(no subject)
Kang Chol-hwan and Pierre Rigoulot, trans. Yair Reiner, The Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag (New York: Basic Books, 2001).
Children from the mass games look eerily like teeming fish.
Rather powerful memoir of a guy who spent 10 years in Yodŏk, also known (officially) as Kwan-il-so (reeducation center) number 15; he more or less grew up in the camp, entering with several members of his family at the age of 9. Eventually released, he lived a reasonably 'normal' North Korean life for a while, then found out he was being investigated for listening to radio broadcasts from So. Korea (on an illegal receiver, natch) & fled to China with a friend, later making his way to South Korea. Aquariums was originally published in French; Rigoulet was an editor of the Black Book of Communism (1997).
Kang's family returned to North Korea from Japan, his grandfather having made a lot of money, though his grandmother was a staunch supporter of the party; despite a reasonably lavish upbringing in Pyongyang (including the titular aquariums), the suspicion surrounding his family (especially his grandfather) never dissipated & his grandfather was eventually hauled off for forced labor, never to be seen again. Kang, his grandmother, his father, 7 year old sister, and third uncle were hauled off to be reeducated; his mother, by virtue of being the daughter of a revolutionary hero, didn't have to go but was forcibly divorced ....
It's a bit like listening to someone talk - not a straight 'and then A then B then C' narrative. It can be a bit hard to follow, but all the more compelling for the exceedingly human nature of the narrative. Worth a read, I think - the shocking thing (as a sinologist) is the occasional mention of time - Kang entered Yodŏk in 1977. '77! He's released a mere two years before Tiananmen! In any case, the resiliency of human beings is quite astonishing at times. There's the 'pendulum' theory on excess: after '76, the pendulum swung in China from deprivation to wild excess. One can only imagine what North Korea is going to look like when the pendulum is let loose.
I also realized while splayed out on my bed devouring the book that this is the first book I've read for pleasure in a very, very long time.
Many other leaders' birthdays were important enough to serve as a pretext for pedagogic celebrations or breaks from the normal routine. On such days, candy was dispensed to all the kids in the country, sometimes even those in the camps. I remember Kim Il-sung's seventieth birthday in 1982. As soon as I got my candy, I ran home to show it to my grandmother. By this time, her faith in the Worker's Party was long gone. "Ah, yes," she said. "We gave them everything we had, and in return we get years in the camp and a few cheap candies. There's something to celebrate, my child. And a big thank you to Kim Il-sung!" I ate the gifts anyway. They were the first goodies I'd tasted in a very long time. (133)
Among the remaining prisoners was a girl who was a little older than I. I had worked with her a few times, and we were friends. When she heard I was leaving, she couldn't stop crying - owing as much to her fate as our impending separation. I couldn't find the words to console her. What could I say? What did she have to hope for, when the only reason for hope was postponed indefinitely? .... The memories of everything that had happened in the past decade were sweeping over me. I think I was actually afraid of leaving that place, of no longer seeing those mountain ridges all around me. Deep down, I had come to love them. They had been the bars of my prison and the framework of my life. They were my suffering and my being, bound indissolubly together. My most poignant memories were attached to the place where I had suffered the most. It was a strange, complicated feeling, for Yodok was still a hellish, inhuman place. (158-9)
I was jarred by a China so willing to make a spectacle of itself. Crossing the Yalu River wasn't enough to flush out the propaganda seeped into us over so many years. I began to wonder whether the North Korean authorities weren't justified in fearing capitalism's nefarious influence on China! But I think what scared me was the prospect of enjoying life. The ideas to which I had sworn allegiance since youth - work, discipline, devotion to the Party and its Guide - were making their last stand. (202)
Children from the mass games look eerily like teeming fish.
Rather powerful memoir of a guy who spent 10 years in Yodŏk, also known (officially) as Kwan-il-so (reeducation center) number 15; he more or less grew up in the camp, entering with several members of his family at the age of 9. Eventually released, he lived a reasonably 'normal' North Korean life for a while, then found out he was being investigated for listening to radio broadcasts from So. Korea (on an illegal receiver, natch) & fled to China with a friend, later making his way to South Korea. Aquariums was originally published in French; Rigoulet was an editor of the Black Book of Communism (1997).
Kang's family returned to North Korea from Japan, his grandfather having made a lot of money, though his grandmother was a staunch supporter of the party; despite a reasonably lavish upbringing in Pyongyang (including the titular aquariums), the suspicion surrounding his family (especially his grandfather) never dissipated & his grandfather was eventually hauled off for forced labor, never to be seen again. Kang, his grandmother, his father, 7 year old sister, and third uncle were hauled off to be reeducated; his mother, by virtue of being the daughter of a revolutionary hero, didn't have to go but was forcibly divorced ....
It's a bit like listening to someone talk - not a straight 'and then A then B then C' narrative. It can be a bit hard to follow, but all the more compelling for the exceedingly human nature of the narrative. Worth a read, I think - the shocking thing (as a sinologist) is the occasional mention of time - Kang entered Yodŏk in 1977. '77! He's released a mere two years before Tiananmen! In any case, the resiliency of human beings is quite astonishing at times. There's the 'pendulum' theory on excess: after '76, the pendulum swung in China from deprivation to wild excess. One can only imagine what North Korea is going to look like when the pendulum is let loose.
I also realized while splayed out on my bed devouring the book that this is the first book I've read for pleasure in a very, very long time.
Many other leaders' birthdays were important enough to serve as a pretext for pedagogic celebrations or breaks from the normal routine. On such days, candy was dispensed to all the kids in the country, sometimes even those in the camps. I remember Kim Il-sung's seventieth birthday in 1982. As soon as I got my candy, I ran home to show it to my grandmother. By this time, her faith in the Worker's Party was long gone. "Ah, yes," she said. "We gave them everything we had, and in return we get years in the camp and a few cheap candies. There's something to celebrate, my child. And a big thank you to Kim Il-sung!" I ate the gifts anyway. They were the first goodies I'd tasted in a very long time. (133)
Among the remaining prisoners was a girl who was a little older than I. I had worked with her a few times, and we were friends. When she heard I was leaving, she couldn't stop crying - owing as much to her fate as our impending separation. I couldn't find the words to console her. What could I say? What did she have to hope for, when the only reason for hope was postponed indefinitely? .... The memories of everything that had happened in the past decade were sweeping over me. I think I was actually afraid of leaving that place, of no longer seeing those mountain ridges all around me. Deep down, I had come to love them. They had been the bars of my prison and the framework of my life. They were my suffering and my being, bound indissolubly together. My most poignant memories were attached to the place where I had suffered the most. It was a strange, complicated feeling, for Yodok was still a hellish, inhuman place. (158-9)
I was jarred by a China so willing to make a spectacle of itself. Crossing the Yalu River wasn't enough to flush out the propaganda seeped into us over so many years. I began to wonder whether the North Korean authorities weren't justified in fearing capitalism's nefarious influence on China! But I think what scared me was the prospect of enjoying life. The ideas to which I had sworn allegiance since youth - work, discipline, devotion to the Party and its Guide - were making their last stand. (202)