“I want to give this food to my family in North Korea. But I can’t. So I entrust it to the seagulls. And in my heart, they carry it off to my family. And I weep.” FamilySadness Book:A River in Darkness: One Man's Escape from North Korea Source: A River in Darkness: One Man's Escape from North Korea
“People ridiculed me. 'What on each are you doing?' they asked. 'Why are you working so hard?' They didn't understand that driving that tractor was the only freedom I had, my only respite from the orders and insults that assaulted us day in and day out. So no, I wasn't crazy. Work was my only refuge. And I just enjoyed driving that tractor.” LifeJoyPurposeWorkSocialism Book:A River in Darkness: One Man's Escape from North Korea Source: A River in Darkness: One Man's Escape from North Korea
“The word could be translated in a number of ways. It could mean self-reliance, autonomy, independence, or responsibility—all the things we weren’t allowed to have. According to the Juche 'philosophy,' 'human beings are the masters of the world, so they get to decide everything.' It suggested we could reorganize the world, hew out a career for ourselves, and be the masters of our destiny. This was laughable, of course, but that’s always the way with totalitarian regimes. Language gets turned on its head. Serfdom is freedom. Repression is liberation. A police state is a democratic republic. And we were 'the masters of our destiny.' And if we begged to differ, we were dead.” LiberationNorth KoreaRepressionPolice StateTotalitarian StateAuthoritarianRepatriation Author:Masaji Ishikawa