North Korea

The Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag
$16.95
Book Review: The Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten years in the North Korean gulag, by Kang Chol-Hwan

I thought this book might be a hard read. The Aquariums of Pyongyang chronicles the life of the author as a boy who, at the age of nine, was wrongfully imprisoned with his family in a North Korean concentration camp. Not exactly most people's choice for summer reading. I picked it up mostly because of those two American women journalists who had just been released from a North Korean prison a couple days before, and I thought it would be, at the very least, relevant to world events. I thought, well, maybe I'll educate myself on the basics and then skim the details. I didn't. I read each page enthralled by this man's heroism and resolve during this time of horrific injustice.

I was drawn in by what I found most unexpected, and couldn't help being fascinated by the author's amazing struggle for survival. What struck me most was that this family weren't anti-communists, weren't revolutionaries who were bent on overthrowing the government. Instead, they were communists, originally North Korean, but drawn back from settling in Japan with the hope of an even better life in North Korea. They chose North Korea based on the images that Kim Sung-Il projected to the world of a thriving communist lifestyle. What they found there shocked them. It was nothing of the sort. A country of severe poverty and militarism, they were slowly and systematically stripped of their possessions. Then one day the police stormed their house, and placed all the family, except the author's mother, in the Yodok prison in the wilderness and mountains for a ten-year sentence, facing brutal treatment, inhumane living conditions, and severe malnutrition. His terrible ordeals were well written, but told in such a way that it made it not too burdensome or gruesome for the reader to bear. Thankfully. I breathed relief every time he triumphed over each adversity.

I kept having to set my book down for a minute and grasp the fact that this wasn't a story from the 1940's, with lessons of history learned from the Holocaust, but that it was the 1980's and 90's. That it was real. I think of where I was during this same time. I had no idea. And that this very thing occurs today I can't fully comprehend. This book serves its purpose well in bringing attention to the oppression and isolation to North Koreans, and gives a voice to a nation of people whose voice has been taken away from them by a ruthless dictatorship.

North of the Dmz: Essays on Daily Life in North Korea
$39.95
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.

Inside North Korea
$35.00
North Korea's always in the news and so a book like INSIDE NORTH KOREA is essential not just to college-level holdings with books on North Korea, but to general-interest collections as well. The public library will especially appreciate this book's format: an oversized photo exhibit which pairs well-researched essays and commentary by North Korea experts with images of North Korean peoples and places. Perfect for any collection seeking a solid introduction.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea
$26.00
A remarkable view into North Korea, as seen through the lives of six ordinary citizens
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Nothing to Envy follows the lives of six North Koreans over fifteen years?a chaotic period that saw the death of Kim Il-sung, the unchallenged rise to power of his son Kim Jong-il, and the devastation of a far-ranging famine that killed one-fifth of the population.

Taking us into a landscape most of us have never before seen, award-winning journalist Barbara Demick brings to life what it means to be living under the most repressive totalitarian regime today?an Orwellian world that is by choice not connected to the Internet, in which radio and television dials are welded to the one government station, and where displays of affection are punished; a police state where informants are rewarded and where an offhand remark can send a person to the gulag for life.?

??? Demick takes us deep inside the country, beyond the reach of government censors. Through meticulous and sensitive reporting, we see her six subjects?average North Korean citizens?fall in love, raise families, nurture ambitions, and struggle for survival. One by one, we experience the moments when they realize that their government has betrayed them.?

Nothing to Envy is a groundbreaking addition to the literature of totalitarianism and an eye-opening look at a closed world that is of increasing global importance.?
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