Escape From Camp 14

Have you ever taken your rights or possessions for granted? In North Korean labor camps, the prisoners are denied many of their basic rights and are given the minimal amount of food, clothing, and other necessities. Shin Dong-hyuk was born in one of these camps, and he tells his story through his biography, Escape From Camp 14. The book talks about many of the living conditions in the camps. The food, clothing, housing, and many other conditions are very different and much worse than those in a typical home in the United States and other developed countries. However, the United States still has a few things in common with these labor camps, such as social class. Both the U.S. and North Korea have three broad classes that their citizens can …show more content…
is known as the upper class. In North Korea the highest class is called the core class. People in the upper class of the U.S. include the president and his family, millionaires, CEOs of large corporations, and most people who are known as “rich”. In North Korea, the core class is made up of “farm workers, families of soldiers killed during the Korean War, families of troops who had served with Kim Il Sung fighting against Japanese occupation, and government workers.” They could get jobs in the government, officer rankings in the military, and the intelligence services. The core class was allowed to live in and around Pyongyang, which showed a high economic status. While the three social classes of North Korea are set in stone and include 51 subgroups, the social classes of the U.S. are more vague and open to change. For example, some may say that the upper class includes only CEOs and the top government workers, while others may say that it includes all millionaires. The case of classes in the U.S. is usually subject to opinion, but both the upper class and the core class include the top members of society and the country’s …show more content…
In America, it refers to those living in poverty, the homeless, and those making minimum wage. It is used to class those making little or nothing every year. The “hostile class” refers to those accused of opposing the government. This includes “former property owners, relatives of Koreans who fled to South Korea, Christians, and those who worked for the Japanese colonial government that controlled the Korean peninsula before WWII”. Many of the people in this class are in political prisons, like Shin, and none are allowed into universities in North Korea. Some, however, are moved to distant regions near China. This class, in North Korea, is considered untrustworthy and against the government, or relatives of such people. Both North Korea and America have a class of those who are considered social