►
Description
Washington Post correspondent Blaine Harden talks about and reads excerpts from "Escape from Camp 14: One Man's Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West". Sponsored by the Arlington VA Public Library and the Friends of the Library. Recorded June 20, 2012 by Arlington TV.
A
Hi
everybody
very
nice
to
see
all
of
you
tonight.
My
name
is
Vicky
McCaffrey
I'm
the
event
coordinator
here
at
Central
last
Thursday.
We
were
really
fortunate
to
have
Adam
Johnson
join
us
this
week.
We
are
equally
fortunate
to
have
Blaine
harden
here
with
us
to
talk
about
his
book
escape
from
camp
14.
A
We
are
so
lucky
to
have
authors
of
this
caliber
visit
with
us
in
Arlington.
These
programs
are
made
possible
through
the
generous
support
of
the
Friends
of
the
library.
If
you
are
not
yet
a
member
of
the
Friends
I
encourage
you
to
join,
so
you
can
help
support
programs
like
this
and
show
your
commitment
to
reading
learning
and
community.
A
While
mr.
Johnson
was
here,
he
commented
last
week
that
the
cruelest
psychological
experiment
on
earth
is
currently
taking
place
in
North
Korea
mr.
hardens
book,
the
true
story
of
a
young
man
born
into
North
Korean
gulag,
who
eventually
escapes
that
fate
certainly
illustrates
that
point
for
the
reader.
Mr.
hardens
book
has
been
widely
praised
and
is
currently
in
New
York
Times
bestseller,
the
Christian
Science
Monitor,
said
of
the
book.
A
A
book
without
parallel
escape
from
camp
14
is
a
riveting
nightmare
that
bears
witness
to
the
worst
in
humanity
and
unbearable
tragedy,
magnified
by
the
fact
that
the
horror
continues
at
this
very
moment
without
an
end
in
sight.
As
we
continue
our
look
inside
North
Korea,
please
join
with
me
in
welcoming
Blaine
harden
to
Arlington
County.
B
So
what
I'd
like
to
do
is
two
things
is
tell
you
a
bit
about
North
Korea
and
what
makes
it
unique
and
what
makes
it
worthy
of
our
attention
and
then
talk
about
the
story.
That
is
the
heart
of
my
book,
the
story
of
Shin
dong-hyuk
who
he
is
and
what
kind
of
person
he
grew
up
to
be
having
been
born
and
bred
in
in
a
political
labor
camp
in
North
Korea.
B
Let
me
start
with
with
what
is
it
going
to
be
a
very,
very
accelerated
primer
on
what
North
Korea
is
it's
a
totalitarian
state,
and
these
are
pretty
rare
beasts
around
the
world
right
now,
there's
just
North
Korea,
and
usually
they
don't
last
too
long
as
you
can
see,
but
North
Korea
is
still
there
and
pretty
and
still
functioning
very
much
as
its
functioned
for
decades
and
this.
This
is
also
unusual
because
most
of
these
states
tend
to
disappear
when
the
leader
dies.
B
So
far,
there's
no
indication
at
all
that
that
is
happening.
He
was.
He
came
to
the
to
the
job
without
the
preparation
of
his
father.
His
father
had
years
to
prepare,
but
Kim
jong-il
had
a
stroke
a
couple
years
earlier
and
and
then
kim
jeong-hoon
was
named
as
the
as
the
the
successor
in
waiting
and
then
he
took
over
and
it's
still
a
question
mark.
B
But
what's
more
interesting
is
how
does
North
Korea
survive
as
a
totalitarian
state,
and
the
answer
is
I
think
fairly
simple.
There
are
four
or
five
legs
on
which
these
states
all
stand
and
North
Korea
did
not
invent
totalitarianism.
It's
just
that
they've
managed
to
stick
it
out
longer
than
anybody
else
and
to
have
it
this
kind
of
state.
You
have
to
have
a
stranglehold
on
information
which
they
have
had,
but
that's
weakening.
There
are
new
reports.
Us
government
finance
reports
that
the
access
to
radios
in
North
Korea
has
increased
dramatically.
B
Cds
DVDs
I
interviewed
a
young
man
who
learned
about
the
United
States
from
watching
James,
Bond
movies
and
charlie
angels
DVDs,
and
they
have
been
coming
in
regularly.
Sometimes
you
can
order
them
from
China
for
more
than
more
than
10
years
since
the
late
1990s.
So
the
stranglehold
on
information
is
weakening
in
1989
at
the
end
of
the
year
when
the
couch
s
coup
regime
was
overthrown
in
Eastern,
Europe
I
was
covering
Eastern
Europe
at
the
time
and
was
one
of
the
first
reporters
to
go
into
Romania.
B
After
after
the
the
fall
of
the
government
there
and
I,
along
with
all
the
other,
reporters,
went
out
and
talked
to
the
Romanian
people
and
said
Oh.
What
did
you
know?
What
do
you
know
about
the
world
because
they
were,
they
were
thought
to
be
pretty
isolated,
but
in
fact
they
knew
everything
because
they'd
been
listening
to
the
radio.
They
knew
exactly
what
had
happened
in
that
pivotal
year,
1989
from
Poland
on
through
then
Czechoslovakia
Hungary
Germany.
They
knew
the
whole
story
and
they'd
been
listening
to
it
several
hours
a
day.
B
My
wager
is
that
in
North
Korea
there
is
now
a
very
large
number
of
people
who
understand
what's
going
on
in
the
rest
of
the
world,
particularly
in
North
East
Asia,
because
the
place
is
being
bombarded
with
signals
from
Radio
Free
Asia
and
from
South
Korean
government
u.s.
supported
in
various
ways,
and
the
signals
are
really
strong
in
North
Korea
and
access
to
radio
is,
is
why
so
the
stranglehold
on
information
is
is
is
is
weakening
and
the
control
of
the
economy
also
is
weakening
dramatically
in
the
late
1990s.
There
was
a
severe
famine.
B
The
economy
had
been
basically
held
together
by
subsidies
from
the
Soviet
Union.
When
the
Soviet
Union
collapsed,
the
system
of
subsidies
collapsed.
There
was
a
famine
also
related
to
drought
and
a
million
people
starved
to
death
in
North
Korea
in
the
late
1990s,
the
first
such
major
famine
in
an
industrialized
country
and
in
history,
but
what
it
did
in
the
course
of
that
famine.
The
government's
ability
to
provide
food
through
a
central
distribution
system
it
collapsed.
B
What
took
over
for
the
economy
of
North
Korea,
such
as
it
is,
is
a
scruffy
system
of
markets
of
smugglers,
people
who
are
paying
bribes
to
secret
police
who
are
stealing
goods
from
the
government,
whatever
the
government
has,
but
mostly
they're
they're
they're,
siphoning
goods
out
of
cooperative
farms
and
smuggling
goods
in
from
China,
so
the
state
does
not
control
the
economy
or
the
economy.
Is
this
sort
of
freeform
mess
that
rents
are
extracted
from
it
by
secret
police,
demanding
bribes
from
traders?
B
B
The
military
is
huge
1.2
million
people
out
of
23
million
people
in
the
country.
Almost
everybody
serves
in
the
military
for
a
long
time,
7
to
10
years,
secret
police
is
everywhere
and
the
concentration
camp,
so
the
political
labor
camps
call
them
what
you
will.
These
camps
are
known
by
the
North
Korean
population.
Surveys
of
defectors
have
found
that
an
overwhelming
majority
of
these
defectors
are
aware
of
the
camp's
existence
and
they
know
what
would
lead
you
to
go
there.
They
are
an
instrument
of
fear,
but
also
keeping
North
Korea
alive.
It
is
China.
B
China
has
geopolitical
reasons
for
having
a
buffer
with
a
US,
allied,
South
Korea
and
to
keep
that
buffer
functioning.
It
does
all
this
stuff,
it
surprised
all
supplies
all
the
crude
oil
3/4
of
the
imports
without
China
and
North
Korea
would
probably
not
be
able
to
function.
It
doesn't
function
very
well
as
it
is.
A
third
of
the
population
is
is
chronically
hungry
according
to
the
World
Food
Program
and
stunting
from
malnutrition
is
very
widespread
people
who
come
from
North
Korea
to
South
Korea.
There
are
now
more.
C
B
3,500
North
Koreans
in
South
Korea,
almost
all
of
whom
have
come
in
the
past
12
years
they
arrive
if
young
men
arrive
about
five
inches
shorter
than
their
South
Korean
counterparts,
which
is
an
incredible
height
difference
and
before
the
Division
of
North
and
South
Korea,
North
Koreans
were
often
taller.
So
the
the
nutritional
situation
in
North
Korea
is
is
catastrophic
for
a
significant
percentage
of
the
population
and
has
been
for
a
long
time.
B
B
If
I
insult
Kim
jong-un,
say
he's
fat
and
ugly
and
stupid
in
a
public
forum,
I
have
a
stand
of
good
chance
of
going
to
a
political
labor
camp
along
with
my
children
and
my
parents,
and
we
would
all
go
for
the
rest
of
our
lives
and
work
until
we
died.
That's
the
system-
and
it
has
been
around
for
a
long
time
compared
to
other
camps
of
these
kinds
that
are
known
as
you
can
see
twice
as
long
as
the
Soviet
gulag
12
times.
As
long
as
the
Nazi
death
camps
be
clear.
B
B
Surveys
of
defectors
who've
been
in
the
camps,
and
there
are
now
more
than
60
who've
told
their
stories
in
depth
to
human
rights
and
investigators.
The
normal
trajectory
of
life
in
the
camps
is
to
be
there
until
your
late
40s,
at
which
time
you
you
you
die
from
malnutrition,
related
illnesses,
but
not
before
you
lose
your
teeth.
B
Your
gums
turn
black
and
you
hunched
over
from
malnutrition,
related
deficiencies
in
it
for
bones
and
that
sort
of
thing,
so
life
in
the
camps
is
awful
Graham
and
what
is
the
West
done
about
it,
the
United,
States
and
Europe,
and
basically
nothing
may
be
overstating
it.
Maybe
it
should
be
not
much.
I've
talked
to
two
diplomats
who
spent
a
good
part
of
their
professional
lives.
B
The
North
Koreans
have
sort
of
got
away
with
with
pushing
human
rights
off
the
table.
They
still
officially
denied
that
these
political
labor
camps
exist,
even
though
they
can
be
easily
seen
on
satellite
images
in
high
resolution
now.
So
what
is
stopping
us
from
from
taking
a
more
robust
attitude
towards
this
human
rights
catastrophe?
That's
going
on
for
virtually
all
our
lives,
all
the
lifetimes
of
everybody
in
this
room
just
about
well
North
Korea
has
the
military
muscle.
B
The
important
part
of
the
of
that
muscle
is
the
short
and
medium-range
missiles
which
they've
developed
a
quite
a
number
of
they
could
really
hit
Seoul
and
Tokyo
in
with
scores
of
missiles
in
very
short
notice.
Their
anti-ballistic
system
set
up
anti-missile
system
set
up
in
Tokyo,
but
most
experts
agree
that
they
would
not
stop
North
Korea
if
they,
if
they
fired
a
lot
of
short-range
medium-range
missiles
at
the
same
time
and
the
development
of
long-range
missiles
continues.
B
There
was
the
failed
missile
launch
just
just
a
few
weeks
ago,
and
their
ability
to
hit
Seattle
or
San
Francisco
is
on
the
drawing
room
on
its
in
planning
right
now,
it's
not
clear
that
they
can
do
it.
They
do
have
to
crudeness,
know
clear
weapons
that
they
detonated.
They
have
more
that
they
may
detonate
their
ability
to
missile
eyes.
Their
nuclear
weapons
is
considered
not
yet
existent,
so
the
the
existential
threat
to
the
United
States
from
North
Korea,
it's
not
there
yet.
C
B
In
about
four
minutes,
it
would
take
these
shells
to
get
there
CIA
former
CIA
officials
that
I've
talked
to
who
who
are
cognizant
of
the
the
most
government
estimates
estimate
that
tens
of
thousands,
perhaps
hundreds
of
thousands
of
people,
could
be
killed
and
Seoul
if
there
was
an
all-out
military
strike
and
there's
very
little
that
US
military
in
South,
Korea
or
the
South
Korean
military
could
do
to
stop
it.
So
this
this,
this
extortion
has
gone
on
for
a
long
time.
B
They
are
in
a
position
to
say
if
we
feel
threatened,
we
may
go
down,
but
the
price
would
be
very,
very
high
in
Seoul
South
Korea
is
now
11th,
12th
largest
economy
in
the
world.
In
in
many
ways
it's
the
most
modern
of
the
Asian
countries,
the
most
ambitious,
the
fastest-growing
it's
an
extraordinary
place,
and
the
last
thing
they
want
is
a
artillery
attack
on
Seoul.
So
they
put
up
a
with
a
lot
from
from
North
Korea,
so
safe
from
the
outsiders.
B
The
camps
can
basically
operate
as
they
want
I,
don't
know
why
that's
there,
the
inmate
population
of
the
camps
is
now
estimated
at
between
135
thousand
and
150,000
in
five
camps,
all
of
which
are
clearly
visible
on
your
smartphones.
After
after
this
talk,
if
you
want
to
get
out
the
camp's
go
to
Google
Earth,
you
can,
you
can
see
the
camps
and
a
lot
of
the
camps
have
been
annotated.
B
The
subject
of
my
book,
shin
dong-hee,
has
annotated
camp
14
where
he
was
born
and
raised,
and
you
can
see
where
his
mother
was
executed
and
other
places
in
the
camp.
The
number
of
people
who
died
in
the
camps
are
estimated
by
human
rights
groups
at
400,000
and
the
Amnesty
International
monitoring.
Those
satellite
photographs
found
evidence
of
new
construction
last
year,
whether
that
means
more
prisoners,
better
places
for
the
guards
to
live
or
new
factories
in
the
camps.
It's
not
clear.
B
The
camps
are
big
camp
14,
which
you'll
hear
more
about
it's
about
30
miles,
long
and
15
miles
wide.
It's
a
big
place,
so
the
camps
tend
to
be
in
the
mountainous
parts
of
the
country,
remote
areas,
cold
areas
in
the
winter,
particularly
camp,
14,
I,
guess
I
could
walk
over
there.
This
is
where
Shin
was
born
and
raised
its
since
this
map
was
made
two
years
ago.
Camp
18
and
14
have
joined
together
in
one
Boober
camp
and
I.
Don't
know
what
the
number
of
that
is
and
camp
15.
B
What
you
see
there
is
called
yo
duck
and
that's
a
camp
where
almost
all
of
the
eyewitnesses
from
the
camp's
have
come
from
people
went
to
Yoda.
There
was
a
rehabilitation
zone
in
yo
duck
for
a
number
of
years
where
people
could
go,
spend
between
2
and
10
years,
and
it
was.
It
was
really
tough,
but
people
would
leave
and
some
people
more
than
50,
actually
after
they
left
they.
They
they
managed
to
escape
North
Korea
through
China
and
find
their
way
to
South,
Korea
and
told
stories
about
yo
duck.
B
B
In
stories
of
concentration
camp
survival,
there
is
a
conventional
narrative
arc.
Security
forces
steal
the
protagonist
away
from
a
loving
family
in
a
comfortable
home
to
survive.
He
abandons
moral
principles,
suppresses
feelings
for
others
and
thesis
to
be
a
civilized
human
being
in
perhaps
the
most
celebrated
of
these
stories
night
by
Nobel
Prize
winner
Elie
Wiesel,
the
13
year
old
narrator
explains
his
torment
with
an
account
of
the
normal
life
that
existed
before.
B
He
and
his
family
were
packed
aboard
trains
bound
for
Nazi
death
camps,
bozell
studied
the
Talmud
every
day
his
father
owned
a
store
and
watched
over
their
village
in
Romania.
His
grandfather
was
always
around
to
talk
to
the
boy
about
his
faith,
about
the
Jewish
holidays,
about
the
tradition
of
the
family.
B
But
after
vis,
ELLs
entire
family
perished
in
the
camps.
He
he
was
left
alone.
He
wrote
that
he
was
alone
terribly
alone
in
a
world
without
God,
without
man,
without
love
or
mercy,
shins
story
of
survival
is
different.
His
mother
beat
him
and
he
viewed
her
as
a
competitor
for
food,
his
father,
who
was
allowed
by
guards
to
sleep
with
his
mother.
Just
five
nights.
A
year
ignored
him,
his
brother
with
a
stranger
children
in
the
camp
were
untrustworthy
and
abusive
before
he
learned
anything
else.
B
As
a
human
being
shin
learned
to
survive
by
snitching
on
all
of
them,
love
and
mercy
and
family
were
words
without
meaning
God
did
not
disappear
or
die.
Shion
had
never
heard
of
him
in
a
preface
tonight.
Ghazal
wrote
that
an
adolescence
knowledge
of
death
and
evil
should
be
limited
to
what
one
discovers
in
literature
in
camp
14.
Shen
did
not
know,
literature
existed.
B
Unlike
those
who
have
survived
a
concentration
camp,
Shin
had
not
been
torn
away
from
a
civilized
existence
and
forced
to
descend
into
hell.
He
was
born
and
raised
there.
He
accepted
its
values,
he
called
it
home,
and
that
was
the
situation
of
his
life
until
he
was
23,
which
is
just
incredible,
and
it
took
me
a
long
time.
In
my
conversations
with
Shin,
which
went
on
for
about
two
and
a
half
years
to
understand
what
that
means
to
have
a
total
lack
of
love,
trust,
family
loyalty,
trust,
particularly
in
your
life-
it's
it's
it's!
B
It's
almost
it
incomprehensible
to
understand.
So
it's
difficult
to
interview,
someone
like
that,
because
you
don't
know
what,
whether
for
what
their
frame
of
reference
is,
so
he
was
raised
in
the
camp.
His
parents
were
chosen
by
the
guards
were
selected
by
the
guards
to
breed
very
much
like
hogs.
In
a
hog
confinement
unit,
you
hugged
confinement
unit,
which
is
what
big
hog
farms
are
called
in
Iowa,
and
he
was
the
result
of
that
Union.
B
His
parents
did
not
have
too
much
affection
for
each
other
or
for
him
he
went
to
school
in
a
school
not
far
from
the
place
where
he
lived
with
his
mother
until
it
was
12
and
the
school
taught
him
how
to
read
at
a
rudimentary
level
and
how
to
add
and
subtract.
He
never
learned
how
to
multiply,
and
to
this
day
he
does
not
know
how
to
multiply.
B
Corn,
cabbage
and
salt
mixed
in
a
kind
of
gruel
for
breakfast
lunch
and
dinner.
That's
the
only
thing
he
ate
provided
by
the
camp
for
23
years.
He
supplemented
it
with
with
with
with
rats
and
mice
and
whatever
they
could
find
in
the
camp.
Often
sometimes
berries,
sometimes
good
things
to
eat,
but
mostly
he
was
hungry
all
the
time
and
hunger
was
the
defining
motivation
in
his
life
for
virtually
everything.
B
When
he
was
13-
and
this
is
the
real
heart
of
my
book-
something
terrible
happened
to
him-
he
went
home
from
the
he
went
when
he
was
12.
He
went
to
a
boarding
school
in
the
camp,
he
didn't
live
with
his
mother,
but
he
occasionally
saw
her
one
Friday
night.
He
was
allowed
to
go
home
and
stay
at
his
mother's
place.
His
older
brother
was
there.
B
He
had
dinner
with
them.
He
went
to
sleep
at
midnight.
He
hurt
his
mother
and
brother
talking
that
their
conversation
awakened
him.
He
heard
them
talk
about
escape
in
this
camp.
There
were
really
10
commandments
and
the
first
two
said:
if
you
try
to
escape,
you
will
be
shot
immediately.
If
you
hear
someone
talking
about
escape
and
you
fail
to
report,
it
you'll
be
shot
immediately.
He
heard
this
word
escape.
He
got
up
told
his
mom
that
he
had
to
go
pee.
B
He
left
her
house
wet
and
found
a
guard
and
snitched
out
his
mother
and
brother.
The
guard
told
him
to
go
back
to
the
schoolroom,
go
to
sleep.
He
would
take
care
of
it.
The
next
morning,
his
mother
and
brother
were
taken
away
from
their
place
to
an
underground
prison
inside
the
camp.
A
place
that
Shin
had
not
known
existed
to.
His
bad
luck
was
that
the
guard
that
he
had
snitched
to
failed
to
report
to
his
superiors
that
it
was
Shin
who
betrayed
his
family.
B
Shin
was
also
taken
that
morning
to
that
underground
facility,
he
was
utterly
confused,
why
he
was
being
taken
to
a
prison
because
he
had
done
what
he
was
supposed
to
have
done,
which
is
report
the
escape.
While
he
was
there
when
he
was
13,
he
was
tortured,
asked
about
what
he
knew
and
what
he
was
going
to
do.
If
he
escaped,
he
couldn't
figure
out
why
they
were
asking
him
because
he'd
been
the
person
who
had
turned
in
his
family.
So
he
didn't
the
answer
for
a
couple
days.
B
He
was
just
utterly
confused
and
terrified,
and
after
he
got
burned,
he
was
an
extraordinary
pain,
but
after
a
few
days
he
managed
to
persuade
them
that,
in
fact
he
was
the
person
who
had
been
the
informant.
There
was
somebody
else
who
corroborated
his
story,
so
he
was
stick,
but
he
stayed
underground
for
seven
months
and
then
his
family
was
taken
out
to
a
place
in
the
camp
where
she
had
had
often
gone
to
see
executions.
He
was
taken
in
a
blindfold,
didn't
know
where
he
was
going
when
the
blindfold
was
taken
off.
B
He
thought
that
he
was
going
to
be
executed,
but
what
happened
was
his
mother
and
his
brother
were
hacked?
His
mother
was
hanged
and
his
brother
was
shot
in
front
of
him.
This
is
when
he
turned
14
and
Shin
told
me
about
this.
In
our
first
lunch,
and
one
of
the
things
he
said
is
that
he
was
glad
that
his
mother
was
killed.
He
hated
her.
He
was
very
angry
at
her
for
having
plotted
in
this
game,
which
led
to
his
torture
and
great
pain
for
him.
B
When
when
Shin
told
me
that
and
I
first
wrote
about
him,
III
couldn't
come
to
grips
with
it
as
a
reporter.
I
had
been
been
a
reporter
for
I,
don't
know,
26
years,
27
years,
when,
when
I
heard
this
story,
but
I
went
back
to
Shin
and
got
him
to
cooperate
in
this
book
and
then
over
the
next
two
and
a
half
years.
I
came
to
understand
his
thinking
and
what
happened
after
that
betrayal
and
after
the
death
of
his
mother's,
he
went
back
to
school
in
the
camp.
He
worked
at
a
dam,
hydroelectric
dam.
B
This
terrible
thing
that
happened
when
he
was
13
and
14
had
began
to
fade
from
his
life,
and
he
just
figured
that
he
would
spend
the
rest
of
his
life
in
camp
in
the
camp
and
he
had
no
real
concept
of
what
the
world
was
like
beyond
barbed
wire
and
what's
more
interesting
milk
curiosity
not
about
what
was
out
there,
it
just
didn't
enter
his
mind
to
think
about
it.
He
was
concerned
about
getting
food,
but
when
he
was
in
this
uniform
factory,
he
was
assigned
to
work
with
an
older
guy.
B
Park
was
a
sophisticated
North
Korean
of
a
former
member
of
the
elite,
and
he
joined
Shin
in
this
factory.
Shins
job
was
to
teach
this
guy
how
to
fix
slowing
machines,
and
they
only
spent
about
two
months
together
and
they
talked
about
sewing
machines
for
a
while,
but
she
could
only
talk
about
sewing
machine
repair
for
so
long
and
then
Park
started
to
talk
about
life
outside
the
camp.
B
He
was
under
orders
to
snitch
on
Park
to
tell
the
superiors
whatever
Park
had
to
say
about
the
leadership
in
Pyongyang,
about
any
any
known
plotters
in
Pyongyang
and
but
instead
of
snitching
Park
made
this
incredible
decision
to
listen
to
the
guy,
and
let
me
read
you
a
little
bit
about
what
Shin
learned
and
how
it
Turley
remade
the
wiring
in
his
brain
in
just
a
few
weeks,
so
began
a
month.
Month-Long
one-on-one
seminar
that
would
forever
change
shins
life
as
they
walked.
B
The
factory
floor,
Park
told
Shin
that
the
giant
country
next
door
was
called
China.
It's
people
were
rapidly
getting
rich.
He
said
that
in
the
South
there
was
another
Korea
in
South
Korea.
He
said
everyone
was
already
rich.
Park
explained
the
concept
of
money.
He
told
Shin
about
the
existence
of
television
and
computers
and
mobile
phones.
He
explained
that
the
world
was
round
which
was
news
to
Shannon.
Much
of
what
part
talked
about,
especially
at
the
beginning,
was
difficult
for
Shin
to
understand,
believe
or
care
about.
Shin
wasn't
especially
interested
in
how
the
world
worked.
B
What
delighted
him,
what
he
kept
begging
Park
for,
were
stories
about
food
and
eating,
particularly
when
the
main
course
was
grilled
meat
Park
described
the
enchantments
of
chicken
pork
and
beef
in
China,
Hong,
Kong,
Germany
England
and
the
former
Soviet
Union,
the
more
Shin.
Listen
to
these
stories,
the
more
he
wanted
out
of
the
camp.
B
He
ached
for
a
world
where
an
insignificant
person
like
himself
could
walk
into
a
restaurant
and
fill
his
stomach
with
rice
and
meat
he
fantasized
about
escaping
with
Park
because
he
wanted
to
eat
like
Park,
intoxicated
by
what
he
heard
from
the
prisoner.
He
was
supposed
to
betray
Shin
made
perhaps
the
first
free
decision
of
his
life.
He
chose
not
to
snitch.
B
Shins
decision
to
honor
parks
confidences
did
not
signify
new
insight
into
the
nature
of
right
and
rot
right
and
wrong.
Looking
back,
Shin
views
his
behavior
as
fundamentally
selfish
Park
stories
were
much
more
valuable
to
him
than
what
he
could
have
received
by
turning
XI
Park
in
they
had
become
an
essential
and
energizing
addiction,
changing
his
expectation
about
the
future
and
giving
him
the
will
to
plan
for
it.
He
believed
he
would
go
mad
without
hearing
more
stories
from
Park.
In
his
reports
to
the
superintendent
Shin
found
himself
telling
a
wonderfully
liberating
lie.
B
B
It
was
basically
the
only
option
that
they
had
they
on
January,
2nd
2005
a
day
that
the
uniform
factory
was
closed
for
the
New
Year's
holiday.
They
closed
it.
For
two
days,
the
workers
from
the
factory
were
sent
up
to
the
woods,
to
chop
wood
and
when
I
say
up
to
the
woods
they
went
up
to
on
a
mountain
ridge
near
the
fence
and
Shion
knew
that
area.
He
had
worked
there
before.
He
knew
that
it
was
hard
for
the
guard
towers
to
have
a
line
of
sight
shot
at
those
going
through
the
fence.
B
It
was
just,
it
was
sort
of
hidden
there
and
there
also
being
their
their
their
minder.
That
day
was
a
prison
warden,
a
somebody
who
was
a
prisoner,
but
who
was
there
they're
sort
of
capo
and
he
didn't
have
a
weapon
at
dusk.
They
decided
to
make
a
run
for
it.
Chin
grabbed
Parkes
him
and
said:
let's
go.
They
ran
towards
the
fence.
Chin
was
to
have
been
the
Inside
Man
on
this
escape
because
he
knew
the
camp,
but
he
slipped
in
the
snow
and
fell
in
his
face.
Park
got
to
the
camp
first.
B
He
should
trust
his
torso
through
the
bottom
wire
and
the
next
wire
up
pulled
the
wire
down
and
the
voltage
from
the
fence
killed
Park
almost
immediately,
but
he
also
has
he
fell
to
the
ground.
He
grounded
some
of
the
voltage.
Shin
did
not
hesitate
and
he
he
says,
I,
don't
know
why
I
did
this,
he
just
crawled
over
his
body
and
he
got
most
the
way
through
the
fence.
B
His
lower
legs
slipped
off
of
Parkes,
toast
door,
so
on
both
sides,
and
he
got
really
severe
electrical
burns
on
both
legs
from
from
knees
to
ankles.
It
basically
ripped
open
his
his
shins
and
he
still
has
just
unbelievable
scarring
there,
but
he
got
through.
He
was
not
electrocuted
and
he
ran
off
in
this
skate
plan.
The
outside
guy,
outside
the
fence,
was
to
have
been
Park.
B
Shin
did
not
know
where
North
was.
He
did
not
know
where
China
was
he.
You
know
he'd
recently
learned
that
the
world
was
round.
He
didn't
have
a
clue
about
what
to
do,
but
he's
a
very,
very
smart
cunning
survivor,
just
incredibly
intelligent.
What
he
did
is.
He
ran
off
found
some
some
cover.
Some
woods
ran
through
that
and
after
about
an
hour
and
a
half,
he
found
an
old
barn.
North
Korea
is
the
most
militarized
country
on
earth.
There
are
a
lot
of
old
military
uniforms
in
that
country.
B
He
knocked
the
door
off
this
sort
of
buried.
I
was
out
in
the
fields
I
farmer
shed,
and
he
found
an
old
uniform
in
there
changed
out
of
his
clothes
changed
his
shoes
wrapped.
He
found
an
old
book
of
some
sort
and
wrapped
the
paper
tore
up
some
pages
and
wrap
those
around
his
bleeding
legs,
and
then
he
ran
off
some
more
and
found
his
way
into
it
into
into
a
town
called
buck
Chang,
which
is
very
close,
very
close
to
the
the
camp
he
came
in
at
night.
B
In
this
uniform
I
told
you
that
he'd
worked
in
a
pig
farm,
he
smelled
a
pig
pigsty
and
he
went
and
found
a
place
to
sleep
in
the
pigsty
covered
himself
up
with
some
straw
and
slept
through
the
night
very
cold
in
January
in
the
mountains
in
North
Korea,
he
woke
up
in
the
morning.
His
legs
were
killing
him.
He
hadn't
eaten
for
a
while.
B
B
So
he
was
in,
he
woke
up,
and
then
he
wandered
around
in
this
town
without
any
food
without
any
friends,
without
a
clue
about
what
to
do
with
the
rest
of
his
life
and
worried
that
somebody
was
after
him
for
the
next
two
days,
shim
scavenged
around
the
outskirts
of
buck
Chang,
a
ting
whatever
he
could
find
on
the
ground
or
in
garbage
heaps.
He
had
no
idea
what
to
do
where
to
go.
People
in
the
street
seemed
to
ignore
him
because
he
was
wearing
a
military
uniform
and
he
was
he
was
skinny
and
dirty.
B
It
was
a
look
that
in
North,
Korea
does
not
attract
a
lot
of
attention,
his
legs
hurt
and
he
was
hungry
and
cold.
Yet
he
was
exhilarated.
He
felt
like
an
alien
fallen
to
earth
in
the
months
and
years
ahead.
Shin
would
discover
all
things
modern
streaming,
video
blogs
and
international
air
travel
therapists
and
career
counselors
would
advise
him.
Preachers
would
show
him
how
to
pray.
Friends
would
teach
him
how
to
brush
his
teeth.
B
None
of
this,
though,
did
more
to
change
his
understanding
of
how
the
world
works
and
how
human
beings
interact
with
each
other
than
his
first
days
outside
that
camp.
It
shocked
him
to
see
North
Koreans
going
about
their
daily
lives
without
having
to
take
orders
from
guards
when
they
had
the
temerity
to
laugh
or
wear
brightly,
colored
clothes
or
haggle
over
prices
in
the
open-air
market.
B
He
expected
our
men
to
step
in
knock
heads
and
stop
this
nonsense.
The
word
chin
uses
again
and
again
to
describe
those
first
few
hours
he's
shocked.
It
was
not
meaningful
to
him
that
North
Korea
in
the
dead
of
winter
is
ugly,
dirty
and
dark,
or
that
it
is
poorer
than
Sudan
or
that
taken
at
as
the
whole,
it
is
viewed
by
human
rights
groups
as
the
world's
largest
prison.
His
context,
his
context
had
been
23
years
in
an
open-air
cage
run
by
men
who
hanged
his
mother
shot.
B
His
brother
crippled
his
father,
murdered
pregnant
women,
beat
children
to
death,
taught
him
to
betray
his
family
and
tortured
him
over
a
fire.
He
felt
wonderfully
free
and
as
best
as
he
could
determine,
no
one
was
looking
for
him.
In
fact,
as
far
as
he
knows,
no
one
ever
did
look
for
him.
He
never
found
anybody.
B
370
miles
in
about
a
month
from
buck
Chang,
he
he
walked
around
buck
Chang.
The
first
few
days
broke
into
a
house
found
some
more
clothes.
A
warm
winter
coat,
the
warmest
coat
he'd
ever
seen.
Oh
he's,
probably
the
guards
weren't
warm
coats,
but
the
warmest
think
he'd
ever
worn
in
his
life,
and
he
found
a
large
bag
of
rice.
B
He
and
knapsack.
He
put
the
bag
of
rice
in
the
knapsack
and
walked
past
the
market
and
market
lady
shouted
at
him.
You
know
what's
in
the
bag
kid
and
he
had
heard
from
park
that
things
are
sold
for
money
and
he'd,
seen
people
at
the
market,
exchanging
goods
and
he'd
seen
this
money,
but
he
didn't
actually
never
touched
money
or
been
involved
in
a
financial
transaction,
but
so,
but
he
sold
the
rice
for
the
equivalent
of
$4
$6
or
something
like
that.
B
He
had
no
idea
if
he
was
getting
a
good
deal,
because
it
was
his
first
experience
in
any
financial
transaction
and
he
he
bought
some
crackers
and
cookies
with
with
that
money,
and
then
he
walked
out
of
town
on
the
way
out
of
town.
He
he
saw
some
men
walking
along
who
looked
as
about
as
bedraggled
as
him
and
he
asked
where
they
were
going
and
they
said
they
were
going
north
towards
China.
They
were
traders.
They
were
part
of
this
scruffy
free
market
economy
that
I
described
so
he
walked
along.
B
Korea
now
is
to
take
state-owned
equipment
and
lease
it
for
corrupt
officials
to
use
state-owned
equipment
to
make
money,
and
so
they
they
pile
a
bunch
of
stragglers
on
a
truck
and
drive
them
across
the
country
and
charge
them
a
bit
and
he
got
on
the
truck
paid
a
little
bit
of
money
and
and
and
found
his
way
over
to
the
coast
and
then
got
on
a
train
and
went
north
and
in
30
days
he
was
out
of
the
country
it's
across
the
border.
He
was
incredibly
lucky.
B
His
haul
escaped
I
mean,
besides
being
smart
and
tough,
he
was
insanely
lucky
when
he
got
to
the
border.
The
border
is
intermittently
permeable,
depending
on
the
politics
of
the
region
at
the
time
and
who
you
managed
to
see,
but
the
guards
there
are
quite
used
to
traders
going
back
and
forth
and
taking
bribes
from
them.
Shin
gave
them
cigarettes,
cookies,
candy
and
said:
he'd
be
back
with
more
goods
for
one
guard
and
then
he
walked
across
the
Tumen
River,
which
is
this
small
little
River
into
China.
B
It
took
him
a
year
and
a
half
then
to
find
his
way
to
South
Korea
after
going
through
China.
So
I
won't
talk
about
China.
So
much
I
answer
questions.
If
you
have
questions
about
that,
I
met
shil
Shin
in
Seoul
in
2008,
and
we
started
working
on
this
project
which
he
didn't
want
to
do
because
he
hated
all
reporters
because
he's
he's
very
paranoid
individual.
B
But
he
did
talk
to
me
for
a
Washington
Post
story
which
attracted
huge
amount
of
attention
for
people
who
wanted
to
help
ship
a
lot
of
folk
in
the
United
States
sent
money
and
prayers
and
in
fact
one
couple
from
Columbus.
Ohio
ended
up
sort
of
adopting
Shin
and
provided
money
for
him
to
come
to
the
United
States
and
he
lived
in
Southern
California
for
two
years
moving
there
in
2009.
After
our
interview
here
we
are.
This
is
just
before
we
went
into
Louis
Vuitton
to
buy
some
fancy
clothes.
B
B
Interviews,
we've
done
a
lot
of
interviews,
since
this
book
came
out.
He
and
I
and
the
interviews
are
torment
for
him.
He
does
it
because
he
wants
the
message
to
get
out
that
he
did
the
book
because
he
wants
people
to
know
what
happened
to
him.
What
is
happening
to
his
friends
still
in
that
camp,
but
he's
not
a
he's,
not
a
a
good
patient.
Who
does
what
he's
told
what
I
want
him
to
do?
What
friends
want
him
to
do
in
the
United
States,
which
was
to
become
a
successful
korean-american?
B
B
B
We
went
to
Europe
together
and
the
French
were
very
interested
in
shin.
As
a
case,
you
know
the
rights
of
man,
what
is
a
human
being?
What
is
a
human
being?
Who
doesn't
really
know
some
of
the
basic
emotional
architecture
of
humanity
until
you're
23?
What
kind
of
man
are
you
they
kept
asking
him?
And
you
know
he
says
you
know
I'm,
not
much
of
a
man.
I,
don't
know
I'm
trying
it
was
very
difficult
for
me.
B
B
Not
so
much
because
of
my
persuasive
charms,
but
because
human
rights
groups
told
him
do
this
and
you'll
get
your
story
to
a
very
large
audience
in
the
United
States
and
around
the
world,
and
we
think
that
this
guy
can
be
trusted
and
over
time
he
did
come
to
trust
me
and
also
I.
We
split
the
revenues
from
the
book
and
whatever
whatever
else
comes
from
the
book
and
he
is
broke
and
without
relatives,
and
that
was
attractive
to
him
as
well,
and
that's
why
we
struck
up
this.
B
This
strange
partnership,
which
is
actually
turned
out
to
be
pretty
friendly
now,
but
just
until
all
three
months
ago,
I
wouldn't
have
described
him
as
my
friend,
because
getting
him
to
talk
is
so
difficult
and
I
constantly
pushed
him
farther
than
he
wanted
to
go,
and
he
he
I
used
the
image
in
the
book
of
dentistry
without
anesthetics,
and
he
dreaded
coming
to
the
interviews.
I
dreaded
the
interviews
too,
because
he
just
looked
so
pained,
but
he
did
in
the
end.
B
Tell
me
all
of
this
story.
I
guess
the
two
things
I
should
mention
that
I
that
I
didn't
at
least
I
think
I
didn't
mention
you
is.
How
do
I
know
that
Jim's
story
is
true,
because
it's
not
verifiable
and
it's
a
good
question
and
I'll
try
to
do
my
best
to
explain
how
I
think
it's
true
I
mentioned
these
scars
on
his
body
his
legs
on
his
back.
He.
D
B
A
finger
partially
cut
off
by
a
guard
when
he
dropped
a
sewing
machine
and
sure
enough,
his
fingers
resting,
and
he
has
some
other
scars
on
his
ankles
from
where
he
was
hung
upside
down
in
that
underground
prison.
So
all
the
scarring
on
his
body,
which
is
just
horrific,
it
all
matches
up
with
this
story,
so
I
spent
a
lot
of
time
looking
at
looking
at
his
body
without
clothes
on
to
do
to
verify
so
that
that's
one
way.
B
The
second
way
is
that
there
is
a
really
large
body
of
testimony
now
from
former
camp
inmates
about
what
life
is
like
in
the
camps,
and
many
of
those
individuals
have
been
interviewed
by
the
same
person.
Guy
named
David
Hawk,
who
has
written
a
book,
called
hidden
gulag
which
came
out
10
years
ago,
and
it
came
out
again
this
year
with
more
interviews
and
he's
also
interviewed
shin,
and
he
could
put
shin
in
the
continuum
of
these
60.
B
Other
individuals
who've
been
in
the
can
and
other
camps
in
the
country,
and
so
he
really
could
see
if
Shin
story
was
congruent
with
the
way
they
told
the
story.
Fizz
effect
was
the
same
and
it
is,
and
the
South
Korean
government
thinks
thinks
it's
true,
and
so
do
I
interviewed
for
camp
survivors
myself
and
depth
about
their
lives
and
about
shin
and
they
know
Chien,
and
they
they
found
him
to
be
believable
he's
also
stunted
from
malnutrition
and
his
arms
are
bowed
from
childhood
labor.
B
He
has
done
annotations
of
camp
14
saying
this
is
where
my
mother
was
killed.
This
is
where
I
went
through
the
fence.
This
is
where
I
was
hit
by
rocks
from
the
guards
children.
This
is
where
I
worked
in
the
dam
and
I've
gone
through
in
granular
detail
using
Google
Earth
the
contours
of
the
camp,
and
his
story
really
is
consistent
with
the
with
the
geography
of
the
place
as
it's
been
annotated
and
other
annotations
of
other
camps.
It's
very
consistent.
B
B
That's
why
I
think
it's
true,
but
there's
one
other
thing
that
I
don't
think
I
mentioned
I
had
a
lecture
this
morning
and
I
think
I
may
be
running
them
together,
but
Shin
lied
to
me
in
a
very
fundamental
way,
as
he
lied
to
everybody
in
South
Korea
about
his
life,
and
it
is
that
it's
at
the
heart
of
the
book.
Along
with
this,
this
it's
it
involves
this
incident
with
his
mother
and
her
death
and
the
escape.
B
B
He
was
learning
about
morality
and
how
what
the
relationship
should
be
between
a
mother
and
son
in
a
family
or
trust
between
friends.
All
of
these
things
were
foreign
concepts
to
him
and,
as
he
came
to
grips
with
him,
the
guilt
of
having
told
this
lie,
he
said
I
have
to
tell
you
that
I
was
one
of
those
bad
people
in
the
camp,
and
this
is
what
I
did
to
my
own
mother
and
I
was
utterly
shocked.
When
he
told
me
I,
wasn't
I
just
didn't
expect
it.
B
B
Well,
he,
when
you
cross
the
border,
it
took
him
just
a
couple
days
when
you
cross
the
border
that
border
it's
not
like
you're
going
into
a
completely
foreign
country.
There
are
lots
of
ethnic
Chinese
ethnic
koreans
who
live
along
that
border.
They've
been
there
for
a
couple
hundred
years
for
various
historical
reasons.
So
a
Korean
speaking
person
who
wanders
across
that
border
is
not
entering
it's
not
like
going
to
Southern
California
people
speak
Korean,
ate
Korean
food
they've,
seen
a
lot
of
North
Koreans.
B
That
border
had
been
flooded
by
maybe
400,000
North
Koreans
crossing
that
border
since
the
famine
times
in
late
1990s
when
he
crossed
2005,
so
he
wandered
across
the
border.
He
found
a
Korean
speaking
ethnic
Chinese
pig
farmer
had
a
big
role
in
his
early
life
who
offered
him
a
job.
He
said,
look
I'll,
pay
you
nothing,
but
the
equivalent
of
like
50
cents
a
day
or
something
and
I'll
work
you
14
hours
a
day,
but
I'll
feed
you
and
for
Shin
this
was
unbelievable
luxury.
He
could.
He
could
work,
for.
B
B
So
he
worked
there
for
just
a
few
months.
That
farmer
took
him
to
a
cattle
rancher
farther
up
in
the
mountains
farther
away
from
the
border,
and
he
worked
there
for
a
year
about
a
year
and
that
Rancher
cheated
him
did
not
pay
him
what
he
said
he
would
be
paid,
but
he
paid
him
something
shin
took
the
money
and
during
that
time
he
was
living
in
the
cattle
ranch
most
the
other
people
there.
This
was
what
farther
into
China
and
people
really
didn't,
speak
much
Korean.
B
So
he
learned
some
Chinese,
but
he
also
listened
to
the
radio.
They
had
a
radio
and
he'd
never
listened
to
a
radio
for
so
a
radio,
that's
an
incredible
thing
and
the
Chinese
weren't
so
interested
in
it
because
they
watch
TV
or
something,
but
he
listened
to
Radio
Free,
Asia
and
other
stations
coming
out
of
Seoul
aimed
at
the
North
Korean
market
is
basically
counter-propaganda
kind
of
broadcasting.
He
listened
to
that
every
day,
a
couple
hours
a
day
and
he
learned
a
lot.
B
B
They
could
get
government
funding
housing
care
that
sort
of
thing,
so
he
basically
began
to
construct
a
plan
for
how
to
survive
in
the
future,
and
his
plan
was
basically
to
get
farther
away
from
the
border
where
there
are
Chinese
police
that
it
quite
often
repatriate
people,
particularly
they
fall
out
with
the
people
who
are
paying
them
nothing
to
work.
So
he
moved
away
from
the
border.
B
He
rode
buses
to
Beijing
and
to
several
other
cities,
they're
all
listed
in
the
book,
and
then
he
found
his
way
south
by
bus
to
Shanghai,
and
he
met
by
chance
a
South
Korean
who
took
him
to
the
council
in
the
South
Korean
council
in
Shanghai.
But
his
arm
around
him
walked
him
into
the
council
it
and
when
he
was
there,
he
had
diplomatic
sanctuary
and
he
stayed
there
for
six
more
months
bathing
eating
better
than
he
ever
had
before.
B
B
He
held
it
together,
all
the
stress,
but
once
he
got
there,
he
went
to
a
place
called
hanawon,
which
is
a
resettlement
center
for
all.
North
Koreans
go
and
he
began
to
have
nightmares
and
he
couldn't
sleep
and
he
went
into
a
psychiatric
hospital
for
a
period
of
time
when
medication
and
began
to
help
with
that
and
when
I
met
him.
He
was
still
much
much
a
very
emotionally
strange
person
he's
much
better.
Now
he
seems
to
have
exponential
growth
in
emotional
intellectual
maturity
as
the
years
go
by,
as
I
said,
he's
really
smart.
B
B
allied
United
Korean
Peninsula,
with
what
seventy
five
million
Koreans
all
aligned
with
the
United
States
right
on
its
border,
a
border
that
has
lots
of
ethnic
Koreans
on
the
Chinese
side.
This
is
something
that
that
China
doesn't
want,
so
they
want
a
buffer,
some
sort
of
a
puppet
state,
a
vassal
state
that
they
could
use
to
protect
themselves
and
to.
B
Diffuse
US
influence.
So
that's
that's
one
theory.
Another
theory
is
that
the
collapse
of
North
Korea
would
bring
tens
of
thousands,
hundreds
of
thousands,
millions
of
people
from
the
16th
century.
More
or
less
people
live
in
the
dark
at
night
into
North
China
in
an
uncontrolled
destabilizing
rush.
I'm,
not
sure
that's
true
either,
but
that's
said
to
be
one
of
the
considerations.
B
I
must
have
interviewed
200
experts
on
this
subject
from
South
Korea
in
the
United
States.
Most
of
them
think
that
there
is
now
a
split
in
China
as
time
goes
by.
There
are
new
generations
of
Chinese
leaders
and
there's
a
sort
of
a
50-50.
Maybe
the
Kim
family
is
more
trouble
than
it's
worth,
or
maybe
it's
worth
it
and
will
put
up
with
it.
There
also
is
an
economic
interest.
North
Korea
sits
on
about
a
trillion
dollars
worth.
B
This
is
the
South
Korean
government
estimate
of
valuable
minerals,
iron
or
molybdenum
other
metals
that
are
used
in
aerospace
manufacturing,
which
China
is,
is
entering
in
a
big
way,
trying
to
build
their
own
aircraft,
commercial
as
well
as
military.
So
they
get
good
prices
on
that
stuff
and
there's
also
the
labor
market.
If
Kim
jong-eun,
the
new
leader
would
open
up
South
Korea
to
Chinese
factories,
Chinese
factories
could
make
a
lot
of
money
there.
A
B
Salaries
are
so
low
compared
to
what
they're
paying
now
in
China,
and
so
those
are
the
various
reasons,
but
it
is
for
it
for
China,
as
you
know,
periodic
shellings
of
Island
sinkings
of
ships,
nuclear
detonations
long-range
missile
launches.
All
these
things
are
not
good
business
for
China,
so
you
could
understand
why
they
might
be
irritated
with
their
with
their
their
state
on
the
border.
Other
questions.
D
As
you've
described
Shion
thus
far,
and
certainly
for
reasons
that
are
very
understandable,
his
motivations
are
very
much
related
to
benefitting
himself
I'm
wondering
if
he
has,
in
your
opinion,
made
any
progress
toward
being
motivated
by
any
either
cause
larger
than
himself
or
to
benefit
another
person.
Yeah.
That's.
B
A
good
question-
and
the
answer
is
yes:
what
he
has
done
with
his
life
is
to
focus
it
on
raising
awareness
of
the
existence
of
the
camps,
to
make
people
feel
awful
that
it's
still
going
on.
That's
what
he
wants
to
do.
He
wants
people
he
wants
to
crawl
inside
the
conscience
of
the
world
and
make
people
aware
that
this
horrible
situation
goes
on
and
I
think
he's
under
no
illusions
that
it
will
change
that.
B
There
are
many
levers
on
North
Korea
because
it's
already
sanctioned
to
a
Farley
well,
and
it
has
this
patron
China
that
keeps
it
alive,
but
he
wants
it
to
be
part
of
any
conversation
going
forward.
The
human
rights
issue
and
he
says
that
he
can't
marry
and
he
can't
have
kids,
he
can't
go
to
school.
He
can't
do
anything
until
this
changes
and
my
view
is
that
he
genuinely
believes
that,
but
he
doesn't
necessarily
need
to
sacrifice
so
much.
B
You
know
I
think
he
could
move
on
as
you
can
see
from
the
pictures
of
him
he's
a
handsome
guy
and
he
can
be
very
funny
and
charming
and
he's
so
smart
that
he
has
a
great
future
in
virtually
everything
and
so
I
wish.
My
personal
wish
and
I
think
I've
told
him
that
he
never
listens.
Is
you
know?
You
know,
you
know,
move
on
get
a
life,
but
he
hasn't
so
far.
C
C
B
South
Koreans
have
they.
They
paid
a
lot
of
attention
to
what
happened
when
East
Germany
disappeared
into
into
a
unified
Germany,
they
have
gone
and
studied
it.
They've
studied
the
cost.
They've
studied
that
the
techniques
they
have
a
there's,
something
called
the
Ministry
of
unification
in
in
South
Korea,
which
is
a
big
bureaucracy
that
is
devoted
to
making
this
happen
at
some
future
date
and
the
cost
estimates
are
astronomical.
B
What
the
numbers
I
mean.
I've
heard
various
numbers
over
the
years,
but
the
South
Koreans
believe
that
it
would
cost
them
more
as
a
percentage
of
their
economy
and
what
it
costs
Germany,
and
that
cost
was
very
considerable
in
part,
because
East
Germany
compared
to
North
Korea
at
the
time
of
unification.
If
you
compare
that
East
Germany
to
this
North
Korea,
you
know
it's
it's
it's
like
comparing.
B
B
B
B
But,
having
said
all
that
also
South
Korea
itself,
the
popular
will
in
South
Korea
is
unification
is
great,
but
not
now-
and
maybe
not
in
my
lifetime,
because
they
know
it
would
be
expensive
and
complicated.
It
would
cut
into
growth
and
in
South
Korea
coming.
If
I
were
a
North
Korean
going
to
South
Korea,
it's
just
it's
almost
impossible
to
overstate
how
difficult
it
is
for
them
to
fit
in
it's
very
hard
to
overstate
how
difficult
it
is
for
South
Koreans
to
fit
in
the
OECD,
which
is
this.
B
This
group
that
monitors
statistics
on
the
developed
countries
in
the
world.
They
have
all
these
statistics
about
the
unique
quality
of
stress
in
South
Korea.
Let
me
a
few
of
those
numbers.
South
Koreans
kill
themselves
at
a
much
higher
rate
than
anybody
else
in
the
OECD
they
work
more
hours.
They
sleep
fewer
hours,
they
spend
more
time
online,
they
spend
less
time
recreative
and
the
list
goes
on
and
on
and
on.
It
is
a
very,
very
achievement.
B
Obsessed
education,
obsessed
culture
and
the
idea
of
uniting
with
the
14th
century
is
just
it's
just
absurd
to
young
people
there
who
are
trying
to
carve
out
a
life
for
them.
Oh,
they
also
spend
more
time
in
cram
schools
and
learning
English,
then
than
just
about
anybody
else
in
the
world.
So
it
is
it's
they.
They
have
grown
so
far
apart
in
a
metaphorical
sense
as
cultures,
that
unification
come,
there's
no
real
parallel
historical
parallel
for
what
would
be
at
stake.
B
My
thought
is
that
the
most
likely
scenario,
one
that
suits
the
interest
of
China
South
Korea
Japan
and
the
United
States
at
this
point-
is
a
kind
of
slow
manufacturing
invasion
from
China,
where
North
Koreans
find
jobs
that
pay
real
salaries,
so
they
can
import
real
food
and
get
rid
of
the
biggest
human
rights
problem
in
the
country,
which
is
hunger,
and
that
is
probably
the
best
scenario
in
the
near
future.
For
that
to
happen.
After
that,
then
you
know
the
the
Vietnam
scenario
or
even
the
China
scenario.
B
G
A
B
That's
a
very
good
question
and
it
was
a
very
big
problem.
My
language
skills
I've
been
a
foreign
correspondent,
a
good
part
of
my
career
and
I'm,
not
good
in
foreign
languages.
I've
studied
many
languages,
but
never
mastered
any
and
Shin
does
not
want
to
learn
English,
although
he
is
so
smart,
he
could
so
we
had
translators
yeah
and
he
frequently
doesn't
like
his
translators.
B
He
gets
angry
at
them
and
he
thinks
that
they're
out
to
get
him
sometimes
in
stall
he
my
first
translator
who
was
my
translator,
who
worked
for
The
Washington
Post
in
Seoul.
He
wanted
nothing
with
her
at
all,
so
I
couldn't
deal
with
them
until
she
quit
and
then
I
got
a
couple,
others,
but
the
what
really
happened
was
when
he
moved
to
Southern
California.
He
befriended
a
Korean
American
family,
whose
son
David
Kim
the
great
irate
David
Kim
as
I
refer
it
to
him.
David
Kim
went
to
Yale
and
David.
B
Kim
is
just
about
a
smarter
Shin
is
if
not
smarter
and
David.
Kim
was
home
from
Yale
waiting
to
go
to
law
school
in
the
summer
of
2010.
When
I
started
my
interviews
down
there
in
Torrance
and
David
Kim
wanted
Chin's
story
told
he
speaks,
you
know:
idiomatic
American
English,
he
his
parents,
don't
speak
English
much,
so
he
grew
up
translating
from
from
almost
from
infancy
for
his
family.
B
So
translating
comes
to
him
like
Mother's
Milk
he's
in
fact,
I
found
in
our
days
together
in
Southern
California
I
thought
that
I
spoke
Korean
because
he
was
such
a
good
translator
and
it
was
in
that
atmosphere
of
trust
and
David
Kim
loved
shed
and
in
that
atmosphere
of
trust
and
love.
I
was
sort
of
allowed
into
the
circle
of
what
was
important
to
Shin
and
that's
when
he
told
me
that
he
lied
and
it
was
a
miracle
of
this
young
man.
B
H
In
a
way,
you
sort
of
answered
my
question
so
I
mean
considering
all
the
situation
and
he's
been
through.
How
can
we
I
mean
I
mean
we
asked
or
the
whole
world
self
can
help
him
particularly
you
say:
he's
learning
her
to
love
and
trust
and
have
no
having
more
normal
life.
I
would
say,
how
can
we
help
him
or
since
you
know
him
better?
H
How
do
you
think
would
be
like
the
best
help
for
him,
like
also
he
had
to
work
eventually
or
make
his
own
life
like
you
were
saying,
so
how
can
we
help
and
another
thing
is:
it's
I
know
it's
very
hard.
The
situation
with
North
Korea,
but
what
can
be
done
to
I
mean
make
some
conscience
and
know
so.
The
situation
yeah
I.
B
B
The
you
know,
North
Korea,
as
I
said,
is
in
this
position,
where
it
can
strike
back
in
a
horrifyingly
violent
way
if
it's
messed
with
militarily
and
our
leverage
on
China
to
lean
on
North
Korea
to
change
its
ways
to
get
rid
of
these
camps
is
limited.
I
think
that
what
can
be
done
and
is
to
make
sure
that
human
rights
is
part
of
any
conversation
that
the
u.s.
B
government
has
with
China,
going
forward
on
all
issues,
not
just
North
Korea
and
the
nukes
and
the
missiles,
but
to
make
that
a
part
make
that
a
like
a
constant
irritant
to
China
in
conversations
going
forward
and
that
hasn't
been
done
and
honestly
I.
Don't
think
it's
very
likely
that
pragmatic,
State
Department
people
would
do
that.
But
if
public
awareness
increases
about
the
camps
and
about
the
human
rights
atrocity
that
goes
on
and
people
presidential
candidates,
members
of
Congress
are
forced
to
have
a
position
on
this.
B
That
would
make
a
difference.
You
know
in
in
other
countries,
public
opinion
like
in
in
Ethiopia.
There
was
a
big
famine
in
the
in
the
18
in
the
1980s
public
saw
pictures
of
starving
children
and
within
two
weeks
there
was
a
mountain
of
food
in
Ethiopia
because
of
public
opinion.
This
problem
is
not
amenable
to
that
kind
of
solution,
but
public
opinion
can
have
an
effect
over
a
long
period
of
time.
Sorry,
it's
not
a
very
good
answer,
but
it's
the
only
one
that
I
can
come
up
with.
Yes,
my.
F
F
B
I
hope
that
being
in
Switzerland
will
make
him
a
better
person,
but
I
just
don't
know
he
wasn't
there
that
long,
he
left
when
he
was
relatively
young
and
what
he
thinks
that
I
mean
a
lot
of
a
lot
of
a
lot
of
information
is
known
about
North
Korea.
Now,
because
there
are
twenty
three
thousand
five
hundred
defectors
living
in
Seoul
who
do
talk,
living
in
South,
Korea
and
mostly
around
Seoul.
So
a
lot
more
is
known
about
the
the
texture
of
life
in
North
Korea.