25 & Trying

Nothing to Envy

Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick

For as long as I can remember, I have had a historical fascination with North Korea. It is one of those places that captures my attention because it is the ultimate in the unknown. There really have been few books dedicated to the subject, as there are so few facts to go by. Isolated and difficult to understand, North Korea sometimes feels like a vacuum, a black hole of consciousness towards the outside world.

I walked into Barnes and Noble in Georgetown last weekend, and sitting on the new arrivals table was Barbara Demick’s book Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea. I was ecstatic (NERD ALERT), and was actually more happy that I had just finished the last book. I was a free agent for book choice. (Note: I never start a new book without completing one. I can’t double dip.)

A new book about North Korea is something I can’t pass up. It is too rare. I had to read it first, cutting ahead of many other books waiting patiently in line.

Demick’s work is clearly decades in the making. She spent years with the Los Angeles Times as a reporter on the Koreas, and has turned that real-life interview experience with defectors into a narrative about the lives of six North Koreans. All of these people now live in South Korea, and their lives have changed dramatically.

I think everyone has a general idea about the situation in North Korea — if nothing else that they are after nuclear weapons, and good ole’ George W. called them part of the “Axis of Evil.” For more background, I would visit both Wikipedia here and their official news station here, where you can read (in English!) the types of news that make it to the outside world about the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (official name).

Demick goes one step further. She talks about the lives of the North Korean families, and even as big a nerd as me learned a great deal of things I didn’t know. We all see images of a million-man army, people bowing before photos of the leaders Kim Jong-Il and his father the late Kim Il-Sung, but we don’t see the day-to-day lives. Her geographic focus is on the area of Chongjin, a northern city far from the relatively luxurious (RELATIVELY) life of the capital of Pyongyang. Most foreigners never set foot in Chongjin, but it is a popular exit point for defectors. Its proximity to China via the river has made it a place where people have suffered to cross to freedom.

She chronicles these six North Koreans during the 1990′s, the time period referred to by North Koreans as The Arduous March — a time of great famine and extreme isolation that left hundreds of thousands dead. The details of life in North Korea are even more class-based than I had imagined. One of the defectors came from a family who had origins in South Korea. They had been separated from their family by the Korean War. Because of this simple genealogical fact, they were extremely discriminated against. Everyone remembers everything.

Demick’s title, “Nothing to Envy,” suggests the ultimate paradox that IS North Korea. Devoted subjects are taught to believe that there is nothing on the outside worth envying, while others are obviously thinking this about them. The most poignant moment in the narrative is when Dr. Kim, a defector who was a doctor that had been working for years without pay in North Korea, comes to China via the river. She reaches a house, where she sees a bowl of rice being prepared for a dog. It is here that she realizes — dogs in China eat better than doctors in North Korea.

Demick’s images in the book are borrowed, but effective. The satellite image of North Korea at night that begins her work can really give us all pause at the reality of the country.

North and South Korea at night

They are two separate worlds. There may be a lack of envy on either side, but Demick breaks through the barrier to reveal the contrasts. She is there to capture the few traces of light to be found in people risking everything to change their futures – even when they have no idea what lies on the other side.