In 1977, when Kang was seven years old, he was sent to a prison camp along with his family for 10 years after his grandfather was purged. Only Kang's mother, the daughter of a successful North Korean spy, was spared. Kang stated that he believes his grandfather was purged either because he opposed
Han Duk-su, the leader of the
Chongryon, while living in Japan, or because he was implicated in opposition to
Kim Jong-il being designated as the official successor to the leadership of North Korea. Kang's autobiography describes a brutal life in a North Korean prison. Death from starvation or exposure to the elements was common, with routine beatings and other punishments. His education consisted almost solely of memorizing the sayings and speeches of
Kim Il Sung; at 15, his education ceased and he was assigned to exhausting and dangerous work details, and was made to view public executions. He said of the camps, "It was a life of hard labour, thirty percent of new prisoners would die. And we were so malnourished, we would eat rats and earthworms to survive." Kang was released due to an order by Kim Jong-Il that those in the prison with relatives in Japan had to be released after 10 years. In the mid-1980s North Korea depended heavily on foreign currency remittances. Many
Zainichi Koreans or Koreans living in Japan were sending remittances to North Korea. Such people opposed the imprisonment of their relatives in North Korea. The amount of remittances being sent from Japan to North Korea deteriorated due to the wave of mass imprisonment. As such Kang was released from the prison camp after 10 years. Upon his release, he was sent to live in Yodok village. He could not go all the way back to Pyongyang, but he moved to
Pyongsong, near Pyongyang. He moved in with his uncle who was working at the National Science Research Institute in the city. ==Escape==