Title: Nothing to Envy
Author: Barbara Demick
Pages: 130/315
As famine, disease, and tragedy descends over North Korea, our protagonists find themselves trapped in what they were always taught was a perfect society. Electricity is cut. Water is cut. Food rations disappear. Paychecks disappear. Factory workers are told to go home since there is no work for them anyway. The death of "The Great Marshall" (Demick 91) leaves Jun-sang doubting his identity as a normal Korean citizen and Mrs Song, the true believer, questioning her beliefs. Floods and starvation ravage the country. Mi-ran, now a young kindergarten teacher, watches helplessly as her students die of hunger. Over the course of 3 years, the number of students in kindergarten drops from 50 to 15. Dr Kim nurses the victims of the typhoid epidemic and famine knowing there is nothing she can do to help them since the hospital no longer has water, anti-biotics, food, or heat. IVs are substituted with beer bottles that patients have to bring in themselves. Meanwhile, Dr Kim struggles to deal with the suicide of her father, her divorce, and the lost custody of her own child.
Author: Barbara Demick
Pages: 130/315
As famine, disease, and tragedy descends over North Korea, our protagonists find themselves trapped in what they were always taught was a perfect society. Electricity is cut. Water is cut. Food rations disappear. Paychecks disappear. Factory workers are told to go home since there is no work for them anyway. The death of "The Great Marshall" (Demick 91) leaves Jun-sang doubting his identity as a normal Korean citizen and Mrs Song, the true believer, questioning her beliefs. Floods and starvation ravage the country. Mi-ran, now a young kindergarten teacher, watches helplessly as her students die of hunger. Over the course of 3 years, the number of students in kindergarten drops from 50 to 15. Dr Kim nurses the victims of the typhoid epidemic and famine knowing there is nothing she can do to help them since the hospital no longer has water, anti-biotics, food, or heat. IVs are substituted with beer bottles that patients have to bring in themselves. Meanwhile, Dr Kim struggles to deal with the suicide of her father, her divorce, and the lost custody of her own child.
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