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Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea

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As Barbara Demick says in her epilogue, North Korea is something of a mystery. How has it avoided the collapse that experts have been predicting for 15 or more years? How has it been so successful at keeping citizens ignorant of the outside world and the outside world ignorant of its machinations? And, because of these successes at insulation, is it even possible to understand what life is like in North Korea?

Fortunately, Nohing to Envy gives us a "yes" answer to this last question; here is a book where we hear the stories of six North Korean defectors. In interweaving chapters, Demick reconstructs these tales of struggle with the skill of a novelist (and anyone not told that this is a work of journalism may be forgiven for thinking it a dystopian novel a la 1984 (Signet Classics) or We (Modern Library Classics)).

Dr. Kim is a medical doctor, devoted to the Workers party; Mrs. Song is a wife forced to find any way she can to feed her family, including daughter Oak-Hee in increasingly dismal times; Kim Hyuck is a boy whose father gave him to a state orphanage rather than have a son he couldn't support; Jun-Sang and Mi-Ran are secretly boyfriend and girlfriend, each with private reservations about, and struggles with, North Korea that remain private for fear of governmental repurcussions. Through these tales, we are able to glimpse life in a nation gone horribly wrong, where selling anything privately or insulting the Workers Psrty can land you years of time in prison or a labor camp, where emaciated children sing songs extolling North Korea, and one's station in life is dictated by how loyal one's family has been to "the Party." The stories are wonderfully told and, at times, I found myself putting the book down out of disbelief, outrage, and thankfulness for my own circumstances. I don't think anyone could read these stories and not feel very strongly.

Of course, Demick is also telling stories of defectors - by definition, stories about the strength of human spirit and tenacity. Nothing to Envy not only tells of economic collapse, but people's initiative in bringing about (illegal) markets to buy and sell goods. She not only tells of spirits being broken, but spirits persevering. And just as readers will certainly feel heartbreaks in these pages, so will they also feel joy in reading about some really brave people who broke the rules and thought for themeslves.

I cannot reccomend this book strongly enough! Readers of fiction (and biography) will get lost in the stories; readers of foreign affairs and political science will relish the descriptions of life under a most secret regime. Nothing to Envy is as captivating as a human story as it is informative as a political description.

I find myself fascinated by the lives of North Koreans: So completely different from ours in the first world. What is most fascinating is that they don't even know what they're missing, indoctrinated virtually from birth that the U.S. is evil and their Dear Leader is a god. This book is for people like me, that want to know more about what it's really like to live there, day by day. The book is full of little details like the very modest housing, the lack of heat in the wintertime everywhere, and how rations worked before they were cut off; to say nothing of the many ways to avoid starvation or watching what you say all the time for fear of being reported to the authorities for the North Korean equivalent of blasphemy.

The book follows six people through their lives in the DPRK in the 1990's, including the huge famine which occurred at that time; and, ultimately, their decisions to defect (a foregone conclusion since otherwise their stories would not be told). I found myself fascinated by them, especially how each figures out that their country's leadership has let them down. The author even managed to fit in a love story which, far from being hokey, is especially riveting due to the circumstances. The book is well-written and easy to read, the only mar being occasional repeated information which is easy to overlook.

I feel like I'm barely scratching the surface with this review. If reading this makes you want to know more, you won't be disappointed by the book.

This is a gripping book. The six defectors interviewed by Demick describe North Korea as a totalitarian state in a post-apocalypse condition. That's why the visions of Orwell and McCarthy come to mind.

North Korea suffered two tragedies. The first one was the split of the Korean peninsula at the end of WWII and Stalin installing a like-minded dictator at its helm, Kim Il-sung. The latter eradicates religion and replaces it by his own cult of personality. In achieving a God status in his country, he bests Stalin, Hitler and Fidel Castro. Upon his death in the early nineties, many North Koreans will commit suicides. And, North Koreans will believe (through intense political propaganda) that if they cry enough Kim Il-sung will come back from the dead. The son of Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il will succeed him as a son of God.

North Korea's second tragedy was the collapse of the Soviet Union. When the latter collapsed it interrupted its assistance in food and oil. North Korea did not have enough fuel on its own to maintain its electrical grid. On the first page of the first chapter you see a picture of the Korean peninsula at night. South Korea is full of bright spots (urban areas lit by electricity). But, North Korea is pitch dark! In the post Soviet Union era, North Korea suffers shortages of electricity, running water, and food. Millions have already died of starvation. People are not paid. They are compensated by food rations. But, if you don't work you don't eat. The ones who don't receive food attempt to survive by milling bark, grasses, shrubs, leaves.

The majority of the country still suffers from malnutrition. Millions more would die if not for foreign assistance. But, the government misallocates food assistance by giving it to the ones who need it the least such as the army and the Pyongyang residents. Meanwhile, rural areas are starving. Within the book, a defecting doctor describes it best as she crossed the border in China and finds a full bowl of rice served to a dog and stated "dogs in China eat better than doctors in North Korea."

While Koreans physical attributes were reasonably homogeneous a while back, they have since diverged dramatically. The North Koreans are half a foot shorter and tens of pounds lighter because of malnutrition. North Koreans born in the late eighties to early nineties are recognizable as they are shorter with heads disproportionately large relative to their bodies with overly thin and frail limbs.

In the early nineties before foreign aid rallied after the collapse of Soviet Union subsidies, society took a McCarthy's turn with many crimes, suicides, and even cannibalism (homeless orphans overtaken by starving adults in remote areas).

Only a totalitarian State could prevent such a society to fall into chaos. Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il have created a cult of personality supported by an obsessive self-surveillance society. North Koreans main activity is reporting on each other. The surveillance starts from the bottom up with "people's group" were everyone reports on everyone else. At dinner if you expressed a mild criticism of the current regime, you could be reported by a neighbor. Soon, after you could be abducted by the police and disappear in a camp forever. Many surveilling police forces are very specialized. If you sleep with your lover, a specialized police force can barge in the middle of the night and ask your lover for its travel permit. If the adequate documents are not produced the person can end up in prison. Another specialized police force watches that people wear the correct garments with the buttons showing support for the regime. Another one checks in that your TV or radio (a few people have electricity for a few moments a day) is set on the proper North Korean program. If you tweaked this equipment to listen to South Korean programs, you can incur severe punishment including death. Another police force makes sure that the portraits of the dictators are clean. If not you are in trouble.

Society is categorized in three classes: 1) the core class representing the professionals and government leaders; 2) the wavering class representing some sort of middle class; and 3) the hostile class representing entertainers, artists, nonproductive elements, and everyone of foreign origins. The hostile class is the one most intensely spied upon by others. Thus, it is most vulnerable to be imprisoned in camps and gulags for no obvious reason.

Propaganda is relentless. The dictator is the benevolent father of the nation. Without his hard work and superior intelligence you would be dying of starvation twice as fast as you are. Everybody else is the enemy. This includes Americans, Chinese, South Koreans, and even Russians and East-Europeans who failed at communism because of their genetic weakness. Capitalism is rotten. In other words, you have "Nothing to Envy."

Meanwhile, reality is stunningly bad. Chapter 7 describes the decrepit health care system. Hospitals lack all basic supplies and remedies. Many operations are conducted without anesthetic by tying the patient to boards. Children come in the hospitals and die because their weakening bodies from starvation can't fend off mild colds or flues that escalate into pneumonia. Chapter 8 describes the conditions in school that are equally horrible. Given that schools are broke, children are required to bring a ration of wood for heating and their own lunch. A teacher/defector observed a tragic pattern. At first, the children stop bringing their ration of wood. Next, the children don't bring their own lunch (and therefore don't eat during the day). And, soon after children do not even attend school.

I saw Ms. Demick speak at Asia Society on January 7, 2010. I purchased the book, started reading it that night, and stayed up past midnight to finish it the next evening. This an extraordinary work and I could not put it down. I have a graduate degree in East Asian History and have read several books on North Korea, but I can say I learned a lot of new things from this one. There are several other good books on North Korea but I think this book is the most moving and offers the best psychological perspective.

Ms. Demick skillfully weaves together stories of six North Korean refugees into a narrative which portrays life in North Korea from WWII to the present. She tells us about real people, each of whom is different, and helps us understand the interior psychological reality of life inside this closed society. Her descriptions of places, events, and emotions are beautifully crafted and you feel like you are there. As I read the book I felt sad about the terrible conditions under which people live, and also came out with a much better understanding of the motivations of people in North Korea.

These points that the author made are particularly interesting:
- In the 1950's conditions in North Korea were actually better than in China, and some people moved across the border from China to Korea.
- While banning Christianity the regime actually borrowed from it, e.g. referring to the leaders as "father," their savior.
- Like cult members it is very hard for many people to abandon the world view of the regime, even after they leave.
- The most shattering thing to people who break with the regime is the discovery that the outside world, especially China and South Korea, are not living in the same state of misery.
- While still opposing capitalism ideologically, some people, especially women in their 50's, started to practice a form of it just to survive.

I highly recommend this book.

If you ever needed a book to teach you that you ought to be desperately, profoundly, whole-heartedly grateful for your mortgage and your bills and your speeding ticket and your whiny children, this is the book. If you ever thought you had it rough, this book will fix your attitude. There's a certain type of discussion, often called the "come to jesus" discussion regardless of whether it had anything to do with religion - it's the last-chance talk you have with someone who needs a major attitude adjustment. This book is a factual account of a hidden world, a condemnation of a nation mired in disaster, and a rousing face-slap for anyone in the west so stuck on their own problems they can't see any way out.

It's also giving you a glimpse into a world so secretive that most people know more about the fantasy world of "Avatar" than they do about this real place. It's showing you scenes of terrifying beauty couched in scenes of humanitarian desecration. It's a glimpse into another world, one you will never get the chance to see, one that bears no resemblance to anything else on this earth. It's a fossil, something preserved from the days of kings and emperors, and gives you a glimpse into how the world was run before the Magna Carta forced western monarchies to recognize their duty, no matter how limited, to their people. It ought to be required reading for romanticists and those who dream of royalty: this is how it works int he real world, when one man has absolute power.

As evident by the length of reviews on this book already posted, this book about the North Korean regime and the ordeals of the six chronicled defectors is a worthwhile read and I don't need to summarize or highlight events in the book as others have already done so.

I'd like to make a few comments about the book from a Korean American perspective. Some of the details of their lives in North Korean struck a cord in me, particularly Demick's attention to the culinary culture of the Koreans. The detailed explanations of how they made Kimchi and buried them in terracotta or the process of making tofu from beans to the making of soup, reminded me that the North Koreans struck by the famine could easily have been my own mother, sisters, or brothers. In light of the culinary tie, it was especially difficult to read about their starvation and constant concern for where their next meal would come from. Further, Demick's treatment of the Confucius traditions that are so deeply ingrained in Koreans (perhaps more deeply ingrained in the North than the South who have given up many cultural traditions in recent times), revealed profound depth in the narratives of the defectors - their sense of duty to their parents and family - and further explained the twisted hold the Communist regime hand on the people (crimes against the state were often paid for by three generations of the family). Despite their constant fear of the Party and their meager existence, the North Koreans truly believed that things could be much worse and were likely much worse in the West. Nonetheless, it was not so much the ideology they questioned, but economics that finally broke the camel's back and drove them to China and subsequent defection to the South. And while they may have gained freedom from the regime, and a significant increase in their standard of living, I can't help but feel they have also paid the price of loosing some of their Confucius Koreaness as they are now displaced in South Korea, away from the world and family they knew and forced to acculturate to the West. I imagine the haunting memories and the continuing thoughts of the family they left behind makes them wonder if they are even free at all? What good is the most advanced cellular telephone if one cannot reach out to their loved ones? Do the fruits of living in the South make the past (and present) any more bearable? It becomes less about ideological defection, and more about having them face their own demons - the choices they made in their fight for survival. Moreover, their deep love for their "father" Kim Ill Sung cannot be simply forgotten. The Confucius tie of a parent and offspring, of king and subject, are not easily broken. The book reveals that mothers and daughters, sons and fathers, love one another despite any differences. They don't have a choice in that.

(BTW - one dying father's last words in the book - "mother" instantly brought tears to my eyes).

Why the three stars? Demick's work scratches just the surface and I don't think anyone should come away from this book thinking they are even close to a comprehensive understanding. She needs to press on and uncover the deeper wounds from both sides of the DMZ. I'd like Demick to go back, armed with these accounts of these defectors and delve deeper into the lives of the thousands of defectors living in the South, the constant watchful eye of the South Korean government, the cases of North Korean abduction of South Koreans, and the countless Koreans living in Communist China. There are more stories to tell from the hundreds of thousands, whose families are still torn apart. Further, I'd like the public to know more about the failures of the West in bringing humanitarian aid to the North Koreans and not be simply satisfied with the story of theses six chronicled.

It's 1 am December 22nd as I write this, and I doubt I will even be able to sleep tonight, because this book is one that is haunting my every thought.

Loving books as much as I do, I force myself to read books which I know will make me feel sad, and even mad. This is one of those books. Started reading it a few days before Christmas and am glad I did, since its a book that kicks you in the gut and makes to verbally acknowledge just how blessed one is, here in the states, where for the most part, even the poor at least have some plain, healthy food to eat at least daily. Now I tend to be one of those people who when I lay in bed, ready for sleep, and I go over the days activities, I pause to give thanks for clean water, simple food, indoor plumbing, a bed to sleep in and while not well off by any standards, I am nonetheless lacking for none of the basics of life.

This book literally made me cry, which is good. How one could read of North Koreans living in such horrid conditions, cutting grass and weeds to make some awful soup, because they are so hungry. Or parents bringing children to fifth world medical clinics because they have no milk, not even rice. On page 112 we read of a young female doctor who is trying against all odds to help her people. 'The problem was with the food. Housewives started to pick weeds and wild grasses to add to their soups to create the illusion of vegetables. Corn was increasingly the staple again instead of rice but people were adding leaves, husks, stems, and cobs to make it go further. That was okay for adults, but it couldn't be digested by the young stomachs of children. In the hospital doctors discussed this problem among themselves, and gave the mothers what amounted to cooking advise. 'If you use grass or bark, you have to grind it very fine, then cook it a very long time so it is soft a d easy to eat.' Dr. Kim told them.' One reads how the doctors harvest herbs in the surrounding areas and try to make their own medicines and herbal treatments, because they have no other choice.

Another problem one reads about is pellagra which is caused by lack of niacin in the diet and often seen in people who only eat corn. The hospitals which may have had antibiotics years ago had none now. Mothers didn't eat enough to produce breast milk so baby and toddlers died. And if they could have afforded rice they would have tried to make rice milk, but there was no rice. Think of any horrid situation a country who doesn't care about her citizens can have and this is North Korea. Only a small are of North Korea is open to visitors and then they have a 'minder' who takes them around and only allows them to see certain things and speak to certain people.

Dr. Kim who had begun medical school at age 16, finally is able to escape with the help of the underground and she ends up in China and then South Korea where in her forties she has to start medical school all over again, but succeeds. And the book also covers the story of others who at great risk, did what they had to in order to escape North Korea. Since returning to North Korea if caught would have meant either a hard labor camp or even death. Visualize for a moment someone in their thirties who because of malnutrition looks like they are twelve years old. Or if a child survives to adult hood they may not be over five feet tall, even if male.

This is a book that will stay with me the rest of my life.

Barbara Demick's reporting on "The Hermit Kingdom" has as its focus, the lives of six defectors from North Korea. She never makes it clear how she happened to locate these six individuals, a question I would like to know the answer to.

Regardless of this oversight, "Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea" is an extraordinary piece of first-person journalism. Demick probes into each of these lives. She has a way of finding the core of what makes each of these people tick.

It's a dangerous path to become a defector from one's own country, particularly when that country is North Korea. "Great Leader" Kim Il-sung created a secular, communist-ideology state based on a personality cult, whose dynasty continues on with his successor son, "Dear Leader" Kim Jung-il. Despite the breakdown of the Berlin Wall, the breakup of the Soviet Union and the rise of a market economy in mainland China, North Korea continues on as a Communist state of the command-order variety, more Stalinist in its ideology than the Soviet Union was at the peak of Stalinism.

By way of the back story, Demick provides insight into "Juche," an ideology of self-reliance promulgated by Kim Il-sung. Juche feeds on a Korean sense of history in which Korea was long-subservient to its dominant neighbors, China, Japan and Russia. Kim Il-Sung taps into a sense of rightful justice, a determination that Korea needs to be independent, to go it alone. As Demick puts it, Kim Il-sung created an ideology "seductive to a people whose dignity had been trampled by its neighbors for centuries."

Although fifteen years dead, Kim Il-sung's personality cult remains strong. He is portrayed as his country's George Washington, Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Jesus, rolled into one.

What makes this a compelling read is the story of the lives of the six defectors, each of whom overcomes terrible odds and a life of ideological brainwashing to break free of North Korea to establish new lives. Each person has his or her own story. I won't spoil things by saying any more about them here.

A great read. Five stars!

Examining what goes on in North Korea - on any level - poses monumental challenges for today's journalist. Access is rarely given to any part of the country. When it is, it's severely restricted to certain areas. "Minders" make it impossible to approach "real" North Koreans, and - as Barbara Demick's book shows - many "real" North Koreans aren't even allowed in cities which are (occasionally) visited, such as the capital city of Pyongyang.

So it's a small miracle that Demick's Nothing To Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea was even conceived. Although Demick made it into North Korea on multiple occasions, the vast bulk of this book comes from interviews with North Koreans who managed to make it out of the country successfully. Many of these escapees were from the northern city of Chongjin, a city near enough to North Korea's border with China to make fleeing a slightly easier task than it would be from other points. Without having seen it herself, Demick paints a portrait of Chongjin - the daily rhythm of life there, the changes brought over the course of a few years and the personality of its residents - that manages to feel absolutely dead-on, without sensationalism or distortion. Demick herself admits that it's likely that she's gotten some of the details wrong, but the "reality" she creates is believable.

The book is nothing more than a series of interwoven character sketches alongside some relevant political and socio-economic context. But the intersections of the lives and events she portrays are masterfully depicted. Although Demick has a journalist's eye for detail and a documentarian's desire for truth, she deftly transcends what would be, in lesser hands, simple fodder for the dailies. The book has no great arc. Although drama drips from every page, and the current fates of the warmest characters are detailed, Nothing To Envy feels, much like the fate of the millions of North Koreans stuck in a despotic wasteland, ever-so-slightly unfinished. This isn't criticism, rather its high praise for an author sensible enough to let time tell the rest of the story.

Most parts of the world, in most important eras, are marked by a piece of literature or documentation that superbly convey that time and place. For understanding North Korea's people at the start of the 21st century, I can't imagine a better book than this. Very, very highly recommended, and timely.

Those of us who lived in Communist countries easily recognize that Orwell's 1984 was on target in describing existence inside those totalitarian countries, particularly the all-encompasing paranoia (unfortunately, many technology-obsessed Canadians, Americans and Western Europeans only think of the telescreens in the book to be worried about). Mao's China, East Germany thorughout its existence, Stalin and Lenin's Russia, the early decades of Cuba were all characterized by this state of affairs. Later on, China, Soviet Union and China, although retaining their authoritarian character, over time shed the hysterical paranoia. North Korea, however, has retained its 1984 flavor. At the end of the book, the authoress mentions that there are tourist agencies promoting visits to North Korea "while it still lasts." Kind of macabre.

And speaking of macabre . . . .

There are two ways to write about history. One is the traditional manner of writing about the goings on of the people in charge, be it a general, a king, the aristocracy, politicians, diplomats, etc. A relatively recent style of history has been writing about the common people in a particularly unusual envorionment (auschwitz, the gulag, the depression, civil wars, international wars, famines, etc.). This book is the latter. It chronicles the breakdown of everyday existence, or subsistence, of N. Korean families when the Soviet Union rid itself of its "fraternal" parasitical Marxist countries. A total breakdown occurred in the society and people in desperation tried to survive as best they could, sometimes doing shameful things in order to avoid starvation for themselves or their families (although it sounds like the book would be depressing to read, it actually avoids that). It reads like a novel and I found it hard to put down in order to do the things I needed to do in the day, as I wondered what would happen to the people that the authoress was writing about. Although the book is a compilation of testimony of the survivors of the famine, the narrative is supplemented by information gathered by various documents from the UN, South Korea, Switzerland, America.

There is one tiny tidbit that was ommitted in the book which was disappointing because I have been trying to remember the name of a Westerner who travelled to N. Korea and documented the mass starvation and the deaths of thousands of children in that country due to starvation. He was shocked, when he returned to Europe and America and gave his presentation, that so many leftists/liberals either condemned him or ignored him. They were offended that he was criticizing a Communist regime. Communism = the opium of the intellectual.