37 pages • 1 hour read
Barbara DemickNothing to Envy
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2009A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 1-3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary: “Holding Hands in the Dark”
Chapter One lays out the rationale for a book that describes everyday life in North Korea and introduces two main characters, Jun-sang and Mi-Ran. Demick begins by discussing North Korea’s literal darkness as viewed from satellite, a phenomenon that began in the 1990s, as the nation’s economy collapsed. Without electricity, there was, as one North Korean put it, “no culture” (4). However, in the darkness, there is a degree of privacy: Jun-sang and Mi-ran are able to go out on dates without the knowledge of families who wouldn’t approve because of their class differences. Demick notes that many outsiders “don’t stop to think that in this middle of this black hole…there is also love” (7).Jun-sang and Mi-ran meet as teenagers in 1986, outside Chongjin. The youngest of four girls, Mi-ran openly rebels against the gender roles her parents expect her to obey, and finds refuge at the cinema. Jun-sang, also a film fanatic, goes to see Birth of a New Government, an anti-Japanese film, where he spots Mi-ran, whose atypical beauty and frustrated demeanor catch his fascination. Although they don’t speak, he can’t get her out of his mind.
Chapter 2 Summary: “Tainted Blood”
This chapter describes the class structure of North Korea and the challenges it poses to Mi-ran and Jun-Sung. The song-bunclass rating system lumps citizens into three broad classes, and these affect one’s prospects in the country. Mi-ran’s father, Tae-woo, came from a village that later became part of South Korea. During the Korean civil war, Tae-woo was forced to enlist in the South Korean army, was imprisoned by North Korea, and sent to the mountains as a miner after the armistice. Even after being granted citizenship, his song-bun makes him a member of the hostile class; his daughters are known as beulsun, “tainted blood.” Although his neighbors do not know the particulars of his background, it becomes evident as his talented daughters are rejected from college. Jun-sang quickly becomes aware of Mi-ran’s background. His own background is also problematic: his parents were born in Japan, which affects their song-bun. Although they are wealthy and live well, the kitachosenjin are also part of the hostile class. Jun-sang’s parents push him to excel—and to avoid dating—so that he can enroll in college in Pyongyang and climb the social ladder. This constant pressure makes him reluctant to pursue Mi-ran.
Chapter 3 Summary: “The True Believer”
This chapter describes Chongjin as a major industrial city with a “bad reputation” (36), occupied by both the hostile class and a ruling elite, and thus full of ideological tension. Song Hee-suk, or Mrs. Song, grew up in the city and strongly believes in her fatherland. She marries a party member and journalist, Chang-bo. The two have three girls and one boy. In her adulthood, Mrs. Song works as a clerk in a clothing factory, bringing her children with her; after work, she attends ideological training, writes essays, and does the household work and cooking after arriving home at 10:30pm. She stays late on Fridays for self-criticism, during which members of her work unit confess transgressions. Mrs. Song would “say, in all sincerity, that she feared she wasn’t working hard enough” (43). She is sincere in this belief. However, as her children grow up, her perspective changes. Her daughter, Oak-hee, complains about the constant work and exhaustion, and goes on to find an unhappy marriage. Her son, Nam-oak, takes up with an older woman. And Chang-bo has a “brush with the law” when he makes a sarcastic comment about the availability of rubber boots (52) and a member of the iminban, neighborhood police, notifies the authorities. Chang-bo and Oak-hee begin to talk about the failures of the government—always “[making] sure that Mrs. Song, the true believer, was not at home” (56).
Chapters 1-3 Analysis
The first three chapters of the book introduce “ordinary life” in North Korea as shaped by many of the same forces as Western life—love, the juggling of familial and economic duties with one’s own desires. At the same time, the country’s literal darkness, as well as its isolation from other news sources, significantly impact what day-to-day life looks like. These chapters describe a regime that indoctrinates its citizens from a young age through a mixture of propaganda, omnipresent ideological training, and systematic oppression in the form of the song-bun class system. Citizens hoping to gain favor—or merely survive—within the regime must follow all of its rules. Furthermore, the iminban ensures that individuals have little privacy from their neighbors, family, or friends.
Even under these conditions, though, secrets flourish. Mi-ran and Jun-sang take advantage of Chongjin’s literal darkness to pursue a romance. Although their courtship is timid by Western standards—they do not kiss for six years, and don’t even understand the mechanics of premarital sex—they avoid the scrutiny of their parents and neighbors, and an intimacy blossoms between them. Their shared love of cinema and the dramatic, romantic stories it tells in fact suggest that it is impossible to keep themes of rebellion and transgression out of even the most oppressive culture. In movies that tell of young Korean heroines standing up to Japanese soldiers, Jun-sang finds a template for the kind of fiery woman he’d like to pursue, and Mi-ran finds a reflection of her own rebelliousness.
Mrs. Song’s story indicates that even those who are entirely devout to the regime live lives touched by moments of scandal, rebellion, and risk. Although Mrs. Song is a devout believer, her family members’ struggles alert her to the reality that no one is safe from the wrath of the iminban and the regime: any transgression, no matter how small, could put an individual and even an entire family at risk. After Chang-bo’s arrest and subsequent three-day interrogation, she does not come to doubt the regime per se, but she does realize that its insistence on absolute ideological purity is so rigid that no one is safe.
In addition, these chapters highlight the great personal risk that rebelling—even in thoughts rather than words or actions—pose to individuals. Jun-sang internally struggles at great length with his attraction to Mi-ran, aware that pursuing it could destroy his prospects of attending university, becoming a party member, and following his family’s wishes. Mi-ran never voices her own doubts, either. Oak-hee and Chang-bo begin to foster more actively-critical attitudes of the regime, and hide them from Mrs. Song, dividing the family in two. The need for extreme secrecy under these circumstances isolates husband from wife, boyfriend from girlfriend, daughter from mother: the risk of voicing one’s true opinion is so extreme that it disrupts even the most intimate relationships.
