Book Review: Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick - Part I

As a promiscuous reader with the attention span of a goldfish, I have a bad habit of not finishing books. Fortunately, Nothing To Envy: Real Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick is not one of them. This 2010 Samuel Johnson Prize winner peeks into the mysterious, repressive dystopia that is synonymous with famines and poverty by interviews with defectors to the degraded, capitalist South. What got me so hooked is that the book draws parallels with my upbringing in communist China and my life after “defecting” to capitalist Hong Kong. AND there was a lesson about love.

Kim Jong Il and Kim Jong Un

The presence of an all powerful and watchful dictator reminiscent of “Big Brother” in 1984 is essential for every totalitarian state. Big Brother is to Oceania what Mao was to China, and Stalin to the Soviet Union. But North Korea takes the practice to a whole another level: it is the only patrimonial dictatorship on the surface of the Earth: Kim Il-sung was God and Kim Jong-il was Jesus, the son of God. Since the book was written in 2010, there is no mention of Kim Jong Un who upheld the Kim Dynasty and is as enigmatic and chubby as his father.

Chinese slogan during the Cultural Revolution:
"The Army of Workers and Farmers are
the main force against Lin Biao and Kong Qiu"

Lies repeated a thousand times will not become the truth, but will be more trustworthy. Even with millions of deaths due to famine in the 1990s, North Korean kids were taught to chant and believe that because North Korea was so great, “We have nothing to envy in the world.” Stupid as it sounds, propaganda slogans like this that attempt to enlighten and “brainwash” the hoi polloi and so characterize communism bring back vivid memories of my own of watching childhood “red movies” that dated back to an even earlier era in Chairman Mao's China, where according to those movies slogan-shouting communists had insanely high moral standards and impeccable conduct and were true patriots of their motherland, while the Kuomintang were a bunch of cowards, treasonists and “reactionists” which, by the way, is a dirty word in the communists' dictionary; the Communist Party deserved all credits for defeating the Japanese during the Sino-Japnase Wars. Though I was born a skeptic and take everything I heard with a grain of salt, for a long time I really believed the official version of the history. Hence an off-topic comment on the ongoing public outrage against the looming “brainwashing” education in Hong Kong: it looks like parents' worry are legitimate.

North Korean slogan; I think it says "Kill the American bastards!"

Another thing I can sympathize with the North Korean defectors is that even if we are not fans of the North Korean regime and the Chinese Communist Party, we would get defensive whenever South Koreans and Hong Kong people criticized them. Attacking the the governments that rule where we came from is attacking who we are. It explains my uneasiness whenever there is a demonstration against the presumed wrongdoings of the central government. Knowing my bias, I am for the aforementioned backlash against brainwashing this time.

The chapter “The Good Die First” also provides food for thought. Poverty breeds crime. During the North Korean famine, those who believed free-market capitalism was illegal and immoral, the government would finally take care of them, and that they would never stoop to the level of cheating, robbing and stealing were among the first to die of chronic starvation and malnutrition. On the other hand, people who get inventive, “reached back into their collective memory of famines past and the survival tricks of their forefathers”, and made stabs at free trading in markets managed to live. Children who fended for themselves like wild sparrows and had no scruples about stealing and deceiving also survived the famine.

One thing I hate about this book is that the dates are not always clear. It is sometimes hard to tell when one thing happens against what historic backdrop. Readers can only find clues through sentences like “China's economic reforms of Deng Xiaoping finally seeped in”. On the other hand, what I like about this book is how the author seamlessly wove together the stories of 6 defectors who had lived in the city of Chongjin during the period from their births to the defection. Their separate yet connected lives in the most reclusive of societies get told in the neutral manner of professional journalism, yet are at times entertaining like fictions, among the many the love story of Mi-ran and Jun-sang broke my heart, and taught me a lesson about love.

(To Be Continued)