north-korea

People say mountains change in about ten years. If something as stubborn and mammoth as a mountain can change in a decade, the hearts of ordinary North Koreans can change. I'm sure of it. I'm living proof." --Ha Young, a North Korean defector

He would wait hours for her, maybe two or three. It didn__ matter. The cadence of life is slower in North Korea. Nobody owned a watch.

A North Korean soldier would later recall a buddy who had been given an American-made nail clipper and was showing it off to his friends. The soldier clipped a few nails, admired the sharp, clean edges, and marveled at the mechanics of this simple item. Then he realized with a sinking heart: If North Korea couldn__ make such a fine nail clipper, how could it compete with American weapons?

Up until that moment, a part of her had hoped that China would be just as poor as North Korea. She still wanted to believe that her country was the best place in the world. The beliefs she had cherished for a lifetime would be vindicated. But now she couldn__ deny what was staring her plainly in the face: dogs in China ate better than doctors in North Korea.

North Korea remains the last bastion of undiluted communism in the world.

Tech-savvy types had figured out how to get around the system. With radios it was easy__pen up the set, cut the conveyor belt attached to the dial, and replace it with a rubber band that could turn the dial wherever you liked. Television required a little more expertise.

Her younger son, twenty, was assigned to a factory that made railroad equipment, but since it provided no salary he was actually paying his workplace three dollars per month so he could stay home to help his mother with the pigs and moonshine.

Whoever is planning a nuclear war or seriously thinking about using nuclear weapons must directly be taken to a mental hospital! Mad people are mentally sick and they only need a medical treatment! Every nation has the responsibility to weed their deranged politicians out from their governments!

Nobody knows how many North Koreans have died or are dying in the famine__ome estimates by foreign-aid groups run as high as three million in the period from 1995 to 1998 alone__ut the rotund, jowly face of Kim Il Sung still beams down contentedly from every wall, and the 58-year-old son looks as chubby as ever, even as his slenderized subjects are mustered to applaud him.

I once believed man was different from other animals, but Yodok showed me that reality doesn't support this opinion. In the camp, there was no difference between man and beast, except maybe that a very hungry human was capable of stealing food from its little ones while an animal, perhaps, was not.

Not since North Korean media declared Kim Jong-il to be the reincarnation of Kim Il Sung has there been such a blatant attempt to create a necrocracy, or perhaps mausolocracy, in which a living claimant assumes the fleshly mantle of the departed.

If you think that American Capitalism is the most dangerous Institution in the World, it just goes to show, that you haven't partied like there is no tomorrow with the fun loving posse of The Islamic Republic of Iran, North Korea, The Taliban, or ISIS. They all party off the hook!

[I]f you think that American imperialism and its globalised, capitalist form is the most dangerous thing in the world, that means you don't think the Islamic Republic of Iran or North Korea or the Taliban is as bad.

Leaving North Korea is not like leaving any other country. It is more like leaving another universe. I will never truly be free of its gravity, no matter how far I journey.

I bout a bag of tortilla chips that was almost as big as me. And I bought some work clothes and a pair of Adidas that I could never imagine affording before in my life.So far, America was very impressive.

[I]n communism, you'd threaten a dog into compliance, while in capitalism, obedience is obtained through bribes.

Abt Draws from a trove of personal experience to create a vivid account of the people and place. Along the way, Abt addresses big questions such as economic reform and practical ones such as how to use e__ommerce to achieve brand recognition in North Korea.

Felix Abt prefers to stay apolitical and impartial when sharing his thoughts and memories of the seven-year sojourn. From the book we can see that he loves Korea and cares about its people. In his assessments of North Korea's past and present the author approaches all issues from a human (and humanistic) perspective, trying to show life in the country without political or ideological coloring.