About 12 years ago when I just started learning English seriously, I met a group of missionaries from the United States. One of them was a father of a family from North Korea, and I remember his wife was a Hanguk-American as he introduced to me. I knew little about North Korea, and on our first met I asked him “I heard North Korean soldiers are strong and tough, is that true?” “YE~~~~S~~~!” He replied with his eyes wide open, and laughing, too. Soon he explained that though born in Chosun, as North Korean name their own country, he himself was not really a defector because his family escaped to the United States during the Korean War when he was a little boy, far earlier than the post-war period able to convict a person as defector or traitor if being found crossing Yalu or Tumen rivers. He was the first North Korean guy I had met, and so far the only one. I guess that was the reason why I am so interested in things about North Korea.
The Girl With Seven Names helps readers to dig even deeper into things that happen, and are still happening, in and out of Chosun, because the author Hyeonseo Lee herself had been a defector; while Nothing to Envy was completed by Barbara Demick an American journalist through interviews with defectors living in Hanguk. Both are talking about different destinies and disasters defectors with different songbun are facing. Both are excellent books.
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