A book about the plight of the North Korean people that I have meaning to read based off the strong feedback I have read from others is Barbara Demick’s, “Nothing To Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea”:

After reading this book I can tell you that the acclaim it has received is well deserved simply because it is not your typical North Korea book.  Demick who works for the LA Times and was once their Seoul bureau chief follows the lives of a small number of North Koreans she interviewed after they defected from the country.  These interviews show how these defectors struggled to live through difficult times in North Korea.  Most of the people interviewed by Demick were from Chongjin in North Korea’s northeast which is the area of the country that most of the defectors come from.

Right from the start of the book Demick makes a good point about how when people think of poor famished countries they often think of remote villages in Africa for example that have no access to electricity due to the lack of development.  With North Korea it is completely opposite because North Korea at one time was developed and actually fell out of the developed world.  The fact that many middle-aged North Koreans can remember living a lifestyle better than their South Korean cousins has only added to the indignity they feel of falling out the modern world.  This book shows how the lives of the featured North Koreans changed as they had to learn to cope with losing one modern convenience after another.  Eventually the loss of modern conveniences than turned into the loss of food which ultimately led to the Great Famine in the mid-90’s which cost the lives of approximately a million North Koreans.

Many people would think that the people in North Korea would blame the Kim Jong-il regime for their suffering.  However, due to the regime’s propaganda apparatus the people in North Korea largely blame the United States for the suffering they are going through.  The book explains in great detail the extent of the propaganda that the people in North Korea are subjected to from infancy and how neighborhoods are organized through a class system where people often report on each other.  One North Korean woman explains how a man was sent off to a prison camp for joking about Kim Jong-il’s height.  So between the constant propaganda and the threat of being reported by a neighbor it is easy to understand why North Koreans end up believing in the propaganda.  Some North Koreans even after they defect have a hard time overcoming the ingrained propaganda even when living in South Korea.

Despite who they blame for their suffering, it is still tragic.  For example Demick interviews a teacher that talks about how she had to go to school every day and see her students one by one no longer show up for class any more because they were dying of starvation.  A doctor tells about the poor conditions she had to treat her patient and having to watch them die.  Pretty depressing stuff that shouldn’t happen in a world abundant with food.

Besides the tragic tales of suffering, Demick’s book also highlights mundane facts about living in North Korea such as the “Vinalon” uniforms factory workers wear.  Vinalon is a shiny synthetic fabric invented by a Korean scientist in 1939.  It is produced in a factory in Hamhung and is often called the “Juche Fiber”.  North Korean women in the cities also very much care about their appearance.  So much so that hairdressers were part of a state run agency called the “Convenience Bureau” that ensured the women had access to beauty treatments. Another interesting tidbit from the book was how one defector explained how her mother used to tell stories about how the American soldiers she saw during the Korean War were actually tall and handsome and not the beasts depicted in North Korean propaganda.  Her mother remembered how the children used to run after the soldiers because they always handed out chewing gum.  Also Chongjin was described as having a reputation for its number of street gangs often caused by youths joining together to steal food.  The book also described how radio broadcasts from South Korea are being listened to secretly by North Koreans.  I have advocated for supporting these radio broadcasts for years and this is just further evidence that these broadcasts are effective.

Finally the book describes how hard it is for these North Korean defectors to assimilate into life in South Korea.  The fact that these North Koreans have to make choices for themselves of where to live, where to work, what to do, or even something as simple as deciding what clothes to wear is extremely difficult to them.  For a group of people that are used to having decisions made for them it is difficult to assimilate to a life of making choices yourself.  This should be a warning to everyone on how difficult dealing with a collapsed North Korean state will be if North Koreans are all forced to make choices for themselves.  That is why I have advocated before that North Korean governmental officials should be stood up to rule themselves instead of being replaced by a provincial government in exile.

All in all though, I found this book to be the most interesting out of all the North Korean defector related books, even better than the classic, “The Aquariums of Pyongyang”.  It is easy to tell Demick is a journalist because I found the book to be a very well written story of these people’s lives that is full of facts, but not overwhelmed with so many that it feels like you are reading a textbook.  Demick is good at telling stories to include one love story in this book that makes it a real page turner and thus a quick read.  So if you are looking for just one book that is a quick read that explores the lives of ordinary North Koreans, this is it.