Escape from Camp 14 #3

After being released from prison, Shin watched guards publicly execute his mother and brother. Shin's mom tried to meet his eyes but he never looked back. He felt no remorse. Shin was actually mad at him mother and brother for trying to escape and he believed they deserved death. He now feels guilt for their death, but it wasn't until a while after he had escaped.

Shin went on to finish school. Then he worked as a builder on a hydroelectric dam on the Taedong river. Many people were killed by the extreme cold and poor working conditions. However, this was the first time that Shin ate well in his life. Guards allowed prisoners to catch fish and eat them. When the dam was complete, Shin began working on a pig farm. A perk of working on the pig farm was that workers could steal morsels of food. This was not allowed and many were beat, but Shin managed to steal. Shin describes his four years on the pig farm as relaxing. Outside of the pig farm, North Korea was struck with famine. Shin thought he would work on the pig farm until he would die. His time on the pig farm ended abruptly and without explanation. He was transferred to a textile factory where there was no food to steal and stress was high.

At the textile factory, Shin's job was to repair sewing machines that the seamstresses broke. All workers worked twelve hour shifts and if they did not fill their daily quota, they were required to do two extra hours of "bitter humiliation work." This encouraged repairmen to beat the women whose machines they fixed. Shin once watched a man bash a women's face with a wrench. Fed up, Shin beat him with a wrench and then a guard beat shin.
The most important thing that happened to Shin in the textile factory was meeting Park. Park Yong Chul was an educated man in his forties who was put in the camp for reasons unknown to Shin. Park told Shin about life outside the camp. Shin had never been beyond the barbed wire barriers that enclose him in Camp 14. The stories that Park told about life outside the camp didn't impress Shin, unless Park talked about food. Food outside the camp drove Shin's imagination crazy. Shin and Park began talking about escape.