Every Falling Star: The True Story of How I Survived and Escaped North Korea

Sungju returns home after the execution extremely upset. His mother comforts him and tells him that she and his father wanted to protect him from the reality of these executions for petty crimes for as long as possible. He asks if what Young-bum and Chulho told him at school is true—that they too will starve. Eomeoni admits that abeoji has been buying food from the markets with won (North Korean currency) that he had saved up from his job in Pyongyang. Sungju asks again why they had to leave Pyongyang, but his mother tells him not to ask for more details, only that his father is now seen as a failure in the eyes of Joseon’s society, but the one thing he can’t stand is for his own son to see him as a failure. That night Sungju is unable to sleep, his mind returning to the execution.

Over the next few weeks, Sungju listens carefully to Young-bum and Chulho as they talk about killing chipmunks for food. Every week at least five students stop showing up to class. Chulho mentions that many young girls are sold to Chinese men in hope that they can send their families food from across the border in China, while boys are sold as slave labor to Korean or Chinese farms and mines. While South Koreans are welcome in China, North Koreans are not, and unless a person who escapes can bribe the Chinese officials, they will likely be sent back and executed. Sungju notes that his former life in Pyongyang has started to no longer feel real because it is so far away from his reality now.

As the summer progresses, the family’s food dwindles. Sungju is hungry all the time. His parents admit that they only actually work two days a week, and that the other days are spent in the forest hunting for food. Sungju begs them to let him join in since he’s gained all the knowledge he can from school, and he’d like to help the family.

The next day, on his way to trade his textbooks at the market in exchange for food, Sungju runs into Chulho sleeping on the street. Chulho makes a comment about Sungju finally falling on hard times, but Sungju reminds him they’ve had hard times since the family left Pyongyang, and they laugh together. The boys see a peer with a tempting bread loaf, and this peer gives Sungju advice on how to sell his books at the market without them being stolen from him by beggars. Chulho smokes a cigarette, which is illegal for children. When Sungju chastises him, he reminds Sungju that the party leaders in Gyeong-seong don’t have the capacity to enforce the rule. He informs Sungju that it’s time for him to worry less about the rules given how fragile life is and that he’s already buried one brother.

Sungju helps his father hunt and gather food in the woods. After he kills a snake, his father warns him of the bad luck associated with killing snakes. He points out Chileseong, also known as the Big Dipper, in the night sky and reminds Sungju that he can always look to the constellation if he is in pain or needs help.

The narrative jumps forward in time to winter 1998, an especially difficult season for Sungju and his family. They ration their food and supplies, but Sungju is constantly hungry and bored. Despite storing up on meat they have hunted, the family runs out by end of January, meaning most days they only have one meal a day of corn, rice, and vegetables. Sungju feels pins-and-needles sensations in his fingers, a symptom of malnutrition.

Neighborhood men come to abeoji and ask him if he knows what the new leader, Kim Jong-Il, will do about this famine. These men remind Sungju of yu-reong, or cursed ghosts. In March abeoji announces he will be traveling to China, which upsets Sungju, who is sure he will be captured and executed if he is caught. Both parents comfort him and explain that they are planning to start an illegal trade of goods between North Korea and China so that they can buy him rice cakes for his birthday. Abeoji promises to return in one week.

Sungju dreams that his father returns home with food, but when he wakes up he realizes this was a fantasy. He hears his mother in bed whispering, and she explains that she is praying. Sungju has never heard of prayer, and she explains how to talk to a higher power.

Abeoji does not return after a week. Eomeoni tells Sungju to trust in his father and that he will return, and encourages him to keep praying. As spring turns into summer, eomeoni tells Sungju she will need to leave him for a week. They have sold everything they possibly could, and she will visit her sister in a nearby city so she can bring food home for Sungju. He pleads with her not to go, insisting he join her, but she refuses to let him come along. As she cries, he asks what she’s not telling him, but she will not say anything more.

Sungju wakes up the day after eomeoni’s news and sees that his mother is already gone. He runs outside and calls her name but cannot find her, so he returns to the house in hope she will come back, but the house is cold and empty. The realization that she has truly left sinks in, and Sungju cries for all he’s lost: abeoji, eomeoni, Bo-Cho, and his entire past life.

Eomeoni left a pot of porridge with a letter promising to return in a week, cautioning Sungju to drink water and eat salt if he runs out of food. He resolves to move as little as possible for the next week to conserve his energy. On the morning of the seventh day, Sungju wakes ups and is barely able to open his eyes due to his face puffing up severely. After pulling himself up and out, he makes his way to the market.

Despite his immense pain, Sungju makes his way to Young-bum’s house, where Young-bum barely recognizes him after all the facial swelling. Sungju collapses in his arms. When he comes to, he’s inside Young-bum’s house, where he lives with his grandmother who suffers from tuberculosis. Young-bum urges Sungju to eat some potato and leaves the house.

While waiting for his return, Sungju overhears women outside bickering, and mentioning the word kotjebi, which he’s unfamiliar with. Young-bum runs in after being chased by grown men, makes porridge for his ailing grandmother, and lies to her about his day at school.

After he eats the potato, Sungju’s facial swelling subsides. Sungju and Young-bum leave the house, and Young-bum admits he stole medicine for his grandmother from the market, hence the men chasing him the night before. The two of them bond over losing their fathers, who had gone off to China, and their mothers, who disappeared looking for food.

But when Sungju mentions he wants to return to Pyongyang, Young-bum tells him that his family hadn’t left voluntarily, that they had been kicked out. He’s blunt with Sungju, saying, “a great star of the regime must have done something really bad to have fallen into a garbage heap like this” (92). Returning to Pyongyang is not an option. Even when Sungju says his hal-abeoji is a doctor who might be looking for him, Young-bum tells him that if he was looking for them, he would’ve found him by now.

Young-bum informs Sungju that the shamoo, a police force who collect people who are not at home or at work, have made travel dangerous. He then brings Sungju to the market and tells him that this is his “new kitchen.” It is the place that will have to feed him for now.