Северная Корея

I was really annoyed with this book. Posed as "research" it hardly has anything to do with serious academic work - more like subjective report of events the author heard from six defectors with the help of interpreter. Even in contrast to study on Chinese women in sex business done by Ko-Lin Chin I read last year ( Going Down to the Sea ), Nothing to Envy can hardly supply you with first-person information on ordinary life in North Korea.

First of all, there are no actual interviews in the book. Author is very generous with emotions and descriptions of what this or that person felt, but seriously? May be it is too cruel from my side, but I'm not interested in Western interpretation of Korean (yet NK) life but in actual first person accounts of life there. Secondly, the generalizations running through the text were just pissing me off. The situation in the Korean Peninsula is much more complicated than b/w communist-capitalist struggle in the world, not to say cultural context of the region and nations living in it. Thirdly, constantly going through NK propaganda (and fairly enough) I felt the author reassuring the reader in idealization of the "reverse" reality of the world of consumption, "good/bad" play. I can continue with some other major points that formed my opinion, but less than a half of the book (approximately of course) actually tells the story of ordinary life: the other part constitutes of dramatizing effects, history generalization and constant author's intervention into the accounts of the defectors. Ode to the Western style malls, behavior models and freedom (in rather childish concept of social equality and choices people have) - and naively asking the question "Why people in NK are still supporting the regime?".

More percise examples of why I am annoyed: the tragedy of separated families, the state of NK scientific research, information on medical care available in NK not only during the Arduous March are apparently much less relevant than a love story of holding hands (with nothing exceptional in it). Defections are not ordinary in NK, even though their number is growing: it is an interesting topic as well but it is not daily NK routine. What is studied in universities except political lessons? What children activities are acceptable in kindergartens? This is the information I anticipated to acquire after finishing the story of the first couple, but instead I got nothing.

The book is written good for easy read (no wonder it sold so good), but it is hardly a serious provider of info on NK lifestyle. I'm sorry, but I had much greater expectations for it, and unfortunately they weren't fitted.