  October 26, 2008
Fury of Girl’s Fists Lifts Up North Korean Refugee Family
By CHOE SANG-HUN
SEOUL, South Korea
— For South Koreans, boxing is mainly a sport of the past, a metaphor
for what the country was in the 1970s and ’80s before its economy
jumped to 13th largest in the world and a generation of young people
grew up with privileges their parents could only imagine. Boxing was
the sport of poor people, fighting for what they believed was
rightfully theirs.
Now, a girl whose family fled North Korea
is breathing just a hint of new life into the sport by winning a world
championship at age 17. In a soccer-crazed country, her hardscrabble
tale has generated some headlines.
Her promoters, striving to fill the seats for matches, played up her
story. Posters for her fights bill her as Choi Hyun-mi, the “Defector
Girl Boxer.”
The boxing metaphor is still apt for Ms. Choi and her family. She
and her parents and an older brother fled the North for a better life
only to run into prejudice. Even many South Koreans who want their
nation to reunite with the North view the approximately 10,000 refugees
a bit like poor relations, less skilled and less urbane than the
South’s highly educated citizens.
Ms. Choi’s father, who had been a successful businessman in the
North, has been unable to find work, and the family has been reduced to
living mainly on government handouts to the refugees.
Ms. Choi hopes to supplement her family’s income with her fighting
fees. Like Americans who vaulted past class bias through a life in the
ring, Ms. Choi also hopes to lift her family’s stature.
“My parents gave up everything in North Korea to give their
children a better life in the South,” she said. “Boxing is my way to
prove that my parents made the right decision.”
Ms. Choi pursues that dream in a gym on the top floor of a
five-story building with no elevator, in a ring with an uneven and
patched canvas. Faded photos of former South Korean boxing greats line
the walls.
The photos, and the American hip-hop that blares from speakers, are
constant reminders of how much Ms. Choi’s life has changed since her
family arrived here four years ago. When she began her boxing career in
North Korea, she trained daily under portraits of North Korea’s leader,
Kim Jong-il.
Government scouts in North Korea detected Ms. Choi’s potential when
she was 13. Ms. Choi, now 5 feet 7 inches, was almost a head taller
than her peers in a country where many children suffer from
malnourishment, and she was faster than anyone in her school in
Pyongyang, the North’s capital.
In 2003, she was approached by the head coach of the prestigious Kim
Chul-joo Educational University in Pyongyang, who was developing a
national women’s team in the hope that women’s boxing would be added as
an event in the 2008 Olympics.
She was the youngest of the 20 girls the government trained, encouraging them with more food and a cash allowance. (The International Olympic Committee, however, decided not to admit women’s boxing as an Olympic sport.)
In 2004, her father, Choi Chul-soo, decided that the family should
flee the North’s rampant repression and poverty. He had gotten a taste
of the freedoms other countries offered while on business trips abroad.
It was not an easy choice. The family had lived a life of relative
comfort. He traveled overseas for his state-owned company, which
exported zinc to China and sea urchins to Japan. The family’s apartment
was stocked with Japanese appliances.
“I dressed my children in nothing but Japanese clothes,” Mr. Choi
said. “But in North Korea, even if you were rich, you were always under
surveillance. People disappeared.”
He was still worried enough about North Korea when he first arrived
that he changed his given name to the one he has now, hoping the
North’s government would take longer to identify him and possibly
punish his relatives who remained behind.
The family escaped when Mr. Choi was on a business trip in China.
He sent for his family and bribed border guards to ensure a safe
crossing. From China, the family was smuggled into Vietnam. After four
months there hiding in hotel rooms, the family was granted asylum by
the South Korean government and flown to Seoul.
But once here, Mr. Choi’s fears were realized. Without work, he
could no longer afford luxuries for his family, which lives in a rented
apartment that is half the size of its apartment in Pyongyang.
“I sometimes miss my life in North Korea and wonder whether I made the right choice,” he said.
One bright spot is his daughter’s budding career. After entering
amateur contests in 2006, she swept five domestic championships,
suffering only one defeat in 17 fights. In September 2007, she turned
professional.
A little more than a year later, on Oct. 11, Ms. Choi beat Xu Chun
Yan of China for the World Boxing Association’s women’s featherweight
championship.
It was not an easy match. Ms. Choi’s more experienced opponent
landed many punches. But she eventually tired, and Ms. Choi used her
straight punches to dominate the later rounds. Her coach, Kim Han-sang,
said Ms. Choi’s height gave her an advantage.
The win made her one of five South Korean women to hold a boxing championship title.
“When I returned to my corner between rounds of my championship bout, I glimpsed down at my mother sobbing,” Ms. Choi said.
It was clear to Ms. Choi that she was not only helping shoulder the
family’s hopes, but that she might even be able to raise its income a
bit with her cut of the $7,000 she makes per fight.
On a recent day, she returned to the gym after taking a week off to
recuperate from her championship bout. She wore oversize sunglasses on
the street to hide her black eyes and swollen face. Her arms still bore
bruises.
She said she boxed for her family, for fame and for her figure.
“Boxing makes you curvy,” she said, striking a pose with a giggle. “I
want to be a pretty girl who does pretty boxing.”
She added: “But in this sport, you do take some punches.”
She is about to resume her daily training routine, which includes
three sessions a day, in order to prepare to defend her title in
December. Her school allows her time off to train. She must lose 10
pounds to weigh in at 126 pounds or under for her featherweight class.
Her coach says she needs to develop a knockout punch. But he has
faith. He says that, unlike other female boxers, she is at least as
concerned with being a good fighter as with staying in shape.
Ms. Choi says she wants to sweep all the world titles in her weight
division and then break into the country’s entertainment industry,
where a few former athletes have found success.
Raising her gloved hand into the air, she said, “I’m going to make everyone recognize my name.”
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