Nothing to Envy

Nothing to Envy Plot Summary

Introduction

Imagine a country where citizens must tune their radios to government frequencies and seal them with official stamps, where families hang portraits of the nation's leaders in their homes and dust them daily, where a person's social status is determined by the actions of their ancestors. This is North Korea, perhaps the most isolated and secretive nation on earth. For decades, the outside world has known little about the daily lives of ordinary North Koreans, their struggles, hopes, and the harsh realities they face under the totalitarian regime. Through intimate portraits of North Koreans who eventually escaped their homeland, this historical account takes us behind the propaganda curtain to reveal the human dimension of life in this hermit kingdom. We witness the devastating famine of the 1990s that killed hundreds of thousands, the gradual collapse of the state-run economy, and the emergence of underground markets. We see how ordinary citizens maintain dignity and seek happiness despite overwhelming oppression. The narrative offers rare insights into how North Koreans view themselves and their leaders, how they receive information about the outside world, and what ultimately drives some to risk everything to escape. This compelling human story will resonate with anyone interested in understanding how political systems shape individual lives and how people survive in the most challenging circumstances.

Chapter 1: Origins of Division: The Korean Peninsula Split (1945-1953)

The Korean peninsula's division was never meant to be permanent. In August 1945, as World War II ended with Japan's surrender, two young American officers hastily drew a line across the 38th parallel on a National Geographic map. This arbitrary boundary was intended as a temporary administrative division between Soviet and American occupation zones. Neither superpower consulted the Korean people, who had just emerged from 35 years of Japanese colonial rule with hopes of independence. Korea had been a unified kingdom for over a thousand years under the Chosun dynasty, with no natural geographic division along the 38th parallel. The northern half contained most of the peninsula's industrial infrastructure and natural resources, while the south held the majority of agricultural land. This imbalance would later contribute to North Korea's early economic advantages and subsequent challenges. As Cold War tensions escalated, what was meant to be a temporary division hardened into separate states: the Democratic People's Republic of Korea in the north under Soviet-backed Kim Il-sung, and the Republic of Korea in the south under American-supported Syngman Rhee. The Korean War (1950-1953) cemented this division. When North Korean forces invaded the South on June 25, 1950, they nearly captured the entire peninsula before UN forces led by the United States pushed them back. Chinese intervention then drove UN forces southward again. After three years of devastating fighting that killed nearly three million people, the conflict ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty, leaving the peninsula divided roughly where it had started - along the 38th parallel. This traumatic birth story profoundly shaped North Korea's national psyche. Kim Il-sung, who had fought against Japanese occupation as a guerrilla leader, leveraged the war to consolidate his power and establish a narrative of North Korea as a besieged fortress surrounded by hostile forces. The war's devastation - with American bombing destroying nearly all major northern cities - provided Kim with evidence to support his claims about American imperialism and the need for self-reliance. The legacy of this division continues to this day. The Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating the two Koreas became one of the most heavily fortified borders in the world, a physical manifestation of the ideological chasm between the communist North and capitalist South. For ordinary Koreans, this artificial division tore apart families and created two radically different societies from what had been a single people with a shared 5,000-year history. North Korea's subsequent isolation can be traced directly to this founding trauma, which established patterns of paranoia, militarism, and xenophobia that would define the regime for decades to come.

Chapter 2: Building the Cult: Kim Il-sung's Totalitarian System (1953-1970s)

From the ashes of the Korean War, Kim Il-sung methodically constructed one of history's most comprehensive totalitarian systems. Between 1953 and the early 1970s, he transformed North Korea from a war-ravaged nation into a personality cult centered entirely around himself. Unlike other Communist dictators who shared power with a party apparatus, Kim established a uniquely Korean brand of totalitarianism that fused Marxist-Leninist principles with traditional Korean Confucian values emphasizing hierarchy, loyalty, and filial piety. The cornerstone of Kim's system was the songbun classification scheme, implemented in 1958. This elaborate social engineering project divided all North Koreans into three main classes - core, wavering, and hostile - with 51 subcategories based on family background and perceived loyalty to the regime. A person's songbun determined everything: where they could live, what education they could receive, what jobs they could hold, and even whom they could marry. Those with "tainted blood" - former landowners, Christians, or those with family connections to South Korea - were relegated to the lowest ranks, condemned to lives of hardship in remote mining towns or agricultural collectives. Kim's genius lay in his ability to harness the power of faith. Having grown up with a Protestant minister uncle, he understood religion's emotional appeal and appropriated Christian imagery and practices for his own cult. The regime created a new mythology portraying Kim as a divine figure whose birth was heralded by supernatural signs. Citizens were required to attend self-criticism sessions reminiscent of confessionals, wear Kim's portrait over their hearts, and keep his image in the most prominent place in their homes. The state controlled all information, ensuring North Koreans had no alternative worldview to challenge the official narrative. The system was maintained through an unprecedented level of surveillance. The inminban system organized citizens into neighborhood units that monitored each other, with at least one informer for every fifty people. Children were encouraged to report parents who made disloyal comments. The Public Standards Police enforced strict codes governing everything from hairstyles to the proper cleaning of Kim's portrait. This pervasive monitoring created a society where privacy was nonexistent and trust impossible. By the 1970s, North Korea had become a hermetically sealed society unlike any other on earth. Foreign media was banned, travel restricted, and contact with outsiders nearly impossible. The regime's propaganda claimed North Korea was a "workers' paradise" with nothing to envy in the world. For a time, this claim held some credibility - North Korea's economy initially outperformed South Korea's, with higher industrialization and living standards. This early economic success reinforced the regime's legitimacy and obscured the human rights abuses occurring behind closed borders.

Chapter 3: False Prosperity: Economic Illusions and Reality (1970s-1980s)

Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, North Korea projected an image of socialist prosperity that masked fundamental economic weaknesses. The country's centrally planned economy appeared functional, with full employment, free housing, universal healthcare, and a public distribution system that provided food rations to all citizens. Foreign visitors to Pyongyang during this period often came away impressed by the wide boulevards, monumental architecture, and apparent order of North Korean society. Some even described it as an "economic miracle." Behind this facade, however, lay a deeply flawed economic model. North Korea's juche philosophy of self-reliance, formulated by Kim Il-sung, rejected economic interdependence as a form of imperialism. Yet the country remained heavily dependent on subsidized trade and aid from the Soviet Union and China. Moscow provided oil at "friendship prices" while Beijing supplied food and raw materials. These subsidies, rather than genuine productivity, sustained the illusion of prosperity. When Soviet technicians helped build factories, the regime claimed them as achievements of juche. When Chinese aid prevented famine, propaganda credited Kim's leadership. The economy was further undermined by massive military spending. Despite its small size and population, North Korea maintained the fourth-largest military in the world, with over one million soldiers under arms - absorbing up to 25% of GDP compared to less than 5% in most industrialized nations. This "military-first" policy diverted resources from civilian infrastructure and consumer goods. While ordinary citizens made do with shoddy domestically produced items, the regime poured money into nuclear weapons development and missile technology. By the mid-1980s, cracks in the system were becoming visible. The public distribution system began experiencing shortages, with rations becoming increasingly irregular. Factory equipment, much of it dating from the 1950s, was breaking down with no replacement parts available. Agricultural production stagnated due to overuse of chemical fertilizers, deforestation, and rigid adherence to farming methods personally prescribed by Kim Il-sung regardless of their effectiveness. The country fell behind on loan payments to international creditors, accumulating debt it could never repay. Perhaps most significantly, North Korea's economic trajectory diverged dramatically from South Korea's during this period. In the 1970s, South Korea's export-driven economy began growing at double-digit rates, overtaking the North in per capita income by the mid-1970s. By the 1980s, the gap was widening exponentially. The regime responded by further restricting information about the outside world and doubling down on propaganda claiming North Korean superiority. Citizens were told they had "nothing to envy in the world" even as their living standards deteriorated. The false prosperity of this era created expectations among North Koreans that would make the subsequent collapse all the more traumatic. An entire generation grew up believing in the system's promises, only to watch them disintegrate. The regime's unwillingness to reform or acknowledge economic realities set the stage for the catastrophe that would follow when external support suddenly vanished with the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Chapter 4: The Great Collapse: Famine and System Failure (1994-1998)

Between 1994 and 1998, North Korea experienced one of the deadliest famines of the late 20th century. Known euphemistically as the "Arduous March" in official propaganda, this catastrophe claimed between 600,000 and 2 million lives - as much as 10 percent of the population. The immediate trigger was a series of devastating floods in 1995 and 1996, followed by drought in 1997. However, these natural disasters merely exposed the fundamental weaknesses of a system already in collapse after the loss of Soviet support. The famine's progression followed a grim pattern. First, the public distribution system - through which most North Koreans received their food - began delivering smaller rations, then irregular ones, then nothing at all. Industrial cities like Chongjin in the northeast were hit hardest, as they had no agricultural hinterland and depended entirely on the centralized distribution system. Without food deliveries, urban residents were left with few options. People foraged for wild plants, stripped bark from trees, and consumed indigestible "substitute foods" that caused severe intestinal blockages. Hospitals filled with patients suffering from malnutrition and related illnesses, but without medicine or food, doctors could do little to help. The regime's response revealed its priorities. While ordinary citizens starved, the military continued to receive rations, and Pyongyang - home to the elite and showcase of the regime - was relatively protected. The government initially refused to acknowledge the crisis or seek international aid, fearing loss of face and outside influence. When it finally did appeal for help in 1995, it severely restricted aid organizations' access and monitoring capabilities. Much of the aid that did arrive was diverted to the military or sold on the black market, with proceeds going to the regime rather than the starving population. In this desperate situation, North Koreans demonstrated remarkable resilience and adaptability. The collapse of the state-run economy gave rise to grassroots capitalism as people created informal markets to survive. Women emerged as the primary traders, setting up makeshift stalls to sell whatever they could produce or barter. Families sent members across the Chinese border to find food or work, creating the first significant outflow of North Korean refugees. These survival strategies represented a profound shift in North Korean society - people who had depended on the state for everything now realized they had to fend for themselves. The famine created a generation marked by trauma and stunted development. Children born during this period suffered from chronic malnutrition, resulting in lower height, cognitive impairments, and lifelong health problems. Schools emptied as children were too weak to attend or needed to search for food. An estimated 70,000 children became homeless "wandering swallows" (kochebi), orphaned or abandoned by parents unable to feed them. These children roamed train stations and markets, stealing and begging to survive. Perhaps the most significant long-term consequence of the famine was the shattering of North Koreans' faith in their system. The state's failure to provide food - its most basic obligation - forced people to violate core tenets of the socialist system to survive. Those who strictly followed the rules often died first, while those willing to break them by trading or crossing borders survived. This lesson - that loyalty to the regime could be fatal - fundamentally altered the relationship between the North Korean state and its citizens, creating a pragmatism and skepticism that continues to undermine ideological control despite the regime's efforts to reassert authority.

Chapter 5: Markets from Below: Grassroots Capitalism and Adaptation

As the state-run economy collapsed during the famine years, ordinary North Koreans developed remarkable survival strategies that would permanently alter the country's social and economic landscape. Between 1998 and 2002, a grassroots market economy emerged from the ruins of the socialist system, created not by government reforms but by desperate citizens who had no alternative. Women became the unlikely pioneers of North Korea's market revolution. With men still required to report to their non-functioning workplaces, wives, mothers, and grandmothers began trading whatever they could find. They started by bartering personal possessions for food, then gradually developed more sophisticated businesses. Some made simple foods like tofu or noodles to sell; others traveled to rural areas to buy agricultural products they could resell in cities at a profit. These "grasshopper merchants," as they were called, would jump from place to place, evading authorities who still considered private commerce illegal. Farmers began cultivating small private plots hidden in the mountains, growing vegetables they could sell at informal markets. Factory workers stripped machinery for metal they could trade across the Chinese border. Doctors performed procedures for food rather than worthless currency. Teachers gave private lessons in exchange for meals. Even government officials and police participated in the emerging market economy, often demanding bribes to look the other way as citizens engaged in technically illegal activities. These markets, known as jangmadang, transformed from occasional gatherings of traders into permanent fixtures of North Korean life. The largest market in Chongjin, called Sunam, grew to accommodate hundreds of vendors selling everything from food and clothing to household goods and electronics. Many of these products came from China, introducing North Koreans to foreign-made items that were often superior to domestic products. Along with goods came information—rumors about the outside world that contradicted official propaganda. The regime's response to these developments was inconsistent. Kim Jong-il publicly denounced markets as hotbeds of "egoism" that threatened socialism, yet the government couldn't provide alternatives. Periodic crackdowns would be followed by reluctant tolerance when officials recognized that markets were preventing mass starvation. In 2002, the government finally acknowledged reality by implementing limited economic reforms that legalized some market activities, though it would later attempt to reverse many of these changes. This period revealed the extraordinary resilience and adaptability of ordinary North Koreans. People who had been raised in a system that criminalized individual initiative discovered entrepreneurial talents they never knew they possessed. While the political system remained totalitarian, economic necessity had forced a degree of change from below that would prove impossible to fully reverse. The markets became spaces where North Koreans could exercise limited autonomy and where the state's control, while still formidable, was no longer absolute.

Chapter 6: Information Breach: How Outside Knowledge Changed Minds

From the early 2000s onward, North Korea's information blockade began to crack, allowing ordinary citizens unprecedented glimpses of the outside world. This gradual exposure to alternative realities planted seeds of doubt that would fundamentally challenge the regime's monopoly on truth and reshape how North Koreans viewed themselves and their country. The Chinese border became the primary gateway for both goods and information. As trade increased, North Koreans living in border regions gained greater exposure to Chinese products, lifestyles, and ideas. Some were shocked to discover that China—supposedly a socialist ally facing similar challenges—had developed far beyond North Korea. Even more disturbing was evidence that South Korea, portrayed in propaganda as an impoverished American colony, had become an economic powerhouse. North Koreans who secretly crossed into China to trade or find food returned with stories that contradicted everything they had been taught. Technology played a crucial role in this information revolution. Small, portable DVD players manufactured in China became affordable and widely available through the markets. Despite being illegal, South Korean dramas and movies circulated widely on smuggled DVDs, offering viewers not just entertainment but vivid images of Seoul's modern apartments, well-stocked supermarkets, and fashionable citizens. These visual contradictions to official propaganda were far more powerful than any verbal argument. As one defector later explained, "You can't argue with your own eyes." Radio broadcasts from South Korea, China, and international stations like Voice of America and Radio Free Asia reached increasing numbers of listeners. Despite the requirement that all radios be fixed to North Korean frequencies and sealed with official stamps, people modified their sets or purchased illegal Chinese models that could receive foreign stations. Late at night, they would listen to news and commentary that offered alternative perspectives on world events and conditions inside North Korea itself. The regime responded with intensified efforts to block outside information. The border security force was expanded, and penalties for possessing foreign media were increased. Special units conducted surprise home inspections looking for illegal DVDs or modified radios. Public lectures warned against the "ideological and cultural infiltration" of imperialist powers. The government even jammed foreign radio signals and installed new surveillance technology along the Chinese border. Yet these efforts could not stem the tide of information. Each person who glimpsed the outside world shared what they had seen with family members and trusted friends. Whispered conversations spread forbidden knowledge through social networks. Young people were particularly receptive to these new influences, adopting South Korean slang, hairstyles, and fashion when they could do so without attracting official attention. The psychological impact of this exposure was profound. North Koreans had been raised to believe they lived in a "socialist paradise" led by infallible leaders. Now many began to recognize that they had been systematically deceived. This realization produced complex emotions—anger at having been lied to, shame at their country's backwardness, envy of South Korean prosperity, and often a deep sense of betrayal. For some, these feelings would eventually crystallize into a desire to escape North Korea altogether, whatever the risks.

Chapter 7: Escape and Identity: Refugee Journeys to Freedom

Beginning in the late 1990s and accelerating through the 2000s, thousands of North Koreans made the perilous journey to South Korea, seeking freedom and opportunity. Their escapes represented not just physical journeys across borders but profound personal transformations that would forever alter their identities and worldviews. The typical escape route evolved over time as both refugees and authorities adapted to changing circumstances. Most North Koreans first crossed the relatively porous border with China, wading across the shallow Tumen River that separates the two countries. This initial crossing, while dangerous, was only the beginning of a much longer journey. China did not recognize North Koreans as refugees and maintained a policy of forcibly repatriating them if caught. Those returned to North Korea faced imprisonment, torture, and sometimes execution for the "crime" of leaving their country without permission. To avoid detection in China, escapees relied on networks of brokers, missionaries, and human rights activists who provided shelter, transportation, and guidance. Some remained in China for years, living in constant fear of discovery. North Korean women were particularly vulnerable, with many forced into marriages with Chinese men or exploited in the sex industry. Despite these hardships, they often sent money back to family members still in North Korea, creating financial lifelines that sustained entire communities. The journey from China to South Korea typically involved crossing through third countries like Mongolia, Vietnam, Laos, or Thailand. These routes were fraught with danger—treacherous mountain terrain, border patrols, human traffickers, and the constant threat of arrest. Some refugees traveled thousands of miles over months or years before reaching safety. The financial cost was also substantial, with brokers charging thousands of dollars for their services, forcing many North Koreans to incur significant debt. Upon arrival in South Korea, escapees underwent intensive debriefing by intelligence agencies to verify their identities and screen for North Korean spies. They then entered Hanawon, a government-run resettlement center where they received three months of education about South Korean society, democracy, capitalism, and practical skills like using ATMs or riding the subway. This period marked the beginning of a profound psychological adjustment as North Koreans confronted the reality of life in a modern, democratic society. The transformation from North to South Korean identity involved both practical and existential challenges. Escapees had to learn new social norms, adapt to capitalist economics, and navigate complex technologies. Many struggled with the Korean language itself, which had evolved differently in the South with the addition of many English loan words. They faced discrimination from some South Koreans who viewed them as cultural outsiders or economic burdens. Depression, post-traumatic stress, and survivor's guilt were common psychological challenges. Yet many North Korean refugees demonstrated remarkable resilience and adaptability. They pursued education, started businesses, and built new lives. Some became powerful advocates for human rights in North Korea, using their personal stories to raise awareness about conditions in their homeland. Others maintained low profiles, focusing on integration and personal success. Their diverse experiences reflected the complexity of identity formation in exile and the different ways people reconcile their past and present selves.

Summary

North Korea's transformation from a once-promising industrial nation to an isolated totalitarian state represents one of history's most dramatic national trajectories. The central thread running through this dark evolution has been the regime's relentless prioritization of control over prosperity. At each critical juncture - from the Korean War's aftermath to the post-Soviet economic collapse to the Great Famine - the leadership chose to preserve its ideological purity and political dominance rather than implement reforms that might have improved citizens' lives but threatened the power structure. This pattern created a system where loyalty to the regime trumped economic rationality, where resources flowed to nuclear weapons while people starved, and where maintaining the fiction of socialist success became more important than addressing actual failures. The North Korean experience offers profound lessons about human societies and political systems. It demonstrates how quickly isolation can become self-reinforcing, as a regime's fear of outside influence creates policies that further separate its people from global development. It reveals the extraordinary resilience of ordinary people who find ways to adapt and survive even under the most oppressive conditions. Perhaps most importantly, it reminds us that systems built on fear and falsehood contain the seeds of their own eventual transformation. Despite the regime's efforts to maintain absolute control, the emergence of markets, the spread of forbidden information, and the growing gap between official narratives and lived reality suggest that change, however gradual and unpredictable, remains possible even in the darkest corner of the modern world.

About Author

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Barbara Demick

Barbara Demick is an American journalist. She is the author of Logavina Street: Life and Death in a Sarajevo Neighborhood (Andrews & McMeel, 1996). Her next book, Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea, was published by Spiegel & Grau/Random House in December 2009 and Granta Books in 2010.Demick was correspondent for the Philadelphia Inquirer in Eastern Europe from 1993 to 1997. Along with photographer John Costello, she produced a series of articles that ran 1994-1996 following life on one Sarajevo street over the course of the war in Bosnia. The series won the George Polk Award for international reporting, the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for international reporting and was a finalist for the Pulitzer in the features category. She was stationed in the Middle East for the newspaper between 1997 and 2001.In 2001, Demick moved to the Los Angeles Times and became the newspaper's first bureau chief in Korea. Demick reported extensively on human rights in North Korea, interviewing large numbers of refugees in China and South Korea. She focused on economic and social changes inside North Korea and on the situation of North Korean women sold into marriages in China. She wrote an extensive series of articles about life inside the North Korean city of Chongjin. In 2005, Demick was a co-winner of the American Academy of Diplomacy's Arthur Ross Award for Distinguished Reporting & Analysis on Foreign Affairs. In 2006, her reports about North Korea won the Overseas Press Club's Joe and Laurie Dine Award for Human Rights Reporting and the Asia Society's Osborn Elliott Prize for Excellence in Asian Journalism. That same year, Demick was also named print journalist of the year by the Los Angeles Press Club. In 2010, she won the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction for her work, Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea. The book was also nominated for the U.S.'s most prestigious literary prize, the National Book Award.Demick was a visiting professor at Princeton University in 2006-2007 teaching Coverage of Repressive Regimes through the Ferris Fellowship at the Council of the Humanities. She moved to Beijing for the Los Angeles Times in 2007 and became Beijing bureau chief in early 2009. Demick was one of the subjects of a 2005 documentary Press Pass to the World by McCourry Films.

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