Nothing to Envy_ Ordinary Lives in North Korea.docx

Book Summary by Kavita Jhala

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST

Detailed and objective account of North Korean lives under Kim dynasty

Key Points:

 

When silenced, a silent revolution becomes necessary.

 

Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea is a riveting and painful account of North Korea that seems to leap straight out of George Orwell’s  book 1984. A totalitarian system having Confucian principles mixed with Stalinist Ideologies were incorporated in ruling North Korea by the Kim Family. Especially chronicling the 15 years of struggle in famine and starvation, this book is an objective narration of  6 North Korean people and their families coming from different class/ caste levels. Chongjin being the most impacted by the famine, the author, Barbara Demick, chose to highlight people from this area. Political repression, fear, conformity were so ingrained in the psyche of the North Koreans that when they met starvation and deaths, questions began to emerge: Why do the North Koreans continue to obey the regime that abuses and starves them? This book tries to follow the thought processes of the North Koreans as their lives took a tragic turn and the book therefore puts across the table all the facts and figures to understand them better.

 

 

About the Author:

 

Barbara Demick is an American Journalist  for the Los Angeles Times who has been interviewing North Koreans since 2001, when she moved to Seoul. Her efforts won her many awards and accolades including the Overseas Press Club award for human rights reporting, the Asia Society’s Osborne Eliott award and the American Academy of Diplomacy’s Arthur Ross Award.

Formerly she was with the Philadelphia Inquirer as a foreign correspondent in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. She has lived in Sarajevo during the war in Bosnia and wrote a book about daily life, Logavina Street: Life and Death in Sarajevo Neighborhood. Her reporting on Sarajevo awarded her the George Polk Award, the Robert F. Kennedy Award and she was a finalist for the Pulitzer.

Demick grew up in Ridgewood, N.J. She is currently the Los Angeles Times’ bureau chief in Beijing.

About the Book:

 

A narrative non-fiction that is a perceptive, eye-opening account of everyday life in North Korea. A thoroughly researched and carefully written book by an American Journalist, Barbara Demick about a country that’s lesser known or understood. The author follows the 6 ordinary North Korean’s lives interlaced with North Korea’s slide into famine following the death of Elder Kim in 1994.

Who is it for?

This book touches upon class, social constructs, psychological, physical, economic, political, cultural and demographic aspects of North Korea. Therefore, this book can be useful for :

 

Readers of political history in relation to Korean peninsula
Journalists and reporters who need to do coverage of world affairs at a particular time period in comparison to North Korea
Academicians and Scholars who need to dig deeper into the propaganda tactics of North Korea
Psychologists who need to delve into the effects of famine, war and atrocities perpetrated under North Korean regime
Anthropologists who map out the entire period of famine and starvation and its impact on future of North Koreans
Sociologists finding out clues to the social behavior of North Korean people in contrast to South Asian countries
Authors who want to read, understand and get a glimpse into world affairs that particularly focus on countries under the regime of dictatorship or communism.

 

Summary:

 

To understand North Korea it is essential to understand it from the time it was formed. This summary shall start off with the formation of Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, why suddenly it came into the interest of the world,  followed by the brief essential points that you need to know to relate to the lives of 6 North Koreans covered by the author after that and then the journalist’s experiences in North Korea.

Events that led to formation of Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea):

 

Japan forcibly annexed and ruled Korea for 35 years. Suddenly, in WWII, Japan withdrew. In the WWII alliance with the United States, it gave to the U.S., Seoul and nearby areas and to appease the Soviets gave them North Korea. As a result, North Korea and South Korea are foreign bifurcations that have nothing to do with what the Koreans wanted. They were never asked. Kim-Il Sung was an anti-Japanese resistance fighter backed by Moscow. He established the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) and invaded South Korea. In a move against this; United States, South Korea and United Nations coalition, Seoul and Pyongyang was re-captured. The coalition army advanced ahead but they could not go beyond Yalu River against the Chinese Communist forces. Herewith, the formation and strengthening of Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) was done.

Spotlight on North Korea:

 

The emergence of Kim -Il Sung as the God of North Koreans and the suppression of the facts to the world ensured that North Korea was not much into radar. The famine of the 1990s became the undoing of the North Korean regime followed by the country’s debt suddenly propelling the world to sit up and notice.

 

Essential points to familiarize yourself with North Korea and its regime:

 

Chongjin (Chongjin; ironically, in Chinese means clear river crossing) in Northmost Korea was hit the hardest by famine in the mid 1990s. It is closed for foreigners.
Satellite photos of North and South Korea at night clearly shows a large dark splotch (Area of Darkness) against the bright lighted area called South Korea. That area is Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) as large as England and a nation of 23Million people.
New straight-jacked class systems that never led to promotion but often led to demotion of status came into existence. In the class system, Kim Il-Sung and his Family were first and then there were 51 categories that consisted of various officers and ranks closest to the ruler followed by common people’s diversification into 3 major sub-classes: Core Class, Wavering Class and Hostile Class that consisted of Kisaeng (like Japanese Geisha), fortune tellers, Mudang (Shaman), politically suspect or POVs.
The children and grandchildren of hostile class were tainted blood and inherited it, no matter how talented or loyal they were.
Propaganda tactics with military/police forces to check on behavior at all times
It is Illegal to own cars
Have to apply to the state to get any electrical goods or radio
Houses built in 1960s and 1970s and not after that
No telephone, postal service or email between North Korea and South Korea is possible
No vibrant colors used anywhere except in propaganda posters that were marked in red.
Loyalty Surveys ‘Songbun’ determined whether you were loyal or else were punished. It also determined where you could study further or go to work. Basically, it was the class you belonged to with the amount of loyalty you have shown that was noted in Songbun.
No one could own a house
There were no markets and everything was state-owned and ran according to its directives. Food was procured from Food Distribution Centers.
Newspapers, books, periodicals or any mass propaganda media is censored
Churches were closed during the initial years of the regime. The bible was banned and believers were deported.
The floods had caused $15Billion damage, with 5.2 Million people affected, 96,348 homes damaged thereby displacing 500,000 people and 19Million tonnes of crops lost.
In the Arduous Propaganda March in 1998, 600,000 to 2Million North Koreans had died of famine
Half a century after Korean War to 1998 only 923 North Koreans had fled to South Korea.
By 2001, 100,000 North Koreans sneaked into China and a smaller percentage in South Korea.
¾ of roughly 100,000 North Korean refugees in China are women and they have arranged unions with Chinese men.

 

Delving into the lives of 6 North Koreans as narrated by Barbara Demick - 

 

Song Hee-Suk and Oak-hee:

 

Song Hee-Suk or Mrs Song as the women of North Korea don’t use their full name, was a true believer and a model citizen of North Korea. At the time of her father’s death in the “Liberation War” (Korean War), her family had received a certificate stating him as “Martyr of the Fatherland''. Her younger brother was inducted in the North Korean Ministry of Public Security. With her husband Chang-bo who was a journalist and a Worker’s Party Official. They settled in Chongjin (Capital of North Hangyong province). Mrs Song was the product of years of sleep deprivation, lectures and self-criticism, all tactics of brainwashing to wipe out any resistance. She was a firm believer of juche (self-resistance) propagated by Kim Il-Sung who was known as master of revolution and reconstruction of his own country.

Mrs Song was so true a believer that she kept the portraits of the leaders spotlessly clean and never forgot to wear the mandatory lapel pin before stepping out of the house. Elder Kim,  i.e. Kim Il-Sung, Kim Jong-il were revered as God. Their portraits had to be cleaned everyday and Public Standards Police came to check them every week. It was  a crime to put portraits of any family member.

Oak-hee was her eldest daughter but the smartest too. She was diligent but at the same time began to resist the regime and its impositions on kids who were mobilized in battalions or were sent to the countryside for rice planting/ transplanting and weeding in springtime. Oak-hee had to do the hard work of hoisting buckets of soil and spray pesticides. It would sting her eyes. She was also made to collect night soil from toilets. North Korea had a shortage of chemical fertilizers so the substitute was human excrement. Each family was to provide a bucketful each week in exchange of which they got chits. These chits were then used to trade food.

North Korea’s wealth was poured into the military. In 1989 it was indulging in weapons grade plutonium and fuel rods of nuclear reactors. By the early 1990s it had a debt of 10$ Billion. It got subsidized oil,rice, fertilizer, pharmaceuticals, cars, ex-ray machines and incubators from Czechoslovakia when it had the support of Soviet Union. But all that fell apart when Soviet Union was dissolved. In fact in 2009, North Korea was the last place on the earth to have collective farms, though they were no longer useful.

On July 6, when Kim-Il Sung died suddenly of a massive heart attack, Kim Jong-Il came into power soon. While most North Koreans like her mother mourned the loss of the great leader, Oak-hee merely thought, “ Few sons are like their fathers, most are worse.”

Out of starvation grew a private endeavor that was egoistic and a free market economy began. This resulted in unlearning of the lifelong propaganda of self resistance. Mrs Song would never rest and always thought of searching for food for her family. She initially made tofu and raised pigs. Then she baked cookies. She was constantly trying to find weeds or grass to supplement the food to avoid starvation. However, no matter how much she did, eventually her mother in law died. Then the next year, her husband Chang-bo died with edema and delirium as a result of starvation. Further into the other year, her son too died. Mrs Song lost her will to live but her daughters supported her somehow and she was back to earning again.

Meanwhile, Oak-hee couldn’t bear the domestic violence and fled from her husband. She crossed the river and entered China and stayed with a Chinese man for 2 years. She was arrested in January 2001 when she was back in North Korea but with the release of amnesty was released. She started working for the briber who gave her a task to reunite a child to his family in China. She was arrested again and sent to Nongpo Detection Center. Women defectors outnumbered men. Oak-hee managed to send a message to her mother and she was bribed for release. Oak-hee escaped to China again and eventually made it to South Korea. Article 3 of the Constitution of South Korea holds itself rightful government of the entire Korean Peninsula in which also included are the North Koreans who are automatically citizens. This Right to Citizenship was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1996.

 

After having earned some money, Oak-hee sent out the same people who helped her to also  convince her mother to cross over to China and then reach South Korea. In 2002, Mrs Song landed in South Korea. She was inducted into “Unlearning for Integration'' into South Korea at Hanawon near Seoul just like her daughter did when she arrived.

Mrs Song and Oakhee brought all their young family members to South Korea. Oak-hee could eventually bring her daughter too. Now their family business has expanded into 3 noreabangs (singing clubs).

Jung-Sang:

Jung-Sang came from a family that was better than Mi-Ran. Their family came from Japan and their lineage enabled them to be far better than others due to their connections which put them on a better class level than Mi-Ran’s family which were in hostile class. They had some Japanese appliances at home and his father had connections to the Party. Jung-Sang noticed Mi-Ran when he was to join the Pyongyan University. Mi-Ran that time was in last year of High School. At that time, when electricity was still there, the theatre pulled in the young, even if the dramas and movies were dealt out by propagandist groups who worked under Kim Il-Sung’s tunes of self-restraint and thinking of Americans as enemies. The movies were on the theme of bowing to the God ie. Kim Il-Sung and thinking of him as the welfare provider. Once in a while, a Russian movie was shown. Jung-Sang noticed Mi-Ran when she was searching for a ticket to enter but could not get it. Later on, Jung-Sang realized that he could think of nothing but her.

In North Korea, the law states that men should marry at the age of 30 years and women at the age of 28 years. With the stringent laws that do not allow public display of affection or do any action that looks like soliciting love, you are sent to prison. In a society, where anyone could complain about you to the police, to fall in love itself was a risk.

While Jung-Sang was trying to spend time with Mi-Ran as much as possible in the summer and winter break, their communications through letters would get derailed in winters. It was suspected that the railway men were using letters to warm themselves due to lack of firewood. Firewood was not available in North Korea because it is banned to chop woods in certain areas. Also, the landscape was already bereft of any trees by the time the famine progressed. Jung-Sang didn’t have any problems about food or staying warm in the University. There the students led a very sheltered life. It was when he came to his home, he started noticing the difference. Though his family was better than others, the conditions around him did make him wonder about what was wrong. Gradually, Jung-Sang did realise that people knew something was wrong but never said anything. The level of repression was so great that no organized resistance took over.

On December 19, 2011, Kim Jong-il died of heart attack at 69 years. His successor Kim Jong-un gave the impression of modern-ism but he too was like his father favoring weapons and not food. The North Korean regime under him gave the impression of opening the economy but keeping the regime in grip. They used carefully calibrated threats to get attention and extort aid and concessions. In 2008, mobile and telecom came to North Korea but one could not call out of the country. Chongjin suddenly had a building boom but that was restricted to attract tourists. Academics was a showcase with kindergarten girls with rouged cheeks and lips for the tourists to see. It was deceiving. Pyongyang saw some development but it was harder elsewhere. 58 year old driver Kim Yong-Chol said, “What use is the amusement park when everyone is starving?”

Jung Sang began hearing more of South Korea and the world on the TV. He became convinced that South Korea is indeed the place to go. Even Mi-Ran was there. When he reached South Korea in the same way that Kim Hyuck did through Mongolia, he didn’t want to meet Mi-Ran having learnt that she was married. Eventually he did meet her and they realised they had less to share now that everything was open and there was no darkness. Eventually after a rough phase, he married a North Korean woman who was as studious as him. He runs a small business and keeps to himself in fear that it might retaliate on his family in North Korea.

Mi-Ran:

Mi-Ran belonged to the family of a hostile class. Her father, Tae-woo was POV. Certain Prisoners of War ie. Korean War were given North Korean citizenship but were part of the hostile class. Others had to face imprisonment or gulag for life.  However, Mi-Ran’s father and mother never let their 3 daughters and a son have any inkling about the class structure. They encouraged their talents. Mi-Ran’s elder sister, Mi-Hee had an excellent voice and it was hoped that she would be accepted in the University for her talent in singing and music. She was however rejected from it due to their class and songban. This was a blow to their confidence, yet the parents kept their kids encouraged. When Mi-Ran was admitted to Kim Jong-suk Teachers College later, it was only because of the shift in the regime due to the death of Kim Il-Sung due to massive heart attack at the age of 82 years.

Upon completing her studies, Mi-Ran joined a school. She played the accordion instrument as it was mandatory for teachers to learn it. In the school, she along with her students played the accordion and sang in praise of the God of Korea, “We have nothing to Envy in the World”. This was done in the midst of reinventing history and erecting myths. For soon the progression of famine was seen. The school cafeteria ran out of firewood so they had to request the kids to bring a lunch box from home. Slowly the lunchbox dwindled. Children stopped participating in school activities. They started sleeping in recess time. Stopped playing games. Then they stopped coming to school.

Death due to starvation has a strange pattern. First strikes kids below 5 years and elders above 70 years then moves on to people around 60 years then to those in their 50’s. Men are affected first, especially those that are athletic or have high metabolism. Innocent Killer Targets is a phenomenon noted by Italian Writer Primo Levi who survived Auschwitz. Those who never steal, borrow or cheat, die first.

Mi-Ran’s father kept talking about his South Korean connection and his family in South Korea in the last days of his life. He urged his family to seek them out. When he was no more, it was gradually found that his circumstances were so politically driven that he was wrongly withheld in North Korea. Mi-Ran’s father’s death led the family to think of reconnecting with his sisters in South Korea. They thought of going to China and coming back but it eventually led them to land in South Korea. Mi-Ran and her family arrived in South Korea in January 1999 with the help of her father’s sisters and cousins who helped them come over with fake passports. Mi-Ran was accepted in the graduate program in Education in South Korea. Eventually she got married and had a son and a daughter too.

Mi-Ran moved to Gangnam and her children visit Canada with her to learn English whenever they can.

 

Kim Hyuck:

Kim Hyuck was born in 1982 in the privileged family. However, when his mother died, his father remarried and that’s when problems began for Kim and his younger brother. His step-mother never fed them well and their father thought they were causing problems. So he put them in an orphanage. In North Korea, orphanages are also open to accepting children whose parents can’t take care of them.  

Kim was a 12 years old boy when the famine had stuck. He stole pears from the orchard. When Kim-Il Sung died, he would stand in line of the mourners at the spiritual center that had his statue, only to get rice cakes. Once he got it, he joined the line again. The mourners were hysterical and no one noticed the boy. Kim was one of the ‘kotchebi’ wandering swallows - orphans who were found trying to get their hands on food by stealing or performing on railway stations.

Kim was 19 year old when he stepped in South Korea. He was in search of his younger brother and thought of escaping the regime. He searched for a Church in China where he was given shelter. He then moved to Shenyang in Mongolia. The Mogolian Police deport all the deporters to South Korea. It is a steerage class passage that comes cheaper. Hyuck arrived in South Korea on September 14, 2001. His head and feet were normal but his torso was small. This problem called Stunting was commonly found in all North Korean children due to malnutrition and starvation. 2003 study by World Food Program and UNICEF noted that 42% of North Korea children were permanently damaged due to starvation and malnutrition.

Kim went back to school, finished high school and college, got a Masters at Unification Studies Institute by the South Korean government and started working on his PhD in  North Korean Affairs. Hyuck is the most public of all the defectors and even an animated film was made on his life. He has also testified before the United Nations Commission of Inquiry in 2014 about the human rights conditions in North Korea.

 

Dr Kim Ji-eun:

Dr Kim’s father moved to North Korea to escape the Great Leap of Mao in the 1960s that had caused famine. Dr Kim was short statured but a determined woman. She entered the Chongjin University Medical School at the age of 16. She was a believer and did a lot of voluntary work. This belief in the regime was brought by her own father’s escape. Having risen to reach medical learning, she believed that if one stayed loyal and worked hard, one would gain recognition. Higher and professional schools and learning centers were off limits for common citizens unless they showed high promise and loyalty to the regime. Again, the look into songban too earned that.

As Soviet Union collapsed and the economy was shaken, North Korean kept up its methods but slowly one could see the lack of facilities. Electricity was cut. Industries stopped running. People were not paid salaries. Machines stopped working because their parts could not be found or no one knew how to repair. Medicines slowly became scarce. The famine ultimately did deal a great blow especially when Dr Kim’s patients started paying her in food packets which slowly became lesser each day.

Famine brought with it epidemics. With an inefficient sewage system that went to streams where women washed clothes (because no water was found in buildings due to lack of electricity). Women washed laundry in the same streams and water was stored in vats. Bacteria thrived and typhoid struck. The United Nations sent relief but it didn’t reach the intended people. Young kids were wasting away, whereby the body eats its own muscle due to starvation. They had huge bellies, a condition of malnutrition. Older kids and adults started suffering from pellagra. Due to lack of medicines, surgeries were not performed.  Empty Rakwon beer bottles were brought by patients so that the intravenous liquid could be injected. One beer bottle was equal to one intravenous dosage.Doctors turned to herbal or the chinese acupressure method of undertaking certain treatments. But since their bodies could not cope, eventually this too stopped. Hospitals eventually emptied out because they could do nothing and people felt that they were better off dying at home, at railway stations or on roads.

With starvation making her lose consciousness sometimes, Dr Kim faced the death of her father in a strange way. He made her write down the family tree and told her to flee North Korea. She thought he was ranting due to the situation and slipped the paper into a box which she hid it away. Dr Kim had by this time left the hospital and was working with Comrade Secretary Chung. She felt that given her loyalty, she might have better prospects in future. However, Chung was exploiting her. On realising this, in a few days she was visited by a man who interrogated her and suspected that she would flee. When she denied, he mentioned that she had all the reasons. No money, divorced, son was in father’s custody and her parents were no more. Instead of being agitated, this propelled Dr Kim to actually flee. When she crossed the river and entered China she found a house with the gate open. She noticed a bowl of rice and meat, something North Koreans haven’t seen in years. Then she realized that the bowl was for the dog. Her first thought was: “Dogs in China are better than doctors in North Korea”

Dr Km was arrested 3 times in China because she stood out due to her height and lean figure. She no longer wanted to stay in China. However and opportunity came up. A professor had come to China with her baby and she needed a nanny. Dr Kim stayed on for a year with them. They wanted to take her back to South Korea and that’s when Dr Kim told them the truth of her being a doctor. They helped her with a passage to South Korea. In 2002, Dr Kim arrived in South Korea.

She realized that South Korea does not recognize her medical training. She fought with the South Korea Medical Board and got accepted to a 4 year medical program instead of starting all over again. Dr Kim passed medical exams and became a certified South Korean Doctor. She opened a medical clinic in Seoul and also managed to get her son out of North Korea.

The Aftermath of Defection:

 

Defectors find it paralyzing to make decisions when the state has made decisions for them all those years
The advancement and the technology combined with a totally different lifestyle that has a huge gap from 1970s can be quite disorienting for North Koreans
Strangely, defectors hate the North Korean regime but get defensive when South Koreans criticize it.
It takes a few years to get used to the sympathetic reactions of the South Koreans. North Koreans are intrinsically proud people even if they have fallen to hard times. This did have a demoralizing impact on the defectors but they slowly learnt to survive and emerge out of it - as they have always done.
Some defectors believe that North Korea will change while some are not that hopeful.
Mrs Song still believes that the North Korean regime had its strong points in certain areas of governing people. However the same sentiment is not shared by the younger generation who saw more years of struggle and famine.
Many North Koreans in recent years have turned to violent crime and drug addiction in North Korea. Meth /Orum/ Ice cuts appetite and is cheap which is ideal for North Koreans. It is offered to guests instead of tea.
Gap between rich and poor in North Korea is widening. Homelessness is increasing.
Defector families live better than others. Security personnel go to Oak-hee’s husband to shave because he is the only one who has razor blades.
Kim Jong-un runs the country as if the Cold War is still on. It is formidable to realize that despite the setbacks, North Korea has survived the breaching of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the market reforms of neighbouring China, the famine of 1990s, death of Leader Kim Il-Sung and the 2 terms of George Bush’s Presidency wherein it was target of nuclear talks.

 

Author Experiences during Reporting:

 

Barbara shares in the book her experiences of reporting North Korea from 2001. These are the key points enumeration how difficult task it is because:

Fleeting tourist visits to North Korea is done at certain pre-ordained spots or select itinerary of monuments  in Pyongyang
It is impossible to do reporting in North Korea without the two assigned “minders” who ensure unauthorized conversations are not made and the reporters stay in certain areas and stay in their designated hotel. Movements are checked.
No contact with ordinary citizens permitted for foreigners
The visits of important officials ensure that the electricity is available on those days otherwise North Korea plunges in darkness

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