Hyeonseo worked hard to obtain an accounting qualification and was offered a job from a law firm. Yet, without a degree, she knew she would never be able to move on anything greater resulting in Hyeonseo applying to many universities and studying English for an extra credential. After a phone call from her mom, she was determined to help her mother and brother escaped North Korea. Hyeonseo set on a journey that was painstaking and full of obstacles where they’ll cross the border of North Korea and then travel over Laos into the Vientiane Immigration where they would be transferred to Phonthong Prison, and then turn to the South Korea Embassy seeking asylum. Six months later from the phone call with her mom, Hyeonseo’s mother and brother were defected and able to live freely in South Korea.…
The Aquariums of Pyongyang written by Kang Rigoulot and Kang Chol-Hwan is the account of Kang’s early life spent inside of a North Korean prison camp with his family for ten years; Kang also describes the developments that take place after his release such as departure from North Korea, his voyage into China, and finding the means to finally arrive at South Korea. Kang will depart from both North Korea’s authoritarian state and the ideology he was forced to embrace from as early on in life as a child. Life for Kang in the prison camps started when he was a child because his grandfather was accused of speaking too harshly of the North Korean regime. Kang often notes that whether you are in the prison camps or free of them that speaking negatively of the North Korean communist government or Kim Il-sung has very negative repercussions. From the time that he…
The book is based off of his life growing up and represents how he lived as a young boy. Kim said “All the characters and events described in this book are real, but everything else is fiction”. The book also takes place in the young boys school. There he is under Japanese rule and he and his entire family is forced to lose their Korean names and get Japanese names. The setting of this book shows how the young boys living environment was and the struggle of being Korean and living under Japanese rule, also all the hardships he and his family had to…
Subject: This novel is a memoir of Hongyong Baek, who grew up in Korea and had to experience the repressed roles assigned to women within the society. It examines the gender, religious, and racially oppressed individual between world war II and the Korean Civil war. She left during the Japanese occupation and again during the korean civil war that now divides her family, but be becomes victorious and continues her successful ch’iryo practice in California. Occasion: Lee is the author of national bestseller Still Life With Rice, and its sequel In The Absence of Sun, memoirs in which she documents her family's experience in war-torn Korea from the 1930s to 1997.…
Imagine living in a society with individuality looked down on and equality so strictly enforced that the word “I” has been banned and punishable by death if used. Imagine living in a world that would consider you evil for learning faster or being more athletic. In Ayn Rand’s Anthem, this is how the society is set up to be. In Ayn Rand’s dystopian story, the people are ruled by a collectivist council, meaning the council owns all things of people. The strict society in the novel can be compared to the country of North Korea.…
One of the most trending topics in all of the media is Kim Jong-Un and North Korea. This is for good reason, as there are many ideas to report, like how Kim Jong-Un and North Korea’s government has made its country dystopian-like. When analyzing how the government of North Korea makes decisions that creates a dystopian society among their citizens, one can evaluate what changes Kim Jong-Un made that was so influencing and controlling that their country became dystopian, determine the specific impacts this change or these changes have on their nation’s or another nation’s people, and comprehend the various genres of literature be used as a proactive tool in educating people about dystopian societies and progression toward equality. Because no…
North Korea has been in several tense situations with the worlds superpower’s specifically the United States. They arrested two United States journalists, Euna Lee and Laura Ling, while filming a documentary on trafficking of women at the North Korea border. North Korea has launched several long range ballistic missiles and they have openly stated that they intended to plan out a nuclear test. The North Korean government has completed control of all media entering the country, robbing its citizens from an outside perspective on its country. They forbid their citizens to access any media, whether it is foreign TV or internet websites.…
There has been a grand total of 129,864,880 books published ever. All of these fall into the category of essential questions that I have learned. Some of the books also contain some of the essential questions that I have found interesting. This year in english class we read Night by Elie Wiesel and the novel contains the essential question of seeking justice and bearing witness about terrible things that have happened like the holocaust and to promote what happened so the act can be prevented from ever happening again. We also read To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee which contains the essential questions of core and moral beliefs.…
Definitely not America's Bitch Although actions speak louder than words, North Korean people continue to remain silent for their sanity. Taught to bow down and give all to the mighty Kim Jong Un, leaving none for themselves. The sovereign immunity of North Korea protects only the main man in charge but provides absolutely no effect to the biggest problem occurring, the tribulation of the people enduring it. Through the eyes of Shin Dong-hyuk, who experienced the trouble first hand, Blaine Harden opens a new understanding to what the North Koreans encounter every day.…
Kim Yu-jong’s “The white rabbit” and Park Won-so’s “Mother’s hitching post” were written in different historical backgrounds; “The white rabbit” has a setting of Japanese colonial period and “Mother’s hitching post” has a setting of the Korean war. However, the two stories express one common theme, which is the pain of Koreans. In his story, “The white rabbit”, Kim Yu-jong describes the pain of Koreans who felt powerless due to their loss of nationality under Japan’s colonization. In Park Won-so’s story “Mother’s hitching post”, she portrays the pain of Koreans who had confusion of national identity and trauma of losing family regarding the division of the country.…
In the narrative entitled, Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea, Barbara Demick focused on the fact that Chang-bo did not feel that the people in the government of the dictatorship were truthful, fair, or kind to the citizens. It also mentioned the consequences of the words that were spoken by him. On the other hand, his wife, Mrs. Song, felt as if the ways of the government were sufficient for the society, and that the officials in the government of the dictatorship were not being respected in the way that they should be. This affected their family in a large way. First, Demick reported that Chang-bo was in trouble for stating a remarkable comment that affected him greatly, by almost costing him either his life, or everything that…
There is no doubt about the Jackals reading’s intended purpose. To put it simply, Han Sorya is trying to drum up Korean pride and Kim Il-Sung’s communist ideology. On the surface, Sorya appears to have written a touching story about a mother’s devotion to her dying son. But dig deeper and the underlying message is clear. This response paper argues that the Jackals reading is strategically designed to promote the “eternal struggle” rhetoric.…
English Summer Assignment While 1984 and Lord of the Flies are set in completely different world, the characters within the world act remarkable similar. For example, in 1984, the party (governing body) constantly tells people these three lines; “war is peace, freedom is slavery and ignorance is strength (Orwell, 26).” Similarly in Lord of the Flies, Jack and his band of savages constantly speak of the beast. In both instances, the ruling body creates false realities, that their constituents eventually start to believe even though they know that it is a false reality.…
That was 2003. I went to the city of Shenyang located in the northeaster district of China. There were a lot of South Koreans as well as North Korean defectors hiding out. At first, I rent a room at 300 won per a month. I was firmly determined not to be trafficked by strangers and did everything, such as a mother’s help, a restaurant’s server, to earn money.…
North Korea’s severe political repression, abhorrent human rights conditions, and lack of economic opportunities for its own citizens has created a refugee crisis in the East Asian region, as thousands and thousands of its own citizens are continuing to flee secretly to neighboring countries such as China and South Korea (transiting via China) for better political and economic conditions. The refugee crisis in the North Korea-China border region has become more than just a regional problem for the East Asian countries, but also as an international problem as a whole, as North Korean refugees are transiting not just through China but also reaching other countries outside of the East Asian region as well. This includes countries in the…