[HN Gopher] My doomed career as a North Korean novelist ___________________________________________________________________ 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 ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-12-13 23:00 UTC)