81 staying and living with one’s relatives became prolonged, it also became a growing burden for the latter. Kim Jinsun (2009, 1-4) expresses this kind of situation as follows: “A people without a country are worse off than a stray dog. You know, there’s nothing like ‘China is my country’. North Korea is also different, and China, too, doesn’t accept you because you are not one of its people. People like us, where on earth can we go?” Also during work, when, for example, I do something a little different than them during work, they twist this against you. There are cases when they harass you, yeah, harass you and get you caught, and then there are also some people who want to make money, the Chinese police [tells them], ‘We will give you a certain amount of money, so go and find us &orth Korean women.’ When this happens, these people get the money and get us caught. (Yun Huijeong, 2009, 2-5) Once, I was working at the restaurant, someone came to collect the taxes, but I thought he was a policeman because he was wearing a uniform. I went into the toilet for a while and couldn’t come out. … When I came out that person [who’d come to collect the taxes was] still sitting there. Didn’t know that this person had come to collect taxes, thought he was a policeman… Th-then, I went into the store, carried cucumbers around, carried eggplants around, there was nothing to do. While the others were all sitting down [having a rest] because there were no customers. … [One of my workmates said] that we could do this later together, that I should come out and have a rest. But this wasn’t the point, [I was anxious] I would be arrested. &ow, if this guy comes in suddenly, if he starts talking to me, where can I jump out? I was considering these things at that moment. … So I couldn’t tell the others and did things like that. (Son Yeongju, 2009, 3-4) Although I previously had a social life, without citizenship, I had lots of hard times. &o matter how much Chinese I learnt and no matter how well I spoke it, the intonation, the way the Chosun-jok in China, the Gyopo37, and the Chinese speak is different, you know. Even though I went around pretending to be a Gyopo. When Chinese people sometimes jokingly said, ‘Aren’t you &orth Korean?’, I thought they didn’t really mean it, but there’s this horror, you know. Shall I say I was really born in the wrong country, or I was born into the wrong era? You can’t blame anyone, and there are more than just one or two times when it hits you. (Gil Gyeonghui, 2009, 17) North Korean refugee women continue to have feelings of apprehension: initially, because they cannot speak Chinese, and later, after they have slowly learnt the language, because of their accent. Experiences of not being able to come out of the toilet because one mistook the tax collector for a policeman, or of having to think about how to get away in an emergency situation during work, as well as experiences 37 The Korean term ‘Gyopo’ refers to people of ethnic Korean ancestry who live abroad and hold the citizenship of countries other than South or North Korea.