Teen flees N. Korea with boxing hopes

Although he felt watched constantly in Pyongyang, Mr. Choi found ways to outwit the draconian regime. "You're supposed to give all your profits to the government, but we just hid our earnings," he says. "It was the only way to make money in North Korea." He even owned an international cellphone smuggled in from China, something that would have meant prison if he had been caught. "Materially, we lived better there than here," he says.

In Pyongyang, Hyunmi found that she could easily outbox other girls in her gym class. A boxing coach noticed and asked if she wanted to train with him. Her parents weren't happy; they'd hoped she would pursue music. "But she always did what she wanted to do," her father says. "She always spoke her mind."

The North Korean government also noticed her potential as an Olympic hopeful and paid for her training. At age 11, she transferred to Kim Cheol-Joo University, where she trained with a team of 30 college-age athletes. Living in the dorms, she worked out 10 hours a day and went home once a week. She was the only one in her college to have three coaches working round-the-clock with her.

But last March, her father said they were going on vacation to China. "He said: 'Don't bother packing. We'll buy everything in China,' " she recalls.

Like thousands of defectors before them, her father, mother, and older brother crossed North Korea via the frozen Tumen river to China. Because China doesn't recognize North Koreans as refugees, approximately 300,000 North Koreans live in China illegally, unable to cobble the money together to escape and gain asylum in South Korea. But her father arranged for a guide who led them through China - by taxi. After three months in Vietnam, the family won asylum in South Korea.

Although Hyunmi remains puzzled as to why they left, she's adaptable. In the gym, she's the only girl training with male boxers. Soon, she'll transfer to a bigger facility and train with a well-known ex-flyweight champion, Jang Jung-un. She says she'll miss her "opas," her brothers in her current gym. Do they give her tips? She laughs: "It's me who teaches them!"

On a recent Thursday afternoon, she sparred with a 25-year-old male flyweight champion, Jin-Mon Chun. By the third round, she seemed exhausted and outmatched. Then, in a burst of energy, she returned his punches and cornered him with a couple of right hooks.

"She needs to work on her speed," says her father, a towering, ruddy-faced man who used to box a little himself, as he watched from the sidelines. He says the trainers were superior in North Korea. But it was important to leave - for reasons he doesn't want to talk about.

"My children were growing up. They were going to find out what kind of society they were living in," he says, showing his wrists scarred with razor wire. "I was in the camps once. I knew what they were capable of. If there's a specific incident why we left, I can't tell you about it. I still have family in North Korea I need to protect."

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