According to Hyok Kang, a North Korean who escaped and lived in China and later South Korea, through his book This Is Paradise!, people in North Korea are seggregated according to their o“loyalty ” to the Kims. A single wrongdoing (both criminal activities and political crimes) from one member of the family could strip your entire familyr’s reputation i.e. to the lower caste. A person who is considered too liberal could be either i‘re-educatedu’ or severely punished. If he has a family in South Korea, the punishment will be doubled. However, a letter of thanks obtained after giving gifts to the leader or a proof of his connections with the leader would reduce the sentence. The ‘selected ’ pupils, those who are loyal to the Kims, are the only few members of Koreans who are permitted to go to university. Those are the people whose family fought in the war against Japan.
North Korea faces a food crisis or famine as early as 1993. Children stop going to school and skeletal children wander around in search for food. Rice and potatoes could barely be found, except by those who serve in high government positions. Thieves and cannibalism are no longer uncommon. Human corpses are left on the street for days. No one is paying attention to these dead bodies. Every person think only of himself. Everyone is hungry. Hyok Kang witnessed the death of many of his friends as a result of famine.
Book Description: This is paradise! is a shocking portrait C& travel scenes from everyday life in North Korea, a nation Q& brutal secret. Kang wrote Hyok public executions, forced labor e& mines, the penalty for =“anti-social behavior,n” the secret of television in Beijing, ,& spies everywhere, into help implement the plan. When hunger strikes, is hungry friends /& relatives, cannibalism, l& political cleansing. All this is normal for Hyok Kang. After all, North Koreans are fed by their government propaganda insists that the rest of the world is paradise! Woven into this portrait is the individual story of a boy ;& his migration into China as asylum seekers. This is his story of suffering 5& survival, d& is a rare insight into a nation closed into outsiders.
h“This is paradise!a” is the fascinating story of childhood Hyok Kang to North Korea and fled to China and possibly South Korea. What makes this book unique is that there is a glimpse into North Korea in the 1990s are from the perspective of a child. In addition, Kang was quite an artist, his sketches of scenes from his childhood select North Korea and its evasion significantly add to the book.
