11 ms·

My doomed career as a North Korean novelist

157 points by billybuckwheat 3y ago

alexey-salmin 3y ago
I got intrigued by the "Proof of the Man" book but failed to find an English translation. Anyone knows if it exists?
- doabell 3y ago
  Unfortunately no, Goodreads says it’s only been translated into Korean and Chinese. I’d say buy it from Amazon or wherever, but then the paperback needs OCR and afaik Amazon.co.jp doesn’t sell ebooks outside Japan… Or perhaps try the movie, which is available with English subtitles.
fsckboy 3y ago
I'm exhausted by catchy headlines that don't prep me as to whether I'll be interested in reading the piece. This article is about: Kim Ju-sŏng was one such aspiring writer. A “zainichi” (Japan-born ethnic Korean), he “returned” to North Korea in 1976 at age 16 as part of a wave of emigration encouraged by pro-North Korean groups in Japan and lived in the country for 28 years before defecting to South Korea.
DeathArrow 3y ago
In communist country, as an author, you have to praise some ideals and ideas because otherwise you are being ostracized and dying from hunger. In a modern "democratic" society you have to praise some ideals and ideas because otherwise you are being ostracized and dying from hunger. It's so nice to have choices and to be able to freely write whatever you think or you fancy...
- morbicer 3y ago
  Nah, that's a load of horsecrap. In a modern "democratic" society you can praise staunch leftist ideas (Chomsky, Naomi Klein, Tariq Ali) or very right ones (Ayn Rand, Roger Scruton, Milton Friedman) and be respected. Liu Cixin supports Uighur concentration camps and is widely popular. You can literally self-publish and sell almost anything on Amazon or similar sites. Very fringe opinions still find they readers and buyers. Of course if you start spilling vile racist, misogynistic and hateful slop you might get shamed. Rightfully. I grew up in a communist country and you have no idea about the censorship back then. And North Korea is way worse.
n4r9 3y ago
It's always fascinating to hear about the cultural structures within North Korea. The image in my head is one where 5% are comfortable party officials and 95% are starving labourers. Of course that's not true: there are intellectuals and scientists in the middle, like in any other society. A related article was posted a few months ago regarding North Korean sci-fi. Also fascinating! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37291007 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37291007
- cmplxconjugate 3y ago
  In around 2017 I had a scholarship at Wuhan University. During that time the university hosted a cultural fair for international students. What was most interesting to me (as someone from the UK) was that I met for the first time ever students from North Korea. These students were smartly dressed (suited and booted), which in comparison to everyone else in casual clothes, made them stand out. They spoke excellent English and Chinese, they were polite and thoughtful. Each international group had to give a stage performance, to which the NK students performed a piece similar to Beijing Opera; it was without doubt the most well rehearsed, costumed and, vibrant performance of the lot. It made me realise I had a very narrow perspective of NK.
  - inemesitaffia 3y ago
    Those people are literally North Koreas elite.
  - bsjaux628 3y ago
    That's how propaganda works, they are trained to project that image of NK abroad
    - blitzar 3y ago
      That's how propaganda works, we are trained to believe an image of NK.
      - Pigalowda 3y ago
edgineer 3y ago
High demand for stories from North Korea and no way to verify them makes me wary of what a fiction writer has written.
- waffleiron 3y ago
  This author is also living in South Korea which by law bans you to speak positively about North Korea. Not to say NK isn’t bad, but you are unable to have an honest and balanced discussion about it in the media while you live in SK. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Act_(South_Korea) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Act_(South...
  - the-smug-one 3y ago
    Yeah, but he could also just not have said anything, right?
    - layer8 3y ago
      Username checks out.
      - the-smug-one 3y ago
        You should read my profile!
  - l3mure 3y ago
    Indeed, there actually was a conviction of an elderly man via the NSA within the past few weeks. 14 months in jail for a poem. > In this latest case, Lee Yoon-seop was accused of submitting a poem in 2016 to the Uriminzokkiri website, which is a state-controlled North Korean website. Submitted as part of a competition run by the website back in 2016, it praised North Korea, stating that “if the two Koreas were united under Pyongyang’s socialist system, people would get free housing, healthcare and education.” The sentencing court said that Lee had glorified and praised North Korea and had threatened the “existence and security of the country or the basic liberal democratic order over a long period of time.” https://www.jurist.org/news/2023/11/man-in-south-korea-jailed-for-poem-praising-north/ https://www.jurist.org/news/2023/11/man-in-south-korea-jaile...
Aloha 3y ago
I wish I could read the rest of the memoir, alas I do not speak Japanese. I'm unable to determine if the rest of it was published somewhere.
- lmm 3y ago
  I mean, it's published, 跳べない蛙, you can buy it on Amazon or wherever. But in Japanese.
  - BarryMilo 3y ago
    Can ChatGPT translate a whole book now? Without too much inconvenience
    - squidsoup 3y ago
      Sceptical that an LLM would produce good literary translations - that requires a nuanced understanding of the author's rhythm and style. Maybe if the model was trained only with writing from that one particular author.
    - 99094 3y ago
      I used it to read some webnovels a few months ago. It's much better than other machine translators (like google or deepl) but it's a bit tedious to use because of the character limit.
    - jillesvangurp 3y ago
      Deepl might do a decent job and it supports pdfs and other document formats. We use it a lot for translating business documents and contracts. Mainly between German and English. But they support Japanese too.
  - radicaldreamer 3y ago
    Wonder if someone will pick this up and publish it in English.
    - 3y ago
aaron695 3y ago
[dead]
Stratoscope 3y ago
Reading this brought back a vivid memory of listening to Voice of Korea about 20 years ago. I had a shortwave receiver in my Honda Civic - a Sony AM/FM/shortwave/cassette that was a drop-in replacement for the factory radio. On the way to work at Adobe in San Jose one day, I tuned in North Korea's English-language broadcast beamed to North America. One news announcement stuck in my mind so vividly that I remember it word for word to this day: "Scientists are studying the brain of Respected Comrade Kim Jong-il, because the Respected Comrade is capable of feats of mental power beyond the ability of ordinary human beings." Brainwashed: Growing up in North Korea: https://medium.com/@penguinpress/tears-of-blood-life-in-north-korea-d2bd654ee19f https://medium.com/@penguinpress/tears-of-blood-life-in-nort... Voice of Korea official site and Wikipedia page: http://www.vok.rep.kp/index.php/home/main/en http://www.vok.rep.kp/index.php/home/main/en https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_of_Korea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_of_Korea
- blitzar 3y ago
  I heard Dear Leader plays 4D chess.
- basedbros 3y ago
  Hard to disagree. Am curious to see what they found. I imagine most powerful/manipulative peoples brains are shaped differently and excel in ways we mere mortals don’t necessarily consider.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
borbtactics 3y ago
This story reminds me that education is a privilege and I'm probably not enjoying it as much as I should.
- duxup 3y ago
  I was a horrible college student when I was younger. For a variety of reasons. I quit school, got lucky, and fell into a good tech career. Many many years later after age 40 I was laid off, wanted a new career path / job, I took a few classes and eventually a bootcamp and changed careers. I was really nervous as far as how it would all play out knowing how terrible I was previously. It was completely different. The idea that I would go into a room each day and someone would drop some knowledge on me was thrilling. A few other older students like me felt the same way. We were always up front if possible, active, it was a JOY to go to class each day. Meanwhile I was surrounded by younger folks who reminded me of me as far as being perfectly capable, but low enthusiasm, effort, attention and interest level. Education, and youth is sometimes wasted on the young. I only wish I could have gone back to school more. I go to the local university now and then. Despite all the challenges, those folks don't seem to know how good they have it, but I can't judge, neither did I.
  - mewpmewp2 3y ago
    Yeah, it's weird how I didn't care about school at all when I was younger, but now I feel like it would be absolutely amazing to be able to learn all of this as it is. I think it's mainly though because I've experienced more of "actual life" and trying to survive on my own so all of that speaks more to me. Otherwise it seems like it's clueless theory I am forced to learn, but now I can relate my own life's experience with it.
  - WalterBright 3y ago
    A friend of mine dropped out of Caltech due to bad grades. I ran into him a decade later, and he said he'd recently graduated from Caltech, having gone back and gotten A's. I asked him what changed, did you get smarter? He laughed, and said no, this time I was willing to work.
SuperNinKenDo 3y ago
Damn, I wanted to read more. Felt like the article received a brutal snip from the editor there.
- finnh 3y ago
  you might like "Without You There Is No Us," a memoir by a foreign national hired to work at a boarding school for the children of the NK party elite
  - SuperNinKenDo 3y ago
    Sonds great, I'll check it out. Thanks!
jchook 3y ago
Note that it's practically illegal for someone living in South Korea to publish anything positive about the DPRK (North Korea)[1][2][3]. > [Amnesty International] described the National Security Act as a tool to harass and arbitrarily prosecute individuals and civil society organizations who are peacefully exercising their rights to freedom of expression, opinion and association. It's important to understand voices like this in the broader context of the Korean War, which is technically still ongoing, and manifests today largely as an economic and propaganda war, as well as an entrenched territorial stalemate. DPRK "defectors" often get international media attention, and then their claims are surprisingly commonly debunked in following years[4]. For example, Yeonmi Park became famous in 2014, making startling claims about living in the DPRK— children being forced to eat mud, not taught basic math (even 1+1=2), and had no access to world maps or ice cream. Many of her claims were debunked, even by other defectors[5]. Despite her seemingly clear lack of credibility, many US media figures continue to host her for interviews. Sometimes defectors even admit they lied after becoming internationally famous and publishing a best seller, such as Shin Dong Hyuk[6]. The claim of the OP's author (couldn't get recognition for my work in DPRK) is especially ironic for this reason. In South Korea and the West, there is a thriving media industry focusing on the harrowing stories of people from the North. Also note, South Korea pays a reward of $860,000 to cooperating defectors[7], and has been accused of trafficking and forcing DPRK citizens to defect against their will[8][9]. When defectors arrive in South Korea, they are put through a rigorous interrogation, deprogramming, Christian indoctrination, and naturalization program at an institution called Hanawon. One defector noted, "At Hanawon, it seemed that I was being brainwashed again, even though I had arrived in freedom." 1. https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/south-korea-debates-scrapping-cold-war-era-ban-norths-propaganda-2022-11-22/ https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/south-korea-debat... 2. https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/05/28/south-korea-cold-war-relic-law-criminalizes-criticism https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/05/28/south-korea-cold-war-rel... 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Act_(South_Korea) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Act_(South_K... 4. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/13/why-do-north-korean-defector-testimonies-so-often-fall-apart https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/13/why-do-north-k... 5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeonmi_Park#Veracity_of_claims https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeonmi_Park#Veracity_of_claims 6. https://www.businessinsider.com/a-north-korean-gulag-survivor-admits-he-lied-in-his-best-selling-book-2015-1 https://www.businessinsider.com/a-north-korean-gulag-survivo... 7. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-39170614 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-39170614 8. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/10/world/asia/north-korea-waitresses-defect.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/10/world/asia/north-korea-wa... 9. https://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/823370.html https://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/8...
hulitu 3y ago
> A writer’s life is highly competitive I wonder how it is in US. Are there obscure writers living only from writing ? Where I live, a lot of writers have a daily job as journalists or NGOs so they don't seem to make much money from writing. And the bookstores are filled with "cheap crap" noone reads.

I got intrigued by the "Proof of the Man" book but failed to find an English translation. Anyone knows if it exists?

doabell 3y ago
Unfortunately no, Goodreads says it’s only been translated into Korean and Chinese. I’d say buy it from Amazon or wherever, but then the paperback needs OCR and afaik Amazon.co.jp doesn’t sell ebooks outside Japan… Or perhaps try the movie, which is available with English subtitles.

I'm exhausted by catchy headlines that don't prep me as to whether I'll be interested in reading the piece. This article is about: Kim Ju-sŏng was one such aspiring writer. A “zainichi” (Japan-born ethnic Korean), he “returned” to North Korea in 1976 at age 16 as part of a wave of emigration encouraged by pro-North Korean groups in Japan and lived in the country for 28 years before defecting to South Korea.

DeathArrow 3y ago

In communist country, as an author, you have to praise some ideals and ideas because otherwise you are being ostracized and dying from hunger. In a modern "democratic" society you have to praise some ideals and ideas because otherwise you are being ostracized and dying from hunger. It's so nice to have choices and to be able to freely write whatever you think or you fancy...

morbicer 3y ago
Nah, that's a load of horsecrap. In a modern "democratic" society you can praise staunch leftist ideas (Chomsky, Naomi Klein, Tariq Ali) or very right ones (Ayn Rand, Roger Scruton, Milton Friedman) and be respected. Liu Cixin supports Uighur concentration camps and is widely popular. You can literally self-publish and sell almost anything on Amazon or similar sites. Very fringe opinions still find they readers and buyers. Of course if you start spilling vile racist, misogynistic and hateful slop you might get shamed. Rightfully. I grew up in a communist country and you have no idea about the censorship back then. And North Korea is way worse.

n4r9 3y ago

It's always fascinating to hear about the cultural structures within North Korea. The image in my head is one where 5% are comfortable party officials and 95% are starving labourers. Of course that's not true: there are intellectuals and scientists in the middle, like in any other society. A related article was posted a few months ago regarding North Korean sci-fi. Also fascinating! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37291007 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37291007

cmplxconjugate 3y ago
In around 2017 I had a scholarship at Wuhan University. During that time the university hosted a cultural fair for international students. What was most interesting to me (as someone from the UK) was that I met for the first time ever students from North Korea. These students were smartly dressed (suited and booted), which in comparison to everyone else in casual clothes, made them stand out. They spoke excellent English and Chinese, they were polite and thoughtful. Each international group had to give a stage performance, to which the NK students performed a piece similar to Beijing Opera; it was without doubt the most well rehearsed, costumed and, vibrant performance of the lot. It made me realise I had a very narrow perspective of NK.
- inemesitaffia 3y ago
  Those people are literally North Koreas elite.
- bsjaux628 3y ago
  That's how propaganda works, they are trained to project that image of NK abroad
  - blitzar 3y ago
    That's how propaganda works, we are trained to believe an image of NK.
    - Pigalowda 3y ago

edgineer 3y ago

High demand for stories from North Korea and no way to verify them makes me wary of what a fiction writer has written.

waffleiron 3y ago
This author is also living in South Korea which by law bans you to speak positively about North Korea. Not to say NK isn’t bad, but you are unable to have an honest and balanced discussion about it in the media while you live in SK. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Act_(South_Korea) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Act_(South...
- the-smug-one 3y ago
  Yeah, but he could also just not have said anything, right?
  - layer8 3y ago
    Username checks out.
    - the-smug-one 3y ago
      You should read my profile!
- l3mure 3y ago
  Indeed, there actually was a conviction of an elderly man via the NSA within the past few weeks. 14 months in jail for a poem. > In this latest case, Lee Yoon-seop was accused of submitting a poem in 2016 to the Uriminzokkiri website, which is a state-controlled North Korean website. Submitted as part of a competition run by the website back in 2016, it praised North Korea, stating that “if the two Koreas were united under Pyongyang’s socialist system, people would get free housing, healthcare and education.” The sentencing court said that Lee had glorified and praised North Korea and had threatened the “existence and security of the country or the basic liberal democratic order over a long period of time.” https://www.jurist.org/news/2023/11/man-in-south-korea-jailed-for-poem-praising-north/ https://www.jurist.org/news/2023/11/man-in-south-korea-jaile...

Aloha 3y ago

I wish I could read the rest of the memoir, alas I do not speak Japanese. I'm unable to determine if the rest of it was published somewhere.

lmm 3y ago
I mean, it's published, 跳べない蛙, you can buy it on Amazon or wherever. But in Japanese.
- BarryMilo 3y ago
  Can ChatGPT translate a whole book now? Without too much inconvenience
  - squidsoup 3y ago
    Sceptical that an LLM would produce good literary translations - that requires a nuanced understanding of the author's rhythm and style. Maybe if the model was trained only with writing from that one particular author.
  - 99094 3y ago
    I used it to read some webnovels a few months ago. It's much better than other machine translators (like google or deepl) but it's a bit tedious to use because of the character limit.
  - jillesvangurp 3y ago
    Deepl might do a decent job and it supports pdfs and other document formats. We use it a lot for translating business documents and contracts. Mainly between German and English. But they support Japanese too.
- radicaldreamer 3y ago
  Wonder if someone will pick this up and publish it in English.
  - 3y ago

aaron695 3y ago

[dead]

Stratoscope 3y ago

Reading this brought back a vivid memory of listening to Voice of Korea about 20 years ago. I had a shortwave receiver in my Honda Civic - a Sony AM/FM/shortwave/cassette that was a drop-in replacement for the factory radio. On the way to work at Adobe in San Jose one day, I tuned in North Korea's English-language broadcast beamed to North America. One news announcement stuck in my mind so vividly that I remember it word for word to this day: "Scientists are studying the brain of Respected Comrade Kim Jong-il, because the Respected Comrade is capable of feats of mental power beyond the ability of ordinary human beings." Brainwashed: Growing up in North Korea: https://medium.com/@penguinpress/tears-of-blood-life-in-north-korea-d2bd654ee19f https://medium.com/@penguinpress/tears-of-blood-life-in-nort... Voice of Korea official site and Wikipedia page: http://www.vok.rep.kp/index.php/home/main/en http://www.vok.rep.kp/index.php/home/main/en https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_of_Korea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_of_Korea

blitzar 3y ago
I heard Dear Leader plays 4D chess.
basedbros 3y ago
Hard to disagree. Am curious to see what they found. I imagine most powerful/manipulative peoples brains are shaped differently and excel in ways we mere mortals don’t necessarily consider.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

borbtactics 3y ago

This story reminds me that education is a privilege and I'm probably not enjoying it as much as I should.

duxup 3y ago
I was a horrible college student when I was younger. For a variety of reasons. I quit school, got lucky, and fell into a good tech career. Many many years later after age 40 I was laid off, wanted a new career path / job, I took a few classes and eventually a bootcamp and changed careers. I was really nervous as far as how it would all play out knowing how terrible I was previously. It was completely different. The idea that I would go into a room each day and someone would drop some knowledge on me was thrilling. A few other older students like me felt the same way. We were always up front if possible, active, it was a JOY to go to class each day. Meanwhile I was surrounded by younger folks who reminded me of me as far as being perfectly capable, but low enthusiasm, effort, attention and interest level. Education, and youth is sometimes wasted on the young. I only wish I could have gone back to school more. I go to the local university now and then. Despite all the challenges, those folks don't seem to know how good they have it, but I can't judge, neither did I.
- mewpmewp2 3y ago
  Yeah, it's weird how I didn't care about school at all when I was younger, but now I feel like it would be absolutely amazing to be able to learn all of this as it is. I think it's mainly though because I've experienced more of "actual life" and trying to survive on my own so all of that speaks more to me. Otherwise it seems like it's clueless theory I am forced to learn, but now I can relate my own life's experience with it.
- WalterBright 3y ago
  A friend of mine dropped out of Caltech due to bad grades. I ran into him a decade later, and he said he'd recently graduated from Caltech, having gone back and gotten A's. I asked him what changed, did you get smarter? He laughed, and said no, this time I was willing to work.

SuperNinKenDo 3y ago

Damn, I wanted to read more. Felt like the article received a brutal snip from the editor there.

finnh 3y ago
you might like "Without You There Is No Us," a memoir by a foreign national hired to work at a boarding school for the children of the NK party elite
- SuperNinKenDo 3y ago
  Sonds great, I'll check it out. Thanks!

jchook 3y ago

Note that it's practically illegal for someone living in South Korea to publish anything positive about the DPRK (North Korea)[1][2][3]. > [Amnesty International] described the National Security Act as a tool to harass and arbitrarily prosecute individuals and civil society organizations who are peacefully exercising their rights to freedom of expression, opinion and association. It's important to understand voices like this in the broader context of the Korean War, which is technically still ongoing, and manifests today largely as an economic and propaganda war, as well as an entrenched territorial stalemate. DPRK "defectors" often get international media attention, and then their claims are surprisingly commonly debunked in following years[4]. For example, Yeonmi Park became famous in 2014, making startling claims about living in the DPRK— children being forced to eat mud, not taught basic math (even 1+1=2), and had no access to world maps or ice cream. Many of her claims were debunked, even by other defectors[5]. Despite her seemingly clear lack of credibility, many US media figures continue to host her for interviews. Sometimes defectors even admit they lied after becoming internationally famous and publishing a best seller, such as Shin Dong Hyuk[6]. The claim of the OP's author (couldn't get recognition for my work in DPRK) is especially ironic for this reason. In South Korea and the West, there is a thriving media industry focusing on the harrowing stories of people from the North. Also note, South Korea pays a reward of $860,000 to cooperating defectors[7], and has been accused of trafficking and forcing DPRK citizens to defect against their will[8][9]. When defectors arrive in South Korea, they are put through a rigorous interrogation, deprogramming, Christian indoctrination, and naturalization program at an institution called Hanawon. One defector noted, "At Hanawon, it seemed that I was being brainwashed again, even though I had arrived in freedom." 1. https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/south-korea-debates-scrapping-cold-war-era-ban-norths-propaganda-2022-11-22/ https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/south-korea-debat... 2. https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/05/28/south-korea-cold-war-relic-law-criminalizes-criticism https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/05/28/south-korea-cold-war-rel... 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Act_(South_Korea) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Act_(South_K... 4. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/13/why-do-north-korean-defector-testimonies-so-often-fall-apart https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/13/why-do-north-k... 5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeonmi_Park#Veracity_of_claims https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeonmi_Park#Veracity_of_claims 6. https://www.businessinsider.com/a-north-korean-gulag-survivor-admits-he-lied-in-his-best-selling-book-2015-1 https://www.businessinsider.com/a-north-korean-gulag-survivo... 7. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-39170614 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-39170614 8. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/10/world/asia/north-korea-waitresses-defect.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/10/world/asia/north-korea-wa... 9. https://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/823370.html https://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/8...

hulitu 3y ago

> A writer’s life is highly competitive I wonder how it is in US. Are there obscure writers living only from writing ? Where I live, a lot of writers have a daily job as journalists or NGOs so they don't seem to make much money from writing. And the bookstores are filled with "cheap crap" noone reads.