In Order to Live: Chapter 9 Summary & Analysis

In 2005, Keum Sook went into hiding because her household registration still listed Hyesan as her official address, and moving anywhere without state permission was illegal. While she was staying with friends, Jin Sik suddenly returned home. He had bribed a warden to release him from prison temporarily because of his ongoing, severe stomach pain, but he never intended to go back. Yeonmi was overjoyed to see him after three years apart, though he was far thinner and frailer than she remembered.

Keum Sook eventually turned herself into the authorities and was sentenced to a month in a brutal labor camp, though she ultimately only served a couple of weeks. After her release in early 2006, she and Jin Sik filed for divorce, as this was the only way she could legally change her address while her husband was still alive, though they still loved each other very much. A friend helped Jin Sik secure a tiny eighth-floor apartment in Hyesan, where the family planned to stay temporarily before moving back to Kowon. What mattered most was that they were together again.

As Jin Sik sought treatment for his stomach pain, Keum Sook took over their business selling silver to smugglers in Hyesan, but the family remained poor. Yeonmi reunited with her old friends and learned that teenagers were now wearing jeans—an arrestable offense—and dating each other. Fifteen-year-old Eunmi also started spending more time with boys and drifted from her younger sister. DVDs and CDs were flooding into Hyesan by this time, and Yeonmi spent hours watching and listening with friends. She notes that her generation became known as the “Jangmadang Generation,” shaped by the rise of the markets and governmental neglect.

At 13, Yeonmi met her first love, 18-year-old Chun Guen. When he first asked her out, she declined, knowing her family’s songbun was much lower than his. But he persisted, and she once went to a party at his apartment, where she felt woefully out of place and left early. Later, he visited her at home, and despite their own generation’s discomfort with the idea of dating, her parents thought he was kind. That winter, some train service to Hyesan was cut off, blocking the route that brought in the family’s cargo from Pyongyang. Their apartment was perpetually cold, they had very little to eat, and Jin Sik’s stomach pains continued as he and Keum Sook wondered how on earth they would feed their children.