Black Girl from Pyongyang: In Search of My Identity

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So Monica enrolled in North Korea’s University of Light Industry, where she shared a hall with other foreign students. She began to have inklings of how limited her environment was and that not all the world might be like North Korea. She was shaken when a man she realised must be a surveillance agent – a concept she’d heard of but previously dismissed as a fantasy – harshly told her as a Korean she could not spend time with a Syrian friend. “I started wondering.” 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.

I had not heard from my father or Teo since we left Malabo. According to my sister – though I do not remember the moment – after a few months, my mother suddenly announced that she had to return to Equatorial Guinea. We were to be sent to the Mangyŏngdae Revolutionary Boarding School in the eponymous district of Pyongyang, some thirty minutes southwest by car of the city centre. During the first half of the book, I was disappointed that there wasn't more information about the country of North Korea, its population, and what life was like there. This may be because the author lived a more privileged life under Kim Il Sun. The author however does write about other foreign friends, as she is not allowed to have lasting friendships with Koreans, and her school life. Despite Macias's privileged position, she is ever, in all the many years in Pyongyang, allowed to visit a North Korean citizen in their home because she is a foreigner. She makes no comment on this.

The book, first published in 2013 in Korean, now published in English, is a diary of sorts, covering events and people over many decades. The authors father is ousted as President of EG, however she remains a guest of NK, enjoying patronage at the highest levels. Her lifestyle is pampered and entitled although naturally isolated from the world outside of NK. She views NK through the eyes of a diplomatic, an invited expatriate, with special status, privileges and freedoms. It’s an interesting book at times and Macias has clearly led a very interesting life. The above quote though by Macias, referencing her experience of academic analysis of the North Korean regime, sums up my main gripe with the book.

Hmm, this is essentially a lightweight and patronisingly naïve narrative in which Macias states well-known axioms such as that above as if they're discoveries that only she has made and which she wants to impart to us. And yes, we are aware that, to quote the cliché, history is written by the victors. It's really not news. In 2013, Macías gained media attention following the publication of her memoir, I'm Monique from Pyongyang ( Korean: 나는 평양의 모니카입니다), which was written in Korean. In this book, she recounted her experiences in North and South Korea and how they shaped her perspectives on the issues of the two countries. [5] Not just your run of the mill memoir, it's the life story of a Guinean girl who grows up in North Korea, even more, the youngest daughter of the 1st President of independent Equatorial Guinea raised in North Korea under the protection of Kim Il-Sung... who keeps trying to find out who she is with her mixed identity while also trying to reconcile the two men so crucial in her life, who the world sees as horrific, with the direct experience of them she had. From Porcelain to Palaces – A Journey Through the Cultural Heritage of the Joseon Dynasty, Wed 22 Nov 2023 (updated 31 Oct)Are they aware that, wherever there are asymmetric power dynamics, the victor's version of events is accepted as the truth, creating a warped narrative of historical events? While I didn't always agree with her conclusions, I did really appreciate her writing. Her experiences have shaped her perspectives, and that can't be entirely discounted, though her perspectives are largely positive. There were some fairly significant points that weren't really touched on though, such as the human rights violations, so I wish Macias had dedicated a bit more discussion to this in her writing. This may sound harsh, but whenever she does try and expose her value system, her prose is reminiscent of an undergraduate-level politics essay. Grand statements that mean very little, waffly overarching generalisations, 'love don't hate'-style statements... such a missed opportunity, so many glaring omissions, and yet a lot of time is devoted to her time as a Leroy Merlin employee - only Spanish readers and/or anyone sufficiently acquainted with the Spanish home furniture market will realise how bonkers that sentence is. After some 15 years in NK, the author leaves and begins a journey of discovery, living and travelling in various countries, including the US and Europe. She also seeks to find out more about her father and his time as President of EG. Her sources seem to be relatives and others sympathetic to her father. The views she hears may be biased or untruthful, coming sometimes from those complicit in her fathers administration. She seems ambivalent or at best forgiving towards her father’s behaviour and actions as President. It is useful to bear in mind that most modern sources view him as a brutal and corrupt dictator rather than a liberator from Colonialism. 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.