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Black Girl from Pyongyang: In Search of My Identity

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A fascinating account of a woman’s quest for autonomy, and her bravery and determination to find the truth’ Monica was seven years old when her father was killed. She had been Spanish-speaking, but lost her language and culture during her education (and, frankly, indoctrination) at the military boarding school she attended just outside of Pyongyang. This book is the story of her life from her earliest childhood memories, through her years in North Korea, her leaving, and later, as she made her way as a woman with a complicated identity. Her decision to leave was driven by her desire to see the outside world, to connect to her past, and to find out whether her father really was a cruel dictator. This book is fascinating on the level of the uniqueness of Macias’s rather improbable perspective, with wonderful biographical details. It was delightful to read about her childhood, and I could empathise with her painful circumstances. She even had me feeling for the children of the former leader of my own country, because yes, it is true that the family becomes collateral damage. However, Macias’s frequent declamations and the solutions she advances for fixing the world, when she stands on her soapbox, are far less interesting, and most of my notes on these are on how perplexing bias can be to those watching.

She mentions that some North Korean defectors in Seoul, South Korea, talk about returning. I have heard this. This is because they come to South Korea totally unequipped to deal with the high pressure, capitalist life there. Nevertheless, I'm not sure if this makes a compelling argument why North (a hereditary dictatorship) and South (a functioning democracy) should be regarded equally. The Telegraph values your comments but kindly requests all posts are on topic, constructive and respectful. Please review our She received the media spotlight in 2013 when her memoir, I’m Monique from Pyongyang, was published in Korean. Having previously read books from “defectors” of North Korea and the terrible lives that they suffered there, it was interesting to read a different perspective from someone who had a more positive outlook on the country and to be able to look at things through a different viewpoint. We go on Monica’s journey through life as she learns who she is and who her father and adoptive father are to the rest of the world. What a strange but incredible life she has led. In Spain, for the first time, she heard people badmouth her two father figures. She heard Macias described as “the dictator of dictators, a despicable human being”. “It was the most difficult thing to think my father was a killer. I never said my full name to people.” One man followed her on the street. He said he knew who she was and would kill her.

The Sydney Morning Herald

Monica spent a somewhat confused and happy childhood at a strict, military boarding school in Pyongyang, where she lived a relatively privileged existence as the daughter of a close comrade and friend of Kim Il Sung.

Monica's adventure continues when she settles in Spain, then New York, and then London, admirably determined (after her dogmatic education), not to believe anything until she'd seen it with her own eyes. She moved to New York. US president George W. Bush had named Iran, Iraq and North Korea the “axis of evil” and many Americans were horrified to learn of her origins. She was distressed by friends’ comments about the country’s famine from 1994 and 1999, estimated to have killed between 2.5 million and 3.5 million people. “They were talking about it as if North Koreans deserved it because they had a different system,” she says. I do recommend reading this book if you are reading other literature on EG. It gives a different perspective and is worth considering when researching the country. In Beijing, singing karaoke with South Koreans, people she’d been taught to view as US puppets. Such meetings made her question the society in which she’d been raised.

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I like how personal this book is. I felt like I got to know the author. She is not afraid of realizing she is wrong, or that there are things she does not know, and she is not afraid of letting other people know that the way they see the world is not the whole truth either.

Do a lot of the defectors face discrimination in South Korea, I believe so yes. Must it be difficult to rebuild your life as an immigrant in the South? So hard I expect, especially when often times they have left their family behind and may never know what will happen to them but also economically, competitively etc. However considering the circumstances people have to flee in I would argue that they've left for good reasons. What’s wrong with you? You know you cannot speak to me like that. I am older than you! You should respect those older than you,’ she said. Brixton Library | Chaplin House | Brixton Oval | London SW2 1JQ | www.lambeth.gov.uk/libraries-0/brixton-tate-library | [ Map] In 1979, Monica Macias, aged only seven, was transplanted from West Africa to the unfamiliar surroundings of North Korea. She was sent by her father Francisco, the first president of post-Independence Equatorial Guinea, to be educated under the guardianship of his ally, Kim Il Sung. Within months, her father was executed in a military coup; her mother became unreachable. Effectively orphaned, she and two siblings had to make their life in Pyongyang. At military boarding school, Monica learned to mix with older children, speak fluent Korean and handle weapons on training exercises. Optimistic yet unflinching, Monica’s astonishing and unique story challenges us to see the world through different eyes. More infoMuch of the book is about her search for the truth about her father, who was the president of Equatorial Guinea and had been accused of various crimes and executed when the author was young. She presented her findings that called everything she had been told into question. From this point onwards, my attitude changed, hardening from my natural ebullience into an overt rebellion against authority and hierarchy. I did not understand why I had to live in that boarding school under such strict discipline at only eight years old. I was one of three girls in my class who vied for dominance over the others. I spoke disrespectfully to others and showed little regard for Korean social ranking according to age, for which one of my sister’s classmates took me to task. How often did Monica see Kim? “At the beginning, quite often. He was charismatic. He would nag me to study hard, like a typical Korean grandfather. He’d say, ‘The best weapon you have is education.’ ” Although his nephew monitored Monica day to day, Kim observed her progress, encouraging her to drop one dream of becoming a pianist and instead to study textile engineering to help her country’s fledgling economy.

Feeling abandoned by her family, the young Monica struggled to fit into Korean society. At first she rebelled against its military discipline but eventually chose Korean culture over her own. Her Great Leader had promised her father that he would educate her and send her home to serve her own country. So he employed a Spanish teacher to ensure she kept up with her native language, but she refused to learn it and cleaved ever closer to Kim’s dictatorial regime, until the incident with the Syrian student and the newspaper. Monica Macias, daughter of Equatorial Guinea's first president after independence from Spain who spent her life from age five to 18 in Pyongyang, North Korea, has certainly led a fascinating life and this made the book interesting to read. It is well written and very engaging. However, I also found it rather frustrating. But you don’t have to buy all of Macias’s conclusions to admire her attitude. As social media algorithms herd us all into bubbles which “protect” us from the discomfort of differing worldviews, we could all learn a lot from her lifelong quest to challenge her own prejudices. She remains open minded and makes no claim to have access to absolute truths. We can apply her commitment to critical thinking on smaller scales too, always asking ourselves who has a vested interest in spinning which stories. We might still decide that some people really are the baddies. But we should all, constantly, be questioning the symbols on our own hats. The life story of Monica is a very unique and is certainly worth reading. However, I feel like a lot of information of her research towards her father is left out, not mentioning one negative aspect of his leadership.My feisty attitude masked an acute sense of social rejection. I wanted desperately to blend in with my classmates, but their unspoken message seemed to be: ‘You are not Korean, you are not like us.’ Biology and history classes seemed geared to accentuate my difference. In history, we studied ancient Korea, from the Three Kingdoms era to the Koryŏ dynasty, the Chosŏn era to Japanese occupation. For a moment, my interest in my adoptive country would be piqued, until I would suddenly notice one of my classmates giving me a sly look that said, unmistakably: ‘This history has nothing to do with you.’ It was true. While for them this was the story of their grandparents and great-grandparents, for me it was just a class. The subject material of this book is fascinating. The young daughter of the President of Equatorial Guinea goes to North Korea in the 1970s for her education and possibly safety. She remains there for some 15 years before setting out to explore the world and revisit her heritage. Within months, her father was executed in a military coup; her mother became unreachable. Effectively orphaned, she and two siblings had to make their life in Pyongyang. At military boarding school, Monica learned to mix with older children, speak fluent Korean and handle weapons on training exercises. Initially, this effectively orphaned child cried herself to sleep. At one point she went on a hunger strike and ended up in hospital for a month. “I just wanted my mother,” she says. In 1979 when she was only seven Monica Macias was transplanted from West Africa to the unfamiliar surroundings of North Korea. She was sent by her father Francisco, the first president of post-Independence Equatorial Guinea, to be educated under the guardianship of his ally, Kim Il Sung.

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