This is a non-fiction work about North Koreans. The author, Barbara Demick, was living in Seoul as the correspondent for the LA Times, and she interviewed six people who had successfully escaped from North Korea and made their way to South Korea. These people did not just sneak through the DMZ and cross directly into South Korea. Rather, they fled from Chongjin, a city in the far north, across the border with China. Demick reviewed the history of the peninsula and its partition at the end of WWII as a political solution to the conflicts with China and Russia. No one in the U.S. really knew what to do with this country which had been a colony of Japan since Korea was invaded in 1910. Japan lost their colony as a part of their defeat. Then, after only five years of peace, North Korea invaded the South, starting the 3-year Korean War. Demick described how, in the beginning, even into the early 60s, it looked like the North Korean economy would do much better than the South. But, their leader, Kim Il-Sung, and his son who took control in 1994, Kim Jong-Il, were focused on things other than what would best comfort their people, for example, developing their own nuclear arsenal. She described the propaganda machine that Kim Il-Sung created and the harsh methods he used to lock up his country, so no one could get in or out. This is a riveting tale of famine and loss, survival and success. The book belongs in our blog because of the incredible stories of hardship that have been overcome, all well-told by the author. By reading this book, I have a much better understanding of the problems of dealing with this truly rogue state. It helps that I’m in South Korea at the moment, but it would be a good read anywhere. I was able to ask our guide on a day in Seoul, a 50-year-old woman who is a native of South Korea, if she perceived a threat from the North. She nearly shook as she nodded her assent that she thought Kim Jong-Il was a dangerous leader who represented an unpredictable threat with nuclear potential. After reading the book, I understand why she feels that way. This one gets my highest recommendation.
This review by "Jeju Jenna" was written for the Jeju Weekly, an ex-pat newspaper on Jeju Island in South Korea:
ReplyDeleteBy: Barbara Demick
“But now she couldn’t deny what was staring her plainly in the face: dogs in China ate better than
doctors in North Korea.” These are the thought s of a young Dr. Kim after she defected to China and
eventually South Korea from the totalitarian regime in North Korea. Dr. Kim’s story of her life and
defection from North Korea is one of the half dozen narratives recounted by Demick in “Nothing to
Envy”. This haunting true story reveals the real human rights violations and tragedies that take place
on a daily basis in North Korea. While Western media focuses on the threats of the country’s nuclear
program, North Koreans are defecting in search of a better life in countries where they can feel free.
Entry for foreigners, especially Americans, to North Korea is extremely limited and difficult to procure
visas. Therefore, Demick relies on the stories of defectors to paint a bigger picture of life in North Korea.
Demick’s Orwellian accounts depict devout and patriotic citizens among tacit dissenters. For fear of
being denounced as unpatriotic, the ones who doubt the ubiquitous benevolence of the Supreme and
Dear leaders, Kim Il Sung and Kim Jung Il, must watch their every move.
However, breaking through the fog of totalitarian progoganda, understanding that tyranny abounds
and not prosperity, and finally having the courage to flee the country is the greatest challenge of all. Jun-
Sang, a student in Pyongyan, had this empifany while watching a poor, orphan child sang a song about
how Kil Il-sung has protected him.
“He would later credit the boy with pushing him over the edge. He now knew for sure that he didn’t
believe. It was an enormous moment of self-revelation, like deciding one was an atheist. It made him
feel alone. He was different from everybody else. He was suddenly self-conscious, burdened by a secret
he had discovered about himself.”
Demick insightfully wrote, “But North Korea is not an undeveloped country; it is acountry that has fallen
out of the developed world.” North Korea was briefly a thriving economy, steps ahead of its southern
counterpart. But the long term effects of a communist and tyrannical elite have driven North Korean
into the depths of poverty. This dramatic fall from grace, while still maintaining loyalty for its leaders
among the masses, it a testament to the power of propaganda. However, the individuals in this story
discuss how they began to see the cracks in the logic, they saw people dying from starvation and their
hopelessness and began to wonder if life could be better somewhere else.
What might surprise many readers are the defectors desires to return to their home land or regret
for leaving. Not only do they miss their family members, they miss the familiar. South Korea is like
a different planet, and some defectors never learn to adjust to being an alien in a new world. North
Koreans enter the mighty world of commerce and freedom and don’t know how to adjust. They are
shocked by couples holding hands and kissing in public and baffled by paper money and how make a
purchase among the varieties of options. At the same time, other defectors relish in their new found
freedom and learn to take advantage of all the opportunities a democratic society offers.