This Is Paradise My North Korean Childhood Summary

Throughout This is Paradise! My North Korean Childhood, the author, Hyok Kang, uses storytelling through a narrative mode of discourse to inform the reader of the abominable atrocities that occur in the famine-plagued country of North Korea. By educating his audience on the dismal conditions of his home country, explaining how the leader of North Korea is a controlling dictator, and informing the reader of the events that he witnessed as a child, Hyok Kang shows the his audience what life was like in the place that he once called home.

To educate his audience on the dismal conditions of his home country, Kang writes of a story that has the sole purpose of showing how the inhabitants of North Korea were starving and would do anything to get

their hands on even the smallest particle of food. Kang describes a situation at the market,
"It was then that my mother started selling buns and pancakes in the market.

One day, an old man with very dirty hands made off with some of mum's buns, but she din't have the heart to go after him. The dirty buns would have been spoiled anyway. There were also starving children pinching things from the displays and running away. My mother was shattered by the sight of dozens of ragged urchins (some of them little more than toddlers) avidly watching the customers as they ate their pancakes just in case they accidentally dropped some. Then they would dart forwards to pick scraps up and stuff them into their mouths like birds pecking at crumbs... But they were so desperate that they still made off with any food that they could get their hands on, and without even taking the time to run away, so they could eat as much as possible immediately, even as they endured the often terrible blows of their victims"

(77).
By writing about this event, Kang puts into perspective the average child's method for finding food. One can only imagine what it would have been like for a starving child to see a couple of crumbs drop to the floor and how precious those crumbs were to that child. Kang explains that people would often assail others for food because, "Hunger is stronger than anything" (123).
Because the author uses his past experience to tell his audience this story, the reader is able to visualize the situation. To explain how the leader of North Korea is a controlling dictator, Hyok Kang tells many stories of times when the people had to do absurd things in order to honor their government and the leaders. One example of the author's use of narrative discourse in an attempt to educate the reader on the controlling, power-driven, not-so-benevolent leaders can be found on the page when Kang states,
"A poem or song could not be considered satisfactory, our teacher said, if the Great Leader was not mentioned in it. For us, it gradually became unthinkable that any kind of artistic work could be produced without the two Kims at its centre. In actual, it was forbidden to sing a song or write a poem that didn't mention the two Kims at some point or another" (42).
By including this piece of information that Kang was able to recall from his past, he shows his audience that the leaders had control over everything, especially the school systems and the teachers. As this quote shows, their teachers were even brainwashed in order to teach the young children in North Korea to make the "great leaders" the center of all aspects of life.
From the first page to the last page, Hyok Kang filled this book with different events that he had personally experienced during his childhood in North Korea. In This is Paradise! My North Korean Childhood, Kang dedicates a chapter to describing not only his survival method that he undertook in this despicable country. Kang describes how he and his friends would hunt rats, saying,
"...we set a fire at one of the entrances to their holes, and waited for the smoke to have its effect.

An accomplice harpooned the lithe creature with an iron hook at the moment it left its lair. Some of my friends ate this particular form of game prepared in a stew and thought it was delicious" (95).

Because of the author's choice to include this personal story describing how they would hunt rats for food, the readers gets a better understanding of the lifestyle that the citizens of North Korea had to live because of the extremely oppressive government. The author also uses his narrative style in a metaphorical way. In the same chapter that discusses the different survival methods of many North Koreans, Kang says,

"But we weren't content with pillaging the home of our victim. When we caught a rat, we put a piece of string around its neck. As it tried to escape, it would inevitably lead us to another of its hideouts, where it hid other provisions. Some rats had saved nothing, or as good as nothing, while others lived in the lap of luxury. We allowed the rich to live, while those hopeless wretches who had put us to such trouble for nothing we killed ruthlessly with stones or spades. on some occasions we also came across little newborn rats. We let them live so that they would work for us when they were grown"

(96).
Kang includes this story of his experience while hunting mice in order to make a statement. This metaphor is used to make the acts of the government on the people very obvious by showing how it is equivalent to the treatment that Kang and his friends gave to the rats. In this metaphor, Kang and his friends symbolize the North Korean dictatorship; the rats symbolize the North Korean people who are oppressed by the government. Their homes are ransacked and their property taken; Some mice don't have anything, some have a lot, but the rich were allowed to live while the poor were killed. Through the use of describing an event that occurred directly to the Kang, the reader is able to have a better understanding of the conditions of the North Korean people.
As shown by these examples, in This is Paradise! My North Korean Childhood, Hyok Kang uses a narrative discourse, specifically storytelling, to get his point across to the reader. He uses this style in order to inform the reader of the events that happened when he was a child living in this dreadful place. The reader is able to visualize and form a better understanding of what life was like during this time. Throughout the stories that Kang writes about in his memoir, the reader is able to understand why he chose to use sarcasm in his title, This is Paradise! The use of narration as the mode of discourse in this autobiography was intended to show the audience that there are so many people that are affected by this power-hungry dictatorship, and what better way to do that than to tell stories of the reality of this living nightmare.