One of the best books written about North Korea is Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick. In it, she brilliantly reconstructs the lives of ordinary people living in Chongjin in the remote northeast of the country. I say “reconstruct” because her narrative is pieced together almost entirely from talking to exiles who managed to flee the country. Demick visited North Korea several times, but learnt little of value. “Visitors hewed to a carefully selected itinerary of monuments,” she wrote. They were assigned “minders” who ensured “there was no contact permitted with ordinary citizens”.
關於北韓最好的著作是芭芭拉•戴米克(Barbara Demick)的《沒什麼可嫉妒的》(Nothing to Envy)。書中，她精彩地重構了北韓偏遠的東北城市清津(Chongjin)普通人的生活。我用「重構」這個詞，因爲她的敘述幾乎完全由成功逃出北韓的流亡者的訪談拼接而成。戴米克去過北韓幾次，但沒有看到多少有價值的事情。「來訪者被圈在精心挑選的紀念碑行程上，」她在書中寫道。當局給他們安排了「看守」，保證他們遵守「不允許與普通市民接觸」的規則。