Nothing To Envy: Fascinating book about North Korea

Nothing To EnvyLiving in China you can’t help but be exposed to whispers of the “old days” pre-reform. Whether it be the portraits of Mao in taxis and Tiananmen, the massive USSR-inspired government buildings, the general apathy most people over 40 have towards their job (well, actually, that might be universal).

The guidebooks give crash courses in it, many many novels have been written about it. When people repeat the catch-phrase, “China Rises”, communist marching and star-studded banners wave through the mind.

But China’s changed, it’s no longer the place it was in the 50s-70s. Not even close. It’s barely the place it was last week. North Korea, on the other hand, is virtually the same as it was when it was founded. Still a hereditary communist power (sweet irony) with a government clinging to the old ways with white-knuckles and a big gun. Still brashly refusing to go any way but its own, no matter how many people have to starve.

The West may lay criticisms on China and the lack of freedoms here, some of which are definitely not unqualified, but when you compare it to its tiny northeastern neighbour, you can’t help be see the stark contrast of how far this big beautiful country has come. If China’s the showcase for a country pulling itself out of a bad decision made 60 years ago, and a terrible system before that, the DPRK is the polar opposite.

Getting a clear picture of North Korea is a challenge though. It’s isolation and self-imposed segregation make it an island in a otherwise globalized world. I’m fortunate to have had a peak at North Korea living in China’s north east, and visiting the border with the DPRK. But I hope one day I’ll be able to actually go there and see it all for myself (even if it’s just the sanitized foreigner version in Pyongyang).

With that said, you can imagine the interest I had in a new project that came my way not long ago — designing the Web site for a new book, Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea. The book is written by Barbara Demick, who some may know as the Beijing bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times.

www.NothingToEnvy.com - designed by The Humanaught

I’ll let the design speak for itself, but here’s a bit more on the book:

In NOTHING TO ENVY, Demick follows the lives of six people: a couple of teenaged lovers courting in secret, an idealistic woman doctor, a homeless boy, a model factory worker who loves Kim Il Sung more than her own family and her rebellious daughter.

Demick spent six years painstakakingly reconstructing life in a city off-limits to outsiders through interviews with defectors, smuggled photographs and videos. The book spans the chaotic years that saw the death of Kim Il-sung, the unchallenged rise to power of his son Kim Jong-il, the devastating effects of a famine that killed an estimated twenty percent of the population, and an increase in illegal defections.

While many books focus on the North Korean nuclear threat, NOTHING TO ENVY is one of the few that dwells on what everyday life is like for ordinary citizens. With remarkable detail, Demick brings to life what it means to be living under the most repressive totalitarian regime in the world today. She gives a portrait as vivid as walking oneself through the darkened streets of North Korea.

I just finished reading it and cannot recommend it enough to anyone with even just a passing interest in North Korea. If you’ve ever read Wild Swans (and I suggest you do), you’ll find some similarities, as both books tell their stories through the eyes of real people who lived through harrowing ordeals. Both explore what it is to live in a country where your thoughts are moulded into believing the omnipotence of a man and a system that are long-past failure.

For China-watchers, the book also shows the obstacle-strewn Chinese road that many DPRK defectors travel through to get out of a country that treats them like trash but wont let them go.

Truly a fascinating book.

12 Responses

    • Visiting North Korea while under its current regime would be akin to visiting Nazi Germany: despicable. Strange, white fantasy you have about wanting to check it out under its current regime. Again, just despicable.

  1. @King of Men: While any murderous fuckwad in power is pretty easily compared to Hitler, there are some huge differences and holes in your judgement there. The biggest one is your concept of “current regime” as if there has been or will be another one in my life time.

    By your patronizing standards, it sounds as if we should just ignore the country until the Kims are done and the country is reunited with its southern neighbour — which may not happen. For all its shakiness, it has weathered huge regime breaking storms and survived. I don’t say this with any sense of envy or admiration, but as proof to my belief (but not my hope) that any who read this are very likely never to see a different North Korea.

    But then maybe we see a “visit” as different things. Perhaps a visit to you is a holiday of sorts. To me it is a snapshot of a time and place, a small piece of history that I can capture and use to better understand the world.

    You seem to have confused visiting a country with agreeing to the actions of the atrocious rulers of that country. I don’t see the connection. Nor do I see it when used in connection with Nazi Germany. Trying to understand how a nation of people could so entirely believe the words of a single man as if a supreme being is as terrible as it is fascinating. It is not, in anyway, support.

    Visiting the DPRK for me is also a, admittedly limited, way of peaking inside China’s past, a country I am intricately involved with and will forever be.

  2. I just picked this book up at The Bookworm in Beijing and I can’t wait to read it. I’m only sorry I will be tucked away in my third tier city in a few days and will miss The Bookworm’s Lit Festival, where Barbara Demick will be speaking.

    • Am sorry I’m going to miss it too. I just checked with Barbara and unfortunately she’s not going to make it to the Suzhou Bookworm’s lit fest.

  3. No matter how you spin it to make yourself feel better, Ryan: by spending any money to go into the DPRK you ARE condoning its regime and legitimizing it. It’s no different than going on vacation to Nazi Germany.

    Spin away all you want, but that doesn’t erase the deplorable nature of such an act. Then again, I am rationalizing with a man who has been on record praising Hugo Chavez (on this very blog!).

    Want to see China the way it used to be? Read a book, comb through photographs and head to some of the small villages in China. Spare me the lecture me on China: I’ve lived her for some time. Longer than you.

    You’re a Suzhou yuppie, living the Suzhou yuppie life. If you really want to “learn” about China, hit the villages and backwaters. Get out of your yuppie comfort zone. There’s no need to go to the DPRK.

    I’ve said my piece. I leave you to spin away your laughably sad excuse for paying money into the coffers of a regime on par with Hitler. Even if lil’ Kim dies, there’s his son to replace him. Shit ain’t going to change in your lifetime and my comment stands. Thank you for allowing the discourse.

    • Why would I be trying to make myself feel better? I feel pretty good.

      Want to see China the way it used to be? Read a book, comb through photographs and head to some of the small villages in China. Spare me the lecture me on China: I’ve lived her for some time. Longer than you.
      You’re a Suzhou yuppie, living the Suzhou yuppie life. If you really want to “learn” about China, hit the villages and backwaters. Get out of your yuppie comfort zone. There’s no need to go to the DPRK.

      You seem to have read just far enough back in this blog to know where I live, and not far enough to know where I’ve lived. I guess that big China Hand of yours is only good for a certain number of clicks.

      Save you the lecture on China? Who’s lecturing who on China? I’ve been to, and lived in, “small town China”; I’ve read the books; I’ve combed through the photographs. It’s not the same and if you weren’t being such a prick trying to make your point, you’d surely be able to admit that.

      It’s not saturated in communist propaganda, it’s not isolated by totalitarianism (or at least not as much), it’s not closed or secretive, it’s not wearing a mask of happiness while it rots underneath. Basically, none of the similarities between North Korea today and China 40 years ago have any connection to modern rural China.

      As a side-note, why is the the most anonymized commentators are always the harshest critics. Sort of cowardly in my opinion.

    • King of Men: how about chilling out a second? A lot of countries in the world have governments which have commited despicable acts, and we visit them anyway. North Korea maybe a particularly bad case, but it’s not Nazi Germany in the thirties, in that at least it is not a serious threat to the rest of the world (it’s not powerful enough to be anyway). Going on holiday there will probably only help the local economy a bit and perhaps even push the country to open up a bit faster. Yes the difference it will make is negligible, but the difference not going there will make is even tinier. After all, the North Korean regime certainly doesn’t depend on tourism to survive. If you want to hurt some governments by not visiting their country, then choose countries whose revenue does depend largely on tourism, like Egypt or Thailand.

      I live in China, and I would also be very curious about going to North Korea as a matter of fact. It’s nothing to do with learning about China, China isn’t and never actually was like North Korea. It’s just human curiosity. And the day North Korea starts to open up for real (which will come, it’s already started with the South Korean factories being opened there), I will even gladly go and teach English there for a while.

  4. Quote King of Men: “Spare me the lecture me on China: I’ve lived her for some time. Longer than you.”

    So now that we’ve established who has the longest d…, and know who’s more right, can you please tell me why you fail to have a polite discussion on the net? When you start a discussion with bashing, what do you expect to get back? For every blog you read, you’ll be able to find something you don’t agree with, but that doesn’t mean the writer is neither ignorant nor a yuppie. It just means that people are different.

    While I to some extent agree that using money in a country like NK is indirectly a way of supporting them, I respect Ryan’s wish to go there. I might personally consider going there, if I had the chance. Nothing beats you own firsthand experience. Regular readers here would know that Ryan is not going there to advertise NK, but rather see for himself, which is exactly what you ask him to do when it comes to China? I would suspect some blogging about NK afterwards wouldn’t be about the wonderful mood there or the flow of honey and milk. That’s worth something too.

    By your own logic, you yourself support current the government in China and the atrocities committed by some of them in the past? Man, grow up and get a perspective. Things aren’t always black or white.

    And that was my spin on your polite comment, King of Men.

    @Ryan: Nice entry getting yourself compared to Nazis, being a commie sympathizer and a yuppie. I wouldn’t make a fuzz if you incidentally hit the IP ban button on the King.

    • @Ryan: Nice entry getting yourself compared to Nazis, being a commie sympathizer and a yuppie. I wouldn’t make a fuzz if you incidentally hit the IP ban button on the King.

      I do what I can 😉

      As to the rest of your comment — well said.

  5. King of Men: how about chilling out a second? A lot of countries in the world have governments which have commited despicable acts, and we visit them anyway. North Korea maybe a particularly bad case, but it’s not Nazi Germany in the thirties, in that at least it is not a serious threat to the rest of the world (it’s not powerful enough to be anyway). Going on holiday there will probably only help the local economy a bit and perhaps even push the country to open up a bit faster. Yes the difference it will make is negligible, but the difference not going there will make is even tinier. After all, the North Korean regime certainly doesn’t depend on tourism to survive. If you want to hurt some governments by not visiting their country, then choose countries whose revenue does depend largely on tourism, like Egypt or Thailand.

    I live in China, and I would also be very curious about going to North Korea as a matter of fact. It’s nothing to do with learning about China, China isn’t and never actually was like North Korea. It’s just human curiosity. And the day North Korea starts to open up for real (which will come, it’s already started with the South Korean factories being opened there), I will even gladly go and teach English there for a while.

  6. Pingback: Nothing to Envy – book review « Soju and Sake – by Kathreb

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