Customer Reviews

North of the Dmz: Essays on Daily Life in North Korea

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

For years now, Western observers of North Korea have tended to use absolutes in describing the country. It is, for example, said to be the last Stalinist nation on earth and the world's most secretive, isolated, autarkic society, while its leader (Kim Chong-il) is characterized and caricatured as odd and ruthless in the extreme. None of these descriptors is necessarily wrong, but individually and collectively they tend to obscure the fact that a great deal has changed over the past several decades.

Riding to the rescue, so to speak, is the distinguished Russian scholar Andrei Lankov, who has gathered together in "North of the DMZ: Essays on Daily Life in North Korea" articles originally printed in the "Korea Times" and "Asia Times." Lankov brings to his musings and this book exceptional skills and credentials: he writes beautifully, has a fine sense of humor, attended Kim Il-song University several decades ago, knows South Korea as well as its northern counterpart, and has personally experienced growing up in a Communist country. The resulting book is a delight to read and certainly one of the most valuable primers ever published on North Korea, with its 100-plus essays at once both anecdotal in tone and exceptionally well-researched.

Lankov's main focus in "North of the DMZ" is the life of everyday North Koreans, and in this regard the essays cover everything from the arts, media, social structure, and recreation to love and marriage, transportation, education, and food supplies. Another large portion of the essays cover policies and control systems that the government has tried to impose, with the emphasis here on how poorly these are actually working. The essays were not written with the intent of answering strategic questions about the viability of the North Korean state, and the book does not address the perspectives of those who rule or such issues as the role of nuclear weapons in ensuring the survival of North Korea. Nonetheless, "North of the DMZ" paints a compelling picture of a society and economy in flux. This society bears little resemblance to the tightly-controlled and idealized country described in official propaganda, and anyone seeking to answer strategic questions about North Korea's future will want to factor in the tactical ground truth uncovered by Lankov.

Most talking heads, or indeed all talking heads, especially those you see on TV or read from articles, can only pretend to know anything about North Korea, and then only superficially, and even that is from the speculations of others who themselves in turn, for lack of real knowledge, only imagine what life is like in North Korea, based on whatever meager rumors and arrogant and erroneous hearsay they picked up from places they don't remember, and necessarily supplemented and twisted using their own unfortunately totally unrelated life experience. All, that is, except Andrei Lankov.

It's amazing to realize how little we Westerners know about communism after 50 years and hundreds of billions of dollars fighting and analyzing it, let alone a far eastern version of it, let alone one that's pushed to the extreme.

North Korea is almost a make-believe world.

Andrei Lankov grew up in the communist USSR and spent two(?) years in the Kim Il-Sung university in the DPRK, and is now a lecturer/processor in a university in South Korea. His essays about life in the DPRK have run on the Korea Times website for some time, and have been some of the most sought-after articles. Now collected in book form, they tell of the daily life in DPRK from an insider's point of view, with profound understanding of how communism really works. They make a fascinating read for anyone who is interested in the bizarre but logical in its own way world of communism. The writing style is particular cozy and fun. Enjoy a few of these essays, and you can probably talk more intelligently or at least correctly about the DPRK than 90% of the talking heads who are too busy projecting opinions and making money to have any time left to understand something as difficult as communism or the DPRK.

Fascinating description of daily life in North Korea, and how much it has changed in recent years. The essays are short and informative. I planned to only read a few, but this book is almost impossible to put down. Every page contains a revelation. The writing is witty and engaging.

Lankov is a Korea expert who grew up in the USSR, so he is able to fruitfully contrast the communist society of his youth with North Korea. That gives him an edge that is illuminating about more than just North Korea.

A few examples that caught my attention:

Lankov went to North Korea as a Soviet exchange student. Russians in the USSR thought of North Koreans as brainwashed automatons back then--quite similar to the American perception, but who knew?

When North Korean television showed a protest in South Korea to demonstrate that South Koreans were oppressed, the average North Korean noticed instead that, contrary to what they had been told by their government, South Koreans did not appear poor. They appeared well fed and well dressed. Unlike themselves.

Chinese people are dumping VCRs and buying DVD players in droves, the result of which is that--in part because the border has become porous due to the decline of the North Korean state-- North Koreans are buying cheap used VCRs and watching South Korean programming, spreading South Korean fashion, music and culture. Lankov compares that to the rock and roll and blue jeans of his Soviet youth, and wonders if the consequences might be similar.

Andrei Lankov has spent his career studying North Korea, beginning as an exchange student in Pyongyang, and more recently, interviewing numerous defectors. As a Russian, Lankov is in a position to make observations that would escape other observers, namely the parallels with Stalinist Russia. Indeed, the author says that the Kim dynasty has created a caricature of Stalinism that even the Soviet leaders regarded as a laughingstock.

Lankov's book examines daily life in North Korea. Most of its essays focus on minutiae, such as the architectural layout of high-rise apartment buildings and the design of its currency, while a few essays cover more substantial matters, such as the North Korean kidnappings of other countries' citizens, and the attempts to murder South Korean leaders. This book is for those who have already read something about North Korea and want to know more. What is it like to live in the world's most oppressive society?

This book is filled with interesting tidbits. If you're a North Korean, you can expect to change clothes once a week and get a bath every two weeks(!). To have a bathtub or shower in one's apartment is a rare luxury reserved for the elite; others must go to crowded bathhouses. Basic hygiene becomes a luxury.

In no way is this an egalitarian society; it consists of clearly delineated strata based on genealogy and occupation, in which the highest tranche enjoys unparalleled luxury while the bottom level faces chronic malnutrition, if not outright starvation. Of the population, 1/20th has been in a prison camp at some point in their lives, and some die slow deaths in those camps due to starvation and overwork. The largest prison camps are veritable cities with 50,000 inmates.

If there is a flaw, it's that the writing seems excessively informal. The writing is peppered with exclamation marks. Because the book consists of essays that Lankov had written for other media outlets, some essays repeat material in earlier essays. (Was there an editor?) The author's use of the word "lefties" speaks for itself. Indeed, one of Lankov's pet peeves is that human rights abuses in North Korea get insufficient media attention because such criticism is unfashionable at the moment, and draws a parallel with how "lefties" were once enamored with Maoist China.

Lankov assumes a "hard landing" is around the corner (i.e., a collapse of North Korean society rather than gradual reform). If so, it will be far more traumatic than the collapse of other Communist regimes, and the burden on South Korea will be unfathomable, straining that nation to the breaking point. However, analysts have been anticipating the collapse of the North Korean regime for decades, and it hasn't happened yet despite famines coupled with oppression surpassing Stalin's policies. Lankov argues the free flow of information across the Chinese-North Korean border, previously an impermeable barrier, will lead to the regime's collapse.

Soviet-born Andrei Lankov has been traveling in and out of North Korea since the 80s and is one of the few scholars who can offer both the perspective and sense of history needed to shed light on the most secretive nation on Earth.

This collection of short (3-4 page) essays skips the usual political and military angle and instead focuses on daily life. There are essays on North Korean schools, mass transit, radio and even religion. Lankov explains these aspects of life comparing them to life in the old Soviet Union and explaining how they have changed since the famines of the mid-90s.

This book is the perfect compliment to Barbara Demick's Nothing to Envy. While her book give a detailed account of the lives of a few defectors Lankov's book speaks in broad terms about the country as a whole. The two books both inform the reader in different ways.

There are some rough spots. Lankov closes each essay with speculation about what will happen after the regime falls, these are sometimes interesting but after a while start to feel like a propaganda campaign of his own. Lankov also has a habit of giving figures without sources. When he says 40% of North Korean households have televisions I wonder where that came from, certainly government figures cannot be trusted and anyone else would be guessing.

So readers should keep a skeptical mind, but as long as they do this is a very useful book for anyone looking to better understand North Korea.

This book provides a really nice inside look of what North Korea is like. Although I have never been to North Korea (like most of us) the descriptions of daily life, cultures, politics, work, etc. seem to fall in line with other surrounding countries (China specifically); which, for me, lends to its credibility.

The fact that the author is Russian also provides an interesting view on the nation when read by someone from a country with an opposite political background (ex. U.S.A, Canada, U.K, etc.). I found it to be quite fascinating and a good read.

In the small but growing canon of literature about North Korea, there are not many texts that can be described as cheering. Most focus on the viciousness of Japanese imperialism, the nightmares of the Korean War, the machinations of the Family Kim, nuclearisation and de-nuclearisation, and the slow grind towards reunification. Of course, all of these remain in the shadows of Andrei Lankov's collection of essays about daily life in North Korea, but the emphasis here is upon ordinary people making the most of an extraordinary set of circumstances. Lankov is one of the world's leading experts in North Korean studies, yet he approaches this collection with a lightness of touch, and an affection for the North Koreans developed during his own years as a student at Kim il Sung University. It shouldn't be a surprise that North Koreans are, after all, people like us, but many of these stories demonstrate this fact to charming and surprising degrees, offering insights into life, love, work and play to the north of the DMZ. In the endless debate about future conflict on the peninsula, Lankov draws optimism and hope, not from the bewildering contours of high politics in North or South, but from the decency and good humour of ordinary North Koreans. It is they, Lankov believes, particularly the younger generation with no memory of war, that will finally find its way through the shadows. After reading this book, you will be left hoping all the more that Lankov is right.

A gem of a book. By far the best account of daily life in North Korea. Having grown up in the Soviet Union, Lankov understands how these kinds of societies work like no other scholar in writing in English today. These essays aren't about nuclear weapons, the Korean War, or about Kim Il Sung- they're about how North Koreans actually live and what makes them tick. Totally unlike anything else published about North Korea.

This book contained a lot of good information formatted in a factual way. There's virtually no fluff.

As a Russian scholar who lived in North Korea in the 1980s, he has a unique perspective and understanding of this strange and secluded country. Easy reading as it's several essays packed in chapters, dealing with various aspects of life in North Korea.

I should read it again - very enjoyable to read and highly informative.