For a North Korean watcher, seeing 'The Interview' is like seeing an earnest endeavor reflected back through a freak-show mirror. Barbara Demick More Quotes by Barbara Demick More Quotes From Barbara Demick A North Korean soldier would later recall a buddy who had been given an American-made nail clipper and was showing it off to his friends. The soldier clipped a few nails, admired the sharp, clean edges, and marveled at the mechanics of this simple item. Then he realized with a sinking heart: If North Korea couldn’t make such a fine nail clipper, how could it compete with American weapons? Barbara Demick korea simple heart North Korea invites parody. We laugh at the excesses of the propaganda and the gullibility of the people. But consider that their indoctrination began in infancy, during the fourteen-hour days spent in factory day-care centers; that for the subsequent fifty years, every song, film, newspaper article, and billboard was designed to deify Kim Il-sung; that the country was hermetically sealed to keep out anything that might cast doubt on Kim Il-sung's divinity. Who could possibly resist? Barbara Demick korea song country There was the natural human survival instinct to be optimistic. Barbara Demick instinct optimistic survival North Korean defectors often find it hard to settle down. It is not easy for somebody who’s escaped a totalitarian country to live in the free world. Defectors have to rediscover who they are in a world that offers endless possibilities. Choosing where to live, what to do, even which clothes to put on in the morning is tough enough for those of us accustomed to making choices; it can be utterly paralyzing for people who’ve had decisions made for them by the state their entire lives. Barbara Demick clothes morning country One death is a tragedy; a thousand is a statistic. Barbara Demick thousand tragedy The night sky in North Korea might be the most brilliant in northeast Asia, the only airspace spared the coal dust, Gobi Desert sand, and carbon monoxide choking the rest of the continent. Barbara Demick korea dust night We see North Koreans as automatons, goose-steeping at parades, doing mass gymnastics with fixed smiles on their faces - but beneath all that, real life goes on with the same complexity of human emotion as anywhere else. Barbara Demick doing see real life North Korea's whole idea is to create a crisis to solve a crisis. They're so poor and they're so desperate that they realize that this bombastic rhetoric can drive the South Korean stock market down and get the U.S. in a tizzy. And it's a game they've been playing for many, many years. Barbara Demick drive down game poor Kim Jong Un came in as a fresh face, so I think there's a great disappointment that he's playing the same game as his father. Barbara Demick face game disappointment father A South Korean teenager, 18-year-old male, is about five inches taller than his North Korean counterpart. And there are many soldiers who are only about 4'6". The height requirement is supposed to be 4'9". That's the size of my 12-year-old son. Barbara Demick soldiers size height son Gonpo Tso was born a princess. As a young woman, she dressed in fur-trimmed robes with fat ropes of coral beads strung around her neck. She lived in an adobe castle on the edge of the Tibetan plateau with a reception room large enough to accommodate the thousand Buddhist monks who once paid tribute to her father. Barbara Demick fat woman princess father In 1991, few North Koreans had ever used a telephone. You had to go to a post office to make a phone call. Barbara Demick phone-call phone go you The scene that has raised the most objections in 'The Interview' is at the very end, when Kim's head dissolves into flames. To me, it feels gratuitous. Barbara Demick head interview end me North Korea is probably the only country in the world deliberately kept out of the Internet. Barbara Demick only internet country world Televisions and radios are locked on government frequencies - it is a serious crime to listen to a foreign broadcast. As a result, North Koreans think that they live in the best country in the world and that, as difficult as their lives may be, everybody else has it much worse. Barbara Demick best government serious world Over the years, so many exceptions and amendments were made to China's one-child policy that it was hard to pinpoint a moment to pronounce it dead. Barbara Demick dead moment china hard By 2022, China is expected to cede the dubious distinction of being the world's most populous nation to India, according to the population division of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Barbara Demick nation united-nations india world China's one-child policy was born in 1980, after years of less severe measures to discourage births. The Communist Party promised that the policy would be temporary. Barbara Demick china born party temporary In 2012, a five-year-old girl in Shandong province described to me how ten officials had chased her six-months-pregnant mother through the fields to prevent the birth of the family's second child, a boy. She died during the procedure. Barbara Demick me family girl mother North Korea, under its thirtysomething Supreme Leader, Kim Jong-un, is no country for old men. The latest casualty in Kim's ongoing purge of the senior military command was the defense minister, Hyon Yong-chol, who reportedly committed the classic old man's offense of falling asleep in a meeting. Barbara Demick man leader men country
