Summary

In Chapter 17, Demick describes how Mrs. Song bribed an official to get her daughter, Oak-hee, released from the detention center where she had been held. After a short time at home with her disapproving mother, Oak-hee once more ran away. She then sent word to her mother that she wanted to speak with her through a messenger and paid for Mrs. Song to be taken to Musan, at the border with China. Once in Musan, Mrs. Song was told her daughter was on the other side of the border and that she would have to cross. She did so only to find that she was being taken in by a Korean family in China as part of Oak-hee’s ploy to lure her mother into South Korea, where it turned out Oak-hee had gone. Mrs. Song was reluctant and angry at her...