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A review by cmfarris
Ask a North Korean: Defectors Talk about Their Lives Inside the World's Most Secretive Nation by Daniel Tudor
4.0
This book is presented in a Q&A format, as it's an extrapolation of a column. Broken up into several sections, the interviewer speaks to several North Korean defectors living in South Korea, England and America. It was a compelling read because it focused mostly on the daily lives of those people while living in North Korea - I really learned a lot about the average person and how living under a Communist dictator structures their lives, work, relationships, etc.
Somewhere in the book, someone makes the point that outsiders probably mostly think of the North Korean population as mindless, or zealots for the regime, but the respondents show that most citizens are relatively clear eyed about their political situation and wish for reunification with the South (if relatively naive about the outside world, although they all speak to the increase in outside media like music and movies making it's way into North Korea via smuggling). Something I learned was that the communist system essentially crashed within the country after the famine that plagued the country in the 90's - I knew about the famine, but the effect was that since the government all but stopped handing out rations during this crisis, citizens began trading amongst each other for goods and an impromptu market economy grew to meet their needs. This system has spread, and the government still seems economically crippled to the point that they cannot afford to force the country back into the old purely communist distribution system.
A quick and interesting read if you like human stories or want to know more about the inner workings of the DPRK from the perspective of average citizens.
Somewhere in the book, someone makes the point that outsiders probably mostly think of the North Korean population as mindless, or zealots for the regime, but the respondents show that most citizens are relatively clear eyed about their political situation and wish for reunification with the South (if relatively naive about the outside world, although they all speak to the increase in outside media like music and movies making it's way into North Korea via smuggling). Something I learned was that the communist system essentially crashed within the country after the famine that plagued the country in the 90's - I knew about the famine, but the effect was that since the government all but stopped handing out rations during this crisis, citizens began trading amongst each other for goods and an impromptu market economy grew to meet their needs. This system has spread, and the government still seems economically crippled to the point that they cannot afford to force the country back into the old purely communist distribution system.
A quick and interesting read if you like human stories or want to know more about the inner workings of the DPRK from the perspective of average citizens.