Author: vibrantkrystle

Oppression is designed to make the citizen weak minded. People are more likely to follow their leaders and believe what is told to them when oppressed.

When death, destruction, public executions, starvation and homelessness are apart of your daily life, how long before you started to question everything you knew? These conditions helped free the minds of some of the most loyal North Koreans. These people were willing to take risks to survive in a country where everything around them was falling apart. They thought and felt differently than the rest, but were smart enough to keep it to themselves.

Very interesting to read that the North Korean regime viewed it’s citizens as opponents. Or maybe it was just the independent thinkers who were trying to survive that were the opponents? Either way, the regime had a way of fixing the opposition.

“Starvation was the way the regime preferred to eliminate it’s opponent’s”

pg. 179

Once Kim Jong-Il could no longer seem to get his “corner” on the underground commerce, he felt opposed. He set out to right the wrongs. He felt that punishments were too slack for offenders and that was going to change. His plan was to strike back against the people who fended for themselves. His motto:

“Everything good in life was to bequeathed by the government”

pg. 180

I find that an odd motto considering his father before him and he himself, failed his people. People weren’t allowed to fend for themselves. As the example set for the rancher who was sentenced to years in prison because he birthed a dead calf and didn’t report it. He chose to feed his family instead. He ended up dying in the prison by starvation. It seems Kim Jong-Il’s opposition plan was doing what he had intended it to do. Eliminate the threat.

Chapter 11 really shows the independent thinkers struggling to survive.

We meet a young boy named Hyuck, who I have nicknamed “Master thief”. This poor child was told from an early age that “it’s better to starve then to steal”. He never quite conformed to this way of thinking. His starving belly told him otherwise. He became a very resourceful kid. He found ways to trap animals, climb high trees to find edible bark, crossed rivers into China, all in order to survive. He watched as the world as he knew it changed and he kept forging ahead. He was once a part of the core class, born of privilege. But even in the times of the famine, no class was spared the hardship of hunger pains. He lost family, friends and witnessed the lies he had heard about China. For when he crossed over the first time, he saw food, bustling towns and fellow North Koreans. Was there hope that came with this new realization?

The markets in North Korea started busting at the seams. Some vendors were making enough money to even afford rent on a permanent station at the market. The market was booming with activity. Things were being sold that brought a new color to the once drab North Koreas palette.

While the famine was continuing, people were creative with the items they sold. There was a moment when the military was even making a profit by selling the humanitarian aid to the vendors on the black market. The hungry didn’t care how the food of all different colors got there, they were just excited to see food. Pineapple, oranges, bananas. They hadn’t even seen some of these items in years, if not ever in their life. Clothes from South Korea was popping up in hues and fabrics they never knew existed. Items thought to be luxuries were showing up everywhere. This was changing the lives of some. The rich got richer and the poor got poorer.

People continued to die all around. What used to be up was down and what used to be wrong was now right. The lives as the North Koreans knew it, was changing.

When faced with starvation and death, people in North Korea had to “unlearn” a life time of propaganda. Out with the rules and codes of honor. People were resorting to selling their belongings and sometimes even themselves.

“Everyone needed a scam to survive”

pg 154

Coal miners were becoming well versed in medicinal herbs. Doctors were performing minor and major surgeries on the side. Women started to become prostitutes. Why? Because they needed to in order to survive. They weren’t being provided for by their fearless leader and people were forced to be creative with their skills. Mills were being broken into and scavenged for any materials that people on the outside could fashion into shoes, wheel barrows or ovens.

The resourcefulness of this culture is leaving me in awe. They were able to take next to nothing and start businesses from it. Giving them one more day to try again.

While reading the recent chapter about the hardships that Ms. Song faces, was at times hard to picture. Here is this strong character, a pillar of the community, a die hard believer and even the community’s inminban.  

An inminban was basically the snitch of the neighborhood. Ears perked up at all times, waiting for someone to fall out of step. She was the direct link to the authorities and could rat on anyone. For a long while, she was devoted to this job. However, death can change your view. As the famine hit North Korea and young and old were dying, her own husband fell ill. She tried so hard to find ways to find nourishment from the land. Whether it was weeds and bark or making cornmeal out of husks of corn or even digging through animal excrement to find grain, she tried to help her husband not succumb to starvation. She banished her “true believer” ways and sold their apartment, TV and other possessions to be able to buy food on the black market. This was something she never would have thought to do, but because death was on her doorstep, she had no choice.

Her husband gave into death and Ms. Song was devastated. She wished she could have done more. Her son, came to take care of her, and he too wasn’t able to survive the world in which North Korea became. Ms. Song, lost the two men in her life all because of the regime not taking care of it’s people and her inability to provide the food they needed.

She no longer was the believer she once was, because death can change your views.

In North Korea, there wasn’t an easy way to climb the social ladder.  If you were apart of the hostile group, which was the lowest of the class system, you and your future generations would stay apart of that class.  Mi-Ran, an ambitious female, tried against her odds to better her life. She had felt hopeless that she wouldn’t be able to go to University because of her social status.  She almost gave up, but was told by her boyfriend to continue to have faith. She decided to try her hardest and if the only reason she didn’t get in was because of her social standing, she wouldn’t have herself to blame.   She made it into teachers university and was thinking this would improve her situation. “In order to fit in, the average citizen had to discipline himself not to think too much.” (pg 70) She was soon aware of how wrong she was.  Within 2 years, she was not being fed but one meal a day at school. Instead of going along with the way things were, she was brave enough to ask to live off of campus. The regime wasn’t providing rations to the schools like they used to, so the school obliged.  It was one less mouth for them to feed.

After reading half of Nothing to Envy and the way the author depicts life in North Korea, I forget that they had cinema. I personally love the movies and couldn’t imagine a life without the escape of a good movie now and then.

The article, The artists and the Media, discusses the different ways that news and information can be shared with the people of North Korea. The citizens on average see over 15 movies a year. A simple, inexpensive past time for them. However, it comes with a bigger message other than being a simple pleasure. Most movies shown are with propaganda messages throughout them. Mainstream movies, are re-done to the standards of the leaders and their messages put in through out.

I found it interesting that the citizens were able to block out the messages and try to find the joy in the movie itself. The article mentioned the different genres that they liked and how some had access to bootlegs of the real movies. Seems only the elite could have access to VCR’s where they would be able to watch movies.

I feel the article has value because it allows people to see how far behind the times the North Koreans are when it comes to technology. It also stresses the “sanitized” way the information is shared with them throughout all the media avenues. TV, Radio and Movies all had their messages speaking LOUD AND CLEAR.

Thoughts. Ideas. Facial Expressions. Jokes. Words. Hand gestures. Logic. Hope. Contemplation. Love. Belief. Opinion. Personal views. Political beliefs.

Imagine a world where these everyday feelings, left in you own mind, could land you in a prisoners camp. Picture yourself brainwashed into thinking these behaviors are forbidden. Envision a country that won’t allow you to be your own original self. Think of a life where you are not granted an opportunity to better yourself as a person for your family or country. It’s hard to believe, but the most harmed people of the North Korean Regime, Independent thinkers, face this everyday.

When asked if we thought professional women and women in top fields were potentially harmed by the North Korean Regime, it brought up a lot examples of why they could very well be the most harmed.

Knowledge is power, but ignorance is bliss. Dr. Kim witnesses starvation now affecting the newly born babies. They are coming out smaller and thinner, their skin like crepe paper. What can she do about it? Nothing. If she speaks up she risks her livelihood and her standing. Speaking up can make her a target. Instincts and intuition make her a threat to the regime, therefore she is potentially harmed.