This is not an enjoyable book. (It is a short book, but I listened to the audio version so that prolonged the agony.) However, that is not to say that is it not a valuable book. We know very little about North Korea, so Blaine Harden's account of the life and escape of Shin Dong-Hyuk is truly a rare and unique glimpse into this surreal country. It is especially noteworthy because Shin is the only known escapee of a North Korean prison camp.
Shin's story begins at Camp 14, one North Korea's no-exit prison camps. He is a child of two prisoners who had been selected for one another in a "reward-marriage." Unfortunately for Shin, his destiny was set the day he was born. He would live and die in the confines of Camp 14. The North Korean government believes that the sins of the parents are visited upon the next three generations. Thus, if one is convicted of a crime, their children and their grandchildren will remain imprisoned. Only after three generations will the seed of rebellion have been eradicated.
In a North Korean prison camp, the concept of familial affection is virtually non-existent. Prisoners often have to turn to their basest, most animalistic instincts in order to survive. For Shin, this meant stealing his mother's food at a young age, and, later in life, turning his mother in for plotting to escape. He watched as his mother and brother were executed, knowing that he was fully responsible for their deaths. And yet, at the time he had no regrets. In this distopian microcosm where children are taught that their parents are criminals they often learn to despise their parents and turn to the guards as their "teachers." Guards, while often cruel and abusive tormentors, teach children from an early age that they are the ones who should be honored and respected. The children grow up to believe that they have no self-worth; because of the wrongdoings of their parents, they too are tainted by evil.
As you can imagine, this kind of childhood will have huge repercussions for Shin once he makes it out of the camp in 2005. In the camp the children learned nothing of the world beyond. Shin would have remained ignorant were it not for his interaction with a new prisoner named Park. It was really Park's description of Chinese food that convinced Shin to escape. Constantly hungry, and persistently scavenging for food beyond his meager rations, Shin longs for the regular meals of meat and rice, a luxury that Park says is commonplace in China. Shin takes his life in his hands to make that longing a reality.
Shin makes it to freedom, but freedom means wandering as a cold and homeless drifter through the North Korean landscape. It is January; he has no provisions and no shelter. Soon Shin learns the art of larceny, which provides him with the necessities for survival and goods that become useful in bribing the North Korean border guards. In a country where policeman and guards are working on empty stomachs, bribery runs rampant. Using this tactic, North Koreans routinely escape into China and integrate themselves into Korean communities. Yet even in China Shin is not completely safe. China does not recognize the refugee status of North Koreans. If caught, Shin knows he'll be sent straight back to a no-exit prison camp in North Korea. After a couple years of drifting in and out of China's biggest cities, Shin's perseverance combines with a lucky twist of fate. He soon finds himself safely on a plane to Seoul.
I wish I could tell you that the rest of the book is an uplifting account of Shin's healing and his persistent drive to reinvent himself and rise above his past. However, the wounds run too deep. Not surprisingly, Shin suffers from PTSD; he is unable to manage his money, keep a job, maintain healthy relationships, or decide on a realistic career path. He receives aid from many places: the North Korean government, human rights organizations, even a kindly family in California. But Shin does take advantage of any of it. Unfortunately, none of this is out of the ordinary for North Korean refugees. Shin is slow to trust, he struggles at understanding or expressing emotion, the concepts of love and friendship are completely foreign to him, and he has never in his life been confronted with the need to actually make a plan for the future. The scars of the camps are physical, mental, and spiritual. Shin will never truly escape.
This book is a chilling account - appropriate for the chilling weather that permeated my bones while walking the dog and listening to Shin's story. In the midst of the coldest days of the year, I think I felt even colder as Shin wandered around a wintry North Korea, ill-clad and homeless. What I like about this author is that he does not paint Shin as a hero. After conducting a series of interviews with Shin and others who know him, Hardin outlines Shin's life honestly and truthfully. He does not skirt around Shin's faults and he talks extensively about the shame that Shin eventually learned to feel over the death of his mother. The author does not write judgmentally, but in a way that emphasizes how Shin is truly a product of his past. Additionally, the author weaves Shin's story in with other factual information on North Korea. As a former Washington Post journalist in East Asia, his book is more of an investigative report than a biography. He interviews former prison camp guards and other North Korean defectors. He cross-checks Shin's story to verify that the details of Camp 14 are true. He intensively researches North Korea past and present - providing historical context and more current information on the leader's ostentatious palace, gleaned from satellite surveillance. He accounts the years of famine where Western aid never actually made it to the people and it became common for children to eat bark off trees. And though it is a mysterious country, full of isolated and brainwashed people, in the last few years some smuggled media has made its way in. North Koreans are hooked on blurry Western movies and T.V. shows. While Charlie's Angels may not be providing a realistic picture of American life, it may be just enough to cause North Koreans to question the world beyond their borders. If more North Koreans, like Shin, can turn that longing for three solid meals a day into a movement against tyranny and repression, perhaps the reign of Kim Jong Un and his family will one day come to an end.
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