Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea in Around the World

Oct 13, 2010 Daisy rated it it was amazing

Shelves: korea-south-or-north, out-of-towners, aroundtheworld2012, north-korea

She delivered all her children by herself without even the help of a midwife. One was born on the side of the road--Mrs, Song had been walking home with a basket of laundry. With the first birth, her mother-in-law cooked her a soup with slimy ribbons of seaweed, a traditional Korean recipe to help a new mother recover her iron. The next time her mother-in-law--disappointed by the birth of another girl--threw the seaweed at Mrs. Song to make the soup herself. After the third girl, she stopped spe She delivered all her children by herself without even the help of a midwife. One was born on the side of the road--Mrs, Song had been walking home with a basket of laundry. With the first birth, her mother-in-law cooked her a soup with slimy ribbons of seaweed, a traditional Korean recipe to help a new mother recover her iron. The next time her mother-in-law--disappointed by the birth of another girl--threw the seaweed at Mrs. Song to make the soup herself. After the third girl, she stopped speaking to her. p. 42

The darkness of North Korea by night has an absoluteness that people from the electrified world have never experienced. p. 82

A propaganda film released shortly after his death claimed that Kim Il-sung might come back to life if people grieved hard enough for him. p. 100

But lately the letters that once took weeks to arrive now took months or would not arrive at all. People suspected that railroad employees burned mail to keep warm during the bitingly cold winter. p. 124--mid 1990s, correspondence between Pyongyang and a nearby village

What she didn't realize is that her indifference was an acquired survival skill. In order to get through the 1990s alive, one had to suppress any impulse to share food. To avoid going insane, one had to learn to stop caring... If she wasn't going to share her food with her favorite pupil, she certainly wasn't going to help a perfect stranger. p. 132

Yet another gratuitous cruelty: the killer targets the most innocent, the people who would never steal food, lie, cheat, break the law, or betray a friend. It was a phenomenon that the Italian writer Primo Levi identified after emerging from Auschwitz, when he wrote that he and his fellow survivors never wanted to see one another again after the war because they had all done something of which they were ashamed.
As Mrs. Song would observe, ... it was the "simple and kindhearted people who did what they were told--they were the first to die." p. 141

By the end of 1998, the worst of the famine was over, not necessarily because anything had improved but, as Mrs. Song later surmised, because there were fewer mouths to feed. p. 148

As in many Communist countries, North Korea's orphanages weren't strictly for orphans, but for children whose parents could no longer care for them. Like boarding schools, the orphanages were supposed to provide education, room, and board. It was a privilege to be accepted. p. 163

Guilt and shame are the common denominators among North Korean defectors; many hate themselves for what they had to do in order to survive. p. 271

Chosun=N
Hanguk=S

song-bun: rating, family status
juche: self-reliance
inminban: neighborhood watchdogs
kochebi: homeless children, "wandering swallows"

...more

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Dec 28, 2010 KayG rated it it was amazing

Shelves: hoopla-read-audiobooks, 1-kindle, ultimate-around-world-list, keeper-shelf, book-club, my-recs, read-2017, 2018-read, book-club-olli

North Korea.

Outstanding!

After a reread for a book club, I found this as interesting as I did a few years ago. I admit fascination with this bizarre country, constantly in the news for all the wrong reasons.

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Mar 19, 2012 Nina rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: world2012, non-fiction, 2012

This is the best, most interesting book I have read for awhile. Since reading it, I have found myself looking for more information on North Korea. I have recommended this book to so many people, and so far I’ve only heard good things back. It is well-written, powerful, and relevant. I’m so glad I found out about this book, and I’m thankful for the Around the World Challenge for the motivating me to actually read it.

More general commentary on my blog. ...more

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Apr 15, 2010 Wendy rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction, politics, asia, audio-book, 2013

Apparently I just can't get enough of North Korea. Very sad to hear about the difficult lives of those living in North Korea. This book seemed to be very thoroughly researched and was well written. It's several year old though so doesn't address the post-Kim Jong-Il era. Worth the read if you have any interest in this country. ...more

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