Ask a North Korean: Defectors Talk About Their Lives Inside the World's Most Secretive Nation by Daniel Tudor

BATB score: 8/10 🇰🇵🇰🇷

The other stuff about North Korea beyond the typical authors on defectors, starvation, reunification, and Kims.

Best as: a thorough interview style qualitative research on North Korea; discussion of a capitalist movement in a communist country

Best for: curious minds on/of North Korea - have you ever wondered where North Korean bought make-up? What kind of sanitary pads they are using? Do they watch porn?

Best to: know that the grass is always greener on the other side always

BATB lingering thought: North Korean defectors reflect how competitive, individualistic, unfriendly South Koreans are and adorn the simplicity of life back in North Korea - yeah, capitalism is a lot

Best quotes: “The idiots have already gone. Only the survivors are left, the most strong-willed of all North Koreans who are capable of surviving famines again and again. It was the innocent people who were obedient to the government and did not try and figure things out for themselves who starved to death first.”

“If you tell a lie 100 times, it becomes a truth.”

“Because its system controls every aspect of people’s lives, it is impossible in the current environment to imagine any civil movement or revolution emerging. As such, we can only expect a military coup caused by instability among the top elites to create a major change.”

“I think the government shouldn’t neglect hungry soldiers like this, because when people are starving to death, you never know where they might point their guns.”

“In North Korea, you are either the oppressor or the oppressed there’s no middle ground.”

“In the event of reunification, I would definitely want to invest in North Korea - very few people could compete with North Koreans in creative problem-solving on low budgets, and sheer hustle. In a better world though, they wouldn’t have needed to develop such skills.”