Great Memoirs - Yeonmi Park and life in North Korea

My student got me onto the memoir of Yeonmi Park title In order to Live: A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom which describes the lives of many North Koreans. I've read several memoirs and I'm always drawn to autobiographies surrounding amnesty issues. I have to say I recommend this book quite a lot. It had me crying. It had me angry. And it was actually written quite poetically. My previous experience was with Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl which is about a Jewis

h girl from Amsterdam, in the Netherlands and her endurance of the Holocaust and concentration camps. That was a very well written book as well. I also read Helga's Diary which is similarly about a Czech girl's experience during World War II and in concentration camps. However, that one was not as well-written. You could tell she wasn't a writer. Perhaps Yeonmi Park had the help of Maryanne Vollers to write it better. But it is a very detailed and accurate account of life in North Korea. My first experience of learning about the North Korean dictatorship was watching a documentary about Pyeong Yang. It is true that many North Korean people live very poorly but those who are lucky live in Pyeong Yang which is as modern and convenient as any other first world country city. It felt like Pyeong Yang was a show though, to make other people feel like North Korea was normal. These people lived there because they were dutiful and obedient to the great leaders Kim Jung Il and Kimg Jung Eun. But there were many other neglected outside the walls of the capital city. The officials won't let any foreigners explore outside Pyeong Yang, because it harbors far more secrets that only came out because people like Yeonmi Park escaped and told their stories. Name someone you know who was able to go to another North Korean city. I also learned years ago that China has great relations with North Korea. Chinese people take trains to North Korean all the time. In Yeonmi Park's memoir, she describes the Eastern China about the same as North Korea. She was dying to get out of China as much as North Korea. It's heartwrenching to hear these stories of people who suffer through sexual slavery, exploitation, starvation, and it's worse because their next door neighbours could be living in luxury simply because they were "better" citizens. There are many problematic places in their world and it's time that we know more and how to help people live normally. To learn more about Yeonmi's story, pick up her book. Available to borrow at local Vancouver library www.vpl.ca or for purchase on www.amazon.ca or www.chapters.indigo.ca (Canadian sites).