“Even South Koreans themselves struggle mightily to fit into their own success-obsessed, status-conscious, education-crazed culture.” — 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 Image
“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 Image
“Among the elite in Pyongyang, one of the most coveted signifiers of status is an electric rice cooker.” — Blaine Harden Copy Share Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
“Anyone who steals or conceals any foodstuffs will be shot immediately.” — Blaine Harden Copy Share Image
