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We are pleased to see that Barbara Demick’s fascinating Nothing to Envy is out in paperback.
Demick reconstructs the lives of six North Korean refugees with great compassion. Among the many insights is the deep sense of betrayal that led her subjects to leave.
One particularly interesting character, a Ms. Song, is a model citizen. She takes on the role of inminbangjang, the designated head of her neighborhood group with the responsibility of reporting to internal security agents. Nonetheless, her husband is detained for three days for commenting on an innocuous business story about the production of rain boots. (“Hah, if there are so many boots, how come my children never got any?”) Someone else in the apartment building rats him out.
When the famine breaks, Ms. Song reports—accurately—that her charges are not complaining but willing to endure the arduous march. Her managing security agent urges her to lead the criticism herself in order to ferret out malcontents.
Another character, a young female doctor, works tirelessly to defend patients in the decaying health system, only to find that she is on a surveillance list. As her higher-ups tell her without a hint of irony, she is suspect because there is no reason why a talented, unmarried woman would stay. Even more than material deprivation, these epiphanies about the cynical nature of the political and economic system proved to be the refugees’ breaking point.
The title of the book is from a well-known song all North Koreans learn as children:
Our father, we have nothing to envy in the world.
Our house is within the embrace of the Workers’ Party.
We are all brothers and sisters.
Even if a sea of fire comes toward us, sweet children do not need to be afraid.
Our father is here.
We have nothing to envy in the world.
