A year ago, Hyunmi Choi fled North Korea with her family, traveling furtively through China to Vietnam, where family members hid inside a cramped hotel for three months while waiting to be granted asylum in South Korea. Now, several months into her new life in Seoul, the 14-year-old is finally back in a place she can call home: a boxing ring.

An amateur boxer, Hyunmi dreams of going to the Olympics in 2008. "It's not a dream," she says, between practice rounds in a small basement gym in the eastern part of Seoul. "I'm going."

Of the thousands of tales of defection from North Korea, her story is one of the most unusual. It has gained her a measure of celebrity in South Korea and also sheds light on how even privileged individuals in the North are leaving in search of a new life. The exact reasons for the Choi family's departure remain a mystery.

Unfazed by the abrupt transition from starkly isolated communist Pyongyang to hypercapitalist Seoul, she treats her defection as a minor distraction from training.

"In Pyongyang, I lived well, so my life's not that different," she says. "I went to school and trained in Pyongyang. And now, I go to school and train in Seoul."

In fact, Hyunmi seems hardly aware that she escaped one of the poorest and most brutal regimes in the world. Reportedly 3 million people have died from famine in North Korea, and thousands of refugees risk their lives each year, escaping their country for food or freedom. Whole families have been executed for even the slightest remark against leader Kim Jong Il. But Hyunmi is nonchalant. "I didn't think Kim Jong Il was good or bad," she says. "I just thought, 'OK, he's our leader.' "

About 5 ft., 7 in. and big-boned, Hyunmi dresses like any urban South Korean teenager. She has a trendy layered haircut and wears baggy Cargo jeans and the kind of fake Marc Jacobs corduroy jacket that is all the rage in Seoul. She is outgoing and curious about everything American. "Do you eat three meals a day there? Will you teach me English? I'm so jealous you can speak English. Are there dancers there? I bet there a lot of good dancers," she says.

In North Korea, her family was part of the elite. One uncle is currently a senior police official in North Korea; another works for the secret service. An aunt is Kim Jong Il's personal secretary. In North Korea, her father, Young Jun Choi, was a wealthy import/exporter, one of the exceptional few who could freely travel outside the country to Japan and China. He used to smuggle in music videos and Japanese-made outfits for his daughter.

"She was always a showstopper," he recalls. "She would entertain the family by dancing to those tapes. Of course, she had no idea that kind of music wasn't allowed."

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