Mi-hee is Mi-ran’s oldest sister, a talented singer who nonetheless struggled to use her talents due to their family’s beulsun, or tainted blood. Mi-hee was already married with children when Mi-ran, Sok-ju, So-hee, and their mother defected in 1998; she did not travel with them, and she was later imprisoned in a labor camp as retribution for their crimes. As of the time of Nothing to Envy’s publication in 2009, Mi-hee and her sister Mi-sook were presumed dead.