Choi Mi Soo [alias. 57] was once an

elementary school teacher in North Korea, where she struggled to make ends meet

due to endless financial difficulties and food shortages. Moreover, she found

herself increasingly jaded from having to indoctrinate children into worshiping

an authoritarian regime that let its people endure such suffering.



Choi had been a widow for quite some time,

living with her only daughter until her abrupt disappearance in 2003. Sick with

worry over her daughter’s whereabouts and safety, Choi waited years to finally

discover that her daughter had fled to China to earn money. Upon this knowledge, Choi crossed the Tumen River to join her daughter in China, after which they made the journey to South Korea.

After her time at Hanawon, the government resettlement center for North Korean defectors, Choi was eager

to find work but unsure as to what sort of occupation to pursue in such

an unfamiliar environment. While she had a few friends from Hanawon assigned

homes near her area, they all had husbands to turn to. Choi felt she had no one

to rely on, but she mustered as much courage as she could for the sake of her

daughter.



She flitted from part-time job to part-time

job, working at a kimbap [a popular Korean dish made of rice, seaweed, and

various ingredients] eatery, jokbal [pig trotters with sauce]restaurant, and

saunas. Seeing as her only previous job experience was teaching, Choi found

these jobs particularly grueling. Realizing there was no way out of this plight

without developing competitive skills, she started taking classes at a culinary

institute; her daughter began training to become a nurse. Choi worked

tirelessly–day and night–drawing on her determination and dreams of success

to get her through.

This effort paid off when a big opportunity

came her way–the owner of the sundaeguk [a broth made of blood sausage] where

she worked decided to put his business up for sale. Choi, having just completed

her culinary certification, invested all her money and took out loans

specified for small-business ventures in order to take over the restaurant.

Her worries were trumped by the pride she felt owning her own restaurant, which despite its small and humble appearance, she planned to transform through hard,

persistent work.



Diligence and perseverance: the pillars of

success

Choi focused on her eatery from the day she took it over–in fact, she never took a day off.

Despite her best efforts, obstacles kept springing up. Sundaeguk spots are

frequented by customers looking to eat and drink late into the night; for

Choi, this meant long nights surrounded by belligerent customers who had drunk too much alcohol. Modifying her overt North Korean accent to a style more typical of the South for

the customers also proved difficult.

An unexpected crisis compounded these circumstances: the former proprietor of the sundaeguk restaurant, from whom she

purchased the business, had opened a new sundaeguk establishment in the vicinity and his experience in the business drew many of his former customers back to his new venture. Choi saw many of her frequent customers take their business to his restaurant, dealing a significant blow to her operation. However, she took it all in stride, and rather than casting blame cited it as evidence of South Korea’s fast-paced, competitive society.

So Choi rose to the challenge, believing the best way to overcome this crisis was through sincerity, devotion, and

good food. Sure enough, some of the customers who had moved to the new eatery run by her former boss began trickling back into her restaurant. Down the road, while his business gradually declined until ultimately going out of business, Choi’s

thrived–her skills and devotion helping her outdo the competition.



“It was then that I felt always being

genuine to the people you deal with paves the road to success,” she said of

the experience. This success was so notable that Choi was able to pay back her business loans within five

years of the borrowing date.

Choi’s influence is not only felt at the restaurant–her work ethnic is reflected in her daughter, who after gaining two years of experience as a nurse’s aid, is currently a

nursing student surrounded by good friends and a devoted mother to support her in her new life.

Seeking a new type of freedom after five years running the restaurant, Choi moved

her business to another region—one with mostly a lunch crowd rather than

customers looking to stay out late into the night. She refers to herself as a “civil

servant CEO” because now she takes days off during the weekends and public

holidays, just as civil servants do—something unfathomable to her just a few

years ago. Though her sales are down from in the past, she uses her newfound

time to attend defector gatherings, offering sage advice to others looking to successfully settle into life in South Korea.

She shared a bit of this advice, saying, “I would like to teach other North Korean defectors the know-how on

running sundaeguk establishments. I want to tell them not to cling to

government subsidies, but rather challenge themselves to become financially

independent. Market

competition is cutthroat, of course, but its all relative depending on how hard

you work.”

*This article was made possible by support

from the Korea Hana Foundation [the North Korean Refugees Foundation].