Dear Leader: My Escape from North Korea

At times, North Korea seems like an indecipherable enigma, impervious to attempts by outsiders to understand or to find rationales for its actions. At other times, the Kim family state seems straightforward: a land ruled by a gang of thugs who regard the state’s resources (including its people) as its personal possession and plaything, and who cynically deploy crude and simplistic anti-colonial and anti-Western ideological slogans as a substitute for policy. Jang Jin-Sung’s book tends to support the latter view, depicting a regime run by a paranoid and power-hungry leader who cares little for what happens to anyone but himself.Jang’s book is part memoir, part exposé. The core of the book is an account of Jang’s decision to escape North Korea, along with a friend. Jang, a poet personally honored by “Dear Leader” Kim Jong-il, had been working in a department of the Workers’ Party responsible for relations between the two Koreas—which really meant anti-South Korean espionage and propaganda. Part of his job was to write poems in a South Korean “voice” praising North Korea and the leadership of Kim Jong-il. In order to do his job, he was part of a select group of Party members allowed access to South Korean newspapers, books, and magazines, as well as Western consumer products sent in as foreign aid. Though he was not part of the true power elite, he was in many ways a regime insider. His observations, therefore, have an aura of both credibility and disillusionment.Beyond the dramatic story of Jang’s escape, survival in China, and eventual relocation in South Korea, the book contains valuable and damning observations on North Korean history and politics. Jang had access to party insiders, as well as to historical documents unavailable to most people. So while his account is that of a very young man, it carries the conviction of the disillusioned and recently-enlightened, which one can see in his wide-eyed outrage when the shackles fall from his eyes and he sees the Kim regime for what it is. Jang offers valuable insights on a variety of topics, including Kim Jong-il’s rise to power and the ruthless competition with his father and the elder Kim’s allies that accompanied it, leading in turn to further ruthlessness and the rise to dominance of the Organization and Guidance Department within the Korean Workers’ Party. Jang also discusses the kidnapping of Japanese citizens to train North Korean spies, and the North Korean view of diplomacy as essentially a counterintelligence operation, which partly explains why Western governments find diplomacy with North Korea such a frustrating undertaking.Jang is a romantic, and naïve in many ways. He says that reading a book of poetry by Lord Byron was one of the key factors in his disillusionment/enlightenment, as Byron’s openness in expressing emotions stood in stark contrast to the bottled-up North Korean society in which the only acceptable object of devotion was the state as embodied in the person of the leader. The heart of the book is Jang’s account of his decision to leave North Korea after some contraband materials to which he had access but which he allowed to pass out of his hands were discovered. He had to leave quickly, without much preparation, accompanied by the friend to whom he had loaned the materials. They carried little with them other than the clothes they were wearing, a notebook full of Jang’s poems, and some cash, which would come in handy later. They were lucky to escape the scrutiny, and the guns, of North Korean border guards, but their story of escape and survival is not simply a tale of crossing the Tumen River that forms North Korea’s northeastern border with China. Jang chronicles just how difficult it can be for an escapee even after crossing the river. The South Korean consulate in the Chinese city of Shenyang and many Korean churches were no help. Jang spent a month on the run, during which time he had to rely on luck and the kindness of individuals to survive and eventually make his way to freedom. That he did make it is a testament to how deeply motivating the desire for freedom can be. This is perhaps a useful reminder for any of us who accept our liberties too casually. Jang’s epilogue is both a moving conclusion to the story and a sober reflection on what the presence of thousands of North Korean escapees means.On occasion the book reads a bit too much like a translation, or maybe the translator is just rendering too literally in English Jang’s way of expressing things in Korean. But that’s a small thing. This book is well worth reading for anyone interested in the inner workings of North Korea, and how one North Korean of a sensitive frame of mind found the desire, then the need, and ultimately the courage to leave in the hope of liberating body, mind, and heart. In addition to Jang’s own story, the book reinforces the conclusion that North Korea is not just a failed state, but what might be called a diminished state. The friend who urged me to read this book said that it convinced him of what he already thought—that North Korea is really run by just a very small number of people. It’s hard to argue with that. For Kim Jong-il, as for his son after him (the current ruler), it appears that being “leader” is an ego trip for which his whole country of roughly 25 million people pays a horrible price.

After reading two books back to back, I decided they need reviewing together as they reinforce the other. I suggest other interested readers also read these two books together!There is not much I can say after reading the two books, "Dear Leader: My Escape from North Korea" by Jang Jin-sung and "Without You, There Is No Us" by Suki Kim.They both tell a similar story of a particularly inhumane country, North Korea, but from different perspectives. It is difficult to sit here, in the United States, and read these two books while trying to understand or comprehend what we are reading. While I have traveled world wide and have taught, as a professor, in different countries, I have never in my travels come across someplace described, I think honestly and truthfully, as primitive, as imprisoning or as controlled as is North Korea.Jang was part of North Korea's elite with access to Kim Jung-il. He was a poet and highly placed in North Korea's department of internal propaganda. In other words, he was the ultimate insider. It was his position to read foreign, mainly Southern Korean, literature. Then Jang was to write articles and poetry, in which the North Korean readers would assume he was South Korean, extolling the virtues of Kim Jung-il. As such he became jaded with what he saw in North Korea, particularly after a trip to his childhood city and finding what has become of childhood friends. He witnesses poverty and famine first hand and begins writing a secret poetry regarding his thoughts. He begins sharing items with a college friend who he recognizes as also disillusioned about North Korea. One of these is a South Korean book which is lost by his friend. Knowing that the outcome would be death of both of them, they escape using their elite credentials to a border town and then, to China. A good part of this book is their travails in China as fugitives and then his escape to South Korea.The second book, by Kim, is the story of a South Korean-American who is selected by a religious group to teach English to the elite sons of the leaders in North Korea. She writes of her essential imprisonment in a university, the lack of the barest essentials of common life elsewhere and of the inability to freely convey ideas while teaching. Everything is guarded in what is said and what is acted on. The students, she realizes are competent liars in what they will say and do. She must communicate with the students in English and she is forbidden from using Korean, her mother language. So many subjects are taboo that normal conversation is almost not possible. And yet, she is there to teach everything to students while being allowed to say almost nothing! Everything is vetted by the Koreas, whether it is her minders, Korean counterpart censors or even her fellow teachers. The students, despite being of the sciences, know nothing about the internet and are not allowed access to it. The students are kept in military order, not even allowed to talk to their parents who are just in some cases across the wall of the university. So both the teachers and the students are, in effect, prisoners.These two books, one by an insider and one by an outsider, will leave you depressed about North Korea. What can be said of a nation that willfully starves its peoples? What can be said of a nation where everyone must think and do the same thing? What can be said of a nation where death is the only exception to worshipping its leader? What can be said of a nation where critical thinking is a death sentence, in fact, even reading of unauthorized critical thinking is a death sentence?

Very moving, and we are left wondering how can such regimes still exists in our age and threat us constantly.

Couldn't stop reading this!

very good indeed I surely indicate for people interested in current affairs and life in North Korea! It's worth it

If you are looking for a book that talks about how North Korea works from the inside and how it counter engages the outside world this is the book you want to read.All the story is told by a young man who quickly climbed and became an important person who had not only knowledge of the country worked from its roots, but also knowledge to state secrets, which will give you a better glimpse of the most unknown country in the world.

A lire absolument !L'histoire de l'auteur est dure, triste, touchante mais aussi digne d'un film d'espionage Hollywoodiens!La réalité de la Corée du Nord est racontée par un ancien haut cadre du Parti qui a vu le fonctionnement du régime Nord Coréen de l'intérieur.En plus de cela, le livre est très bien écris