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kaydio 's review for:
Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea
by Barbara Demick
Very interesting and thorough look at life in North Korea from the 1950s through the late 90s as told through the stories of 6 people who defected to South Korea. The description of children starving to death (one kindergarten class went from 50 to 15 students in just a couple of years) is terrible, and seems likely to have continued to this day. Starvation and poverty is one aspect, and brainwashing and spying by your neighbors is another that would make life there unbearable. No one can speak their real thoughts out loud to anyone because of the very real fear it would endanger the lives of their entire family.
The title of the book comes from a song which says that the North Koreans have nothing to envy in the rest of the world. This has not been true since at least the mid 90s, when the government stopped distributing food to everyone as it used to do, but still required people to go to work without being paid, and also forbid them from selling food in a market (capitalism). So many people were dying from starvation that the train station took a cart through daily to collect the bodies.
The title of the book comes from a song which says that the North Koreans have nothing to envy in the rest of the world. This has not been true since at least the mid 90s, when the government stopped distributing food to everyone as it used to do, but still required people to go to work without being paid, and also forbid them from selling food in a market (capitalism). So many people were dying from starvation that the train station took a cart through daily to collect the bodies.