Chapter 1
A Journey Through Hell on Earth: One Man's Escape from North Korea
When Masaji Ishikawa's memoir "A River in Darkness" was published in 2000, it became an immediate sensation in Japan, offering a rare firsthand account of life inside North Korea's secretive regime. The book's unflinching portrayal of suffering, survival, and ultimately escape has since been translated into multiple languages, becoming a New York Times bestseller and one of the most influential testimonies about the human cost of totalitarianism. What makes this memoir particularly unique is Ishikawa's dual perspective as both Japanese and Korean, allowing him to compare life in both countries while documenting the systematic dehumanization that occurred under Kim Il-sung's rule. Through his eyes, we witness how propaganda and false promises can destroy generations of families, and how the human spirit can endure even the most extreme hardships.
Chapter 2
Between Two Worlds: A Childhood Divided by Heritage
Born in 1947 in Mizonokuchi, south of Tokyo, Masaji Ishikawa lived a childhood split between two identities. As the son of a Korean father and Japanese mother, he existed in a liminal space-Japanese by birth and upbringing, yet marked as different by his Korean heritage. His early childhood held moments of joy despite poverty: floating in irrigation canals during summer, climbing hills to catch beetles, and dreaming of helping the less fortunate. These simple pleasures existed alongside a darker reality at home.
His father, Do Sam-dal, had been effectively kidnapped from Korea at fourteen to work in a Japanese munitions factory during the war. A rough man prone to alcoholism and violence, he regularly beat Ishikawa's mother while the children cowered helplessly. Meanwhile, his mother Miyoko came from a respected local family that ran a chicken shop. His grandmother often whispered, "You're a kind boy. Don't be like your father," while his uncles described Koreans as "barbarians."
After World War II, Ishikawa's father became a leader in the Korean community, running black market operations with items stolen from American GIs. Like many of the 2.4 million Koreans stranded in Japan after the war, he turned to illegality for survival. He joined the General Association of Koreans in Japan, where he was known as "Tiger" with his own "action force" of street fighters. But when the organization was deemed terrorist and disbanded in 1949, his father-impulsive and illiterate-found himself without purpose.
The family's move to Nakano in Tokyo initially brought hope-they lived as a complete family for the first time. But soon his father's violence returned worse than ever. The worst night came when Ishikawa was twelve or thirteen. His father, drunk as usual, forced his mother at knifepoint up a quarried hill and pushed her over the edge. Young Masaji jumped down after her, finding her bloodied but alive. He helped her to a hospital, then to the train station where she fled, promising to return for them someday.
This traumatic childhood, straddling two cultures while belonging fully to neither, would shape Ishikawa's identity and resilience-qualities he would desperately need in the years to come.
Chapter 3
The False Promise of Paradise: The Migration to North Korea
In the late 1950s, an insidious campaign began targeting Korean residents in Japan. The General Association of Korean Residents launched what they called a "return to North Korea" movement, though many Koreans in Japan, like Ishikawa's father, had never set foot there. The campaign was disguised as humanitarianism but served multiple agendas: Japan wanted to rid itself of Koreans they feared might cause social unrest, while Kim Il-sung needed workers to rebuild North Korea after the Korean War and prove his country's superiority.
When Ishikawa's father announced "We're going back to my country," the thirteen-year-old was shocked and furious. "No way!" he protested, but his father insisted they'd have a better life there. His mother, though terrified about not speaking Korean, eventually succumbed to the League officials who visited daily, wearing her down with promises: "Your children will go to school for free. After three years, you'll be able to visit Japan."
The propaganda was relentless: "North Korea is a paradise on earth!" But what really convinced people was the simpler promise of stable lives and free education for their children. Ishikawa's grandmother was apoplectic: "All Koreans are barbarians, just like your husband. The North Koreans will hate and abuse you." Her warnings would prove tragically prophetic.
In January 1960, the family departed from Shinagawa Station amid a brass band and cheering crowds. Ishikawa's friend Lion pushed through the crowd, grabbed his shoulders and cried, "Are you really going?" Ishikawa promised to write and return someday, but as the train pulled away, he knew he'd never see him again. Strangely, the adults on the train began crying despite supposedly returning to their homeland.
After boarding the Soviet ship Kuririon, Ishikawa kept reassuring himself that as Japanese by birth, he could return someday. But as they approached Chongjin port, he saw only barren mountains without trees. Some passengers cheered while others groaned in horror. An elderly man clutched the rail, his face ashen: "This isn't what I expected."
The port was deserted except for schoolgirls in thin traditional costumes playing music with frozen smiles-the brainwashed automatons of propaganda displays. The North Koreans who boarded to help them disembark were visibly poorer than they'd ever been in Japan. Ishikawa desperately looked for Red Cross staff to invoke the clause allowing them to return, but his father pushed him forward down the gangway.
They had been lured into a trap from which escape would take decades, if it came at all.
Chapter 4
The Brutal Reality: Life in North Korea's Lowest Caste
The family's first meal in North Korea-dog meat so foul they couldn't eat it-foreshadowed their future. After weeks in a reception center, they were assigned to Dong Chong-ri village. Upon arrival, Ishikawa's six-year-old sister Masako fell into the snow and wailed, "I want to go home!" Their new home had feeble electric lights but no gas or running water-just a well thirty yards away.
From his first day at school, Ishikawa faced discrimination as a "Japanese bastard." Students pointed at his plastic shoes, watch, and bag while whispering insults. School was difficult mainly because he barely understood Korean. When he intervened in a schoolyard fight and knocked out a bully, a uniformed man beat him until his mouth was bleeding.
The family quickly discovered North Korea's rigid caste system. Despite his academic achievements, Ishikawa was classified as "hostile" class-the lowest caste-simply because of his Japanese background. His dreams of studying physics at university were crushed when an official bluntly told him "the son of a farmer must be a farmer" and that Japanese immigrants were deliberately sent to the bottom of society.
The promised year's supply of rice turned out to be mostly corn and low-grade cereals. Their neighbors were grouped in units of five families, with leaders reporting everything to the secret police. They were constantly monitored as potential threats because of their Japanese possessions and exposure to foreign ideas.
An incident with a pig revealed their precarious position. When a hollow-cheeked policeman caught Ishikawa adding a few fallen rice grains to pig feed, he berated him: "Rice is for humans, you little shit!" His father punched the officer but was marched to the police station at gunpoint. When he returned at midnight, his face was bloody and swollen. Ishikawa had never seen his father frightened before, and his terror confirmed they'd been consigned to hell.
Farm work proved soul-crushing, with ridiculous "Juche farming" methods that ignored centuries of agricultural wisdom in favor of impossible production quotas. Even after exhausting days in the fields, they were forced to attend ideological study meetings and military training. The regime's emphasis on "Juche" (self-reliance) was the ultimate hypocrisy, as thinking for themselves could get them killed.
In this society, free thought could get you killed. The well-connected lived in Pyongyang or Wonsan, while people like the Ishikawas were sent to remote villages. Despite this oppression, Masaji studied obsessively to overcome his "hostile" background. His Korean improved, and at fourteen, he joined the Democratic Youth League, determined to prove he wasn't just a "Japanese bastard."
But no amount of effort could change their fundamental status as outsiders in a society built on suspicion and control.
Chapter 5
Loss and Survival: The Struggle to Maintain Humanity
In April 1964, disaster struck on Kim Il-sung's birthday when their house burned down after a drunk guest fell asleep with a lit cigarette. Despite villagers' efforts to form bucket chains from the well, their house and everything they owned was completely incinerated. When Ishikawa and his father approached the same officials who'd enjoyed their hospitality the night before, they called them "Japanese bastards" but "generously" allowed them to cut trees to build a new home.
During this crisis, Ishikawa witnessed an unexpected side of his father. While cutting trees together, his father insisted he eat both rice balls his mother had prepared. When they fell in the mud and his father retrieved them, he burst into tears-a shocking display of emotion that made Ishikawa feel closer to him. His father seemed transformed in North Korea, becoming gentler yet bitter about his betrayal by those who'd encouraged their migration.
The years that followed brought a series of personal losses. In 1966, Ishikawa's mother received news of her own mother's death in Japan. The news devastated her, aging her overnight with wrinkles of pain. By 1968, more misery arrived when Kim Chan-bon's military unit suddenly took over their village, forcing them to relocate to Pyungyang-ri. These soldiers behaved criminally-stealing food and equipment, seducing young women, and beating villagers without cause.
During this time, Ishikawa fell in love with a beautiful 19-year-old named Rim Su-yon. After she made him shorts for a soccer competition, he impulsively proposed. Though she seemed interested, her mother refused to let her daughter marry a Japanese returnee. Su-yon later suggested they escape together, but Ishikawa couldn't abandon his family, and she eventually married someone from Pyongyang.
In 1972, his father's old friend Young Seok-pong from the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan appeared at their door bearing gifts. Young became their benefactor, visiting occasionally and even helping arrange Ishikawa's sister Eiko's marriage. His kindness was extraordinary in a society where humanity had been stripped away. Tragically, Young's life ended when he made a fatal political mistake at a New Year's party, criticizing the chairman of the League of Koreans in Japan for not answering his letters. This was interpreted as criticism of Kim Il-sung himself. Young was immediately stripped of his party position and days after visiting them, hanged himself.
This pattern repeated with other returnees who showed kindness-they were denounced as traitors for minor infractions, sent to concentration camps, or driven to suicide. The system methodically destroyed anyone who maintained connections to the outside world or showed independent thought.
Chapter 6
A Family Formed and Fractured Under Oppression
At twenty-three, Ishikawa found himself in an arranged marriage he hadn't consented to. His bride, Lee He-suku, had terrible eyesight and wasn't beautiful, but her stepmother was eager to be rid of her. Feeling too defeated to resist, he simply went through with the marriage. A year later, he collapsed with severe bleeding from his nose and ears. When he regained consciousness in the hospital, he learned his terrified wife had fled. She returned later, heavily pregnant, requesting divorce. Their son Ho-chol was born March 25, 1972, but He-suku left shortly after the birth.
Two months after Ho-chol's birth, Ishikawa's mother suddenly collapsed. Her last words were asking him to take her ashes to Japan to her parents' grave. She died wearing tattered work pants-a symbol of her wretched life in North Korea. That night, he stole a pair of pants from someone's clothesline to dress her properly for burial, only to discover they were equally ratty. They buried her on a mountainside with a simple wooden marker, and he placed a cigarette on her grave instead of incense, singing the children's song "Red Dragonfly" that she used to sing while looking at the sky that connected her to Japan.
At twenty-six, Ishikawa was a single father, divorced, mourning his mother who died young after a life of misery. His father and he struggled desperately to keep his son alive. For five years, nothing improved, until his sister Masako returned pregnant by a farm laborer who refused to marry her because she was "a Japanese bastard."
In 1976, Ishikawa met Kim Te-sul, another divorced returnee from Japan. Their wedding was simple-sharing what little food they had and a cup of sake. They eventually had two children together: a daughter named Myong-hwa and a son named Ho-son. Despite brief happiness, the family's struggles continued as they moved between unstable living situations, constantly separated by economic necessity.
When his teenage son Ho-chol was framed for theft by his coworkers, Ishikawa desperately tried to get him into the military to escape punishment. After failing, he took him to the train station, giving him his last ten won and suggesting he blend in with military recruits boarding a train. Watching him leave, he feared he might never see him again.
More tragedy followed when Ishikawa's father was severely beaten by police after being involved in a scam. At 74, he never recovered from this brutal assault. On his deathbed, he urged them to return to Japan and tell his friends of his fate. When he died, Ishikawa buried him facing south toward the sea, so he could see his mother country. Shortly after, his sister Masako disappeared after borrowing money from loan sharks, never to be seen again.
Through all these losses, Ishikawa somehow maintained his humanity and his determination to keep his remaining family alive.
Chapter 7
The Great Famine: When a Nation Starves
On July 8, 1994, Kim Il-sung died unexpectedly, sending shockwaves through North Korea. Ishikawa found himself crying alongside his coworkers at the factory, though he couldn't rationally explain these emotions. After thirty years of living under Il-sung's reign of terror, the brainwashing had penetrated deeper than he realized. When Kim Jong-il assumed power, people began whispering their complaints in trusted circles, primarily blaming the new leader for the rapidly deteriorating food situation that would soon become catastrophic.
The seeds of famine had been planted years earlier. Since 1991, unusually severe weather conditions, including devastating floods and bitter cold spells, had wreaked havoc on North Korea's already fragile agricultural system. The official food distribution system promised workers one and a half pounds of grain daily, but the reality fell far short - they received only one pound, consisting of 70% cornstarch and the remainder being poor-quality grain. By late 1991, the situation had deteriorated so severely that people were forced to stretch three days' worth of food across two weeks. Violence erupted at distribution centers as desperate citizens fought over dwindling supplies. In the aftermath of Kim's death, the entire nation seemed to grind to a halt - farming collapsed, industry stagnated, and the electrical grid became increasingly unreliable. Workers, weakened by malnutrition, regularly collapsed at their workstations.
The year 1995 marked the beginning of what North Koreans would later call the "Arduous March." Children, too weak to attend school, roamed the streets searching for anything edible. Ishikawa watched helplessly as his children Myong-hwa and Ho-son grew increasingly skeletal, their eyes appearing unnaturally large in their gaunt faces. Death became commonplace - corpses of women, elderly, and children lay unclaimed in the streets, with no one having the strength or resources to bury them. The situation reached a breaking point in August 1995 when catastrophic floods destroyed South Pyongan Province's grain production, effectively ending the government's food distribution system.
Desperate for survival, Ishikawa's family subsisted on foraged acorns throughout the bitter winter months. When spring came, they resorted to boiling wild weeds, which caused severe health complications - their bodies would swell grotesquely, and chronic diarrhea further weakened them. The previously unthinkable happened as people began speaking openly about their hunger, even questioning the leadership's decisions, though no one dared suggest overthrowing the system entirely. Dark rumors of cannibalism circulated through neighborhoods, accompanied by reports of public executions for those caught engaging in such desperate acts.
By September 1996, looking at his emaciated family, Ishikawa made the most difficult decision of his life. Though he had never seriously considered escaping before, the reality of their situation forced his hand. He reasoned that if death was inevitable, he might as well die attempting to reach Japan, where he could potentially send money back to save his family. When he shared his plans, his daughter Myong-hwa, though tearful, showed remarkable strength, telling him, "Father, you must decide." His wife, displaying similar courage, assured him they would somehow manage in his absence.
The decision to abandon his family tortured him, but the brutal calculus was clear - staying meant watching his entire family perish from starvation. Escaping offered at least a glimmer of hope that he could save them from afar, though the journey would be perilous and success far from guaranteed.
Chapter 8
Escape Across the River: A Desperate Bid for Freedom
With nothing but the clothes on his back, Ishikawa headed for Hamju Station to catch a night train toward Hyesan near the Chinese border. Without travel documents, he snuck onto the platform behind a wall, tearing his pants and cutting his knees on barbed wire. When the train began moving, he sprinted and grabbed the ladder at the carriage's end, hauling himself aboard.
When he spotted an inspector checking documents, he squeezed past sleeping passengers to the glassless window, climbed outside, and in a desperate moment, jumped to grab a ventilation grille on the roof. He eventually made his way to the coupler at the back, clinging to the ladder in the rain during the terrifying journey.
After jumping off at the station before Hyesan to avoid document checks, he walked toward the Yalu River, which separated North Korea from China-a mere thirty yards wide. The area was infamous for escape attempts and heavily patrolled by armed guards with dogs. For three days he survived on discarded food scraps while observing the guards' routines, growing weaker daily, haunted by visions of his family.
On the third night, during a torrential downpour when the guards momentarily disappeared, he threw himself into the now-raging river. He crashed into something, swallowed water, and lost consciousness as he was swept downstream. When he awoke, he saw a light in the distance-unusual in electricity-starved North Korea. Too weak to walk, he crawled toward it, then passed out again. He woke to find himself being carried by a stranger. Seeing the man's pet dog, he realized he had miraculously made it to China.
His rescuer was an elderly Korean man named Kim who nursed him back to health with rice gruel. After regaining strength, Ishikawa explained his situation to him and his sons Chorusu and Choro, who helped him move between safe houses. He called the Japanese Red Cross, who connected him with Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Despite his broken Japanese, he managed to explain his situation.
After an emotional farewell to Mr. Kim, he traveled 250 miles with Choro, Chorusu, and others, hiding under a futon at checkpoints. In Shenyang, he met consulate official Kusakari who escorted him to safety. At the Japanese consulate, he stayed hidden while officials negotiated with the Chinese government for his exit.
After weeks of waiting and a tense journey to Dalian, he was finally whisked directly to a chartered plane, bypassing passport control. On October 15, 1996, after thirty-six years, Masaji Ishikawa finally returned to Japan.
Chapter 9
The Bitter Homecoming: Freedom Without Peace
Landing in Japan filled Ishikawa with complex emotions. The glittering lights below looked like jewels, giving him hope that he could finally help his family escape North Korea. But his dreams were soon shattered.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs initially housed him in Tokyo hotels, then moved him to a weekly apartment. Eventually, he was placed in Hamakawa, a rehabilitation center for alcoholics and the sick in Shinagawa ward. Despite media interest in his story, officials begged him not to speak to journalists. He met with members of parliament hoping for help rescuing his family, but found little interest in North Korean issues.
Finding work proved impossible with his background, and his mother's relatives rejected him. He remained completely alone, abandoned by a government that claimed people like him had left "of their own free will." The Japanese government's reluctance to acknowledge their role in the mass migration to North Korea left Ishikawa in bureaucratic limbo-officially "not living" in Japan according to government records.
The most devastating news came when he learned his wife had died of starvation despite his attempts to send money. His daughter Myong-hwa also died in her late twenties, and he lost contact with his son Ho-son in 1998. The promise he had made to rescue his family remained unfulfilled, not through any fault of his own, but because of political indifference and bureaucratic obstacles.
Ishikawa's memoir ends with a mixture of grief and fragile hope. He remains haunted by thoughts of his family and the food they lack, still hoping to rescue his remaining children, though he doesn't know if they're alive. His story stands as a powerful testament to both the human capacity for survival and the terrible human cost of totalitarianism.
Through Masaji Ishikawa's eyes, we see how easily propaganda and false promises can destroy generations of families, and how the human spirit can endure even the most extreme hardships. His account forces us to confront uncomfortable questions about international complicity in North Korea's ongoing humanitarian crisis and reminds us that behind political abstractions lie real human lives-and deaths.
