled in South Korea and became an advocate for North Korean human rights and refugee issues, addressing the United Nations and the US Committee on Human Rights.
The name she uses now is one she has chosen for herself.
"It is the one I gave myself, once I'd reached freedom," she wrote. "Hyeon means sunshine. Seo means good fortune. I chose it so that I would live my life in light and warmth, and not return to the shadow."
