A River in Darkness: One Man's Escape from North Korea
As the ship edged closer to the quay, I saw that the players were all schoolgirls. Although it was midwinter, they wore little more than the thin jacket of the Korean national costume. The sharp wind blew in my eyes. Then I took a second look. Their faces. Their phony smiles. You must have seen them on TV. Those grotesque displays of
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One thing this book talk a lot about, but can never definitively answer, is how people born in N. Korea feel about the brainwashing vs. people who come from outside the country (as the narrator of this tale does). A telling fact is that there is never, in 30+ years of living in N. Korea, a heart to heart conversation outside of family that questions the lies that are being peddled by the Dear Leader and his designates. The system is so all-encompassing, and there is such desperation, you either pretend to go along, or you get disappeared or further marginalized.
I’d heard it all before. The very same speech. Way back in 1961. Not long after I’d moved to North Korea. The very same idiotic speech! The same shameless lavish self-praise. But Kim Il-sung had never fulfilled any of his promises. Not one. He promised us “paradise on earth” and instead consigned us to its very opposite.
Masaji Ishikawa • A River in Darkness: One Man's Escape from North Korea
During the period of the Japanese Empire, thousands upon thousands of Koreans had been brought to Japan against their will to serve as slave laborers and, later, cannon fodder. Now, the government was afraid that these Koreans and their families, discriminated against and poverty-stricken in the postwar years, might become a source of social
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After traveling in S. Korea and Japan, it's clear that the stereotypes and animosity over some of these age-old antagonisms are still perpetuated (hopefully to a lesser degree than they once were).
it came from party officials, who drilled the same messages into them day after day after day. “The dictator of South Korea started the Korean War! He was a pro-American imperialist! The leader of a puppet government! A poodle!” As a result, the militarization of the nation was entirely justified in their eyes. They were the only bulwark against
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I learned that after high school graduation in North Korea, there were three paths to choose from. Except there weren’t. In reality, your path was chosen for you. Basically, if you were clever and your birth and background were good enough, you were sent to university. If you were physically strong, you went to the military academy or became a
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Despite knowing better, we all had to follow the ludicrous Juche system. If your farm didn’t meet its target harvest, the farm manager fudged the account to make it look as if the target had actually been met. But despite all the fairy-tale record keeping, the supply didn’t lie: the food ration distributed every autumn was growing smaller and
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The Japanese defeat in World War II left 2.4 million Koreans stranded in Japan. They belonged to neither the winning nor the losing side, and they had no place to go. Once freed, they were simply thrown onto the streets. Desperate and impoverished, with no way to make a living, they attacked the trucks containing food intended for members of the
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