One of the best books written about North Korea is Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick. In it, she brilliantly reconstructs the lives of ordinary people living in Chongjin in the remote northeast of the country. I say “reconstruct” because her narrative is pieced together almost entirely from talking to exiles who managed to flee the country. Demick visited North Korea several times, but learnt little of value. “Visitors hewed to a carefully selected itinerary of monuments,” she wrote. They were assigned “minders” who ensured “there was no contact permitted with ordinary citizens”.
关于朝鲜最好的著作是芭芭拉•戴米克(Barbara Demick)的《没什么可嫉妒的》(Nothing to Envy)。书中，她精彩地重构了朝鲜偏远的东北城市清津(Chongjin)普通人的生活。我用“重构”这个词，因为她的叙述几乎完全由成功逃出朝鲜的流亡者的访谈拼接而成。戴米克去过朝鲜几次，但没有看到多少有价值的事情。“来访者被圈在精心挑选的纪念碑行程上，”她在书中写道。当局给他们安排了“看守”，保证他们遵守“不允许与普通市民接触”的规则。