In North Korea: An American Travels through an Imprisoned Nation

by Nanchu, Xing Hang

Overview

This is an account of an American woman's recent travels through North Korea. Throughout her journey, she continually witnessed rundown villages, starving children with hollow eyes, haggard women crawling in the fields for single grains of rice and civilians unloading food aid at the point of bayonets.

The author predicts that North Korea's economic reform, which has just started, will progress slowly, but that the country will one day be open to the outside world. It may, however, take another twenty years for this reform to be complete. Small, reluctant changes have already happened though, and this book expresses optimism that one day the North Korean people will end their isolation and join the world's mainstream.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780786416912
Publisher:	McFarland & Company, Incorporated Publishers
Publication date:	08/05/2003
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	205
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.42(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Writer Nanchu lives in Athens, Georgia. Her articles have appeared in Rocky Mountain News, Mid-US News, and Shanghai Health News. Xing Hang is associate professor at the Department of Chinese History and Culture, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Preface     

PART I: A COUNTRY IN PRISON

1. The Yalu River     
2. Slow Train     
3. The Travel Guards     
4. En Route to Mt. Myohyang     
5. Kim Il Sung, God in North Korea     
6. Kim Jong Il, Behind the Veil     
7. Pyongynag—Hell and Paradise     
8. In the Shadow of Juche     
9. Pyongyang’s Everyday Life     
10. Underground Casino     
11. The DMZ     
12. Out of the Prison Country     

PART II: BLOODY YANBIAN

13. Massive Flight     
14. Cold Water Village     
15. The Dangerous Life of the Escapee     
16. Young Victims     
17. North Korea’s Auschwitz     
18. The Mongolia Route     

PART III: THE FAILURE OF THE COMMUNIST UTOPIA

19. Seeking a Change     
20. Engaging the West     
21. Beautifying Terrorism     
22. Starve the Regime to Death?     
23. Rise in Arms?     
24. The First Light     

Appendix: Timetable of the Famine     
Chapter Notes     
Index     

Editorial Reviews

fascinating and important...excellent appendix and index...recommended”—Library Journal; “an excellent book for understanding what famine looks like...recommended”—Catholic Library World; “posing as Chinese, [the author] traveled briefly with a Chinese tour group in North Korea...a reasonably accurate sense of the horrific conditions in the country and of the desperation felt by many of its people”—Los Angeles Times.

From the Publisher

"posing as Chinese, [the author] traveled briefly with a Chinese tour group in North Korea...a reasonably accurate sense of the horrific conditions in the country and of the desperation felt by many of its people"

Los Angeles Times

an excellent book for understanding what famine looks like...recommended

Catholic Library World

fascinating and important...excellent appendix and index...recommended

Library Journal