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La rondine fuggita dal paradiso
Hyok vive nel villaggio di Unsong, in Corea del Nord. È un ragazzino sveglio e vivace, un piccolo scavezzacollo che fa la vita di tutti i suoi coetanei: va a scuola, canta le canzoncine della propaganda di regime, viene obbligato a presenziare alle esecuzioni pubbliche, lavora, assiste alle più maniacali forme di repressione, viene punito per ogni cosa, anche per la sua passione per il disegno. Eppure non c'è dubbio, quello che l'onnipresente Kim-il-Sung, "Il Cervello Perfetto", "Il Sole", ha creato per loro è "Il Paradiso": lo ripete senza sosta la radio, bloccata sui programmi di Radio Pyongyang, lo ripetono a scuola i maestri e gli altoparlanti nelle piazze. Intanto, Hyok fa la fame. La sua classe si è dimezzata a causa della mortalità da denutrizione. Si mangia quello che si può e più spesso quello che non si dovrebbe: corteccia di pino bollita, erba, funghi tossici, a volte ratti. Il Paradiso ormai trabocca di "rondini", di bambini che cercano per terra briciole e chicchi di riso. Fino al giorno in cui, con la sua famiglia, Hyok non decide di scappare. Via, lungo il confine, verso un mondo sconosciuto che gli avevano insegnato a temere e disprezzare, in fuga dal Paradiso. Per conquistarsi quel che resta dell'infanzia. Per trovare davvero una vita.
205 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2004
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 155 reviews
July 5, 2007
There were three things that were particularly surprising about this book.
The most startling thing was just how perfectly the North Korean government's brainwashing worked. I knew it would work, but not to the extent that it actually does. By cutting off all outside media and suppressing all dissent, they got these starving people that were boiling bark and dying of hunger left and right to believe that, although things were bad, they lived in the most prosperous country in the world!
They actually believed that other countries were somehow poorer. The author's father had a hard time convincing him to try to escape because he thought things would just be worse outside of North Korea. When his family got to Manchuria in China, not exactly a posh land of plenty, they were shocked at how readily available food and money were. He said that he was amazed to see fat people, and that in North Korea, there was only one fat man: Kim Jong-Il.
The second surprise was how squalid and disgusting things were in their prisons and camps. This was a surprise on two levels, actually, because I was also surprised that I was surprised. Let me explain: I knew that North Korea was cruel and destitute, but they've actually done a great and kind of subtle job promoting it as a clean place. I imagined that the guards would torture you good in a North Korean prison, but your cell would be clean and sterile, if overcrowded. Something about rigid Orwellian societies makes you think they're overclean. Well, not even an insane zeal for order can overcome squalor if everyone is starving. North Korean prisons are overrunning with lice and feces, and as a result, disease.
And the third surprise is more of a disappointment than a surprise. North Korean refugees, despite all they've been through and all they've done to survive against the odds, are treated as inferior and as outcasts in South Korea. They get picked on in schools and are discriminated against when it comes to hiring. It is human nature to fuck with people who are different and poorer, but come on! I could understand maybe not being able to relate to them that well and not becoming really close friends with North Korean refugees, but that some people would actually actively harass them disgusts me. What spoiled assholes.
All of my grandparents grew up in what became North Korea in 1948. They were among the wealthier classes, so when communism hit, they knew they had to get the hell out of there. Had they not made their escape (one of my grandmothers had to do it twice because she was caught once), I wouldn't have existed to suffer the horrible torture of daily life there, but my grandparents and at least my dad would have. So, in a way, it was fortunate that they were of the despised classes because it made the choice obvious. A lot of people in Korea at the time didn't know much about Kim Il-Sung and so stuck around to see how things turned out. What's the worst that could happen, after all? I think they were punished cruelly and unfairly for making the best decision they could with the information they had at that point.
So, yeah, North Korea is terrible, but this book illustrates that it's more terrible than you think.
The most startling thing was just how perfectly the North Korean government's brainwashing worked. I knew it would work, but not to the extent that it actually does. By cutting off all outside media and suppressing all dissent, they got these starving people that were boiling bark and dying of hunger left and right to believe that, although things were bad, they lived in the most prosperous country in the world!
They actually believed that other countries were somehow poorer. The author's father had a hard time convincing him to try to escape because he thought things would just be worse outside of North Korea. When his family got to Manchuria in China, not exactly a posh land of plenty, they were shocked at how readily available food and money were. He said that he was amazed to see fat people, and that in North Korea, there was only one fat man: Kim Jong-Il.
The second surprise was how squalid and disgusting things were in their prisons and camps. This was a surprise on two levels, actually, because I was also surprised that I was surprised. Let me explain: I knew that North Korea was cruel and destitute, but they've actually done a great and kind of subtle job promoting it as a clean place. I imagined that the guards would torture you good in a North Korean prison, but your cell would be clean and sterile, if overcrowded. Something about rigid Orwellian societies makes you think they're overclean. Well, not even an insane zeal for order can overcome squalor if everyone is starving. North Korean prisons are overrunning with lice and feces, and as a result, disease.
And the third surprise is more of a disappointment than a surprise. North Korean refugees, despite all they've been through and all they've done to survive against the odds, are treated as inferior and as outcasts in South Korea. They get picked on in schools and are discriminated against when it comes to hiring. It is human nature to fuck with people who are different and poorer, but come on! I could understand maybe not being able to relate to them that well and not becoming really close friends with North Korean refugees, but that some people would actually actively harass them disgusts me. What spoiled assholes.
All of my grandparents grew up in what became North Korea in 1948. They were among the wealthier classes, so when communism hit, they knew they had to get the hell out of there. Had they not made their escape (one of my grandmothers had to do it twice because she was caught once), I wouldn't have existed to suffer the horrible torture of daily life there, but my grandparents and at least my dad would have. So, in a way, it was fortunate that they were of the despised classes because it made the choice obvious. A lot of people in Korea at the time didn't know much about Kim Il-Sung and so stuck around to see how things turned out. What's the worst that could happen, after all? I think they were punished cruelly and unfairly for making the best decision they could with the information they had at that point.
So, yeah, North Korea is terrible, but this book illustrates that it's more terrible than you think.
November 17, 2012
This book reads as a mixture of Orwell, Nazi camps, a totalitarian regime so grim and its indoctrinations so blunt they would be grotesquely funny, save for the real, suffering people. That is what North Korea is, at this very moment in time.
Not many people are or wish to be aware of this. Leave aside post WW2 politics, Korean ("the forgotten") war, lunatic ruling dynasty, constant fear of North's nuclear programs and how it would be nice if North and South walked under one banner at the next Olympic games. What matters are millions of people living in utter nightmare, starvation, lack of medication, in state of constant terror, fear, spying, brainwashing. This book is a story of one of those malnourished children, lucky enough to escape from hell north of the 38 parallel.
This is not the first book I have read on S. and N. Korean recent history, however this one is by far the most intimate and the most striking one. That is why I marked it as a must read. While the whole world is dancing to the silly Gungnam style dance from the progressive South, we are obliged to acknowledge and help people of the North whose lives are, by their authorities, deemed less worthy than lives of cattle. In 21st century, this is unforgivable.
Not many people are or wish to be aware of this. Leave aside post WW2 politics, Korean ("the forgotten") war, lunatic ruling dynasty, constant fear of North's nuclear programs and how it would be nice if North and South walked under one banner at the next Olympic games. What matters are millions of people living in utter nightmare, starvation, lack of medication, in state of constant terror, fear, spying, brainwashing. This book is a story of one of those malnourished children, lucky enough to escape from hell north of the 38 parallel.
This is not the first book I have read on S. and N. Korean recent history, however this one is by far the most intimate and the most striking one. That is why I marked it as a must read. While the whole world is dancing to the silly Gungnam style dance from the progressive South, we are obliged to acknowledge and help people of the North whose lives are, by their authorities, deemed less worthy than lives of cattle. In 21st century, this is unforgivable.
March 18, 2013
This book will stand out for me in my PRK reading list for the examples he uses from schoolbooks (really, almost hilariously absurd propaganda, including an anecdote that amounts to Kim Il-Sung teaching a teacher that 1+1 does, in fact, equal 1) and for Hyok Kang's facility for drawing.
But. His family was well-off in North Korea, and he routinely recounts the ways that they broke the law and got away with it because of a family connection to the Kims. Also his dad seems to be a total asshole -- beating people and breaking things when things don't go his way, fleeing to China without telling his family (even though that kind of thing can get his whole family sent to a gulag), etc. And all of those anecdotes are told from a, LOL he had a temper POV (or, "he was known as The Terrible, and when the jailers figured out who he was he got one of the 6 blankets for all the prisoners for his own use"). So Hyok blithely recounts the special treatment his family got while others are starving to death, and then invites you to pity him when things finally went badly for them too. (For instance: starving villagers tried to break into their pig pen to eat their pigs. Yeah, they had pigs during the famine.) And I'm not saying that anybody has it good in North Korea, but after some of the other accounts that I've read I have a hard time pitying this family in particular.
Plus once he got out of North Korea, he joined a gang that beat the crap out of a Chinese kid, and then joined in a huge gang fight in South Korea that sent hundreds of South Korean kids to the hospital and then he complained that the people who picked on him should've taken the blame, not the people that attacked unarmed kids at school with weapons. I'm sure he comes by his sociopathy honestly, but he still reads like a sociopath. I recommend more therapy and less self-pity.
But. His family was well-off in North Korea, and he routinely recounts the ways that they broke the law and got away with it because of a family connection to the Kims. Also his dad seems to be a total asshole -- beating people and breaking things when things don't go his way, fleeing to China without telling his family (even though that kind of thing can get his whole family sent to a gulag), etc. And all of those anecdotes are told from a, LOL he had a temper POV (or, "he was known as The Terrible, and when the jailers figured out who he was he got one of the 6 blankets for all the prisoners for his own use"). So Hyok blithely recounts the special treatment his family got while others are starving to death, and then invites you to pity him when things finally went badly for them too. (For instance: starving villagers tried to break into their pig pen to eat their pigs. Yeah, they had pigs during the famine.) And I'm not saying that anybody has it good in North Korea, but after some of the other accounts that I've read I have a hard time pitying this family in particular.
Plus once he got out of North Korea, he joined a gang that beat the crap out of a Chinese kid, and then joined in a huge gang fight in South Korea that sent hundreds of South Korean kids to the hospital and then he complained that the people who picked on him should've taken the blame, not the people that attacked unarmed kids at school with weapons. I'm sure he comes by his sociopathy honestly, but he still reads like a sociopath. I recommend more therapy and less self-pity.
May 23, 2008
Despite the hilarity of "Do you have any idea how fuckin' busy I am, Mr. Hans Blix?" there is no one I'd rather see hanging from a rope than Kim Jong-il ... and I'm against the death penalty!
I admit, I have a strange fascination with North Korea, and I love reading the autobiographies of those who lived there. It's fascinating material, an Orwellian nightmare in existence today. Consider:
--Some 23,301,725 people believe that the USA started the Korean War and that North Korea won, thanks to the heroics of one man, Kim il-Sung
--There is no religion, but the Kims are worshiped like gods; even as famine rages through the country killing millions, the citizens truly believe that they are in paradise and are willing to die for the Great and Dear leaders ... and that this same brainwashed country with nothing to lose is producing nukes that can easily reach Japan, South Korea, and the West Coast of the USA
--A million man/woman army; a radio with one state controlled channel; a TV with state controlled channels; no cell phones; no internet; no truth, only lies about the history of the world that are told from the time children are two weeks old and in state-run day cares
--Fear of the "South Korean puppets" who are "impoverished," "starving," and "corrupt" in their "hell on earth," with no real idea how their neighbors just a few miles south are really one of the most modern countries on the face of the planet
--Public executions and Holocaust-style labor and prison camps for such infractions as expressing one's opinion or arousing another's suspicions
For a 20-something, Kang describes life in North Korea with unique eloquence and honesty. Kang is far from perfect, but he lived through the worst terrors of North Korea, escaped forced repatriation in China and Cambodia, and currently lives with the harsh reality of being an ethnic minority (while also facing the humiliation and anger of being lied to his entire life by North Korean propoganda) in South Korea.
All books about North Korea make me wish that Kim Jong-il would be brought to justice and that NK would become a free nation. This NK crap has gone on long enough. But until that happens, books like this are of the utmost importance because of the truth that they contain.
Kang's story is told with courage and dignity, and one can't help but wish him the best for him in his future ... while also hoping that instead of shit like "A Million Little Pieces," works of truth and importance begin appearing on bookstore shelves.
I admit, I have a strange fascination with North Korea, and I love reading the autobiographies of those who lived there. It's fascinating material, an Orwellian nightmare in existence today. Consider:
--Some 23,301,725 people believe that the USA started the Korean War and that North Korea won, thanks to the heroics of one man, Kim il-Sung
--There is no religion, but the Kims are worshiped like gods; even as famine rages through the country killing millions, the citizens truly believe that they are in paradise and are willing to die for the Great and Dear leaders ... and that this same brainwashed country with nothing to lose is producing nukes that can easily reach Japan, South Korea, and the West Coast of the USA
--A million man/woman army; a radio with one state controlled channel; a TV with state controlled channels; no cell phones; no internet; no truth, only lies about the history of the world that are told from the time children are two weeks old and in state-run day cares
--Fear of the "South Korean puppets" who are "impoverished," "starving," and "corrupt" in their "hell on earth," with no real idea how their neighbors just a few miles south are really one of the most modern countries on the face of the planet
--Public executions and Holocaust-style labor and prison camps for such infractions as expressing one's opinion or arousing another's suspicions
For a 20-something, Kang describes life in North Korea with unique eloquence and honesty. Kang is far from perfect, but he lived through the worst terrors of North Korea, escaped forced repatriation in China and Cambodia, and currently lives with the harsh reality of being an ethnic minority (while also facing the humiliation and anger of being lied to his entire life by North Korean propoganda) in South Korea.
All books about North Korea make me wish that Kim Jong-il would be brought to justice and that NK would become a free nation. This NK crap has gone on long enough. But until that happens, books like this are of the utmost importance because of the truth that they contain.
Kang's story is told with courage and dignity, and one can't help but wish him the best for him in his future ... while also hoping that instead of shit like "A Million Little Pieces," works of truth and importance begin appearing on bookstore shelves.
March 20, 2011
Clearly life in North Korea is terrible beyond imagination. This book attempts to give us a personal account of the realities of living under the North Korean regime, and I guess it accomplishes its task well, but as book, it just didn't do it for me. I found the translation to be annoying and somewhat trite. Also, it stayed entirely on the surface. It was hard to identify with the story, as the narrator seemed to race through his account of his life, speeding through subjects like famine, imprisonment, group think, and police brutality. A much more patient account would have been more satisfying.
I will say that I did think an awful lot about what we take for granted as members of this society. We are so fortunate and lucky to have been born here. Freedom is an amazing thing.
I will say that I did think an awful lot about what we take for granted as members of this society. We are so fortunate and lucky to have been born here. Freedom is an amazing thing.
November 13, 2010
Wow. I really didn't know how to rate this, as it is just a very plain, open and honest recounting of what it is like to grow up in North Korea. How does one rate these life experiences? But I think the author was able to convey the stark realities of indoctrination, suffering and poverty very effectively without being sensational. He just told it like it was and that was sufficient.
There are many things in this book that I wish I had been aware of long before now, and I will definitely have my children read this book when they are old enough. Right now I am thinking that will be sometime during the teen-age years. I just feel that it is so important for them and for me to be aware. Aware so that we can mourn with and pray for these people and so that we can in the meantime be thankful for many of our blessings that we may be taking for granted.
I am saddened by the author's current experiences in South Korea, about the difficulty that North Koreans have integrating into this new society. I wish there were more openness and acceptance of North Korean refugees, more compassion and understanding after all they have been through. But I am sure it is more complicated than I am making it out to be and my naivete translates into, "why can't we all just get along?!"
There are many things in this book that I wish I had been aware of long before now, and I will definitely have my children read this book when they are old enough. Right now I am thinking that will be sometime during the teen-age years. I just feel that it is so important for them and for me to be aware. Aware so that we can mourn with and pray for these people and so that we can in the meantime be thankful for many of our blessings that we may be taking for granted.
I am saddened by the author's current experiences in South Korea, about the difficulty that North Koreans have integrating into this new society. I wish there were more openness and acceptance of North Korean refugees, more compassion and understanding after all they have been through. But I am sure it is more complicated than I am making it out to be and my naivete translates into, "why can't we all just get along?!"
December 28, 2010
Rating: 4.5 stars
This was the selection for our second book group meeting, which is now called The Granite Literary Society (because Aberdeen is made of granite and because I was so amused by the horrible punny subtitle my friend came up with--"where we don't take books for granite!").
Before reading this, I, like many others in the world, knew very little of Noth Korea, other than that they had nothing while Kim Jong-Il owns every film every made, and that it's very difficult to get in and out of. Reading this memoir brought the abstract to the concrete. This is the story of a young boy, who even though he had a bit more privilege than some of his peers (his extended family in Japan sent his grandparents a money order every month and the grandparents had been photographed with Kim il-Sung), he still had to creatively find ways to stop him, his family, and his friends from starving to death.
They grew thinner and more desperate, resorting to boiling tree bark to live, eating rats and then finding their winter hoards to scrape the few grains of rice together, sneaking into fields with armed gunmen for one watermelon. Yet they saw the lavish statues of Sung and Jong bathed in electrical lights when their own homes were dark, they had to lay flowers at the foot of the statue and cheer, they were told that this was paradise--that the rest of the world was worse, and that only Kim Jong-Il was saving them from certain death.
Yet Hyok Kang and his family felt something was wrong. They make a daring escape and learn whether life on the outside is any better. The memoir is well-written, though at times it seems to skim over wide periods of his life--unsurprising in a 200 page memoir, and it's interspersed with drawings of his childhood done by the author himself, as of course he has no childhood photographs.
Very much recommended.
This was the selection for our second book group meeting, which is now called The Granite Literary Society (because Aberdeen is made of granite and because I was so amused by the horrible punny subtitle my friend came up with--"where we don't take books for granite!").
Before reading this, I, like many others in the world, knew very little of Noth Korea, other than that they had nothing while Kim Jong-Il owns every film every made, and that it's very difficult to get in and out of. Reading this memoir brought the abstract to the concrete. This is the story of a young boy, who even though he had a bit more privilege than some of his peers (his extended family in Japan sent his grandparents a money order every month and the grandparents had been photographed with Kim il-Sung), he still had to creatively find ways to stop him, his family, and his friends from starving to death.
They grew thinner and more desperate, resorting to boiling tree bark to live, eating rats and then finding their winter hoards to scrape the few grains of rice together, sneaking into fields with armed gunmen for one watermelon. Yet they saw the lavish statues of Sung and Jong bathed in electrical lights when their own homes were dark, they had to lay flowers at the foot of the statue and cheer, they were told that this was paradise--that the rest of the world was worse, and that only Kim Jong-Il was saving them from certain death.
Yet Hyok Kang and his family felt something was wrong. They make a daring escape and learn whether life on the outside is any better. The memoir is well-written, though at times it seems to skim over wide periods of his life--unsurprising in a 200 page memoir, and it's interspersed with drawings of his childhood done by the author himself, as of course he has no childhood photographs.
Very much recommended.
November 28, 2016
3.5 stars. Short, interesting, and readable, with stars deducted for a somewhat unreliable narration. Some points:
A) I love escape narratives with all the passion of a 19th century Protestant housewife reading about the secret debaucheries of escaped Catholic nuns. If you break away from Scientology, or bigamous Mormonism, or any dictatorship or radicalized regime, I want to read about it!
B) I want to believe.
C) North Korea is horrible, and I have no doubt that the picture the author paints of it is real and true.
D) However, there are inconsistencies in the narrative that make me think that events didn't necessarily unfold in exact way related, or they happened to somebody but perhaps not to Hyok Kang and his family. (For example, he says many, many times that even the most minor crimes result in punishment for 3 generations of a family, not just the offender. Yet his father is imprisoned while the rest of the family is left alone. Also, his father flees from a harsher sentence for a separate crime, is captured, and then is only punished for fleeing while the initial charge seems to be forgotten.)
E) See point A. I know these kinds of narratives are often sensationalized or exaggerated for impact.
So it was good and worth reading! But I couldn't turn off my inner skeptic.
A) I love escape narratives with all the passion of a 19th century Protestant housewife reading about the secret debaucheries of escaped Catholic nuns. If you break away from Scientology, or bigamous Mormonism, or any dictatorship or radicalized regime, I want to read about it!
B) I want to believe.
C) North Korea is horrible, and I have no doubt that the picture the author paints of it is real and true.
D) However, there are inconsistencies in the narrative that make me think that events didn't necessarily unfold in exact way related, or they happened to somebody but perhaps not to Hyok Kang and his family. (For example, he says many, many times that even the most minor crimes result in punishment for 3 generations of a family, not just the offender. Yet his father is imprisoned while the rest of the family is left alone. Also, his father flees from a harsher sentence for a separate crime, is captured, and then is only punished for fleeing while the initial charge seems to be forgotten.)
E) See point A. I know these kinds of narratives are often sensationalized or exaggerated for impact.
So it was good and worth reading! But I couldn't turn off my inner skeptic.
November 20, 2015
This book was so interesting that I finished it in a day. It is a frank look into North Korean life through the eyes of a child, offering a unique perspective. Written in clear prose, the book is simultaneously educational and deeply engrossing. I liked how a large portion of the book was dedicated to Kang's journey and eventual settlement in South Korea, seeing him learn to adapt to life in this very different country. I would highly recommend this to anyone interested in memoirs and/or North and South Korea.
January 7, 2014
This one I found difficult to read for two reasons. The first is that people are still living in circumstances just like the author. The second was the the style of writing which I found to be a bit scatty (it did not seem to flow well).
August 3, 2018
這本書的內容跟我們最幸福好像
只是聚焦在一個家庭上
我們覺得不自由的中國
在脫北者眼中已經像天堂一般
北韓的生活到底有多恐怖真是難以想像
感覺就算蘇聯老大哥還在的時候
也沒有北韓肅殺
還是我蘇聯的書看太少呢?
只是聚焦在一個家庭上
我們覺得不自由的中國
在脫北者眼中已經像天堂一般
北韓的生活到底有多恐怖真是難以想像
感覺就算蘇聯老大哥還在的時候
也沒有北韓肅殺
還是我蘇聯的書看太少呢?
June 22, 2017
this account could be divided into three parts: how a young North Korean boy and his family unit managed together to scrape together a life of normalcy and routine under the North Korean regime before the famine; a terrifying account of life firsthand during the famine; and their flight into China and finally, South Korea.
The author's circumstances while living in North Korea were already a bit special and relatively privileged, coming as he did immediate ancestry that had voluntarily migrated form Japan to Communist North Korea under some idealistic, misguided beliefs. His family thus not only enjoyed some small benefits from Kim Il-Sung, but they were equipped with awareness of the different conditions in the foreign world for comparison to the brainwashing they received. Yet even with such a background, the elder generation bit back comments in fear, and the young were moved to belief and acceptance. How then could the poorer North koreans react better?
This part of the book also showed the microstructure of the typical North Korean community. Far from being lackluster, dumb(mute) and submissive persons, the citizens were as individualized and intelligent as anybody. However, that intelligence was directed towards ingratiating with the party for prospect of reward, in form of food access (mostly) or social standing (secondary). Examples were the father that worked worked extra hard in mines to get Party membership and better jobs and food availability; the teachers who instructed their students to work to the bone during harvest, because the teachers' food bonus depended on this; the classmate who denounces his fellow for the slightest sacrilege of Kim Jong Il.
It's almost like typical office social climbing, and the portraits that emerge-- of children doing homework and river-ice-skating-- remind us that the North Koreans are motivated by the same things we are (even the negative aspects). Unfortunately, the shadow of the Party brings out the worst of corruption and turncoating in everybody, and-- even worse-- the permanent acclimatization to fear leads to the operation of some sort of doublethink even in these intelligent and sensible people. Everyone learns from nursery age not to speak negatively (or even neutrally) of the Dear Leader.
The part about the North Korean famine is utterly frightening to imagine any factual person living through. His classmates die off one by one. People go on all fours near railways looking for grains of rice. There are too many stories of families dying off one by one in this book- first the father, then the mother, then the older brother, then the littlest brother... Whenever Hyok Kang starts one of these narratives you are never in doubt about the final outcome-- really, that none of them live out the famine long enough to survive.
What is the government's specific solutions? a) Put up the slogans: 'Let us speed up the forced march towards the final victory', 'Let us live today for tomorrow', etc. b) use the circumstances to install another rewards game, where the eldest and most loyal party members, spies, soldiers and transport officials get to eat, and have right of violence against those who attempt to get some food. c)have secret reserves of produce, like fields of watermelons and fresh fruit, and guarded troves of salmon, for EXPORT PURPOSES while your natives are mass starving big time. d) receive masses of donations from confused wizards in the UN, divide it upon yourselves, and the people keep on starving anyway. Good God foreign aid is such a joke this days. So many times it just becomes another lucrative business that people desire to keep on indefinitely for permanent personal employment. All these 'solutions' were notable, they probably marked any malign dictatorship since the beginning of politics.
An adjunct to this part was when his father was imprisoned, proving that hell does have tiers. The harrowing story sounds like Count of Monte Cristo-meets-Cormac McCarthy's the Road. There is a thing called cruelty and torture but apparently, there's a different level of thing call base dehumanization. In the latter, you are forbidden movement and talk of any kind, and you can't even pick and scratch actual lice that are eating your head and wrists and have lain so many eggs your shirts have gone white. You have no name. Of course another rewards game-hierarchy develops, and alpha prisoners become voluntary spies of their cellmates-- and ideological comrades-- for incremental comforts and benefits. The father regularly met new cellmates whose crimes are revealed to be cannibalism.
Finally, the father returns home and they heave a momentous plot to flee to China, moving later on to South Korea. They are successful, and there are some great Oprah moments along the way, as when they meet benevolent South Korean pastors. But their difference and alienation always trails them, and fitting into society is a work in progress.
It is eye-opening to read of a perspective like this. The fact that the regime reigning in this island of hell has not yet been dislodged despite the facts of modern military and economic might is also eye-opening.
The author's circumstances while living in North Korea were already a bit special and relatively privileged, coming as he did immediate ancestry that had voluntarily migrated form Japan to Communist North Korea under some idealistic, misguided beliefs. His family thus not only enjoyed some small benefits from Kim Il-Sung, but they were equipped with awareness of the different conditions in the foreign world for comparison to the brainwashing they received. Yet even with such a background, the elder generation bit back comments in fear, and the young were moved to belief and acceptance. How then could the poorer North koreans react better?
This part of the book also showed the microstructure of the typical North Korean community. Far from being lackluster, dumb(mute) and submissive persons, the citizens were as individualized and intelligent as anybody. However, that intelligence was directed towards ingratiating with the party for prospect of reward, in form of food access (mostly) or social standing (secondary). Examples were the father that worked worked extra hard in mines to get Party membership and better jobs and food availability; the teachers who instructed their students to work to the bone during harvest, because the teachers' food bonus depended on this; the classmate who denounces his fellow for the slightest sacrilege of Kim Jong Il.
It's almost like typical office social climbing, and the portraits that emerge-- of children doing homework and river-ice-skating-- remind us that the North Koreans are motivated by the same things we are (even the negative aspects). Unfortunately, the shadow of the Party brings out the worst of corruption and turncoating in everybody, and-- even worse-- the permanent acclimatization to fear leads to the operation of some sort of doublethink even in these intelligent and sensible people. Everyone learns from nursery age not to speak negatively (or even neutrally) of the Dear Leader.
The part about the North Korean famine is utterly frightening to imagine any factual person living through. His classmates die off one by one. People go on all fours near railways looking for grains of rice. There are too many stories of families dying off one by one in this book- first the father, then the mother, then the older brother, then the littlest brother... Whenever Hyok Kang starts one of these narratives you are never in doubt about the final outcome-- really, that none of them live out the famine long enough to survive.
What is the government's specific solutions? a) Put up the slogans: 'Let us speed up the forced march towards the final victory', 'Let us live today for tomorrow', etc. b) use the circumstances to install another rewards game, where the eldest and most loyal party members, spies, soldiers and transport officials get to eat, and have right of violence against those who attempt to get some food. c)have secret reserves of produce, like fields of watermelons and fresh fruit, and guarded troves of salmon, for EXPORT PURPOSES while your natives are mass starving big time. d) receive masses of donations from confused wizards in the UN, divide it upon yourselves, and the people keep on starving anyway. Good God foreign aid is such a joke this days. So many times it just becomes another lucrative business that people desire to keep on indefinitely for permanent personal employment. All these 'solutions' were notable, they probably marked any malign dictatorship since the beginning of politics.
An adjunct to this part was when his father was imprisoned, proving that hell does have tiers. The harrowing story sounds like Count of Monte Cristo-meets-Cormac McCarthy's the Road. There is a thing called cruelty and torture but apparently, there's a different level of thing call base dehumanization. In the latter, you are forbidden movement and talk of any kind, and you can't even pick and scratch actual lice that are eating your head and wrists and have lain so many eggs your shirts have gone white. You have no name. Of course another rewards game-hierarchy develops, and alpha prisoners become voluntary spies of their cellmates-- and ideological comrades-- for incremental comforts and benefits. The father regularly met new cellmates whose crimes are revealed to be cannibalism.
Finally, the father returns home and they heave a momentous plot to flee to China, moving later on to South Korea. They are successful, and there are some great Oprah moments along the way, as when they meet benevolent South Korean pastors. But their difference and alienation always trails them, and fitting into society is a work in progress.
It is eye-opening to read of a perspective like this. The fact that the regime reigning in this island of hell has not yet been dislodged despite the facts of modern military and economic might is also eye-opening.
January 9, 2011
Or to give it its full, bookshop-friendly title: This is Paradise! My North Korean Childhood, written by Hyok Kang with the French journalist Philippe Grangereau, and translated by Shaun Whiteside.
When I was looking for books from North Korea for the Read The World challenge, I was quite surprised I could only find two actually by North Koreans. The DPRK is such a bizarre Cold War relic that you might think there would be more interest in it. I guess reading about North Korea just doesn’t seem as important as reading about the Soviet Bloc did back in the old days.
Reading the reviews, it sounds like the other book, The Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag, is probably the better of the two, but it seems to be focussed on life inside the labour camps. I decided to read This is Paradise! because it is about a more normal childhood in rural North Korea. Normal in North Korea being batshit insane by the standards of anywhere else.
Still, it wasn’t quite what I expected; I thought it would mainly be about the political aspects of living in a communist personality cult: the parades, the synchronised gymnastics, the patriotic hymns, the giant floodlit statue of the Dear Leader, the propaganda. All of which does feature, particularly at the start of the book, but because of the period it covers (Kang was born in 1986), it is overwhelmingly about the famine. Even a mad personality cult struggles to maintain its energy in the face of millions of deaths. Not that there is much sign of the state losing its iron grip on the population, but everyday life becomes completely dominated by the famine, which is apocalyptic in scale. It is like reading Solzhenitsyn’s descriptions of scrabbling for nourishment in the gulag, except it’s not a gulag, it’s a whole town, a whole community — except of course for the party officials.
The end of the books is about the family’s escape, firstly into China and then through Vietnam and Laos to Cambodia, from which they went to South Korea.
It is a remarkable story. It’s not especially well written, though. It would be unfair to call the prose ‘bad’, but it is a very plain, methodical recital of events. It has very little in the way of descriptive detail and very little emotional content or insight. Definitely worth reading for the content, though, if not for the prose.
When I was looking for books from North Korea for the Read The World challenge, I was quite surprised I could only find two actually by North Koreans. The DPRK is such a bizarre Cold War relic that you might think there would be more interest in it. I guess reading about North Korea just doesn’t seem as important as reading about the Soviet Bloc did back in the old days.
Reading the reviews, it sounds like the other book, The Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag, is probably the better of the two, but it seems to be focussed on life inside the labour camps. I decided to read This is Paradise! because it is about a more normal childhood in rural North Korea. Normal in North Korea being batshit insane by the standards of anywhere else.
Still, it wasn’t quite what I expected; I thought it would mainly be about the political aspects of living in a communist personality cult: the parades, the synchronised gymnastics, the patriotic hymns, the giant floodlit statue of the Dear Leader, the propaganda. All of which does feature, particularly at the start of the book, but because of the period it covers (Kang was born in 1986), it is overwhelmingly about the famine. Even a mad personality cult struggles to maintain its energy in the face of millions of deaths. Not that there is much sign of the state losing its iron grip on the population, but everyday life becomes completely dominated by the famine, which is apocalyptic in scale. It is like reading Solzhenitsyn’s descriptions of scrabbling for nourishment in the gulag, except it’s not a gulag, it’s a whole town, a whole community — except of course for the party officials.
The official slogans changed as the famine ravaged the country. At the very beginning, in 1995, the cadres encouraged us o accept what was called a ‘forced march towards victory’. The term referred to the ‘forced march’ undertaken by Kim Il-Sung and his partisans during the war against the Japanese occupying forces. The following year, the battle-cry was ‘Let us speed up the forced march towards the final victory.’ When the hunger had reaches its worst, another new slogan appeared: ‘Let us not live today for today, but let us live today for tomorrow’. By now, the poorest people had been reduced to eating boiled pepper leaves or bean leaves. Some families came to us to beg us for left-over tofu that my mother cooked, or even the whitish liquid produced when it was being made. They drank it mixed with saccharine. After a certain period of time their faces swelled up. When I saw people with puffy faces tottering towards the house, I knew that was what they were coming for. Shortly after that we too had to start eating pine bark.
The end of the books is about the family’s escape, firstly into China and then through Vietnam and Laos to Cambodia, from which they went to South Korea.
It is a remarkable story. It’s not especially well written, though. It would be unfair to call the prose ‘bad’, but it is a very plain, methodical recital of events. It has very little in the way of descriptive detail and very little emotional content or insight. Definitely worth reading for the content, though, if not for the prose.
April 8, 2016
To máte jako se všemi těmi knihami z koncentračních táborů. Když už se tu nepředstavitelnou hrůzu někomu podařilo přežít a měl vůli o tom cokoliv sepsat, byla síla jeho sdělení tak ohromná, že šla všechna ostatní kritéria stranou. Podobně je tomu i se svědectvími ze Severní Koreje, jednoho velikého koncentráku, jehož osazenstvu vtloukli do hlav, že vnější svět je ještě nešťastnější, bídnější a nebezpečnější místo než jejich domovina a že mezi nimi a konečnou zkázou stojí pouze Kim. Ten či onen. Já jsem se tématu Severní Koreje dlouho úspěšně vyhýbala, takže toto bylo mé první osmělení a musím říct, že popisovaná realita zdaleka předčí moje nejhorší představy. Kangovo vyprávění je psané prostým jazykem, popisuje vše, co viděl během dospívání, dětskýma očima, je výborně strukturované a čtenář si postupně udělá přehled o všech základních aspektech každodenního života Severokorejců. Já se s tím, co jsem se dočetla, nedokážu pořád ještě nijak vypořádat.
October 25, 2009
Wow, this book is amazing. It's a true story and chronicles the life of a young boy who grew up in North Korea and eventually escaped. For someone who (shamefully) knew very little about the living conditions in North Korea... just that things are bad... this was truly eye opening. I think it's important for who's concerned about human rights abuses to take the time to read this.
The book is actually extremely readable -- written at an elementary school level. It's just the words and pictures that are painted that are hard to read.
The book is actually extremely readable -- written at an elementary school level. It's just the words and pictures that are painted that are hard to read.
November 2, 2017
Great first hand description of life in North Korea during the time of the Great Famine. Features many descriptions and analyses of the workings of life and society in North Korea, which makes the reader understand better how the country functions and how its citizens try to maintain themselves. Recommended!
April 30, 2012
Definitely not as compelling as Nothing to Envy, but still a good, to the point account of living in the world's bastard step child, North Korea.
This focuses on a village closer to the Chinese border so while there are a lot of similarities to NtE, it's interesting to read different accounts.
This focuses on a village closer to the Chinese border so while there are a lot of similarities to NtE, it's interesting to read different accounts.
December 12, 2013
Compared with "Nothing to Envy", this title is even more direct and powerful as it re-tells the childhood of one boy through the microscopic view of his own eyes. He used very light language but this just made his escape story even more remarkable, and shows how far one can go in order to survive.
August 28, 2013
Very interesting insight of the North Korean life especially during the famine from the eyes of a little boy. Definitely worth to read!
March 17, 2018
Such an eye opening and heart breaking book. Educated me on one of the most secret and scariest countries in the world.
Will be looking into more history and ways to help the refugees of North Korea
Will be looking into more history and ways to help the refugees of North Korea
September 12, 2022
A reminder that democracy is a gift.
February 6, 2018
I find it so healthy to read about a place that is often so demonized. The story allowed for an honest account of life growing up in North Korea. Friendship, family, dreams, and survival humanize the experience that is often talked about so dismissively. I found the account fascinating to read. I do wish that there was more attention to the setting. I would have loved to imagine what the place must have looked like. I also would have enjoyed a little slower ending where there was more than one chapter focused on the difficulties of adjusting to life in South Korea. There are points where we can glimpse into the psychological damage of growing up deceived, but its not so simple. I think the complicated emotions are conveyed towards the end where Hyok states, "But how can I not feel humiliated in this modern country of plenty, which may have taken us in but looks down on us as inferiors? Whatever I might have lived through before, whatever the dangers may have been, the blindness, the forced stupidity, the constant terror, the hunger, the sickness, the persecutions, those bits of life are a part of me and will always be etched within me. I may have fled them, but I can't deny them. It seems to be a common paradox among refugees, this joy at being in a free country, mixed with nostalgia for the nightmare landscapes that we have fled."
Read
October 31, 2023I am not sure how to rate this book. Do you give it 5* because the writing was brilliant or 1* because the content was so awful. I knew of the brain washing, of the cruel dictatorship and the poverty of the country but nothing prepared me for this account. It was brutal. It was so savage. The acts that were described that people had to take in order to survive were horrific. Still they believed they were better off than China or the West. The discrimination and cruelty from the South, after everything they had been through, was shocking. So thought provoking.
August 7, 2024
nothing new if you've read more than two books on north korea and i cannot get myself to ignore the AWFUL romanisation leaving you unable to understand what the fuck they are even talking about. not to mention that they messed up the name of park chung-hee, which i feel is a pretty important detail if you want to be taken seriously, and that should definitely have been caught SOMEWHERE in the editing process. dear god
February 8, 2018
Shocking...disgusting...heart-rending...but with a happy ending. It was quite difficult to read some of the story because those of us outside of their border cannot honestly come up with just how horrible it can be to grow up in North Korea. You can't make that stuff up. And, for me, what brought it home was knowing that the author is only three years older than my eldest child. And the same year that he was running for his life, hiding in China, I was in China as a tourist with my two kids. The stark differences in their childhoods is what sticks with me.
May 11, 2007
Kang grew up in the last 80s and 90s in North Korea. Originally, his family was relatively well off because they had chosen to stay in North Korea instead of being repatriated to Japan. In addition to receiving funds from Japanese relatives, they were favored by the North Korean leadership for their patriotism in staying.
The book starts covering general day to day life. By Western standards, the rich Kang family is poor. Kang talks about day to day life-- how he often slept at his grandparents house, what he thought of his teachers, what he learned in school. You learn about the rigid hierarchy imposed on the students and their uniforms and what the different badges mean, both officially and unofficially in the school yard.
Then, the famine starts. Kang's family's wealth is slowly drained away. His disillusionment grows-- he starts writing alternate lyrics to patriotic songs. Lyrics that, if found out, would get him and his family killed. School stops being about learning and starts being about farming government fields with food that they will never see unless the steal it in the dead of night (which Kang does). They hunt rats and eat tree bark and grass. Hanging out with your friends involves going to their house to say your final goodbyes as they slowly and horribly starve to death. (Kang estimates around 75% of his classmates died during these years.)
Executions are common place. Bodies are padded so the blood doesn't spray the crowd. During the winter, the bodies steam. People are eating the dead in order to survive-- people are killing each other in order to eat them.
In 1998, the family escapes to China. You know things are bad when China is a rich paradise. Kang couldn't believe that, in China, people at rice every day. Being in China doesn't help-- they constantly fear the police who will deport them back to North Korea where they will all face execution.
They eventually escape to South Korea, where the full effect of the lies Kang had been fed came to the surface. His anger at being brainwashed, his not wanting to believe the South Korean truth, even though he knew it was right, is the most striking part of this book.
The difficulties of coming to grips with the lies he believed and fitting in with a "modern" culture was shocking and heartbreaking.
I was struck by an odd sense of detachment Kang seemed to have throughout this book. It could be that it was his story as told to someone. It could be the translation either from Kang's Korean to Grangereau's French or from the French to the English. What I think though is it's because that this was his life and he didn't know anything different or he can't emotionally involve himself for the sake of mental health-- this boy lived through Hell.
What really brings this book alive, however, is Kang's illustrations. He's an extraordinarily gifted artist and his drawings of his life bring the story to life in a very real way.
This is not an easy, nor pleasant read, but there are very few first-hand accounts coming out of North Korea, and I think this is an important book that should be read by anyone who can stomach it.
The book starts covering general day to day life. By Western standards, the rich Kang family is poor. Kang talks about day to day life-- how he often slept at his grandparents house, what he thought of his teachers, what he learned in school. You learn about the rigid hierarchy imposed on the students and their uniforms and what the different badges mean, both officially and unofficially in the school yard.
Then, the famine starts. Kang's family's wealth is slowly drained away. His disillusionment grows-- he starts writing alternate lyrics to patriotic songs. Lyrics that, if found out, would get him and his family killed. School stops being about learning and starts being about farming government fields with food that they will never see unless the steal it in the dead of night (which Kang does). They hunt rats and eat tree bark and grass. Hanging out with your friends involves going to their house to say your final goodbyes as they slowly and horribly starve to death. (Kang estimates around 75% of his classmates died during these years.)
Executions are common place. Bodies are padded so the blood doesn't spray the crowd. During the winter, the bodies steam. People are eating the dead in order to survive-- people are killing each other in order to eat them.
In 1998, the family escapes to China. You know things are bad when China is a rich paradise. Kang couldn't believe that, in China, people at rice every day. Being in China doesn't help-- they constantly fear the police who will deport them back to North Korea where they will all face execution.
They eventually escape to South Korea, where the full effect of the lies Kang had been fed came to the surface. His anger at being brainwashed, his not wanting to believe the South Korean truth, even though he knew it was right, is the most striking part of this book.
The difficulties of coming to grips with the lies he believed and fitting in with a "modern" culture was shocking and heartbreaking.
I was struck by an odd sense of detachment Kang seemed to have throughout this book. It could be that it was his story as told to someone. It could be the translation either from Kang's Korean to Grangereau's French or from the French to the English. What I think though is it's because that this was his life and he didn't know anything different or he can't emotionally involve himself for the sake of mental health-- this boy lived through Hell.
What really brings this book alive, however, is Kang's illustrations. He's an extraordinarily gifted artist and his drawings of his life bring the story to life in a very real way.
This is not an easy, nor pleasant read, but there are very few first-hand accounts coming out of North Korea, and I think this is an important book that should be read by anyone who can stomach it.
January 10, 2012
Definitely a must read for people interested in personal stories from North Korea. I personally enjoyed Nothing To Envy; Ordianry Lives in North Korea quite a bit more, but that was written by a WRITER, retelling the stories she extracted verbally from refugees, and not written as a firsthand account by a refugee in their own words. It's a different experience- a good one though.
The book is written fairly well. It's not a literary masterpiece, but it's not simple or clunky. The story is, of course- I don't think I even need to say really, exceptional. What kept this book from being more highly rated was a pretty basic error is story construction. Setting aside all the miseries and shock- the story jumped around a little bit. There's a great deal of description about generalities, and not as much personal story. Huge swaths of this book are devoted to describing, in general, the social structues, expectations, propaganda devices, scrict heirarchy, work schedules, depravations, etc. While all of this was very interesting in it's own right, much of it was not nearly as autobiographical as I had hoped. There were personal experiences, but they were almost like bookends to the generalities, rather than the other way around.
This book definitely should have been longer, as others have staed before me in reviews, but for me it was the social-studies type descriptions that filled large percentages of the chapters that I was a little bummed out by.
What really turned this book into a 4 star for me was, surprisingly, the part I was least interested in- that is, the end, after his escape and flight from North Korea. Really the very last chapter or two- his description and reflection on adjustment to life in China, but more especially, to life in South Korea, was extraordinarally good. The authors ability to examine his own acting out and misbehaviors, as well as analyzing the jibes and cruelties of South Koreans towards their Northern bretheren was really very acute.
I think the moment this book really went from 3.5 to 4 was after he had been taken in by a religious group who would help smuggle him into S. Korea. He is enormously grateful to the kind and generous people who assist him, but he is still put off by their religious fervor, and gently, kindly, compares it to the personality cults he had just fled from. For me, to read about someone who has just come from such a harrowing existence into an entirely different world- but who still maintained his sharp eye and intelligent observation- was pretty cool.
The book is written fairly well. It's not a literary masterpiece, but it's not simple or clunky. The story is, of course- I don't think I even need to say really, exceptional. What kept this book from being more highly rated was a pretty basic error is story construction. Setting aside all the miseries and shock- the story jumped around a little bit. There's a great deal of description about generalities, and not as much personal story. Huge swaths of this book are devoted to describing, in general, the social structues, expectations, propaganda devices, scrict heirarchy, work schedules, depravations, etc. While all of this was very interesting in it's own right, much of it was not nearly as autobiographical as I had hoped. There were personal experiences, but they were almost like bookends to the generalities, rather than the other way around.
This book definitely should have been longer, as others have staed before me in reviews, but for me it was the social-studies type descriptions that filled large percentages of the chapters that I was a little bummed out by.
What really turned this book into a 4 star for me was, surprisingly, the part I was least interested in- that is, the end, after his escape and flight from North Korea. Really the very last chapter or two- his description and reflection on adjustment to life in China, but more especially, to life in South Korea, was extraordinarally good. The authors ability to examine his own acting out and misbehaviors, as well as analyzing the jibes and cruelties of South Koreans towards their Northern bretheren was really very acute.
I think the moment this book really went from 3.5 to 4 was after he had been taken in by a religious group who would help smuggle him into S. Korea. He is enormously grateful to the kind and generous people who assist him, but he is still put off by their religious fervor, and gently, kindly, compares it to the personality cults he had just fled from. For me, to read about someone who has just come from such a harrowing existence into an entirely different world- but who still maintained his sharp eye and intelligent observation- was pretty cool.
August 23, 2012
Nome do Livro em Português: "Aqui é o Paraíso!: Uma infância na Coreia do Norte"
O livro muito interessante e que recomendo!!!
Quotes:
"Cada pessoa é um afluente da longa memória do mundo. Insubstituível como experiência e como testemunho. E ao mesmo tempo sinal da singular comunhão que a todos integra, para além do sofrimento e do ruído dos combates que tantas vezes nos dilaceram, na alegria e na tragédia da muito frágil condição humana."
"Em Unsong, dizia-se que um boi ou uma vaca valia mais do que um ser humano, porque esse animal tem dez vezes mais energia do que um homem."
"A família é considerada uma unidade indivisível e "colectivamente responsável"."
"Não vivamos para o dia de hoje; mas vivamos hoje para amanhã".
"O papá constumava dizer-me que era importante estar bem vestido, fazer uma boa figura e parecer bem alimentado, mesmo quando se morria de fome. Nem pensar em suscitar o desprezo. Na Coreia do Norte, o desprezo pelo outro é a pior das afrontas. Essa filosofia de tapa-misérias era também a que seguia o poder, visto que o mais importante de tudo era esconder a pobreza e a desgraça da população perante os outros países."
"Nessa época, as pessoas tornaram-se secas como árvores. Toda a gente tinha o olhar torvo e uma atitude cruel, o espírito atormentado por uma única preocupação: comer para sobreviver!"
"Qualquer pessoa que seja presa perde o seu estatuto de cidadão, diz o regulamento, por isso lhe é proibido exprimir-se, seja pela palavra seja por gestos."
"Entre nós, só havia uma pessoa obesa em todo o país: Kim Jong-Il!"
"Comecei a compreender que o que tinha aprendido na Coreia do Norte não me serviria de grande coisa neste outro planeta tão estranho. Sentia-me como uma rã que acabassem de tirar do seu poço, de onde ela contempla o pedaço de céu redondo delimitado pelo parapeito, pensando que se tratava do mundo inteiro. Tinha passado para o outro lado do espelho."
"Na Coreia do Sul, o mais exaltante para mim era a emoção de me sentir em liberdade. É um sentimento que sinto na minha carne. Na Coreia do Norte, éramos domados para não aspirarmos à liberdade."
"Os nortistas têm todos eles tendência para se isolarem do mundo exterior, em vez de se tentarem adaptar. Reúnem-se para passar a noite juntos. Divertimo-nos loucamente. Nas noitadas em que há gente do Sul, pelo contrário retraímo-nos. Nem sequer se pode brincar com eles. O nosso sentido de humor é muito diferente, os do Sul não riem com as nossas piadas, e vice-versa."
O livro muito interessante e que recomendo!!!
Quotes:
"Cada pessoa é um afluente da longa memória do mundo. Insubstituível como experiência e como testemunho. E ao mesmo tempo sinal da singular comunhão que a todos integra, para além do sofrimento e do ruído dos combates que tantas vezes nos dilaceram, na alegria e na tragédia da muito frágil condição humana."
"Em Unsong, dizia-se que um boi ou uma vaca valia mais do que um ser humano, porque esse animal tem dez vezes mais energia do que um homem."
"A família é considerada uma unidade indivisível e "colectivamente responsável"."
"Não vivamos para o dia de hoje; mas vivamos hoje para amanhã".
"O papá constumava dizer-me que era importante estar bem vestido, fazer uma boa figura e parecer bem alimentado, mesmo quando se morria de fome. Nem pensar em suscitar o desprezo. Na Coreia do Norte, o desprezo pelo outro é a pior das afrontas. Essa filosofia de tapa-misérias era também a que seguia o poder, visto que o mais importante de tudo era esconder a pobreza e a desgraça da população perante os outros países."
"Nessa época, as pessoas tornaram-se secas como árvores. Toda a gente tinha o olhar torvo e uma atitude cruel, o espírito atormentado por uma única preocupação: comer para sobreviver!"
"Qualquer pessoa que seja presa perde o seu estatuto de cidadão, diz o regulamento, por isso lhe é proibido exprimir-se, seja pela palavra seja por gestos."
"Entre nós, só havia uma pessoa obesa em todo o país: Kim Jong-Il!"
"Comecei a compreender que o que tinha aprendido na Coreia do Norte não me serviria de grande coisa neste outro planeta tão estranho. Sentia-me como uma rã que acabassem de tirar do seu poço, de onde ela contempla o pedaço de céu redondo delimitado pelo parapeito, pensando que se tratava do mundo inteiro. Tinha passado para o outro lado do espelho."
"Na Coreia do Sul, o mais exaltante para mim era a emoção de me sentir em liberdade. É um sentimento que sinto na minha carne. Na Coreia do Norte, éramos domados para não aspirarmos à liberdade."
"Os nortistas têm todos eles tendência para se isolarem do mundo exterior, em vez de se tentarem adaptar. Reúnem-se para passar a noite juntos. Divertimo-nos loucamente. Nas noitadas em que há gente do Sul, pelo contrário retraímo-nos. Nem sequer se pode brincar com eles. O nosso sentido de humor é muito diferente, os do Sul não riem com as nossas piadas, e vice-versa."
January 6, 2013
Don't take the three stars as a lack of enthusiasm -- I enjoyed reading this book a lot. Or, I guess 'enjoyed' isn't the right word. I'm glad I read this book.
The storytelling is a little sparse and dry, and I think I prefer the book I read prior to this about North Korea, Escape From Camp 14. Written by a biographer, that book was more detailed and more of an emotional punch in the gut. But, This Is Paradise! served its purpose well, and I'm glad I read the two books close together -- they provided two very different economical (societal?) perspectives of the same cultural horrrors.
In Escape, Shin was a prisoner in a North Korean prison camp, where he was starving and lived in an environment of suspicion and violence. Seen as non-citizens, non-humans even, there was no effort by the government to educate (brainwash) the prisoners about the Kim dynasty. In this book, the author's family was fairly affluent in Korean society, and so the indoctrination was in full swing. But even though they were slightly freer, slightly better off, they were still starving. Still entrenched in the atmosphere of mistrust and constant fear. So, reading the books together was a good lesson; though their financial and ofher circumstances might have been different, the two boys shared the same goal: getting the hell out.
What's going on in North Korea is terrible, and it's a travesty that more in the western world don't know, or worse, are willfully ignorant out of sheer apathy. When I would tell people I was reading this book, their reactions were always "Oh, yeah, North Korea. They're crazy." And that was it. No further comment. When I tried to explain the real atrocities taking place, my dad even said impatiently "We can't do anything about it, so..." I don't like that. People need to care. They should want to do something, get frustrated, get angry, and even if all they do is pass on books like this and insist the truth be shared, at least that's something. At least it's one more eye opened.
The storytelling is a little sparse and dry, and I think I prefer the book I read prior to this about North Korea, Escape From Camp 14. Written by a biographer, that book was more detailed and more of an emotional punch in the gut. But, This Is Paradise! served its purpose well, and I'm glad I read the two books close together -- they provided two very different economical (societal?) perspectives of the same cultural horrrors.
In Escape, Shin was a prisoner in a North Korean prison camp, where he was starving and lived in an environment of suspicion and violence. Seen as non-citizens, non-humans even, there was no effort by the government to educate (brainwash) the prisoners about the Kim dynasty. In this book, the author's family was fairly affluent in Korean society, and so the indoctrination was in full swing. But even though they were slightly freer, slightly better off, they were still starving. Still entrenched in the atmosphere of mistrust and constant fear. So, reading the books together was a good lesson; though their financial and ofher circumstances might have been different, the two boys shared the same goal: getting the hell out.
What's going on in North Korea is terrible, and it's a travesty that more in the western world don't know, or worse, are willfully ignorant out of sheer apathy. When I would tell people I was reading this book, their reactions were always "Oh, yeah, North Korea. They're crazy." And that was it. No further comment. When I tried to explain the real atrocities taking place, my dad even said impatiently "We can't do anything about it, so..." I don't like that. People need to care. They should want to do something, get frustrated, get angry, and even if all they do is pass on books like this and insist the truth be shared, at least that's something. At least it's one more eye opened.
February 2, 2013
I think the scariest part about reading this book is to know that it is all real and still happening now somewhere on our world. It gives us a glimpse of life into North Korea, not the elaborate lies they put on in Pyongyang for the rare tourist, but real, cruel, hard life in rural cities. Where the ridiculous policies of the Kim dynasty has turned the place into a living hell. People have no food to eat (with UN rations being siphoned by those with more authority), the land has dried up (due to people turning to tree bark and roots for food), the wildlife has disappeared (with the disappearance of forests) and it's really every man for himself.
It's a reflection of the severe geographical, economical and social impact of the policies of the Kim dynasty as even the social construct of families break down. Yet, it is still easy to believe in the lies of Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il and their greatness living in an enclosed bubble cut off from information and the outside world.
But that's only half of the problem. As South Korea seeks to integrate North Korean fugitives into South Korea, they realise that it's a new problem of two worlds clashing. Having had to hone their survival instincts and depend on themselves, with the social stigma against them, it's like aliens in a world that they don't recognise and doesn't belong to them.
"By now people were stick-thin. All were grim-faced and timid, their minds tormented by a single thought, eating to survive. My heart was in my boots as well. At first, hunger is a torture. After that phase you hardly feel a thing. You grow numb, fixated on the stench that sticks to you, the eczema that gnaws at your flaking skin. The misfortune of others, even your own family, leave you completely indifferent when you have nothing in your belly. Your stomach becomes a thousand times more important than your conscience. You rob ruthlessly, you would even kill. It's that or certain death, the big black hole dug with a spade on the side of the mountain."
It's a reflection of the severe geographical, economical and social impact of the policies of the Kim dynasty as even the social construct of families break down. Yet, it is still easy to believe in the lies of Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il and their greatness living in an enclosed bubble cut off from information and the outside world.
But that's only half of the problem. As South Korea seeks to integrate North Korean fugitives into South Korea, they realise that it's a new problem of two worlds clashing. Having had to hone their survival instincts and depend on themselves, with the social stigma against them, it's like aliens in a world that they don't recognise and doesn't belong to them.
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