Nothing to Envy

Title: Nothing to Envy

Author: Barbara Demick

Pages: 316

Genre: Non-Fiction

Grade: A

Synopsis: Barbara Demick attempts to uncover and describe the living situation in North Korea through the stories of 6 North Koreans who were able to make it out of North Korea.  The book covers a period of about 15 years, including the death of Kim Il-sung and the rise of Kim Jong-il and a huge famine in the late 90's that wiped out around 1/5 of the population.

My Review: What was most surprising was that nearly everything that I imagined about North Korea turned out to either be true or not as bad as reality.  This was a fascinating look at how regular people live their lives, how people are deathly afraid to voice their feelings (even within their own marriage or family) and how difficult it can be to survive if your family is not on the good side of the government (even if you're being punished for indiscretions that happened generations ago).  One of the surprising things is that it seemed that most people in North Korea are not unhappy, which can mainly be attributed to the fact that very few people have any idea how things are outside their own country.  They do not believe that other people have greater freedom than they do nor do they know about the economic strengths of South Korea or other nations.

From the Book: "(p. 79) At least initially, the relationship took on a nineteenth-century epistolatory quality. The only way they could stay in touch was by letter. In 1991, while South Korea was becoming the world's largest exporter of mobile telephones, few North Koreans had ever used a telephone. You had to go to a post office to make a phone call. But even writing a letter was not a simple undertaking. Writing paper was scarce. People would write in the margins of newspapers. The paper in the state stores was made of corn husk and would crumble easily if you scratched too hard. Mi-ran had to beg her mother for the money to buy a few sheets of imported paper. Rough drafts were out of the question; paper was too precious. The distance from Pyongyang to Chongjin was only 250 miles, but letters took up to a month to be delivered."

"(p. 86) When she first arrived, Mi-ran was impressed. The dormitories were modern and each of the four girls who would share one room had her own bed rather than use the Korean bed mats laid out on a heated floor, the traditional way of keeping warm at night while expending little fuel. But as winter temperatures plunged Chongjin into a deep freeze, she realized why it was that the school had been able to give her a place in its freshman class. The dormitories had no heating. Mi-ran went to sleep each night in her coat, heavy socks, and mitten with a towel draped over her head. When she woke up, the towel would be crusted with frost from the moisture of her breath. In the bathroom, where the girls washed their menstrual rags (nobody had sanitary napkins, so the more affluent girls used gauze bandages while the poor girls used cheap synthetic cloths), it was so cold that the rags would freeze solid within minutes of being hung up to dry. Mi-ran hated the mornings. Just as in Jun-sang's school, they were roused by a military-style roll call at 6:00 A.M., but instead of marching off like proud soldiers, they shivered into the bathroom and splashed icy water on their faces, under a grotesque canopy of frozen menstrual rags."