Only Beautiful, Please: A British Diplomat in North Korea

by John Everard

Coverage of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) all too often focuses solely on nuclear proliferation, military parades, and the personality cult of its leaders. As the British ambassador to North Korea, John Everard had the rare experience of living there from 2006, when the DPRK conducted its first nuclear test, to 2008. While stationed in Pyongyang, Everard's travels around the nation provided him with numerous opportunities to meet and converse with North Koreans.

"Only Beautiful, Please" goes beyond official North Korea to unveil the human dimension of life in that hermetic nation. Everard recounts his impressions of the country and its people, his interactions with them, and his observations on their way of life. He also provides a picture of the life of foreigners in this closed society, considers how the DPRK evolved to its current state, and offers thoughts on how to tackle the challenges that it throws up, in light of the failure of current approaches. The book is illustrated with often striking photographs taken by Everard during his stay in North Korea.

Genres: Nonfiction, Asia, Memoir, Travel, Biography Memoir, History, Politics

302 pages, Paperback

First published April 30, 2012

Reviews

[Kavita · Rating 5 out of 5]

North Korea is often in the news for all the wrong reasons. But the British Ambassador to NK has a lot to say about other things too. This book is divided into four parts. I really enjoyed the first part of the book which took up more than half of it, since it provided a detailed description of Korean culture and customs. In the latter half, history of Korea as well as the current political problems are also discussed.

The author has inserted many photographs of life in NK and has recited some anecdotes from his own personal experience, which I feel has enhanced my reading experience. He is also very balanced when talking about ordinary Korean citizens and freely admits that he can only relate to one aspect of elitist life in Pyongyang, and that people in other parts of the country might be leading very different lives.

All the descriptions of clean, open and green spaces were really enticing. The Korean situation might be resolved one day, but I do hope that it doesn't lead to the destruction of these spaces, which is probably the only positive the North Koreans have today.

[Jakub Rehor · Rating 5 out of 5]

The challenge of writing a good travel book comes from connecting with people who live and work at the destination, seeing the world through their eyes, and telling their stories. It's hard to imagine a more difficult place than North Korea for an author of a travel book: locals are under constant surveillance, fearful of communicating with foreigners at all, let alone sharing personal and sensitive stories.

Ambassador Everard did a fantastic job of reaching out to his North Korean contacts and acquaintances in order to write this book. In his two years of being posted to Pyongyang, he traveled around the country and spoke to dozens of people; he gained the trust of many of them who let him inside their lives and thoughts. Other Western books about North Korea rely on interviews with refugees who represent a different sector of the population—they tend to come from the poor northern regions close to Chinese border. This book lets us learn about the relatively privileged inhabitants of Pyongyang: not the topmost elite group around Kim Jong-il but the approximately 1 million people (5% of the total population) who rank underneath them and make running the country possible.

The picture that Ambassador Everard paints of North Korea doesn't contradict refugee testimony, but provides a more rounded view of the diverse experiences of North Koreans. It talks mostly about everyday life: relationships, marriage, work, career, and the struggle to lead something approximating normal life inside the paranoid, dysfunctional North Korean society. No other book I have seen comes close to giving the same color and flavor, the feeling of experiencing the reality of the country.

At the publisher's request, Ambassador Everard added two chapters to the book dealing with the prospects of engagement with North Korea and political and economic change in the country. He is pessimistic about the likelihood of the regime reforming itself, as well as about the chances of outsiders successfully influencing the country.

Ambassador Everard's dry sense of humor and his warm humanity permeate this book. It is a much more entertaining and pleasant read than the grim topic might suggest.

[Meaghan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although the writing was somewhat dry, anyone interested in North Korea would find this book fascinating. The author spent 2006 to 2008 there as the British ambassador, and seeks to tell, as well as he can, what daily life is like for the average North Korean. His reports were full of surprises. North Korean society is full of contradictions, I'll leave it at that.

I had read some books before by North Koreans, but they were all defectors, who can't really be called "average" representatives of that deeply troubled nation. I'm sure Mr. Everard's point of view is necessarily limited, but I still feel like I learned a great deal from him about ordinary life there, much more than I learned from the defectors' memoirs.

I might also add that he goes into the background of the Korean War and so on, so that even people who know nothing about it (which would include me) will not get lost. This book made me want to find out more about the Korean War.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the topic. Four and a half stars, rounded up to five, since Goodreads doesn't do half-stars.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Only Beautiful, Please" reminded me a little bit of Andrei Lankov's book, "North of the DMZ", in that it is a very anecdotal account of life in North Korea in regards to a variety of different facets. Here, too, Everard doesn't organize his information into a larger narrative framework, but rather presents facts and stories in a concise, isolated manner. Everard is quick to point out - repeatedly - that his information is mostly gleaned from privileged citizens living in Pyeongyang; thus, a lot of what is presented must be taken with a grain of salt and not thought of as representative of the experiences of the overall North Korean population. Having said that, the book is still quite fascinating, and while I'm sure some people will find Everard's writing style to be a bit bland, I appreciated his straightforwardness.

[Kodzo Selormey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had previously read Barbara Demick's Nothing to Envy Ordinary lives in North Korea and other books about the country. However what stood out about John Everard's book was real life experiences of living and working with North Koreans in North Korea, as opposed to getting second hand stories. What came out clearly from these stories where the simple human traits and aspirations of the middle class that get lost in the other tails of famine and miltary build-up.

The writing style at points is a little bit clunky where Mr Everard has to differentiate between what he experienced and was told personally to what was rumour and commonly held assumptions.

However when talking about the way forward and the future for North Korea, Mr Everard poses many interesting questions without proffering any answers as to the strategy he would take if he was sitting in the FCO in London, the foreign ministry in Beijing or the State Department in Washington, which I thought was a little bit of a cop out. All questions and no answers for the future. I am sure he would have many an interesting suggestion for new courses of action based on his extensive diplomatic experience but they are not explored in this text which is a great shame.

[Kayt O'Bibliophile · Rating 5 out of 5]

As far as feeding my fascination with North Korea goes, I didn't think this would do much. Let's face it, the description sounds dry. And he was an ambassador--how much weirdness would he actually get to experience?

Answer: a lot. In fact, this book should be a must-read for anyone interested in North Korea. Everard is honest that his interactions were limited to people privileged enough to live in Pyongyang--but this is a group we don't often hear about, since they're probably not defecting.

Everard has a greatly readable, slightly humorous style of writing, explains things incredibly well, and makes sure that the reader understands he can only write from his experience and often admits to not knowing whether such-and-such rumor is true. It's actually pretty refreshing, since so little is known about North Korea, to know where "first hand experience" stops and conjecture begins.

It's also incredibly recent--Everard was ambassador from 2006-2008, and the book was published in 2012, so Everard can comment on more recent events, and make his own guesses based on things like Kim Jong Il's death.

Part of the book is devoted to the recent history of Korea, its division, and the birth of a personality-cult dictatorship, and I appreciated the section on the different goals various countries have for Korea, how they have been/are likely to be met, and Everard's educated guesses as to why North Korea's regime is so freaking crazy [not a direct quote] toward the rest of the world.

But the biggest part of the book, and the most interesting, is simply his life there. Everything from interactions with Koreans, what he learned about their daily lives, the social life in Pyongyang, and the weirdness the comes with being a conspicuous foreigner alone in the Hermit Kingdom.

He wasn't laugh-out-loud funny, but I enjoyed the gentle humor the popped up.

Occasionally too ex-King Sihanouk of Cambodia would visit Pyongyang...We would sit around the edges of a large central room while the former monarch regaled us with a selection of Cambodian folk songs and renditions of French pop songs. I am not sung to by ex-kings very often and I found these to be memorable occasions.
----
One of the high points of the social calendar for the then diplomatic community [before the collapse of the USSR] was the annual Sports Day, organised by and held at the Soviet embassy. In the run up to this great day there were often complex plots and stratagems to determine the outcome of various events. Apparently nobody cared very much who won, provided the Soviet Union lost.
----
I originally wrote this section of the book long before the death of Kim Jong Il and the first interactions with the outside world of the new regime under Kim Jong Un.*

*In a final spiteful act he died on 17 December 2011, wrecking the Christmas plans of Western North Korea watchers.

All-in-all, consider this a must-read if you are interested in North Korea. It's recent, the author's honest, and one of the few books from a westerner with first-hand experience.

[Kriegslok · Rating 4 out of 5]

I generally like books by British diplomats, old school Foreign & Commonwealth Office personel tend to have a very engaged attitude towards the places they serve in and are not as bound up in dogma and politics as the politicians and aparatchiks back "home". This is a relatively light and very interesting account of life in the DPRK as observed by a foreigner. Everard paints a picture of a Wizard of Oz state (Everard describes it as feeling like "Kafka as performed by the cast of Dad's Army")peopled by real people with real day to day lives and needs. Stripping away the common misconception of North Korea as either a nation of automatons or savagely oppressed desperate people he reveals something of the reality while noting the often comic difficulties involed in interation between DPRK citizen and outsider. The first half of the book is an almost diary like telling of his time in DPRK. The second part of the book puts DPRK into some sort of historical context and examines possible futures. Everard records the Soviet NKVD as having admitted to creating the Kim dynasty and doing it "very crudely". Everard importantly recognises that while at its foundational moment the DPK was declared to be Marxist-Lenninist and is still referred to as Stalinist neither of these corect descriptions and have not been for some time although references to socialism remain. Everard suggests that something more akin to National Socialism is at work in DPRK both in the demigod dynastic leadership and rhetoric of racial purity and supremacy. Kim Il Sung was apparantly something of an admirer of Hitler. The DPRK carried on quite happily in splendid isolation until the famine of the 1990s brought much of the Oz facarde crashing down. Everad notes that up until this point popular support among the population for the regime was pretty high and belief in the leadership and the supremacy of the DPRK was high. When the state failed the people, the demigod failed to live up to his word, and outside help flowed in and with it news of the world outside the rot set in. The DPRK response was to try to expell the outside world and turn to repression to try to drive out all information from the outside, however, as Everard notes this is something of a loosing battle znd now the jeanie is out of the bottle its not going back in. This has left DPRK hoisted by a rope of its own making and unable to deviate from the path it is set on, he notes it is "not just that the DPRK is unwilling to change but that it cannot change", nor can it turn off its propaganda stream, or controls over citizens. Any deviation would lead to mass confusion and disintegration something which is understood and threatening enough to enough of the population who stand to loose from this for them to do what is necessary to stave such a calamity off for as long as possible. Everard concludes the book with a look at the various diplomatic initiatives down/up a dozen cul-de-sacs with no realistic outcomes visible and with the DPRK pursuit of nuclear capability thrown into the equation for good measure. Essential reading for anyone with and interest in the politics of DPRK and the region.

[David Nichols · Rating 3 out of 5]

John Everard served as Britain's ambassador to North Korea in the waning years of the Kim Jong Il era. Like all foreign visitors to the Democratic People's Republic, he had few opportunities to learn about his host country: the country's repressive, paranoid government confined him (for the most part) to Pyongyang, and limited his social contacts to the second tier of the national elite, what Orwell would have called the “Outer Party.” The ambassador got to know some of these people well, but he learned little about the ruling family or the country's impoverished majority.

What makes this memoir valuable is the challenge it offers to Brian Myers's influential view of North Korea (from THE CLEANEST RACE [2010]). Where Myers identified the DPRK as a fascist state, its ideology a holdover from Imperial Japanese racism, Everard considers North Korea an inheritor of the traditions of medieval Korea. Under the Yi Dynasty (1390-1910), Korea was a Confucian monarchy headed by an autocratic, semi-divine emperor, with a hereditary caste system and a hermetic foreign policy. Under the Kim Dynasty (1945-present), North Korea has a hereditary, autocratic ruling family, a four-part caste system – Loyal, Wavering, Hostile, and the slave caste in the prison camps – and a policy of near-total isolation from the world. Everard's observations normalize this apparently abnormal state: North Korea follows the historic pattern of medieval Korea and Tokugawa Japan. The exceptional state on the peninsula, by this logic, is South Korea.

Everard offers one bright spot: his observation that North Koreans care what foreigners think of them and their homeland. Myers characterized Northerners as die-hard xenophobes prone to attacking foreigners, but the ambassador found that they wanted the rest of the world to see Korea in its best light, as a land of beauty and achievement. The title of his book derives from the command his minders gave him when he tried to photograph scenes of poverty and squalor. If there is hope for a normal relationship between the DPRK and the rest of the world, sometime in the future, it lies with those (probably members of Everard's Outer Party) who hold this attitude, a vastly preferable group to the vulgar Kims and their propagandists and arse-lickers.

[Tuck · Rating 4 out of 5]

written about authors stay as uk ambassador in 2006-2008, but some updates up to 2012, as a proviso that some things in book are a tiny bit dated, with mentions of kim #3 now as great leader, and what will happen: collapse, more aggression, reunification, status qua?
very interesting look at a long term stay in north korea, everard spoke some korean, and rode his bike a lot so got to go out in the city and edge and shopping, and of course meeting with officials and traveling a little to other parts of country (everybody, including foreign staffs, had to adopt and go out and work on a collective farm twice a year, to plant, and then harvest rice, though somewhat of a joke work trip, as the town people dont know a lot about working hard and so had a big picnic etc)
if you need some fairly clear eyed observations and analysis this is a great read.
more popular, but fun, books on same topic are cummings rather dated one North Korea: Another Country and demicks award winning more recent book centering around the famine and aftermath North Korea: Another Country nk in a nutshell in a slow moving disaster with nuclear weapons thrown in. a failed state where the "old men" of kim's revolution still have all the say, and all the profit. cause oh yes, there is profits to be made.
has nice bibliography, and b/w pics and cool color pictures (it is very hard to take pictures, everybody and their grandma is distrustful of round eyes taking pics)

[Tara Hendershot Beck · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you share my nerdy obsession for everything North Korea (probably highly unlikely), then you will enjoy this book. As a British diplomat who lived in Pyongyang for a span of almost two and a half years, John Everard gives a different understanding of the country than the more common accounts of North Korean defectors. His experience, while being a limited and foreign one, contributes a unique perspective of the regime.
Much of the book describes the lives of Koreans living in Pyongyang. Everard covers many topics including education, health care, indoctrination, interpersonal relationships as well as many others. Like the rest of the country, citizens of Pyongyang endure extremely repressive circumstances in which even the smallest acts of non conformity are brutally punished. The average citizen has a much lower standard of living when compared to what we have in the states, but has a life of privilege compared to the hellish conditions North Koreans are living outside of the capital.
It was interesting to read the latter part of the book that discusses North Korea's world relations, objectives involved, and the obstacles surrounding those objectives.

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Only Beautiful, Please is a unique addition to the plethora of recent DPRK books due to both the fact that the author (a British diplomat) is writing of his experiences LIVING, not just traveling in the country, and for its picture of the lives of middle- to upper-middle-class citizens of Pyongyang (something you don't see in the accounts of refugees, who largely come from the provinces). While the writing can be a bit dry, I still found it to be a page-turner because the material is just SO fascinating. Hearing of the author's bike tours around Pyongyang or his stumbling upon a prisoner at work were among the most engaging parts of the book.

The final chapter was a bit strange--the author sets out theories of how the West should deal with North Korea and demonstrates why none of those options will work. A more in-depth look at options that could work would have strengthened the book overall, though I found that I enjoyed the "DPRK Options 101" aspect of that chapter since I had not previously studied the conflict--it had a cliffs notes feel, but in a good way.

[Bo Majors · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having read many books on North Korea as well as probably having seen every documentary in English or Spanish on North Korea, I highly recommend this book. The author, a former British diplomat to North Korea has short chapters covering many aspects of life in the DPRK, but also, a commentary on the present and pressing situation regarding nuclear concerns. The book was fascinating; however, I wish he would have extended each and every chapter by only a few pages. Just when you found yourself tantalized, the chapter was over.

[Zhila · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is definitely a nice change from most of the literature on North Korea. Everard's fondness for the North Koreans really comes through, and his stories about life in North Korea really bring out a human side that you don't hear about in the news. Most of the stories come from his own experiences and he writes with a sense of adventure and humor that is really a pleasure to read.

[Stefanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A rather interesting and for a change European view (as opposed to American view) on North Korea. This book gives an insight into North Korea, especially into the lives of residents of Pyongyang. Minus one star because the style is rather essay-like.

[Paula · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, I'm pretty sure the author knows a lot about North Korea? This book, however, is a mess. Every bit of information, every paragraph, every chapter and every part is in the wrong order. As a narrative, it fails completely. This is not a book you'll read for pleasure.

Allow me an example. In the 1990s years of economic mismanagement by leader Kim Il Sung led to the collapse of the North Korean economy and a great famine. Kim Il Sung died right before it got really bad, and his son Kim Jong Il was a very different kind of man and leader. This has impacted the lives of North Koreans very much. Where they used to believe their regime lies in the devoted way followers believe in a cult, now they are aware that their country is an isolated outlier, and it makes them cynical.

See what I did there? I told you a story. It's logical and makes sense, if I do say so myself. It's more or less chronological, and cause comes before effect. Not so in this book. The famine and its effects on the North Koreans are mentioned dozens of times before the causes, actual famine and effects are explained in Part 3 (!), chapters vii and vii.

One could perhaps argue that the intended audience might know more about the famine than just that it happened, but if that's the case, why write it up in part 3 at all? Poor author. As the blurb on the back says, he wants to write about ordinary North Korean lives, but he sounds a lot more convincing when it comes to his actual area of expertise: the bit about international politics around North Korea at the end. That makes for an alright article in Foreign Affairs in 2012, but as a book it really doesn't work.

[Shaun · Rating 5 out of 5]

I put off reading this book for a long time because I wasn't sure what I could get from a book by a British diplomat that I couldn't get better from a defector's memoir. The most valuable thing I got from this book that I didn't get from any defectors' memoirs was an overview of Korean history and how that history ties in to what the DPRK is today. It's not just communism. It's traditional Korean nationalism that can be traced back to the Yi dynasty which began in the 1300s. But they don't teach that history in North Korea so the defectors presumably don't know about it. Unfortunately, this memoir is just a tad out of date now. As the author observed at the time it was written (some time between 2009 and 2012, most likely), if the DPRK is to be stopped with military force, it needs to happen now. "Now" is now in the past. I wonder if the author would agree that our window of opportunity for military intervention is past. Not that I'm eager to go to war -- but that option is now probably off the table as the DPRK has perfected and miniaturized its nuclear arsenal ensuring that war against the DPRK would result in the deaths of millions of South Koreans and probably Japanese. I would love to read an updated analysis on this from Everard.

[Lesley Parker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ploughing through books on North Korea, this was a special, personal account from a UK diplomat who worked in Pyongyang. This book was written some time ago now, but his insights into the people from his day to day connections are wonderful and worth revisiting today. Charming but with depth.

[M R · Rating 4 out of 5]

Few foreigners can say they have lived in North Korea, most North Korean 'experts' study from outside and maybe the occasional visit. But this guy and this book are different and I'm a big believer in believing people who have lived in a place. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

[Tammy Price · Rating 4 out of 5]

Documentary-like reading

This is not a story book. This is a man's view of life in North Korea. Its very informative with a peek inside life there!

[Jemima · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting, based on his own experiences of living there, so a different perspective to other NK books.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Coverage of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) all too often focuses solely on nuclear proliferation, military parades, and the personality cult of its leaders. As the British ambassador to North Korea, John Everard had the rare experience of living there from 2006, when the DPRK conducted its first nuclear test, to 2008. While stationed in Pyongyang, Everard's travels around the nation provided him with numerous opportunities to meet and converse with North Koreans.

"Only Beautiful," Please goes beyond official North Korea to unveil the human dimension of life in that hermetic nation. Everard recounts his impressions of the country and its people, his interactions with them, and his observations on their way of life. He also provides a picture of the life of foreigners in this closed society, considers how the DPRK evolved to its current state, and offers thoughts on how to tackle the challenges that it throws up, in light of the failure of current approaches. The book is illustrated with often striking photographs taken by Everard during his stay in North Korea.

[Jae · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's lots of new information here, even for people who've already read most of the available English-language books about North Korea, all very carefully and analytically presented. Keeping it from four stars, though, is only the fact that the writing, especially in the first two sections, could have been a lot less dry and a lot more narrative in style. Plus, the book gets progressively less and less interesting (with less and less new information not available elsewhere) as the book goes on, which seems like at least a minor structural flaw.

It's totally worth reading, though. I find Everard very compassionate and empathetic while never losing a certain intellectual distance from the subject, which is no small feat. I can't help but hope he's advising the U.S. (or the EU) on North Korean matters.

[Leetcat · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good book for an overview of events that happen in North Korea. John does a good job providing an insight into the lives of middle class North Koreans.
In this book you get an overview of life in the capital city of Pyongyang, from every day activities of citizens, to leisure activities. It covers people who work in markets, street vendors, government employees, farmers. You also get an overview of how people interact with the government.

While this is a great book giving an overview of life in North Korea, and the relations between different people, this book is mostly an overview providing anecdotal evidence of one person and his communications with others. There is no story in this book it reads as something you might find on Wikipedia.

[Pier-andré Doyon · Rating 5 out of 5]

La meilleure introduction à la Corée du Nord. Everard offre une perspective très rare, lui qui a vécu en Corée pendant quatre ans en tant qu'ambassadeur, sur la vie de tout les jours des habitants de Pyongyang. Nuancé et très détaillé, ce survol thématique donne un résumé très convaincant. Comme si ce n'était pas assez, l'auteur joint à son survol anecdotique et thématique, plus personnel, des résumés analyses historiques et politiques fruits de nombreuses lectures des ouvrages de référence sur le sujet. Un arrêt obligatoire pour quiconque s'intéresse au sujet (et on aurait intérêt à s'y intéresser plus!).

[Tasha · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've been terribly interested in North Korea for a number of years and this piece somehow provided me with all the pieces of information that I've somehow failed to pick up elsewhere; stuff like the history of the country and the general set up of life inside those walls. Everard was a diplomat, he's not necessarily a compelling writing but I enjoyed this book and would recommend it to anyone looking for some objective insight into NK.

[Ella · Rating 4 out of 5]

North Korea

My selection for North Korea in my "around the world" challenge.

Loved it. North Korea is an infuriating country full of surprises and contradictions that were really eye-opening. I found the first half far more interesting than the first, detailing Korean culture and norms and customs which was refreshing: a breath of normality in such a troubled nation. People seem to often forget that North Koreans are people too.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Everard has a valuable perspective to share and he does it in a clear and well organized way. As diplomat, he met with a set of people whose voices are not often heard in other books on the subject. After describing his portrait of the country, he pushes himself to outline the current political situation and extrapolate into what could happen in future. Thought provoking work.

[Mary Haug · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another fascinating look at this grim, isolated country. I wish I could give it 3 and a half stars. The writing seemed a little dry and didn't pull me in emotionally as a couple other books I've read recently about North Korea did. (The Orphan Master's Son-fiction and Nothing to Envy-nonfiction.) Still, a worthwhile read.

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's refreshing to experience a perspective focused on the details of life inside Pyongyang through a diplomat, and about the DPRK as a whole. Although the writing style of the book is very matter-of-fact, the information is interesting. I wish the author assembled more of a story, regardless I would recommend this book for anyone intrigued by North Korea and it's workings.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is what I was looking for when I set out to learn more about North Korea.

John Everard's take is self-aware and highly informative. Everard retells personal experiences as Britain's Ambassador to the DPRK and provides a historical and cultural context for much of what we may already know about the DPRK.