A North Korean maritime official was on a boat on the Yellow Sea in the mid-1990s when the radio accidentally picked up a South Korean broadcast. The program was a situation comedy that featured two young women fighting over a parking space at an apartment complex. He couldn’t grasp the concept of a place with so many cars that there was no room to park them. Although he was in his late thirties and fairly high-ranking, he had never known anyone who owned a private car00and certainly not young women. He assumed the radio program was a parody, but after a few days of mulling it over, it struck him that yes, there must be that many cars in South Korea. He defected a few years later.
Barbara Demick. Nothing to Envy, p. 215. (via kfell)
Nothing to Envy is an incredible book. It’s stories of people who have defected from the DPRK and what life was like on the inside for normal people from small towns. Their lives are heartbreaking and brave and so much worse than most of us can comprehend. The book is done well, telling about hope and survival in a straightforward way. If you’re interested in closed societies, communism, or North Korea, I highly, highly recommend it.
(via witchnymph)
