Escape from Camp 14 #3

After being released from prison, Shin watched guards publicly execute his mother and brother. Shin's mom tried to meet his eyes but he never looked back. He felt no remorse. Shin was actually mad at him mother and brother for trying to escape and he believed they deserved death. He now feels guilt for their death, but it wasn't until a while after he had escaped.

Shin went on to finish school. Then he worked as a builder on a hydroelectric dam on the Taedong river. Many people were killed by the extreme cold and poor working conditions. However, this was the first time that Shin ate well in his life. Guards allowed prisoners to catch fish and eat them. When the dam was complete, Shin began working on a pig farm. A perk of working on the pig farm was that workers could steal morsels of food. This was not allowed and many were beat, but Shin managed to steal. Shin describes his four years on the pig farm as relaxing. Outside of the pig farm, North Korea was struck with famine. Shin thought he would work on the pig farm until he would die. His time on the pig farm ended abruptly and without explanation. He was transferred to a textile factory where there was no food to steal and stress was high.

At the textile factory, Shin's job was to repair sewing machines that the seamstresses broke. All workers worked twelve hour shifts and if they did not fill their daily quota, they were required to do two extra hours of "bitter humiliation work." This encouraged repairmen to beat the women whose machines they fixed. Shin once watched a man bash a women's face with a wrench. Fed up, Shin beat him with a wrench and then a guard beat shin.
The most important thing that happened to Shin in the textile factory was meeting Park. Park Yong Chul was an educated man in his forties who was put in the camp for reasons unknown to Shin. Park told Shin about life outside the camp. Shin had never been beyond the barbed wire barriers that enclose him in Camp 14. The stories that Park told about life outside the camp didn't impress Shin, unless Park talked about food. Food outside the camp drove Shin's imagination crazy. Shin and Park began talking about escape.

North Korea #4

After reading extensively on Liberty in North Korea's website, I truly understand their goals and objectives. First and foremost, they aim to assist North Korean defectors worldwide in whatever they need. It may be escaping North Korea or China,l finding a job, therapy, or housing. This seems to be one of the most active parts of LiNK. They also focus on shifting the public view of North Korea. For decades, the public has seen North Korea as a stalemate. We constantly discuss the coverage of nuclear threats and marriages of Kim Jong-un. Why would we cover the things that we have been covering for decades? It is pointless! Instead, we should turn this conversation of nuclear potentials and capitalism into a conversation of human rights. The people of North Korea have no liberties. Most of them do not know otherwise. They were born into Juche. If we can shift our conversation to the people, this will empower them.

Escape from Camp 14 #2

Rule #8: "Should sexual physical contact occur without prior approval, the perpetrators will be shot immediately."

Shin Dong-hyuk was not conceived in a conventional way. His parents were given a "reward marriage." For their good behavior, they were allowed to become husband and wife. This gave incentive for other prisoners to snitch on one another. If a woman were to become pregnant, she and her baby would be killed. Anyway, as a child, Shin never had any sense of a family. His mother and father did not necessarily like each other and his older brother would constantly pick on him. His father and mother lived separately and saw each other few times a year. Shin lived with his mother and viewed her as competition for food. When Shin's mother worked he would often eat her food before she got home. Upon her arrival and discovery that he ate her food, she would beat him. The happiest days of Shin's childhood were in the summer, when he was sent into the fields to weed. He was able to steal some food and quiet the hunger that ravaged his body.

Rule #1, subsection 2: "Any witness to an attempted escape who fails to report it will be shot immediately."

The guards of Camp 14 effectively brainwash all of the prisoners. Shin's mother and brother had discussed an escape. Shin feared his mother and brother getting caught. He took what he viewed to be the best action and reported them. The next day, Shin was taken from school and driven to an underground prison where he was kept for 8 months. The guards in the prison tortured him by hanging him over a fire by a hook in his stomach. Shin did not want to escape but he was tortured. He was nursed to health by another prisoner. 

North Korea #3

So today didn't go as planned. I did not really learn anything about the Kim family. I did find a North Korean refugee program called Liberty in North Korea (LiNK). They have an extremely direct and  informative website that outlines everything wrong with North Korea. I am thinking for my Marketplace of Ideas presentation, I will make a fake travel guide poster that promotes traveling to North Korea.

Liberty in North Korea: http://libertyinnorthkorea.org/learn/nk-crisis/#speech

North Korea #2

Today I watched a documentary about life in North Korea. The Documentary isn't necessarily new, but it is filled with shocking information and a realistic view of the secrecy of North Korea. All of the tours that the filmmakers go on are extraordinarily fabricated. It's hard to believe that all of this comes from one man and his beliefs. Tomorrow, I am going to read about the History of the Kim family.

The documentary I watched: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj-CkRB1uis

North Korea #1

For the Marketplace of Ideas, I am choosing to research life in North Korea as well as North Korean prison camps. I am interested in this because of the book Escape from Camp 14 by Blaine Harden. I want to focus on the human rights aspect of North Korea. While international affairs are important, I prefer to not get involved in researching them. The most fascinating thing about North Korea to me is that nobody has done anything in terms of widespread awareness.

Escape from Camp 14 #1

This semester I chose to read Blaine Harden's Escape from Camp 14. The book documents Shin Dong-hyuk's escape from the most brutal North Korean political prison camps. Shin is the only person documented to have been born in a political prison camp and escape. Shin's parents were selected to have a child; they were not married or in love. In North Korean political prison camps, three generations of prisoners are kept. For example, if I were a North Korean citizen and my grandparents were viewed as a threat, I would be imprisoned. This is called "three generations of punishment."

I don't know much about North Korea. I know that North Korea is an incredibly secretive country. I am not really interested in international affairs. However, I am interested in human rights and making sure that humanity is safe. The North Korean political prison camps have been around twelve times as long as the Nazi concentration camps. 

The difference between Shin's story and most escape stories is that Shin began in a prison. His sense of normal was what most people would consider inhumane. He was born into snitching. He was born into a life of grueling labor and torture. 

Despite Shin escaping and sharing his story, North Korea claims that Camp 14 and other political prison camps don't exist.