About a year after her well-publicized North Korean capture, imprisonment and release, Current TV journalist Euna Lee comes out of the shadows to tell her story in a new book, several chapters of which are dedicated to the North Korean refugees she was trying to chronicle.
By Stephan Lee
It’s telling that since arriving in the United States from South Korea in 1996, Euna Lee has pursued film editing—a career defined by dawn-to-dusk hours spent mostly in isolation—with single-minded dedication. Mild-mannered and sotto-voiced, Lee is comfortable burying herself in behind-the-scenes work while the more assertive personalities in front of the camera reap the glory and recognition. So when her five-month detainment in North Korea last year attracted round-the-clock media attention, Lee was out of her element, to say the least.
But now Lee is intentionally throwing herself back into the spotlight with a book about her ordeal, The World Is Bigger Now: An American Journalist’s Release from Captivity in North Korea … A Remarkable Story of Faith, Family, and Forgiveness (Broadway Books).
“This book is my way of finishing the documentary we never got to show,” said Lee during a phone interview last month.
As we learn in the book, Lee’s steely determination to convey the plight of North Korean refugees to viewers back in America may have contributed to her and fellow Current TV journalist Laura Ling’s capture in March 2009. “When you’re out there filming a story you’re so passionate about, what you see in your viewfinder becomes your world,” Lee, who is back working for Current TV, told KoreAm. “Everything else disappears.”
Even as she was running from the North Korean guards across an icy river, the refugees’ stories were at the forefront of her mind. “I actually pushed the record button and continued to run with the camera pointed back under my arm,” she writes in her book.
Such admissions seem to confirm accusations that Lee and Ling’s reckless pursuit of a scoop needlessly endangered the very people they set out to help, but The World Is Bigger Now seems to be Lee’s earnest attempt to atone for the journalists’ catastrophic failings.
The early chapters of the book focus on the subjects of the lost film: a young woman who nearly died escaping North Korea only to be trapped working as an internet sex slave in China; a man called “Mr. Lee” who dedicates his life to harboring defectors’ abandoned children in safe homes; and an escaped North Korean soldier whose reticence speaks volumes of unspeakable loss and tragedy.
Lee’s sensitive and detailed re-telling of these stories fills a void left by the Ling sisters’ joint memoir, released in July, which breezes past the defectors’ tragic stories and instead gives weight to the sisters’ own biographies. Lee’s account manages to avoid sounding like a PR ploy to get back in the public’s good graces, precisely because Lee couldn’t be less interested in becoming a public figure.
In addition to telling the defectors’ stories, Lee also wants to change the way the rest of the world deals with North Korea. The chapters chronicling her imprisonment speak of Lee’s bond with her captors—nothing resembling Stockholm syndrome, but rather a recognition of shared Korean-ness. She sees her young female guards as ordinary young girls who enjoy Celine Dion and Korean popcorn (bbeong twigi) fresh from street vendors, just as Lee herself had growing up. She repeatedly describes her principal interrogator, Officer Lee, as “having kindness in his eyes,” but his behavior alternates between sensitivity and intimidation.
“Officer Lee put me through psychological battle for hours every day,” Euna says. “My underarms were soaking after our interrogations.” In a calmer moment, Officer Lee expresses approval upon hearing that Euna teaches Korean to Hana, her American-born daughter.
Lee also identifies a central characteristic South and North Koreans share: the desire to save face. Every North Korean official who dealt with the captivity and release of Lee and Ling seemed concerned that the rest of the world acknowledge that they were treated humanely. “North Korea needs more warm attention from the rest of the world,” Lee says. “If we make an effort to understand their culture, it will be easier to have fruitful conversations with them.”
If this sentiment sounds naïve, it probably is. Lee’s perspective seems informed by her firm Christianity, which is a constant theme throughout the book. However, none of Lee’s pronouncements or conclusions come across as ham-fisted because, more than anything else, her book is a deft work of literature. English is Lee’s second language, and thus, individually, her sentences are nothing to behold. But her palpable desire to reunite with her husband and daughter, the urgency she feels to help Koreans on either side of the DMZ, and her will to survive fuel the tension throughout the book.
Even though we’re fully aware of how the story ends—President Clinton visits North Korea to bring Lee and Ling back to the United States on a private jet—you can’t help but hold your breath through the more harrowing parts of her story.
With The World Is Bigger Now, Lee proves that sometimes the people with the softest voices have the most to say.
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sounds like it’ll be an interesting read. Thanks Koream for the article.
Great article and accurate evaluation of the book. I enjoyed both!
This sounds really interesting … I wasn’t really interested in what she had to say, but it sounds like she did a good job with the book. It’s still not out for a long time, though! What’s up with that, KoreAm?
stop Hatin’ (no pun intended). some asian girls don’t dig asian guys. don’t let your “entitlement attitude” lead you to believe that they’re obligated to because ‘strict Asian father says to daughter: only date within your race.’ to each his/her own.
I don’t wanna read anything that comes from this white dick lovin’ Asian or her partner in crime Laura Ling. Both bitches just had to marry white men. Disgusting.
After reading the Ling sisters’ touching book, I can’t wait to read Euna’s side of the story.
This lovely written post makes me want to read it just that much more. :)