Ellen UnderwoodHST 1032 (62392) - The U.S. History Since 1877Spring 2008

“The Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag.” Third Edition.Chol-Hwan Kang, Rigoulot, Pierre. New York, NY: Basic Books, 2005. 1-255.

“Aquariums of Pyongyang” is the first published memoir, by a ten-year survivor of

the North Korean Yodok gulag, Kang Chol-Hwan, who managed to escape from the

miserable conditions of North Korea’s Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Kang

later managed to escape North Korea and he currently resides in Seoul, South Korea

where he is a reporter for Chosun Ilbo, South Korea’s leading newspaper, and covers

stories on North Korean refugees and defectors.

Kang Chol-Hwan was an upper middle class child living with his idealistic North

Korean family who resided in Pyongyang, a few dozen steps from the Soviet embassy.

He lived with his paternal grandparents, parents, third uncle, and younger sister. Kang’s

family experienced relative wealth due to his grandfather’s success and helpful, yet

distant, family members residing in Japan. Kang’s grandfather tended to express his

frustration and critiques against the North Korean bureaucracy, which in retrospect, was

very unwise. Consequently, Kang’s grandfather disappeared in July of 1977. A few

weeks later, Kang and his family were shipped to the Yodok gulag of Pyongyang, North

Korea, excluding his mother who was the daughter of a “heroic family,” and was spared

a trip to the camp.

Kang tells of the numerous beatings that he witnessed and received from the

guards and teachers of the Yodok camp. He tells of the horrible living conditions of his

small hut without heat, in weather conditions that were below freezing. The camp’s

harsh diet of corn infected many of the detainees with the pellagra disease and many

meals consisted of rats, salamanders and insects. Rice, rabbits, vegetables, and fish

could have beem attained if one dared to steal from a military guard’s plantation. Kang

explains how starvation turned families against each other and brought out the animal in

everyone.

Along with the confined space holding nearly 200,000 prisoners, Kang explains

the harsh conditions of the camp’s latrine. He speaks of the minimal distribution of

medicine and clothing, which any family would be considered lucky upon receiving more

than once every two years. Kang recalls harsh working conditions and the force of

abstinence required of all prisoners under the authority of the camp’s military guards.

After all, the North Korean state idolized eugenics, so the undesirable

counterrevolutionary prisoners were prevented from reproducing. Women were forced

to give up their children and they were publicly embarrassed by foretelling their sexual

encounters.

Kang recalls the demands of public execution and when he was forced to witness

the horrific events of hangings and shootings of many prisoners, whose only offenses

were trying to escape the camp. Kang talks of the punishments that families received if

any of their members committed suicide or denounced the great leaders of the North

Korean regime, Kim Il-sung and his son, Kim Jong-il. After ten years, Kang and his

family are dismissed from the camp to perform agricultural work on a collective farm.

Sadly, Kang’s grandmother and father die, but Kang finally is allowed to reunite with his

mother.

Kang’s friend An-hyuk warns Kang that he is under high surveillance because of

his continued listening of banned South Korean radio, and that the security agents are

looking to get him into serious trouble, so that he may be forced to return the

concentration camp. Kang’s friend An-hyuk has already failed at making the great

escape to China, but he ensures Kang that escaping the threats of the security agents

would be their best chance of not having to return to the concentration camp. Kang and

An-hyuk make their great escape to China through bribery and deceit of many guards

along the way. They experienced many obstacles of disguising their identities and

finding shelter, but many of An-hyuk’s acquaintances provided helping hands. Both

men, utterly afraid yet hopeful, set off on a cargo ship departing from China to South

Korea. Fortunately, their trip was successful and they had survived the escape, allowing

Kang to create one of the most terrifying memoirs expressing the first published account

to emerge from North Korea.

The authors’ organization was excellent, beginning with Kang’s preface of North

Korea’s harsh communist regime, following with his childhood experiences. Kang also

included a short biography of his grandparents arrival to Japan and the wonderful

achievements they’d accomplished. He explained how his grandmother was a

passionate activist in the Korean Worker’s Party (as the North Korean communist party

was called) and that she wrote of how she longed to move to North Korea, because of

the Chosen Soren’s depiction of North Korea’s urgent need for individuals with

knowledge and abilities. Kang’s grandmother also fed upon the propaganda which

promoted that in North Korea a person could serve the people and the state rather than

Japan, which was considered to be a pawn of American Imperialism. Kang continued

with the horror of the Yodok camp, his release, and his ultimate escape to South Korea.

Kang’s writing style was very informative, explaining many aspects of the North

Korean government in which I had never heard of before. He was very humorous in his

writing at times, and I believe it was to lighten the mood of his horrific journey. An

example of this humor is his title for chapter sixteen, “Ten Years in the Camp: Thank

You, Kim Il-sung!” There are no use of aids such as maps or photographs, other than

the picture of hisself, grandmother, sister, third aunt, and third uncle, one year after

Kang’s release from the Yodok labor camp.

This book was extremely valuable and has allowed my knowledge of North

Korea’s current and yet very disturbing state to expand. Rigoulot’s introduction allowed

me to discover more about global history and insight of North Korea, which is in fact the

world’s last Stalinist regime. I learned that after America bombed Japan in 1945, Korea

was split in two, while the north remained occupied by Soviet troops, and the south by

Americans. In 1948, Kim Il-sung prepared an army that allowed the Soviet army to pull

out of the north and deprived American military presence in the south. As the north kept

attacking the south, under Kim Il-sung’s orders, the Korean War began. The UN led

military assistance to South Korea, and although they prevented a takeover, the UN

failed to reunify the country.

I’ve also learned that unlike South Korea, North Korea’s economy has suffered

terribly and famine has also spread across the country filled with extensive prisons and

scattered camps. This book has not only opened my eyes to the courageousness of the

author, but to the horrific events presently taking place, millions of miles away from me,

that I have yet to learn of until now. This book was very informative, heartfelt, and well

written. I felt as if I’d experienced Kang’s life altering journey every step of the way. I

selected this book because I had never heard of horrific events taking place in North

Korea.

The Aquariums of Pyongyang is a co-written autobiography. Kang Chol-Hwan

had the opportunity to publish this memoir along with the help of Pierre Rigoulot and his

translator Yair Reiner ( a South Korean academician and a specialist in French

literature). “Pierre Rigoulot is a journalist, historian, and human rights activist living in

Paris, France. He is the author of numerous books on the history of political repression

and contributed the North Korean chapter to the best-selling The Black Book of

Communism” (www.ebookstore.sony.com) .

The main reason for publishing this book is so that Kang can speak out about

human rights violations in North Korea so that the world gains a collective conscience

and also speaks out against Kim Jong-il and his awful regime. Ultimately, Kang plans on

scaring Kim Jong-il into stopping his cruelty. Pierre Rigoulot wrote this book with the

common hope of raising international awareness. He wants everyone to be aware of the

last Stalinist regime that is responsible for one of the worst famines of the end of the

twentieth century. “Reading this book is a first step toward making the repression in

North Korea a major concern for human rights defenders around the world,” writes

Regaled in the introduction to the Aquariums of Pyongyang.

I’d say that the major thesis of this book would be the ultimate cause of North

and South Korea’s split and the effect it had (and still has) on millions of Korean’s forced

to live under the Kim’s regimes. The morality of North Korea’s totalitarian regimes are

constantly addressed by Kang, who analyzes the horrific states of North Korea’s

economy and citizens. North Korea’s dictatorship and authority suppresses its citizens

through terror and censorship, not to mention policies of belligerent nationalism (such

as constant worship and praise of Kim sung-Il and his son Kim Jong-il).

The book is somewhat controversial, as Kang challenges the South Korean

beliefs that one can achieve peace only through reconciliation and cooperation. He

accuses South Korean of ignoring Kim Jong-il’s brutal persecution of his own people.

He mentions the South Korean government’s absence in the UN vote for three years,

and mentions that the vote was an opportunity to obtain resolutions regarding North

Korea’s human rights situation. In the preface, Kang challenges South Korean’s

reasoning of “remaining neutral, claiming that they did not want to corrupt the peaceful

coexistence achieved through dialogue with Pyongyang, North Korea.” Kang’s preface

also certifies this reasoning to remain a mockery of the irrefutable fact that “according

to the constitution of the Republic of Korea, Koreans on both sides of the DMZ (Korea’s

demilitarized zone) fall under the sovereignty of its government.”

Because this book is an autobiography, many sources, including the author, were

primary. Kang includes personal accounts of beatings and mistreatment in the Yodok

camp, and mentions that he came across prisoners, who told him of the many

surrounding camps of North Korea that were worse than Yodok. Kang also recounts

secondary sources who’ve claimed that there is indeed a nuclear assimilation plant,

under strict military supervision, in which some prisoners are sent to work. Some

claimed that the plant was so secretive that it was best to send irredeemable prisoners

only, who were left to die working there and could never escape to tell of the plants

whereabouts.

The author Kang Chol-Hwan was the main source in obtaining information

regarding the horrific state of North Korea. His grandfather, father, and third uncle

(names not given in the book because of safety reasons) were also referred to as

sources because they informed Kang of North Korea’s situation while he was young and

offered him insight to the foundation of Japan and the lives that the family had left

behind.

Kang Chol-Hwan’s first hand experience of a North Korean gulag and escape from North

Korea itself, is a very heroic memoir. After reading this book, I feel privileged that someone would

want to share the horrific events taking place in North Korea, when he had the choice of keeping his

story from the world. I believe this memoir has allowed recognition of the repression in North

Korea for all nations. I only hope that human rights defenders across the world can soon discover a

way to relieve the pain of this suffering country, repressed by its terrorizing totalitarian regime.

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