[HN Gopher] My doomed career as a North Korean novelist
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My doomed career as a North Korean novelist
Author : billybuckwheat
Score : 68 points
Date : 2023-12-13 18:16 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| n4r9 wrote:
| It's always fascinating to hear about the cultural structures
| within North Korea. The image in my head is one where 5% are
| comfortable party officials and 95% are starving labourers. Of
| course that's not true: there are intellectuals and scientists in
| the middle, like in any other society.
|
| A related article was posted a few months ago regarding North
| Korean sci-fi. Also fascinating!
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37291007
| its_ethan wrote:
| Yea.. just like any other society... lol
| duxup wrote:
| No it's not.
| some_random wrote:
| Ok serious question, what is it about North Korea that causes
| a subset of HN commenters to leap to it's defense? Russia,
| China, Iran, etc receive a similar treatment sometimes but
| never to nearly the degree NK does, what's with that?
| kolinko wrote:
| Nothing like any other society.
|
| I lived through Communist Poland.
|
| Comfortable life for officials meant that they could use
| stores with stuff from the west (to buy Levi's jeans,
| Marlboro cigarettes, or perhaps even a walkman - you can
| google Pewex to read about these stores). Many of them had
| also homes. Not as in villas, but as in plain homes that you
| see in american suburbs.
|
| One of the country leaders in 1950s built himself a villa
| once, but he never got to live in it, because the rest of the
| leaders make it understandable to him that it will end badly.
| So he ended in one of the regular homes. (you can google
| Ochabowka - I've been inside, and again - it's like twice as
| big as a regular american home, nothing like a villa you
| would imagine).
|
| You can also google how Gorbachev and other Soviet party
| leaders were living. It was better than common people but not
| much.
|
| The main difference in quality of life was that the regular
| police couldn't just lock you up (secret police could
| though), and you wouldn't be beaten up by simply showing on a
| street during work hours, or doing some other crazy stuff
| like wearing colorful socks or long hair. I mean, no party
| official would dare to do it anyway, but regular police
| wouldn't stop them.
|
| So on one hand - yeah, the societal divide was way lower. But
| it meant nobody was free and everybody was poor - as in no
| TVs, no meat, and even a toilet paper was a luxury. Nobody I
| know would want to get back to that.
| edgineer wrote:
| High demand for stories from North Korea and no way to verify
| them makes me wary of what a fiction writer has written.
| waffleiron wrote:
| This author is also living in South Korea which by law bans you
| to speak positively about North Korea. Not to say NK isn't bad,
| but you are unable to have an honest and balanced discussion
| about it in the media while you live in SK.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Act_(South...
| the-smug-one wrote:
| Yeah, but he could also just not have said anything, right?
| Aloha wrote:
| I wish I could read the rest of the memoir, alas I do not speak
| Japanese.
|
| I'm unable to determine if the rest of it was published
| somewhere.
| lmm wrote:
| I mean, it's published, Tiao benaiWa , you can buy it on Amazon
| or wherever. But in Japanese.
| BarryMilo wrote:
| Can ChatGPT translate a whole book now? Without too much
| inconvenience
| 99094 wrote:
| I used it to read some webnovels a few months ago. It's
| much better than other machine translators (like google or
| deepl) but it's a bit tedious to use because of the
| character limit.
| Stratoscope wrote:
| Reading this brought back a vivid memory of listening to Voice of
| Korea about 20 years ago.
|
| I had a shortwave receiver in my Honda Civic - a Sony
| AM/FM/shortwave/cassette that was a drop-in replacement for the
| factory radio. On the way to work at Adobe in San Jose one day, I
| tuned in North Korea's English-language broadcast beamed to North
| America.
|
| One news announcement stuck in my mind so vividly that I remember
| it word for word to this day:
|
| "Scientists are studying the brain of Respected Comrade Kim Jong-
| il, because the Respected Comrade is capable of feats of mental
| power beyond the ability of ordinary human beings."
|
| Brainwashed: Growing up in North Korea:
|
| https://medium.com/@penguinpress/tears-of-blood-life-in-nort...
|
| Voice of Korea official site and Wikipedia page:
|
| http://www.vok.rep.kp/index.php/home/main/en
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_of_Korea
| basedbros wrote:
| Hard to disagree. Am curious to see what they found. I imagine
| most powerful/manipulative peoples brains are shaped
| differently and excel in ways we mere mortals don't necessarily
| consider.
| borbtactics wrote:
| This story reminds me that education is a privilege and I'm
| probably not enjoying it as much as I should.
| duxup wrote:
| I was a horrible college student when I was younger. For a
| variety of reasons. I quit school, got lucky, and fell into a
| good tech career.
|
| Many many years later after age 40 I was laid off, wanted a new
| career path / job, I took a few classes and eventually a
| bootcamp and changed careers. I was really nervous as far as
| how it would all play out knowing how terrible I was
| previously.
|
| It was completely different. The idea that I would go into a
| room each day and someone would drop some knowledge on me was
| thrilling. A few other older students like me felt the same
| way. We were always up front if possible, active, it was a JOY
| to go to class each day.
|
| Meanwhile I was surrounded by younger folks who reminded me of
| me as far as being perfectly capable, but low enthusiasm,
| effort, attention and interest level.
|
| Education, and youth is sometimes wasted on the young. I only
| wish I could have gone back to school more.
|
| I go to the local university now and then. Despite all the
| challenges, those folks don't seem to know how good they have
| it, but I can't judge, neither did I.
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| Yeah, it's weird how I didn't care about school at all when I
| was younger, but now I feel like it would be absolutely
| amazing to be able to learn all of this as it is. I think
| it's mainly though because I've experienced more of "actual
| life" and trying to survive on my own so all of that speaks
| more to me. Otherwise it seems like it's clueless theory I am
| forced to learn, but now I can relate my own life's
| experience with it.
| SuperNinKenDo wrote:
| Damn, I wanted to read more. Felt like the article received a
| brutal snip from the editor there.
| finnh wrote:
| you might like "Without You There Is No Us," a memoir by a
| foreign national hired to work at a boarding school for the
| children of the NK party elite
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