This story by Jo Carter originally appeared on Global Voices on 17 October 2025
The Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) disrupted schools, derailed careers, and reshaped countless lives across China. For many, it meant a lost decade of education.
But for ethnic minority women like Lee YJ from the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China’s northeast, a region at the border of China and North Korea, the challenges were more than political as they had to withstand political upheaval, ethnic traditions, and rigid gender norms to survive.
In May 2025, Global Voices’ contributor Jo Carter sat down with Lee, now in her late seventies, to hear her story. By recording her words, this project seeks not to romanticize or generalize, but to preserve one woman’s voice.
Her account shows how political upheaval, gender, and ethnicity intertwined to shape the lives of ordinary Korean women in northeast China. It is part of a larger mosaic of voices that might otherwise fade with time.
As Yanbian (depicted in red on the map to the right) lies directly across the river from the Korean peninsula, it has become a natural destination for Korean migrants seeking a new home in China.
The history of migration stretches back centuries: as early as the mid-17th century, during the late Ming dynasty, groups of Koreans crossed the Tumen River into China, often fleeing natural disasters or famine. Later, in the early 20th century, Japan’s colonization of Korea (1910–1945) triggered another wave of refugees, many escaping persecution by the Japanese military. These Korean refugees had played a significant role in supporting the Korean Independence Movement.
The Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture was established in 1952, amid the Korean War (1950–1953), when a large number of Koreans in the region were recruited to join the Chinese People's Volunteer Army to support North Korea and suffered tremendous casualties.
However, as the relationship between the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Soviet Union turned sour during the Cultural Revolution, ethnic Koreans in Yanbian became targets of persecution because of their familial connections in pro-Soviet North Korea and pro-US South Korea.
Currently, about one in three people is of Korean descent in Yanbian, which is sometimes called the “Third Korea.”
Born into a poor family as the middle child of eight in the 1950s, Lee grew up in a household where girls were expected to work hard, endure hardship, and put family first:
When I was six years old, I was already taking care of three younger siblings. My friends were playing outside, jumping across the river, climbing trees, but I carried my baby sister on my back and held my brother’s hand. Another brother was following me like a shadow.
Her mother enforced strict discipline, demanding that Lee come home early and devote herself to childcare. Any delay was met with punishment — an early lesson in what it meant to be a daughter in a Korean household at the time.
Yet her mother’s severity reflected the norms of her generation, shaped by years of hardship, domestic violence, and the burden of raising eight children in poverty.
The burden of childcare delayed Lee’s education. She entered primary school two years later than her peers and soon fell ill from inadequate clothing in Yanbian’s bitter winters, missing yet another year.
When she finally settled into school, her talent was evident: she consistently ranked at the top of her class.
By the end of junior high in 1966, she was chosen as one of the region’s outstanding students and invited to Tiananmen Square in the capital city, Beijing. There, she caught a glimpse of Mao Zedong waving from a passing car. “I was proud,” she recalled with a smile.
For a girl from a poor ethnic minority household in Yanbian to be chosen as one of the region’s outstanding students was extraordinary. Only the very best students from across China had the honour of representing the nation's future by standing in Tiananmen Square as Chairman Mao's followers. To catch even a fleeting glimpse of Mao Zedong from a passing car was, in that era, a once-in-a-lifetime moment. And for Lee, it was a moment of recognition for her efforts and talents, despite the difficult circumstances.
Lee’s dream of continuing her education ended abruptly in 1966, when the Cultural Revolution led to school closures nationwide. She was assigned to work in a local farm commune and later promoted to team head, helping to arrange the daily duties of other commune members.
She was married off through a match in 1973. Her husband, GR Park, came from a family with a harrowing past. Park’s father was born in northern Korea in 1910, when Japan officially colonized Korea through the Japan-Korea Treaty.
Koreans fought back to liberate the country and were violently suppressed. Park had witnessed Japanese soldiers storm his village, and his entire family had been massacred. He alone survived, escaping with nothing but his life. Traumatized and orphaned, he fled across the border alone to China’s northeast. That trauma cast a long shadow over the next generation.
Lee’s husband struggled with alcohol, gambling, and a violent temper. But what was most corrosive was the constant belittling and gaslighting. Though she managed the household single-handedly, he would mock her as “stupid” and “ignorant.” At meals, he often lay sprawled at the table, barking single-word commands — “booze,” “rice,” “chopsticks.” His meager earnings disappeared into drink, leaving Lee to shoulder farm work and odd jobs to feed the family and raise two daughters alone.
Following the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976, China began rebuilding its education system. In 1977, the government reinstated the National College Entrance Examination (高考/Gaokao), allowing universities to reopen their doors and invite new students to apply.
In her village, everyone believed Lee would easily pass the university entrance exams. She was known for her intelligence, leadership, and dedication — she even led the local women’s federation, where she organized communal work, offered support to struggling wives, and shared her knowledge of cooking and home remedies. Her kimchi became locally famous, a symbol of both skill and generosity.
But despite the opportunity, Lee couldn’t continue her education. “I had no one to look after my daughter,” she said.
I want my grandchild to do everything they want to do, with all their heart. I hope they can soar as high as possible.
For Lee, she is proud but not bitter. Her voice was calm, grounded in memory rather than regret. What she could not have, her daughters and granddaughters now pursue.
Her second daughter, MJ Choi, reflected on her mother’s life:
I saw my mother live with great strength and positivity, supporting both her family and the community. Her misfortune was simply being born into that era. The patriarchal culture of the Korean peninsula also hurt her and us as well. Watching my mother endure my father’s drinking and abuse made me believe that women’s suffering was a virtue. But now I want to cut off those harmful traditions. Being elevated simply for being a man is harmful not only for women but also for men. What I tell my daughters is that the most important thing is a relationship built on equality and mutual respect.
Lee’s story was not an exception — it was the reality faced by countless Korean women of her generation in Yanbian, and across China.
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The gender inequalities that constrained her life have not vanished. Across East Asia today, the memory of women who were silenced, overburdened, or denied choices still shapes how younger women view family and marriage. For some, choosing to delay or even forgo marriage is not only personal but also a quiet rejection of the sacrifices that defined their mothers’ and grandmothers’ lives.
Her experiences illuminate how a talented girl, shaped by rigid gender roles, ethnic traditions, and political upheaval, lost her chance at education but still sustained her family and community. By sharing her words, we are reminded that history is not only written by leaders or events, but also by the quiet resilience of women whose voices deserve to be heard.
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