North Korea Confidential: Private Markets, Fashion Trends, Prison Camps, Dissenters and Defectors

by Daniel Tudor, James Pearson

Overview

**Named one of the best books of 2015 by The Economist**

Private Markets, Fashion Trends, Prison Camps, Dissenters and Defectors.

North Korea is one of the most troubled societies on earth. The country's 24 million people live under a violent dictatorship led by a single family, which relentlessly pursues the development of nuclear arms, which periodically incites risky military clashes with the larger, richer, liberal South, and which forces each and every person to play a role in the "theater state" even as it pays little more than lip service to the wellbeing of the overwhelming majority.

With this profoundly anachronistic system eventually failed in the 1990s, it triggered a famine that decimated the countryside and obliterated the lives of many hundreds of thousands of people. However, it also changed the lives of those who survived forever.

A lawless form of marketization came to replace the iron rice bowl of work in state companies, and the Orwellian mind control of the Korean Workers' Party was replaced for many by dreams of trade and profit. A new North Korea Society was born from the horrors of the era—one that is more susceptible to outside information than ever before with the advent of k-pop and video-carrying USB sticks. This is the North Korean society that is described in this book.

In seven fascinating chapters, the authors explore what life is actually like in modern North Korea today for the ordinary "man and woman on the street." They interview experts and tap a broad variety of sources to bring a startling new insider's view of North Korean society—from members of Pyongyang's ruling families to defectors from different periods and regions, to diplomats and NGOs with years of experience in the country, to cross-border traders from neighboring China, and textual accounts appearing in English, Korean and Chinese sources. The resulting stories reveal the horror as well as the innovation and humor which abound in this fascinating country.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781543677799
Publisher:	Brilliance Audio
Publication date:	04/03/2018
Product dimensions:	6.50(w) x 5.50(h) x 0.62(d)

About the Author

Daniel Tudor is from Manchester, England, and graduated with a BA in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from Oxford University. He has lived in Seoul, Korea for many years, and served as The Economist's Korea Correspondent from 2010-2013. His first book, 'Korea: The Impossible Country' received high praise and has also been translated into Korean, Chinese, Polish, and Thai. Daniel is a regular columnist for a Korean newspaper, the Joongang Ilbo, and has commented on Korea-related topics many times for the BBC, Al Jazeera, and others. He is also co-founder of The Booth, a small chain of craft beer pubs.

James Pearson is a foreign correspondent for Reuters in Seoul, where he covers politics and general news in North and South Korea. He holds a BA (hons) in Chinese and Korean from the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and a Master's of Philosophy (M.Phil) in Oriental Studies from the University of Cambridge.

Table of Contents

Introduction 7

Thanks and Acknowledgments 11

Chapter 1 The North Korean Markets: How They Work, Where They Are, and How Much Things Cost 15

Chapter 2 Leisure Time in North Korea 47

Chapter 3 Who Is in Charge? 85

Chapter 4 Crime and Punishment in North Korea 111

Chapter 5 Clothes, Fashion, and Trends 129

Chapter 6 Communications 145

Chapter 7 Social Division 161

Epilogue Will North Korea Collapse? 177

Index 181

Editorial Reviews

North Korea Confidential gives us a deeply informed close-up. Tudor…and Pearson…have pieced together their story from North Korean insiders, defectors, diplomats and traders, and from a careful reading of texts in English, Korean and Chinese. They focus on topics they can find out about: the changing lifestyles influenced, in part, by mobile phones; the thumb drives that have spread South Korean soaps to an appreciative audience; an economy that at the grass roots is somewhat privatized; the elite factions; and the gulag-like prison system…theirs is a surprising guide to how life is evolving inside the country.

The New York Times Book Review - Jane Perlez

02/09/2015
Despite impressive credentials, Pearson and Tudor, respectively the Seoul correspondent at Reuters and the Economist’s former Korea correspondent, disappoint with this look inside a mystery-shrouded country. Their choice to focus on how the average North Korean lives, and how the strict government regulations play out in reality, sounds promising. But the authors assume that the lay reader will have more knowledge about the totalitarian regime and its ambitions than is likely, and, strangely, they do not open with an overview of the country’s national and international politics. Better editing would have helped; some footnotes, such as one on the former president of Sierra Leone, contain distractingly irrelevant trivia, while others contain crucial information, such as about North Korea’s nuclear program, or how government employees can pay a monthly fee to be excused from work and “engage in private business.” Given the heightened interest in the country after the controversy surrounding the movie The Interview, this book comes across as a missed opportunity to examine North Korea from a different perspective. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

"Dispelling the myth of a brainwashed populace is one of the main goals of the book. Despite horrific prison camps, lack of Internet, and a national fabric called "vinylon," most people still take the risk to watch a foreign film, regularly consume South Korea pop culture, party, and even argue with the police." —The Daily Beast

"North Korea Confidential...uses extensive interviews with recent defectors and people still in the country to build a rich picture of daily life there." —Financial Times

"North Korea Confidential gives us a deeply informed close-up. Tudor, a former correspondent for The Economist, and Pearson, a Reuters reporter, have pieced together their story from North Korean insiders, defectors, diplomats and traders, and from a careful reading of texts in English, Korean and Chinese." —New York Times

"North Korean society is rapidly changing, affecting everything from what people watch on TV to what they sing at karaoke. With the help of a new book charting daily life we see if you've been paying attention." —The Guardian

"North Korea Confidential, by James Pearson and Daniel Tudor, says that nearly all North Koreans lead a 'double economic life,' supplementing measly rations and puny state wages of as little as $1 a month with extra work in their spare time." —The Economist

"In a new book that the authors say aims to document 'North Korea, the country' rather than 'North Korea, the state,' two journalists —Daniel Tudor, former correspondent for the Economist in Seoul, and James pearson, currently a Reuters reporter in Seoul—tap a wide range of sources to describe the lives of ordinary North koreans. —Wall Street Journal

"The authors, both journalists in the region, do their best to beat the stereotypes that have been scraped together over the years, 'the ridiculous international media image that suggests that DPRK citizens are robots who simply live to serve their 'Dear Leader.'" —Associated Press

"...it is refreshing to find a book that neither obsesses excessively over the nuclear issue nor treats the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) as simply a bad joke or the world's most irrational place." —Andrei Lankov, Reason

From the Publisher

★ 04/15/2015
Rather than describing a gray, economically stagnant, and totalitarian society dominated by dictator Kim Jong Un, veteran journalists and coauthors Tudor and Pearson paint a vivid portrait of how North Korea functions by opportunistic entrepreneurism abetted by bribery. After the North Korean economy and government failed in the 1990s, most of the population, from ordinary citizens to upper-level bureaucrats, survived by hustling—buying, selling, and stealing from the government—beneath the illusion of dictatorial control. To own many consumer products all one needs is foreign currency, such as the Chinese yuan. Bribes will solve most problems, except political challenges to the Kim regime. That, the authors recognize, is extremely dangerous and results in incarceration in the very large and very brutal North Korean penal system. Opportunity and self-reliance characterize the North Korea that Tudor and Pearson portray, an economy and society functioning unofficially beneath the façade of Kim Jong Un's protection racket. Having survived the 1990s collapse, the fall of the Soviet Union, and by adapting to this unauthorized and thriving economy, the North Korean regime has shown a remarkable ability to survive, and the authors expect it will continue to be resilient. VERDICT Documented through extensive travel in the country and interviews with North Korean defectors, this important book will appeal to anyone interested in Korean and East Asian affairs.—Mark Jones, Mercantile Lib., Cincinnati

Library Journal