“And so Shin’s misery never skidded into complete hopelessness. He had no hope to lose, no past to mourn, no pride to defend. He did not find it degrading to lick soup off the floor. He was not ashamed to… — Blaine Harden Copy Share Image
“Kwon Tae-jin, a specialist on North Korean agriculture at the Korea Rural Economic Institute, which is funded by the South Korean government, told me… — Blaine Harden Copy Share
“Shin’s story of survival is different. His mother beat him, and he viewed her as a competitor for food. His father, who was allowed… — Blaine Harden Copy Share
“Among the elite in Pyongyang, one of the most coveted signifiers of status is an electric rice cooker.” — Blaine Harden Copy Share
“About sixty percent of Shin’s class was assigned to the coal mines, where accidental death from cave-ins, explosions, and gas poisonings was common. Many… — Blaine Harden Copy Share
“I am evolving from being an animal,' he said. 'But it is going very, very slowly. Sometime I try to cry and laugh like… — Blaine Harden Copy Share
“Once the imperialist ideological and cultural poisoning is tolerated, even the faith unshakable before the threat of a bayonet will be bound to give… — Blaine Harden Copy Share
“It is difficult to overstate the importance of rice in North Korean culture. It signifies wealth, evokes the closeness of family and sanctifies a… — Blaine Harden Copy Share
“As contemporaries, Shin and Kim Jong Eun personify the antipodes of privilege and privation in North Korea, a nominally classless society where, in fact,… — Blaine Harden Copy Share
“His teachers, as a result, could shape the minds and values of their students without contradiction from children who might know something of what… — Blaine Harden Copy Share
“To identify and isolate his perceived political enemies, Kim Il Sung created a neofeudal, blood-based pecking order in 1957. The government classified and, to… — Blaine Harden Copy Share
“There are six camps, according to South Korea’s intelligence agency and human rights groups. The biggest is thirty-one miles long and twenty-five miles wide,… — Blaine Harden Copy Share
“9. Prisoners must genuinely repent of their errors. Anyone who does not acknowledge his sins and instead denies them or carries a deviant opinion… — Blaine Harden Copy Share
“Like Nazi concentration camps, labour camps in North Korea use confinement, hunger and fear to create a kind of Skinner box: a closed, closely… — Blaine Harden Copy Share
