If any of you are curious about life in North Korea and the difficulty and danger in defecting, I'd highly recommend <em>Nothing to Envy</em>.
It contains the tales of a number of defectors, the reason they left, and how they escaped.
The one that always sticks in my head is the doctor who was starving to death in North Korea, but snuck across the border to China to steal food, and then planned to come back home. She was so brainwashed that even when starving to death, the thought of actually defecting was unimaginable to her. What ultimately broke her was when she found a bowl of rice and meat just sitting outside some Chinese home; she was completely dumbfounded because she hadn't had rice in years and couldn't understand why someone would literally leave such a bounty outside. She eventually realized what it was: table scraps for the family dog. Only once she realized that a dog in China ate better than a doctor in North Korea did she finally make the decision to defect.
Hell of a book, and some incredible stories.
They can and it is mentioned in Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick. A lot of the factories there have been shut down during the famine so the pollution isn't what it was. It describes an (almost) romanticised depiction of walking around at night in pitch dark in areas that used to be bustling and developed. Such a strange mental image.
Highly recommend this book if you're curious about everyday life in North Korea.
I’m white and my Chinese husband and I just had a baby. Before he got here I read Raising Mixed Race by Sharon H. Chang (it was actually recommended to me by someone from this sub). I’m not going to lie, at times it felt tough to get through but I feel like it was more than worth it and would definitely recommend it. Good luck on your journey to becoming a parent, it really is the greatest thing ever :)
I'm not so sure about that.
In 1979, the Pearl River Delta Economic Zone was formed and since then all 9 cities in the zone (which does not include Hong Kong or Macau) saw explosive growth and it really had little to do with Hong Kong itself.
Dongguan, for example, was booming with economic activity mostly thanks to the shoe and toy industries that set up shop there in the 80s and 90s. From 1983 to 2001, it grew from 168k to over 4M. There's actually a great book called Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China that describes the life of migrant factory workers during this time.
The other thing that happened was Foxconn setting up shop in Longhua in 1988. They started out making very basic electronics components but by the late 90s were making high-margin components for Intel and Sharp. Then there was as certain fruit company that started making a lot of very popular devices in Guangdong in the mid 2000s.
With these 1st tier OEMs and CMs in the region came a number of smaller suppliers that made the tools, equipment and lower-level materials used by these companies. The economic ecosystem there is incredible and it is spread throughout the Guangdong region. Pretty much every inch of land in the province that isn't a mountain is developed and the skyline of Guangzhou is actually as impressive as Shenzhen.
Tämä oli minusta myös aika hyvä: http://www.amazon.com/Nothing-Envy-Ordinary-Lives-North/dp/0385523912
Tämä taasen oli pohjoiskorealaisen lapsen / nuoren näkökulmasta, ja myös aika mainio: http://www.amazon.com/This-Paradise-North-Korean-Childhood/dp/0349118655
I can’t recommend the book Nothing to Envy highly enough. Detailed, haunting, unforgettable, and real.
Well, it is still around in society, speaking as a Western Chinese person. I mean…the term was even popularized due to a book published by a Chinese mother: https://www.amazon.com/Battle-Hymn-Tiger-Mother-Chua/dp/0143120581
Oh goodness, if she's into nonfiction might I recommend Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick? It's a wonderfully beautiful, tragic, romantic, sad, and heavily emotional collection of stories from North Korean defectors. Really really good stuff.
I think you're the same guy I got into that back and forth over Prots with.
This is the same situation lol, everything I know comes from one book: History of Japan; and I just so happened to just read the part that talks about how Tendai and Shingon Buddhism subsumed Shinto cults, which only re-emerged somewhat artificially in the 19th century as part of the birth of modern Japanese nationalism.
Some Catholic saints are absolutely Christianized pagan spirits and deities, though.
Incidentally, there is a non-fiction book called “Factory Girls” by Leslie Chang, which discusses Chinese girls working in factories, and how for many of them, it’s a positive experience.Factory Girls
Unfortunately, there aren’t really any good current academic monographs about NK because information coming out of the “hermit dictatorship” was and is still so sparse. There are myriad survivor biographies and memoirs, which I would suggest skipping as testimonials about torture and famine are harrowing but don’t tell us much about NK in the big picture. I would also avoid all the cheap biographies of specific members of the Kim family on Amazon that always end up being a 140 page wiki article with random rumors sprinkled in that was hurriedly written in the wake of some major event to cash in. A good introduction would be Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick which gives a rundown on the history of the DPRK with an emphasis on the 1990s famine and regime mismanagement that led to the deaths of millions and left NK on the brink of survival. Demick is a LA Times reporter and her book really unveils the human cost of everything that has happened.
North Korea Confidential by Tudor and Pearson and Andrei Lankov’s The Real North Korea are more current but contain less info about the formative years of the country. Jung Pak’s forthcoming Becoming Kim Jong Un was supposed to come out at the end of the month but I imagine that an addendum is going to have to be added about what’s currently going on, so I’d wait on the revised edition of that. Pak was a CIA analyst focusing on NK so that should be an interesting read.
It's called taint of blood. I'm not a dprk propagandist. There are many levels of punishment in NK. It's still a stalinist regime. We have lots of examples in Soviet states of how the system works. Stalinist regimes do believe in rehabilitation. When you say something that is against the state (if not superbad) it's treated as if you've just been misinformed. You can look at how north Vietnam treated the south after the war.
I'm not saying they're not bad dudes. They are. Their system is crazy. But we don't need to embellish it with rumor.
Give this book a read: Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea https://www.amazon.com/dp/0385523912/
I couldn't put it down. It's the life stories of a few different people who've escaped.
Deal. And off subject, but here’s one I recommend.
Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea https://www.amazon.com/dp/0385523912/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_gUnBAbE1MKZHE
Takes a moment to pick up on the pattern in the storytelling, but it is a fascinating look at life in NK.
there was a book that documented Chinese factory life (mostly of young women). the journalist is pretty unbiased so the book gives you a sense of the trade-offs migrants face by migrating to the cities. chang has done some talks on youtube that you can check out if you aren't interesting in reading the full book.
I mean if you read the book which I recommend to everyone Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick. It mentions most NK escape to China across the Tumen river and once they get across they have to deal with undercover NK agents who get them sent back and also Chinese govt people trying to round em up. If I was trying to help North Koreans I'd prob go to the border by NK in China and help out with the network trying to get people to SK, it seems like the organizations helping are like Christian Missionary type organizations. Most NK have a problem getting to South Korea where they get like 20k in resettlement funds if they can get there and are usually accepted. South Korea already has a program for refugees that is pretty robust the problem is getting them there.
>Broadly speaking, Dracula is about moral panic, and homosexuality was a MAJOR feature in moral panic in Stoker's time.
The "link by association" argument that ties Dracula to homosexuality gets to my issue, namely that an association argument isn't enough. The text in Dracula needs to mention homosexuality directly or implicitly for your claim to hold. In my opinion the strongest evidence the "lit crit" author you linked provides is that Count Dracula (male) desires Jonathon's (male) blood, but even this evidence is tempered by the fact that Dracula also attacks women. There is also the greater problem that there is another feasible alternate explanation for this, namely that Dracula's behavior stems from the vampiric desire for human blood both men and women have. This is quite unlike your "Roland Rump" example, where alternative explanations (e.g. that the relationship to Trump is mere coincidence) are absurd. The associations you and the paper mentioned need to be stronger to be convincing.
Secondly, consider the book Nothing to Envy, written by the American author Barbara Demick about the oppression of those living under the North Korean regime. You could similarly argue that since this book is about oppression, then it is also about the oppression of homosexuals and colored people in the U.S., which are both "major features" of Demick's time. That would be an intriguing interpretation of the text. However, I wouldn't say, "Nothing to Envy is about racism against African Americans in the U.S," which is a stretch — even though we could support the assertion with exhaustive analysis (there are actually many fascinating parallels between the two). At best we could only say that racism against African has an indirect, peripheral influence on Nothing to envy. Ditto for homosexuality and Dracula.
They're not terrible, and they're not slaves. Would I give up being a middle class American to work in a factory? No, but they're not terrible. educate yourself before speaking next time
Check out the book factory girls, interesting read on this subject. Seems to be voluntary from the factory workers point of view.
https://www.amazon.com/Factory-Girls-Village-Changing-China/dp/0385520182
Here's the Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/Nothing-Envy-Ordinary-Lives-North/dp/0385523912
And a Prezi review that includes a reading level assessment:
Reading level: middle school students to adults few parts more appropriate for older middle school students Interesting for: people who are curious North Korean way of life and how North Koreans reacted to an economic crisis, as well as struggles in society
https://prezi.com/5bq1azo7n2rj/nothing-to-envy-presentation/
Yep... I'd say you got about a 1/3 odds, depending on location, political views, empathy, cultural respect. You get those down, and there's a very high chance your kid will be fine. Fuck those up tho... and there's a risk they're going to get the answers to life's questions from somewhere else. Recommended reading: Raising Mixed Race by Sharon Chang. Get's to the heart of what you want. No "you're so progressive" fluff... just a nice distilled "what do I do with my biracial kid" book.
Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick goes into this quite a bit, as well as just general life in the DPRK, if you're interested at all.
A docu-drama based around Nothing to Envy, a fantastic and devestating book by Barbara Demick about six seperate people who esacpe from North Korea.
It would have to have the HBO treatment and cannot shy away from the violence, torture and emotional gravity of the situation - whilst at the same time not glorifying it.
There are six(?) escapees who are documented in the book, so a 6 - 8 episode, self contained series would be incredible
This is the book I usually recommend as a starting place. Very easy to read, doesn't require too much remembering of names and places as you progress, but is still very rigorous. (I emphasize this because there are many crap books on Japanese history out there.)
PS- "its first settlement" I've always loved phrases like this...
Hey, I would say that there are a lot of folks here who are just letting out anger. But there are a lot more resources today for raising biracial kids. Check out the book Raising Mixed Race
You are going to have take this book's word for it.
Sorry to hear what happened to you and your family. Hopefully you can inspire more gyopo to make an improvement in their lives and be proud of what they are like you have done. I think you will enjoy this book
There's a really well written book too that recounts the stories of a few escapees. Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea https://www.amazon.com/dp/0385523912/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_DdgHxbTCXMMA6