Under The Loving Care Of The Fatherly Leader Part 12

If Your Brain Is Properly Oiled After each of my visits a major question remained in my mind: How effective, really had all the indoctrination been? Had it produced a population filled with individual examples of the ideal communist "new man," an altruistic citizen devoted to the welfare of his countrymen? Were people truly fanatical in their loyalty to-or wors.h.i.+p of-the leaders? Were they ready to follow orders, no matter what? Even as early as 1979, 1979, I was to learn, people had been hungry-but they had lied with alacrity to foreigners like me, boasting of full stomachs. "My country was very poor before, but thanks to the wise leaders.h.i.+p of our Great Leader the country became a powerful state," a hothouse manager had told me. "Now we are leading a happy life." I was to learn, people had been hungry-but they had lied with alacrity to foreigners like me, boasting of full stomachs. "My country was very poor before, but thanks to the wise leaders.h.i.+p of our Great Leader the country became a powerful state," a hothouse manager had told me. "Now we are leading a happy life."

Fear of the consequences if they should fail to play their roles was part of the reason they showed the face they did. But I don't believe that was the only reason. I think the people for the most part genuinely revered Kim Il-sung. They wanted to praise him and his works. They had expected their lives to improve based on his policies and decisions. If North Korea was not yet the paradise that they tried to convince me it was, many still believed or wanted to believe in the ultimate vision. I came to that conclusion after interviewing a number of defectors who told me they still still revered Kim even after having fled to South Korea. Appearances, I realized then, were by no means totally deceiving. Many defectors' statements confirmed that the feeling of religious awe was real. revered Kim even after having fled to South Korea. Appearances, I realized then, were by no means totally deceiving. Many defectors' statements confirmed that the feeling of religious awe was real.

Take Kim Jong-min, who defected in 1988 after reaching a high rank in the Ministry of Public Security. Before I met him, he told a South Korean interviewer that, even after arriving in Seoul, he had found himself "unable to denounce Kim Il-sung for the first year." True, that was partly because "the thought that someone might be listening was too deeply rooted in my consciousness," he acknowledged. But "even if I had thought of hating a person whom I had only wors.h.i.+pped for forty years, there was no way to really express it." He explained that "there is no one in North Korea who would say Kim Il-sung is bad."1 North Koreans were taught to believe that "through his anti-j.a.panese activities, the nation was saved, and through land reform a state centered around the people was established. He established a party which directs the state, and led the country to victory in a war with the United States. He remodeled socialism. The taxation system and social welfare system were completely realized under him. All of this was said to be done by Kim Il-sung, so who would dare to call him bad?" North Koreans were taught to believe that "through his anti-j.a.panese activities, the nation was saved, and through land reform a state centered around the people was established. He established a party which directs the state, and led the country to victory in a war with the United States. He remodeled socialism. The taxation system and social welfare system were completely realized under him. All of this was said to be done by Kim Il-sung, so who would dare to call him bad?"

Kim Jong-min had found reason, where his personal life intersected with public life, to abandon the regime and throw in his lot with the enemy. That made his confession of loyalty to Kim Il-sung all the more believable. After all, the South Korean authorities of the period were not urging him and other defectors to go easy on Pyongyang in their comments for publication. (That form of manipulation would be left for the Kim Dae-jung administration, 19982003, and its successor, which did try to mute or silence some defector testimony that might challenge the government's "suns.h.i.+ne policy" of North-South detente.) Consider also that the defectors were among the tiny minority of citizens who had found the situation back home so intolerable they were moved to risk their lives to escape. The vast majority had stayed behind. Those who stayed behind would have tended to be, if anything, even more devoted.

Andrew Holloway a British social worker and socialist who lived in the country in 198788 while working to revise English translations of the regime's propaganda, paints in A Year in Pyongyang in A Year in Pyongyang an affecting picture of an apparently sincerely felt socialist spirit that he found displayed then in the lives and deeds of Pyongyang residents with whom he came in contact. It can easily be argued that those capital dwellers were an elite group by official decree, people who got to live in Pyongyang partly thanks to their ability to act as exemplars. One could also note that they had little freedom of thought (virtually none on the larger issues) and had been misguided regarding the long-term efficacy of the Kims' policies. Nevertheless, I think, readers of Hollo-way's book who were not consumed with knee-jerk loathing for socialism might be hard-pressed to adjudge as evil beyond redemption a society so apparently successful in inculcating values such as kindness and modesty. an affecting picture of an apparently sincerely felt socialist spirit that he found displayed then in the lives and deeds of Pyongyang residents with whom he came in contact. It can easily be argued that those capital dwellers were an elite group by official decree, people who got to live in Pyongyang partly thanks to their ability to act as exemplars. One could also note that they had little freedom of thought (virtually none on the larger issues) and had been misguided regarding the long-term efficacy of the Kims' policies. Nevertheless, I think, readers of Hollo-way's book who were not consumed with knee-jerk loathing for socialism might be hard-pressed to adjudge as evil beyond redemption a society so apparently successful in inculcating values such as kindness and modesty.2 Still, altruism and loyalty do not exist in a vacuum. The fervor of North Koreans who bought into the system totally could not but be tested severely once food problems became endemic. For the regime it had been an article of faith that without near-complete isolation, juche juche could not go unchallenged. As eye-opening contacts with the outside world became more frequent, results proved the correctness of that calculation. could not go unchallenged. As eye-opening contacts with the outside world became more frequent, results proved the correctness of that calculation.

One North Korean who turned from zealot to critic was Dong Young-jun, who studied transport economics in Poland at Gdansk University until he defected from there in May 1989. When I met him I found a pleasant-looking fellow with a long-jawed-I would say horsey-face topped with springy hair. Married, with one son, he was studying economics at Seoul's Korea University. He was an English-speaker, and had made a Western fas.h.i.+on statement by wearing to our meeting a Lacoste sweater with embroidered crocodile logo. He carried a gold-plated lighter with leather inlays to light his Marlboros. In chapter 12 we heard Dong's account of the gang fights of his youth-fights he partic.i.p.ated in, even though this son of a State Security official as a junior and senior middle school student was by his own description a "fanatic" regime loyalist. By the time of his graduation, he had settled down and become a good enough student to go straight to college, with six months of military training replacing the usual decade of service.

Dong told me about the ideology courses he had taken during his student days at Pyongyang Engineering College. The cla.s.ses required students to memorize Kim Il-sung's main ideas and then "think of the best way to put them into effect." Were those cla.s.ses interesting? I asked him. "I cried often," he replied. "I was so touched by the consideration Kim Il-sung showed for his people." Dong related an example of the Great Leader's concern. "Kim Il-sung pa.s.sed by a workplace one cold day and saw women removing the row from fish, blowing cold vapor from their mouths. He took a knife and started gutting fish himself, and he asked, 'How can I improve your lives?' Kim Il-sung then sent an order to our university, saying, 'Make a machine that can do this work.' Even to this day, it really touches me when I think of it and I feel like crying. When I thought of my mother making kimchee kimchee during the cold winter, it didn't affect me. But when I thought of the Great Leader touching the smelly fish with the dangerous knife, that got me very emotional." during the cold winter, it didn't affect me. But when I thought of the Great Leader touching the smelly fish with the dangerous knife, that got me very emotional."

Dong was a.s.signed as a member of a group of students who were ordered to dream up the fish-cleaning machine. "In one and a half years we succeeded. The machine we made was very good, had hardly any flaws and didn't make any mistakes. We made it with fanatic devotion. I heard a saying then, 'If your mind is at the highest state, your product is at the highest state also.'"

Kim Il-sung made a stop on campus to commend the students who had produced the machine. Dong was not one of those who were notified in advance they would be permitted to talk with the Great Leader, but he was thrilled nonetheless. "When Kim Il-sung visited us at the university, I realized for the first time that he traveled in an American Ford limousine," Dong said. "I was very proud. There's an amusing story about Kim Il-sung and foreign cars. In the mid-1970s he met with foreign reporters. Someone asked him, 'You hate the United States so much, how can you ride in an American car?' He replied, 'I'm not riding in it. I'm driving driving it.' Just seeing him in it made me proud. I was three or four meters away." However, Dong confessed, "Now that I have come to South Korea, I'm used to free thinking. I feel a discrepancy it.' Just seeing him in it made me proud. I was three or four meters away." However, Dong confessed, "Now that I have come to South Korea, I'm used to free thinking. I feel a discrepancy between juche between juche and his riding in a foreign car." and his riding in a foreign car."

I asked whether he believed the story about Kim's gutting the fish and deciding on the spot to do something for the workers. "He may have done it for show, for effect, but I still believe it actually happened," Dong replied. "There were people who saw Kim Il-sung do this and wrote books about it."

Dong's loyalty to the regime and its leaders was a complex feeling, not all positive, he acknowledged. "Once when I was a junior at the University, I went to a friend's birthday party. At the party my friend, the host, said, 'There is something wrong with the Kim Il-sung regime.' I replied, 'How could you say that?' When I think about it now, I was reacting not only out of fanaticism but also out of fear and apprehension. A big reason why I tried to shut him up was that I was afraid he would say it somewhere else, be put under surveillance, get caught and confess that he had made the same remark at his birthday party. Then they would ask, 'Who else was at the birthday party?' State Security would ask me why I hadn't reported it. I was afraid of being punished. I was also concerned because once every three months they would have a big meeting of all the students. There they would make a show of expelling at least one or two students on the basis of State Security's findings."

Dong explained that "when you're small, all you thinkof is grat.i.tude to Kim Il-sung. When you're older, you think, 'He has done so much for me, I should not do anything against him.' And I also feared punishment if I should do anything against him. There was no way for me to get access to information that went against Kim Il-sung or showed discrepancies."

I mentioned to Dong how, on an afternoon in 1979, I had gone to Kim Il-sung University but had found the parts of the campus I was shown utterly deserted and had not believed my guides' explanation that everyone was in a meeting, all 12,000 students. Dong surprised me by saying there really were such meetings. "Everyone "Everyone goes. Otherwise, at the next meeting you'll be the one expelled. We would meet on the grounds of the campus. The university president attends plus one agent from State Security, one from Public Security, the regular dean and the party-affiliated dean. Professors attend only the very serious annual session. They also go to separate faculty meetings every three months." goes. Otherwise, at the next meeting you'll be the one expelled. We would meet on the grounds of the campus. The university president attends plus one agent from State Security, one from Public Security, the regular dean and the party-affiliated dean. Professors attend only the very serious annual session. They also go to separate faculty meetings every three months."

Dong told me a bit about how the universities taught. "There's one advantage to a North Korean university," he said. "Even the professors study along with the students. There's no difference between a professor and a student. If the student excels to the point he's better than the professor, the student will be acknowledged." But that student would have to excel within the context of what Kim Il-sung had said and written. "In North Korea there's only discussion, no debate. Most ideology courses require memorization of principles, but to excel in cla.s.s you need to come up with an improvement. Of course you can't change Kim Il-sung's principles, but you can think of the best way to put them into effect."

I asked Dong's view of the regime succession. "I thought very highly of Kim Il-sung," he replied. "I was proud and honored to work for such a high being. As for Kim Jong-il, I thought of him as a human. I liked Kim Jong-il because he was young and understood the younger generation. I thought he could bring a lot of change to North Korea. Understanding the younger generation, Kim Jong-il allowed men to grow their hair longer and let women have permanent waves. He even permitted access to famous foreign literary works. When you see festivities in North Korea, sometimes you can find Koreans dancing. This was allowed thanks to a decision by Kim Jong-il. I partic.i.p.ated in that dancing, too, and was very grateful to Kim Jong-il. In 1983 on the thirty-fifth anniversary of the North Korean People's Army I joined in the dancing, too."

Dong's remarks reminded me that I had danced around a maypole on May Day, 1979, in Pyongyang's Kim Il-sung Square, wearing a Lenin cap newly purchased in a department store. I had not realized at the time that even that sort of dancing, based on folk dancing and to my eye totally devoid of s.e.xual suggestiveness, was a newly granted privilege for which I should thank the Dear Leader.

Dong told me that he had kept his ideological purity until he left North Korea to study abroad. "Our political and economic system was based on dictators.h.i.+p by Kim Il-sung-one-man rule," he said. "When I was in North Korea, I thought Kim Il-sung was G.o.d. I did everything by his command. I had no doubts about the regime until I went to Poland in 1985. Then, for five years, I heard a lot of news of the West-the United States, Germany, England. I thought, 'Which system or country is better politically or economically?' And I saw the life of the Polish people. In my mind, I saw that life in the West and in East European socialist countries, as well, was better than life in North Korea.

"I watched the Seoul Olympics on television-all the games. On the television monitor I saw Seoul and other cities. Before seeing the 1988 Olympics, I had been taught that South Korea was very poor. Many, many people were dying there, fighting against dictators.h.i.+p, I was told. But I saw something different during the '88 Olympics. Of course I was interested in the games, but I was mostly interested in the street scenes that were televised, how the people were dressed. I realized I had been thinking wrong. I'd always been taught that South Korea was a poverty-stricken colony of the United States with no freedom, but when I watched boxing and saw that the South Korean beat the American, I thought, 'Maybe it's not the way I've been told.' Up until then I had thought that the colony could not go against the imperialists. Seeing that the South Koreans upheld their flag and competed in the games as South Korea, I was astonished that they could beat the United States."

After the Seoul Olympics, "people in many Eastern European countries including Poland were eager to find out about South Korea," Dong said. "There were a lot of special reports in the news-magazines, television, and so on-about how South Korea could develop into such an industrialized nation, and about how much power South Korea had to have to be able to host the Olympics. This was the channel I used to get knowledge of South Korea. I think it's a tragedy we had to get information that way When I was in Pyongyang we could not learn such things."

Dong noted that radio, for example, "is a product of capitalism." In North Korea, "people can't have access to normal radios, because that would allow them to hear broadcasts from all over the world. It's hard to buy radios except the one-channel radios. The central government sends people to inspect radios every three or four months, so just having a radio can put people under fear and apprehension."

I asked Dong-what he thought of the plans then being discussed for U.S. radio broadcasts to North Korea of news about North Korea in the Korean language, via Radio Free Asia. "It's a very good idea but not very practical," was his opinion. "Not enough North Koreans have access to radios to receive the transmissions-maybe just one percent, the high officials, a few people with power like those in State Security. The broadcasts won't be known nationwide. But the people with power to change things could listen and think. I myself got a lot of help from Radio Free Europe and BBC broadcasts."

It was not only what he heard on the radio and the televised revelations about South Korea that rocked Dong's worldview. "The changes in Poland- especially Solidarity-influenced me a lot," he said. "I had lots of Polish friends in Solidarity. They kept telling me, 'If your brain is properly oiled, you won't go back to North Korea.' I was shocked when a South Korean emba.s.sy was set up in Hungary, but I felt encouraged, because with a North Korean pa.s.sport I couldn't go to a Western or neutral country but I could go to Hungary."

Soon, another factor arose that made Dong feel he had only a narrow window of opportunity if he wished to escape. When the emba.s.sy was established in Hungary, all the North Korean students there were sent to Poland to keep them from having contact with the Southerners. "When I heard of a plan for a South Korean emba.s.sy in Poland, I figured the North Korean students in Poland "would be removed, too." With nowhere else to go in Europe, "I would be sent back to North Korea. That's what triggered my defection. I went by plane to Hungary and found the South Korean emba.s.sy in Budapest. They sent me to the South Korean emba.s.sy in Vienna." That was in May of 1989, six months before the South Korean emba.s.sy in Poland opened. "When I defected," Dong told me, "the main thing that troubled me was that my family would be punished. But I feel I'm a very egocentric man, to be able to defect. I guesss I was egotistical enough to overcome that concern."

I asked Dong how North Korean youngsters managed to learn anything substantive in school, what with all the gang fighting, labor, ideology instruction and so on. Had he felt he was far behind his Polish fellow students? "I thought I was way up there, because I entered in Poland as a university freshman," he replied. "All my cla.s.smates had only graduated from high school, but I already had three years of university education. So I was ahead of them. In general, though, I think North Korea lags in all fields with the possible exceptions of math, basic science-physics and chemistry-and English and Russian."

Before entering the prestigious Korea University in Seoul, Dong told me, he had taken an entrance examination and failed Korean. (That is not as surprising as it may sound. After all the decades of separation, the versions of Korean used in the North and South had many differences in vocabulary. As for the writing systems, although North Korea had long before halted the use of Chinese characters, South Koreans continued to use them in tandem with what had become the sole Northern writing system, the indigenous Korean hangul hangul alphabet.) Nevertheless, Dong said, "I had very high scores in physics, chemistry and math. I'm a senior now. When I graduate, I'll enter Daewoo Corporation and specialize in East European trade. I speak Polish." alphabet.) Nevertheless, Dong said, "I had very high scores in physics, chemistry and math. I'm a senior now. When I graduate, I'll enter Daewoo Corporation and specialize in East European trade. I speak Polish."

I asked Dong if he still wors.h.i.+pped Kim Il-sung, years after his defection. He hesitated. "It's hard to answer," he said. "When I think of Kim Il-sung, he did very cruel and wrong things. Still, when you contemplate it, the degree of his wrongdoing lessens. Since coming to South Korea I've come to realize that much of his history is fabricated, but still I'm moved by Kim Ilsung's leaders.h.i.+p." Kim Il-sung, Dong noted, formerly had worn "people's clothes"- inmin-pok. inmin-pok. (-what Americans call Mao suits although the Chinese actually call them Sun Yat-sen suits, for the 1911 founder of the Chinese republic, who wore the garb before either Mao or the North Koreans did)- with a Lenin cap. "Now he wears Western-style suits. That symbolizes that his health is good and he has the intent of cooperating with the West. The former, the health symbolism, is for his people; the latter is for the outside world." (-what Americans call Mao suits although the Chinese actually call them Sun Yat-sen suits, for the 1911 founder of the Chinese republic, who wore the garb before either Mao or the North Koreans did)- with a Lenin cap. "Now he wears Western-style suits. That symbolizes that his health is good and he has the intent of cooperating with the West. The former, the health symbolism, is for his people; the latter is for the outside world."

By the time I spoke with Dong, the United States and North Korea were embroiled in the first dispute over Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program. Dong read into that an interesting observation about the regime's staying power. "I don't believe North Korea is going to collapse suddenly" he said. "To be able to have this conflict with the United States means Kim Il-sung has something to rely on: the support of the people." I asked if this was real rather than feigned or imaginary support. "I believe he has has the people's support," Dong said. "Here's proof. Now they're having two meals a day they're overworked, but still there's no uprising. That proves he has the people's support. People now understand that North Korea is not the most powerful nation. But they still believe it is among the most developed nations in the world. For me, when I left for Poland, I thought, 'North Korea is the best nation.' When I visited North Korea before the 1988 Olympics I met people who realized North Korea was not the best nation, but they thought it was certainly among the higher-ranking ones." the people's support," Dong said. "Here's proof. Now they're having two meals a day they're overworked, but still there's no uprising. That proves he has the people's support. People now understand that North Korea is not the most powerful nation. But they still believe it is among the most developed nations in the world. For me, when I left for Poland, I thought, 'North Korea is the best nation.' When I visited North Korea before the 1988 Olympics I met people who realized North Korea was not the best nation, but they thought it was certainly among the higher-ranking ones."

Dong noted that "Kim Il-sung is old" and said that "people realize he'll die soon. Until Kim Il-sung's death the regime will stay put. After his death, Kim Jong-il will succeed him. People don't trust Kim Jong-il as much as Kim Il-sung, so they will be a bit troubled. But there's still backing, and the regime won't collapse all that suddenly. From then on there will be a lot of change in North Korea-change like in China, maintaining the socialist system but adapting the free-market system. But the problem is, there will be turmoil caused by people who want revenge for all the hards.h.i.+p they've gone through. I believe Kim Jong-il doesn't have the kind of leaders.h.i.+p ability Kim Il-sung has. So the people who have been oppressed will rise up and take revenge."

I asked Dong what he thought South Korea and the United States should be doing. "I would like to see the U.S. put more pressure on North Korea," he said. "Sanctions, demanding to inspect the human rights situation. Mean-while South Korea should play the good cop and say to the U.S., 'Don't press them so hard.' Thus there could be a good channel for North-South talks. But the U.S. still would have to maintain the pressure. Even if there are North-South talks, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations and the United States should be able to step up the pressure if the talks don't go well. But I do believe that to achieve normal ties between North and South will be very difficult. It would be easier to normalize relations between the U.S. and North Korea or between j.a.pan and North Korea."

Chung Seong-san, a soldier until his January 1995 defection, gave me a "yes, but ..." answer to the question of whether the communist new man (or woman) really existed in North Korea. Chung told me he had contracted polio as a child and suffered from "stiff" legs. A man of very casual demeanor and dress, wearing a white-on-white windbreaker, light plaid slacks and loafers, Chung exhibited no obvious physical symptoms other than swollen knuckles. (Those were not uncommon among North Korean army veterans, trained in knuckle-smas.h.i.+ng martial arts.) Evidently Chung's had been a mild case of polio or the diagnosis was faulty.

At one point in our conversation Chung said to me: "I've met a lot of North Korea specialists. Theoretically they know more about North Korea than I do, but they don't know the North Korean heart." Chung's heart story was a complicated one, sometimes self-contradictory it turned out. "I was bald until I was eleven or twelve," he told me. "I got special treatment because of my illness, due to the benevolence of the party."

Hearing Chung say that, I remembered that neither I nor other visitors had seen handicapped people in Pyongyang. Lee Woong-pyong, the MIG19 pilot who escaped with his plane to the South, had told me that, in Pyongyang, "before the 1970s you could find many beggars and people disabled by the war. After that they were exiled to rural areas in the provinces. The reason the authorities gave was that Pyongyang is a cultured city, with lots of foreign visitors and there should be no distractions from the scenery." Ahn Choong-hak, a former soldier and logging camp worker who became a Kia automobile salesman when he reached the South, told me, "In the early 1980s they rounded up all the midgets in North Korea and placed them in M.aemu-ri. Relatives started complaining, so around 1989 or 1990 they released them."

I told Chung I was surprised by his remarks; I had understood that the regime treated handicapped people shabbily. "There's different treatment for each group, but basically North Korean society is for the handicapped," he replied. "They have a specific policy regarding handicapped people. The best treated are those who become disabled while in the army-amputees and people who lose their sight, for example. Kim s.h.i.+-kwon, who became paralyzed in the Korean War, is the symbol of the disabled. He gets the most from the regime. There's always a car waiting to take him anywhere; doctors come to check him."

When I spoke with Chung he had been in South Korea for under half a year since his defection-he was still in the custody of the intelligence service pending his qualification for citizens.h.i.+p-but already he felt prepared to make a comparison. "The South Koreans don't have the kind of compa.s.sion the North Koreans have," he a.s.serted. "In North Korea a friend lost a leg when a grenade exploded. He was helpless for the time being, but a very attractive woman factory worker volunteered to live with him. This is the result of training in selflessness."

In each North Korean province, Chung said, "there are two special schools for the disabled. They call them 'schools for the blind'-even if the problem is cerebral palsy. They have all the basics for dealing with problems such as sight and hearing impairment: braille, sign language and so on. There are special factories for the handicapped to work in. The North Korean regime says that, as long as you have that revolutionary spirit burning inside you, you get this special treatment."

Recent history however, had been unkind to the disabled along with everyone else. "It's true that discrepancies are developing in the socialist countries," Chung said. "They don't have the resources for the normal people, so how can they provide properly for the disabled?" North Korea's special schools, he said, "don't have the resources for improvement." Still, "even though North Koreans may not have the doctors and the medicine, they're trying."

Up to this point, Chung had been positive in his recollections. But he abruptly changed his tone when I asked him to estimate what percentage of the people had internalized the officially encouraged att.i.tude of loving and helping the other person-had become examples of North Korea's "new man," similar to the ideal Christian. "Although the system provides special privileges for the disabled, you can't fool human nature," he replied. "People are not all that kind to the disabled. In the 1960s, Pang Hwa-su, an elementary pupil, got third degree burns all over his body. Doctors really did peel off their own skin to graft onto him. Now he's a well-grown man. But the doctors today are like vampires. They're not for the people. The case where the woman volunteered to live with the amputee-that hardly ever happens. In North Korea there are about twenty-five severely paralyzed people a year. For each of them, the regime selects a woman and forces a marriage. Basically the women go through that kind of ordeal because they get re-warded by the government and because the summons is like the word of G.o.d. They get color televisions, money, and so on, if they agree, but if they refuse they'll be sent to prison camp."

I asked if there had been some turning point when popular altruism started to decline. "It's hard to say," Chung repled. "Maybe it was after 1985, possibly because of the food shortages. The second major cause may be repression, but they probably don't even realize that. I realized it while I was working there, visiting the schools for the blind to do research."

Chung was born in 1969 in Pyongyang, the capital. His father was a warehouse clerk. His mother stayed home to keep house. He told me he had gone to Chanhyun Elementary School and Songbuk Junior and Senior Middle School. That set me off on a line of questioning about the top schools in Pyongyang. The real elite, he told me, attended Mangyongdae Revolutionary School and Namsan Junior-Senior Middle School. "Namsan Junior was called, in 1948, Pyongyang First Elementary Junior School. After the Korean War they called it Namsan Junior and it was specifically for offspring of Korean War heroes and very high party officials." Over the decades, Chung said, the regime-unhappy-with the qualifications of the cla.s.s of 1958 at Kim Il-sung University-had tried various strategems for expanding the pool of Namsan applicants in order to bring in brighter youngsters. The children of somewhat less exalted officials were admitted if they were relatively gifted intellectually. "In 1984, they changed the selection system. Before 1984, 100 percent of those accepted were high officials' kids, but after 1985 two out of five were not from that background but were geniuses-although they still had to have proper cla.s.s backgrounds. After 1985, the compet.i.tion was about 300 to one, and you could enter from any part of the country."

I asked about the difference between Namsan Junior-Senior and Man-gyongdae Revolutionary School. "Mangyongdae was an orphanage for children of Korean War martyrs, and it also accepted children of especially loyal members of the regime-spies working in South Korea for example," Chung said. "There are special cases where high army officers send their kids or grandchildren to get them trained for the army. You couldn't term this a normal, average school. More members are sent to the army and become the central members of the army."

After his own graduation in 1986 from the lesser SongbukSenior, Chung himself went into army. "I was a writer in the army, writing propaganda for the regime," he told me. "North Korea has ten army corps. I was in the Second Corps, Ninth Division. At the same time I was taking a correspondence course in film production from Pyongyang Research Movie College and was a member of the national Writers' Coalition. In the Ninth Division I was in the mobile propaganda unit. I did my studying while I was with my military unit and occasionally visited the college for an exam. My work was to go around boosting the morale of my fellow soldiers. We put on stage shows, comedies, song and dance performances. I was both producing and writing. From 1988 until I defected I worked as a producer. At the beginning I had a goal in mind, which motivated me. The goal was to workdiligently, enter the party and attend university."

So, I asked, had he been opportunistically trying to get ahead without particularly believing in the propaganda? "Yes," he replied. I asked when he had stopped believing. "I can't give you a turning point," he said. "It was gradual change while I was growing up. Since I know a lot about the regime, I started to know the discrepancies. That's when my heart changed. In Jilin Province, China, in 1938, Kim Il-sung formed a 'soviet' and made a speech: 'My ultimate goal is for the people to to eat rice with meat soup, live under a tile roof and-wear silk clothes.' Over the decades he has done none of it. One incident comes to mind: My elder brother's marriage ceremony in 1990. It's a tradition that you put rice cakes and chestnuts on the table. The 'rice cakes' at his wedding were made of radish and the 'chestnuts' of dirt."

A more specific turning point for him, Chung said, came in 1991- "after I heard South Korean radio programs. South Korea sent propaganda balloons. I got a radio from a balloon and started listening to South Korean broadcasts-M.BC, CBS [the Christian Broadcasting System], KBS. When I acquired the radio I was suffering from self-contradictions. I had to write North Korean propaganda saying that all the people were living well and had plenty to eat. I felt the discrepancies. I listened to KBS programs specifically targeted to North Koreans. At first I didn't believe them but later I acknowledged some of what they said. Even to this moment I don't believe all of it."

I asked what he thought of the U.S. plan for Radio Free Asia broadcasts to North Korea. "It will fail," was his first reaction. "People don't have the radios. The frequencies would be blocked. For that to be possible, to try to move North Korean society through ma.s.s media, you'd have to make radios available first. Loyal people are selected to pick up the South Korean balloon drops. I was part of that. It's government policy to pick them up. It's hard because they usually fell on residential areas. I think the balloon-drop strategy is very effective. They mostly come in July or August. North Koreans always look up to the sky then: 'Maybe today I'll be lucky' When the balloons drop, dogs run toward them to get food. If this is so successful, you may ask, why isn't it changing North Korean society? The answer is there are usually only one or two radios per balloon-not enough."

Radio was involved in Chung's own decision to defect. "I had entered the party last year and had a chance to enter university, but I got caught with a radio," he told me. "I could have gotten out of it and gone to the university, since I knew people, but it would have been a black mark against me all through my career. But my main reason for defecting was artistic. In North Korea I could only produce what the government told me to make. I wanted to express myself creatively. I want to study to become a producer in South Korea."

I asked him whether North Korean soldiers wanted war. "Any ordinary soldier wants to fight," Chung said. "He's never experienced defeat. Ignorance makes him want to fight."

Although Chung argued that the "new man" att.i.tude had decayed, especially among doctors, I heard a somewhat different view from Stephen Linton. Linton, an American, grew up in South Korea as the son of missionaries and organized a North Koreafocused philanthropic foundation that he named for a missionary forebear, the Reverend Eugene Bell. I had first met Linton when he served as interpreter for the U.S. table tennis team in Pyongyang in 1979. I trusted him and his organization to use effectively my own periodic, modest contributions. His brother John was a medical doctor working in Seoul, and one of the Eugene Bell Foundation's specialties was providing equipment and medicine to help North Korean hospitals cope with an alarming jump in cases of tuberculosis. "I don't know about doctors giving flesh," Steve Linton told me, "but take fluoroscopes-you can look through somebody and use a screen instead of film. There's a crude kind of fluoro-scope that requires the radiation source on one side, the patient in the middle and the doctor on the other side, to diagnose TB. They know it's hard on the doctor. Cataracts are the first effect. If you're lucky that's all. Otherwise brain damage. I can't help respecting somebody "who will look into an X-ray machine."

Even as my hosts in Pyongyang in 1989 were a.s.suring me that all was well in paradise, North Korea was in trouble. A visitor, tightly restricted in what he could see while inside the country, could only sense that something was amiss. But evidence was building up outside to show that the regime was failing in its elementary duty of feeding the people.3 That failure threatened Pyongyang's single-minded efforts to maintain loyalty to Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il at a fever pitch. More and more of the Kims' subjects started to make the connection, as Chung Seong-san did, between economic backwardness and the policies of their top leaders. That failure threatened Pyongyang's single-minded efforts to maintain loyalty to Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il at a fever pitch. More and more of the Kims' subjects started to make the connection, as Chung Seong-san did, between economic backwardness and the policies of their top leaders.

The connection came most readily to the minds of North Koreans who, like Dong Young-jun, were stationed abroad, and who thus were exposed to information and viewpoints unavailable to their stay-at-home countrymen. Food shortages worsened to the point where even some elite expatriates feared for their livelihoods if they should return home. Kang Myong-do, son-in-law of a prime minister, Kang Song-san, told the Seoul newspaper Joong-Ang Ilbo Joong-Ang Ilbo that North Korean spies in China, to avoid being sent home, had fabricated and submitted reports setting out a need for them to remain in China. Their specific scam was to tell their Pyongyang masters that South Korean special forces had been sent to kidnap North Koreans in China and take them south. "Kim Jong-il and Kang Song-san still believe that," Kang Myong-do told the newspaper. that North Korean spies in China, to avoid being sent home, had fabricated and submitted reports setting out a need for them to remain in China. Their specific scam was to tell their Pyongyang masters that South Korean special forces had been sent to kidnap North Koreans in China and take them south. "Kim Jong-il and Kang Song-san still believe that," Kang Myong-do told the newspaper.4 The story ill.u.s.trates the fact that China had become more prosperous than North Korea. People living just across the border in China's Yanbian region were in perhaps the best position to notice that s.h.i.+ft. "North Koreans were better off than people in China, including Yanbian, until the early 1970s," one such person, an ethnic Korean professor at the Yanbian Academy of Social Sciences, told me.5 "During the 1960s lots of Koreans from China went over to North Korea because life there was much better than in China. There was a lot of internal strife in China during the 1960s. From the 1970s, the situation in North Korea started deteriorating because the government spent too much on the military after the 1962 Cuban missile crisis and the Vietnam War. Gradually China, including Yanbian, pulled ahead. "During the 1960s lots of Koreans from China went over to North Korea because life there was much better than in China. There was a lot of internal strife in China during the 1960s. From the 1970s, the situation in North Korea started deteriorating because the government spent too much on the military after the 1962 Cuban missile crisis and the Vietnam War. Gradually China, including Yanbian, pulled ahead.

The difference was that people in China not only had money; they also had something to spend it on. The North Koreans got their salaries but there was nothing to buy with their money."

The professor, speaking in 1992, said that people in North Korea had been "hungry although not actually starving, since the mid-1970s. The exception is Pyongyang. I have an aunt in Pyongyang who is the widow of a 1930s martyr in the anti-j.a.panese struggle. I visited her and found she had plenty. She was well taken care of. She had lots of sacks of rice. For the others, the government has been trying to improve the situation but there's been no real improvement since the 1970s. Laborers get eighteen kilograms of grain per month; office workers, fifteen kilos. Both China and North Korea distribute food directly to the people as a means of coping with scarcity. The basic principle is: If there's a scarcity, the state must ration. If there's a surplus, let people buy it in the stores. There are a lot more side dishes in China, and meat is now very common in China. Chinese can buy meat in stores. In North Korea, the stores' stocks are very limited. Meat and dairy products there are still rationed by the state, because of their scarcity."

Still, the professor told me, it would be a mistake to imagine that people's natural complaints translated into significant active dissent. "I can't judge the amount of complaining, since it's suppressed," he said, "but people do complain everywhere. The government won't tolerate dissent. People get executed. So an uprising would be next to impossible. It's important to note that, whatever happens, people do conform to the rules and regulations. They believe in the ideology."

Not everyone believed, though. There were cynics like Ko Chung-song, who had been an employee of a district office for preservation of revolutionary historical sites before he defected in June 1993.6 The office was all about ideology, but Ko's job was about food, fuel and other essentials of life. The day I met him in 1994 Ko wore rimless, rectangular gla.s.ses, a nice suit and tie, a gold watch. All in all, he looked like a typical young South Korean bureaucrat or corporate official. The office was all about ideology, but Ko's job was about food, fuel and other essentials of life. The day I met him in 1994 Ko wore rimless, rectangular gla.s.ses, a nice suit and tie, a gold watch. All in all, he looked like a typical young South Korean bureaucrat or corporate official.

Ko told me that as a young student in North Hw.a.n.ghae Province, he had "basically believed Kim Il-sung was a G.o.d, a savior. In high school I thought my uniform had been given to me by Kim Il-sung. 'He's educating me for a good life,' I believed. So I thought very highly of him. All the education is centered around Kim Il-sung. The first thing you say when you wake up is, 'Oh, Great Leader Kim Il-sung.' The first thing you learn to say as a baby is 'Kim Il-sung.' So how can you not not wors.h.i.+p him? At the nursery they have a portrait of Kim Il-sung. Before you eat you say 'Thank thee, thou great Kim Il-sung.'" wors.h.i.+p him? At the nursery they have a portrait of Kim Il-sung. Before you eat you say 'Thank thee, thou great Kim Il-sung.'"

In school, "if you don't get 100 percent on your ideological test you're a failure." All the ideological instruction, combined with "volunteer" labor, left little time to study other subjects or have fun. "I did more labor in my school days than after I entered into society" Ko told me. "Out of a year, four months would be spent laboring. All I can remember is toiling away my days. If I had been paid I would have gotten a lot of money. We would study in the morning and work in the afternoon."

It was a specific incident after he had finished high school, though, that really sparked Ko's cynicism. "Once the district party told me: 'We'd like you to volunteer for a very special, high-level mission.' I thought it was some kind of re-ward, but after I agreed to volunteer I was told to go to the coal mines. I was a diligent, hard worker, so they took advantage of me. I had believed them, and I felt really betrayed." It sounded, I told him, very much like the cla.s.sic ploy of the U.S. Army recruiters whose posters urged young men to see the world and learn a wonderful new profession--which turned out to involve cleaning latrines and peeling potatoes.

"High blood pressure kept me out of the army," Ko said. "I asked my brother to get me exempted at the time of the August 8 [1976] axe-killing incident at the Demilitarized Zone." After falling for the "special mission" bait-and-switch maneuver, Ko said, "I protested for a year, refusing to work in the mines, and then was sent to do forced labor on a farm near Pyongyang."

I was surprised to hear he had managed to hold out for so long before being punished. "Luckily I had good family connections," Ko explained. "I got out of the forced farm labor quickly thanks to my uncle. When you're sent for a job you need a munkwan munkwan-party permission doc.u.ment. Once you're sent to forced labor, without strong backup you can't leave. But my uncle got my munkwan munkwan changed. I went to work in the Hw.a.n.gju irrigation office, and then from 1984 to 1987 I worked in Kanggye Military Factory No. 26, which made missiles for anti-submarine warfare, and rockets. It had a false name, 'Kanggye Tractor Co.'" changed. I went to work in the Hw.a.n.gju irrigation office, and then from 1984 to 1987 I worked in Kanggye Military Factory No. 26, which made missiles for anti-submarine warfare, and rockets. It had a false name, 'Kanggye Tractor Co.'"

But Ko told me he had "still felt rebellious. Lots of my relatives were high officials, and I had attended a specialized school. So until I was betrayed by the government with that 'special mission' trick, I'd held high hopes for my career. Now there was forced labor on my record, and that goes against you. I never trusted the authorities again. I was sick of the brain-was.h.i.+ng and started listening to South Korean broadcasts.

"In 1987 I went to work for the Kanggye Food Supply Department. The food shortage then was worse than usual. When I arrived things were already in a pitiful state, but in 1989 the situation started getting far worse still. It gets worse and worse each year. To meet North Koreans' food requirements, about six million tons of rice are needed. But only about four million tons are produced. That means two million tons should be imported. In Kanggye there are 400,000 people. Kanggye is a mountainous area that can't grow its own rice. We got it all from North Pyongan Province, or it was imported-say from China. We were always behind in distributions by two months or so. The average worker supposedly is ent.i.tled to 700 grams a day. For unemployed people, it's 300 grams. But the authorities said they needed to store up rice for use in case of war, so we had to take some out of the ration. So the actual supply was about 530 grams. Around 1989 and 1990, while I was there, we were providing about 530 grams."

That food-supply job, Ko told me, put him where the power was at a time when ordinary people had begun to turn to theft and scavenging to fill their stomachs. "In North Korea right now, food is equivalent to money. In rural areas, if you want to buy things like appliances you have to pay in food instead of money. I never stole, but generally to sustain life in North Korea you have to steal. If you work in a pencil factory you have to steal pencils, which you then trade in the black market for food. I didn't have to steal because I could fix up the doc.u.ments to supply me enough food. In North Korea any job having to do with food was a high position. Sons and daughters of high officials liked to work there."

I told Ko about the youth festival helper who had asked me for $100 to buy goods at the special store selling foreign goods. "To earn $100 a North Korean would have to work 10 years. That guide is probably quite a rich man. One month's salary is about 60 won, won, while $100 equals 7,500 while $100 equals 7,500 won won or so. You made a wealthy man there." I asked Ko whether the man might have been instructed by the regime to ask for foreign exchange. "Of course he did it on his own," Ko replied. "The North Korean government is too proud to make those workers ask Americans for money." (I pointed out to Ko that the regime was not too proud to make its diplomats smuggle drugs and pa.s.s counterfeit bills for hard currency.) or so. You made a wealthy man there." I asked Ko whether the man might have been instructed by the regime to ask for foreign exchange. "Of course he did it on his own," Ko replied. "The North Korean government is too proud to make those workers ask Americans for money." (I pointed out to Ko that the regime was not too proud to make its diplomats smuggle drugs and pa.s.s counterfeit bills for hard currency.) When Ko left the Kanggye Food Supply Department he continued to be involved with food. His new job was supplying food, coal and so on for the forty-five people or so-workers and management-in the Chagang Province Preservation Office for Historical Monuments, in Kanggye city. Chagang province is close to Manchuria-Northeast China-and includes much of the route of Kim Il-sung's storied boyhood journey for learning. There is, for example, the inn whose keeper back in 1923 gave Kim Il-sung an extra blanket at no charge. The high command during the Korean War was in what later became Chagang Province, and Kim Jong-il spent part of his childhood in Kanggye.

The preservation office was in charge of historical monuments including "slogan trees." "In the mountains during the struggle against j.a.panese rule some people peeled back the bark of trees and scratched praise of the 'great general Kim Il-sung' in the wood. A couple of those kuho kuho (inscribed trees) are authentic, but others later popped up all over North Korea-put there by the authorities. I haven't personally seen it done, but I've seen the evidence of their work. A committee established by the party proclaimed, 'We're totally faithful to Kim Il-sung, so we'll go to the mountains to find the inscriptions.' They reported the ones they had 'found' and I went to look at them. I could tell they had just cut into the trees a few days before-not decades before. They're propaganda to make people wors.h.i.+p Kim Il-sung." (inscribed trees) are authentic, but others later popped up all over North Korea-put there by the authorities. I haven't personally seen it done, but I've seen the evidence of their work. A committee established by the party proclaimed, 'We're totally faithful to Kim Il-sung, so we'll go to the mountains to find the inscriptions.' They reported the ones they had 'found' and I went to look at them. I could tell they had just cut into the trees a few days before-not decades before. They're propaganda to make people wors.h.i.+p Kim Il-sung."7 It was a similar story with other "historical" monuments, Ko said. "Kim Jong-il was born in the Soviet Union, but they made a monument on Mount Paektu saying he was born there. In Mangyongdae, Kim Il-sung's birthplace, you can find markers for the place where Kim studied, the place he played and so on. Well, the authorities have put up the same sort of monuments for Kim Jong-il, in Kanggye. 'Here's where he thought about the revolution. This shows why he must be the leader.' 'Here's where he played.' Actually, Kim Jong-il stayed only three months or so in Kanggye, then went to China with his sister, Kim Kyong-hui. But they still made the monuments. The whole district of Hankye-ri in Kanggye city is one big 'historical' monument."

Ko worked for the historical office from mid-1991 until he defected in June 1993. "From the moment I started working there I felt it was all fake," he told me. "No one talked about it. You could have your own feelings about it, but you couldn't openly talk about it. I'm pretty sure a lot of people felt that way but they didn't dare express it clearly." As for the reaction of the general public, "In the past, all those historical monuments had great effect," Ko said. "People went to those places and studied the inscriptions. But now they don't pay any attention. People started changing two or three years ago [1991 or 1992], expecially in the elite cla.s.ses. University students got stirred up. With the downfall of communism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, people were starting to think, 'Maybe there's something wrong with communism.' Also, there was no more aid coming from the Russians. So the economy declined terribly. People today no longer care about ideology- they only care about their survival. People think something is bound to happen in North Korea. That's what I meant by saying the students got stirred up. Members of the elite believe that North Korea will be influenced by international changes."

Ko told me he had "felt some of this before starting to work in the monuments office. I began listening to radio-KBS from South Korea, radio from Yanbian, the Radio Moscow Korean-language service. From around 11 P.M. to early morning, you can tune in the KBS social education station well. I started listening in 1985 and began doubting the regime in 1989. The state doesn't know, but people listen to secretly imported radios." He had bought his radio, a Sony short-wave model, from a man he met on a business trip. Maybe 5 to 6 percent of the population had radios capable of receiving at least AM-medium wave-transmissions at the time he left, he estimated. He guessed that a third of those with the equipment-perhaps 2 percent of the population-listened to foreign stations.

"My friends and I would even get together to listen to the South Korean broadcasts and debate what we had heard," Ko said. "Kim Il-sung was saying in his speeches that in order for us to have a lavish life and prosper we must reunify. I wanted to learn the prospects for reunification. On the radio I heard about the downfall of foreign socialism and about the virtual capitalism rampant in China. I wanted to find out the prospects for Korea. I ultimately defected because I came to believe the regime could not survive for long. It's bound to fall. Everybody believes something is going to happen in a couple of years. When friends get together, they debate how North Korea will change. Someone might say 'What do you think about the collapse of the USSR? Do you think capitalism or socialism is better? What about Chinese-style, free-market socialism?' The regime's propaganda backfires. On North Korean news they show footage of students demonstrating in South Korea. Ordinary people say 'Oh, society must be very harsh there.' Educated people think, 'To have such demonstrations, they must have a very democratic society' Other issues people talk about in these private discussions include oil. The oil supply that the Soviet Union used to provide is now cut and oil from China drastically reduced. So what is the future of North Korea?"

I asked him what people thought was the answer to that question. "Everybody believes a war will break out sooner or later," he said. "A hundred percent want war to occur. The food shortage is terrible. Distribution is halted, so people figure they will die of hunger or die in war. They're even prepared to die in a nuclear war. A hundred percent believe that North Korea would win, so they support war. They were brought up to wors.h.i.+p Kim Il-sung. No matter what changes occur, they always wors.h.i.+p Kim Il-sung. They've been so brain-washed since birth that they're willing to die for the country."

So was it the case that the people did not connect Kim's rule to their problems? "They don't blame Kim Il-sung, but they do blame Kim Jong-il," Ko said. "The moment Kim Jong-il came into power the problems started, they think. All North Koreans believe Kim Il-sung is a war hero who brought about the independence of Korea. They wors.h.i.+p him. Even though I betrayed North Korea, I still revere Kim Il-sung, think very highly of him. Probably all the defectors here think that way It's such a closed society."

Ko had found, he said, that "people in South Korea are not alert enough. I know that Kim Jong-il is brutal enough to start a war. Most people in North Korea believe the reason North and South cannot reunify is that the U.S. military is stationed here. And if the U.S. moves out, they think, reunification is only a matter of time. But removing U.S. troops won't bring about reunification. Kim Il-sung knows that if free markets and other foreign influences come in, his regime will collapse. I support economic sanctions. But for economic sanctions to work China would have to give up its socialist ideal.

Without that change we can't have change in North Korea, because the regime has the support of the Chinese."

I told Ko about Was.h.i.+ngton's plans for Radio Free Asia broadcasts in Korean and asked if he thought those could help open the society. "That's an exciting idea!" he said. "A lot of people listen to the radio so it has a high chance of disrupting the regime. It would be effective. Most North Koreans don't know what's happening in North Korea. When I was living there I was waiting for someone to tell me what I should do. No one ever did. On those broadcasts, defectors should talk and persuade their friends in North Korea-let them know we're alive. Maybe that would inspire them. Put it in terms they can understand. Instead of having someone say that South Korea is experiencing an economic boom, get defectors on the radio to give examples of-what can be bought down here." As a percentage of the respective average incomes, "the price of a Hyundai Sonata II here, for example, is equivalent to the price of a suit in North Korea."

I asked him about the leaflets the South Koreans dropped by balloon. "I've read them myself," he replied, "although you're forbidden to read them. If word gets out they have been dropped, State Security sends lots of people out to watch. If anyone is seen picking up one of the leaflets to read it, someone will tattle and the person reading it will go to prison."

Another North Korean who told me about the growing criticism of Kim Jong-il in the 1980s was Kim Nam-joon, who defected to the South in August 1989 while serving as a People's Army second lieutenant. "The food shortage got worse in the early 1980s," Kim Nam-joon told me.8 "Most people tied that to the appearance of Kim Jong-il on the political stage. Kim Jong-il is a very unlucky man. He graduated from Kim Il-sung University in 1964. Until the late 1970s he worked quietly in the party. In the 1980s he started appearing in public. People connected all the failures to him. In 1984, when there was flooding in South Korea, North Korea offered aid to the South. Each month at a military hospital in my area a two-and-a-half-ton truck had come, filled with supplies. After we started aiding South Korea, the truck would show up with only two kilograms or so of supplies per month. For workers, the grain ration had been 700 grams a day. The authorities would subract 20 grams to store in case of-war. Then they started taking another 20 grams out for aid to South Korea." Military men got a larger ration-800 grams was the standard-but still, when that was cut, "I could feel it," Kim said. "Most people tied that to the appearance of Kim Jong-il on the political stage. Kim Jong-il is a very unlucky man. He graduated from Kim Il-sung University in 1964. Until the late 1970s he worked quietly in the party. In the 1980s he started appearing in public. People connected all the failures to him. In 1984, when there was flooding in South Korea, North Korea offered aid to the South. Each month at a military hospital in my area a two-and-a-half-ton truck had come, filled with supplies. After we started aiding South Korea, the truck would show up with only two kilograms or so of supplies per month. For workers, the grain ration had been 700 grams a day. The authorities would subract 20 grams to store in case of-war. Then they started taking another 20 grams out for aid to South Korea." Military men got a larger ration-800 grams was the standard-but still, when that was cut, "I could feel it," Kim said.

Kim Nam-joon told me that in 1989, "fifteen more grams were cut from the grain ration to pay for the youth festival, so we were down to 645 grams a day." I asked about what Asians refer to as "side dishes," a catchall term for the rest of their diet besides grain. He laughed bitterly. "If it was the season for Chinese cabbage, that's what we'd have. Maybe just salted. Or if it was radishes-salted. To try to make us think we were getting a variety of dishes, they would cut the vegetable in different shapes: a bowl in which it was cut into cubes, another in which it was sliced-the same vegetable. Soup was just the water that had been used for was.h.i.+ng rice, with a little salt added."

Actually, Kim Nam-joon told me, blaming Kim Jong-il in that case was unfair since the shortages of the 1980s could be traced directly back to the early 1970s "when Kim Il-sung made his declaration about national farming. It was nonsense. He did it because there wasn't enough coal, so people had to go to the mountains and cut trees for firewood. So the mountains are bare. Kim Il-sung said since there are no trees on the mountains we'll use them for farmland. OK, you guys, cut the trees--we'll farm there. 'Reclaim more land' was the motto, but you can't fight nature. After a couple of years the mountains started eroding from the rain, and the runoff clogged the rivers. The water supply couldn't get to other farm areas."9 That struck me as a rather sophisticated a.n.a.lysis of agricultural policy for an army junior officer to have recited, so I asked Kim Nam-joon if people really had talked in such terms about the Great Leader's policy failures. "They're so simple-minded they don't complain," he replied. "They only see what's in front of them." What he had told me was "something I figured out after coming to Seoul. I only speculated about it while I was in North Korea. But I had a calculator in 1987 or '88. I once calculated something. All the people were hungry, but the media said that each year North Korea was harvesting 8.8 million tons of grain. I calculated, even a.s.suming there were around 30 million people in North Korea"-the actual population was only something over half that-"and applied the standard grain rations to see how much grain that would be. I came up with a figure of 4.5 million tons. So I wondered where the other 4.3 million tons had gone. I realized it was another lie."

The thought of the regime having lied to him set Kim Nam-joon of