Nothing to Envy

This chapter more fully introduces Kim Hyuck, who appears briefly in Chapter Six. Although he is a “child of privilege,” his widower father sends him to an orphanage during the famine to ensure he has enough to eat (161). However, without sufficient food there, he and his brother turn to theft, and Hyuck eventually runs away, becoming one of the kochebi, or “wandering swallows”—North Korea’s homeless youth. Their existence is especially ironic in a tightly-controlled society where even travelling without a permit is a punishable offensive. This group works together to survive the famine, as well as the risks posed to children—adults may exploit them for sex, and there are rumors that some were even kidnapped and eaten in acts of cannibalism. In search of food, Hyuck begins crossing to China, where he sells artisanal North Korean goods, which are easy to come by, as their owners are desperate for money and food.

Kim Hyuck is arrested at the age of sixteen for illegal crossing of the border, and is sent to a kyohwaso, one of the “less terrifying” kinds of North Korean prisons (175). He is forced to labor from sunrise to sunset, and given a ball of cornhusk, cobs, and leaves as his only meal. Many prisoners die of starvation, and Hyuck will later note the parallels between his own experience and the events at Auschwitz. He is released after twenty months—perhaps because of an influx of new prisoners as Kim Jong-il attempts to crack down on black markets and the flow of money. Chongjin, which has the biggest markets, also faces the most arrests. The 6thArmy Corps, stationed outside Chongjin, is purged; the reasons remain obscure, although its illegal trade in illicit drugs may have spurned Kim Jong-il to take control of its finances. The regime increasingly uses the death penalty, making life—and illegal activity—all the riskier.