Comrades and Strangers: Behind the Closed Doors of North Korea | 
|  | | | Title: | Comrades and Strangers: Behind the Closed Doors of North Korea | | Author: | Michael Harrold | | Publisher: | Wiley [Website] | | Type: | Book / Paperback | | Publication Date: | 27 August, 2004 | | ISBN / ISBN-13: | 0470869763 / 9780470869765 | | List Price: | $19.95 | | You Save: | $4.39 | | Amazon Price: | $15.56 | |
 This book is also available, brand-new, from 3rd-party marketplace sellers at Amazon.com, from $9.99. |
The HTML code below can be pasted onto your web-site, your MySpace page, or blog - or any number of similar places - to create a link to this page: If, instead of a text link, you'd like to create a link to this page which will display the book cover, if it's available, then the code below will do exactly that:
Check for the same book at these other US book sites:
• [ Abebooks ] • [ Alibris ] • [ Barnes & Noble ] • [ Half.com ] • [ Powells ] … or check UK bookstores
| Editorial Review / Publisher's Information:
Product Description
In 1987 Michael Harrold went to North Korea to work as English language adviser on translations of the speeches of the late President Kim Il Sung (the Great Leader) and his son and heir Kim Jong Il (then Dear Leader and now head of state). For seven years he lived in Pyongyang enjoying privileged access to the ruling classes and enjoying the confidence of the country’s young elite. In this fascinating insight into the culture of North Korea he describes the hospitality of his hosts, how they were shaken by the Velvet Revolution of 1989 and many of the fascinating characters he met from South Korean and American GI defectors to his Korean minder and socialite friends. After seven years and having been caught passing South Korean music tapes to friends and going out without his minder to places forbidden to foreigners, he was asked to leave the country.
| Other Items You May Enjoy:
Browse Books From These Related Subjects:
Customer Reviews:
• An Insider's View - But A Rather Vapid One 23 January, 2008
As someone who spent seven years living inside North Korea, the most hermetically sealed society on earth, Michael Harrold had the opportunity to gain an insider's view of a land most of us will never know. COMRADES AND STRANGERS is the result and, although the book is easy reading and somewhat interesting, it leaves a reader with a strangely empty taste at the end.
Harrold is best when he describes his day to day interactions with North Korean citizens. As most books and articles on the country focus, not surprisingly, on the political structure of the country and those within that structure, COMRADES AND STRANGERS is interesting in that it takes us down to the street level. We read first hand accounts of North Koreans' friendliness mixed with their well known and acute xenophobia. Harrold's interactions with a mix of people provides us with a picture usually not taken and even more rarely shown.
If only Harrold had stopped there. Alas, everything in North Korea is about politics, with the issues of reunification with South Korea and hatred of the imperialist Americans providing daily feed for the grind. Harrold cannot help but interject his thoughts on these issues and, to be blunt about it, despite seven years in North Korea, he seems ridiculously naive about the world in which he lives.
Harrold seems to accept a ridiculous paradox in that he mixes a recognition that North Korea is a totalitarian state with an apparent willingness to believe almost anything that state has to say regarding its intentions with other nations of the world. The reader is treated again and again to examples of how North Korea extended its hand, however furtively, to the outside world only to have some other country rebuff it. That free states may recognize that North Korea's leaders are willing to lie in order to gain some tactical advantage does not seem to enter Harrold's scope of vision.
This is particularly funny (a relative term to be sure) in light of negotiations regarding North Korea's nuclear ambitions. Harrold was in the country during much of the time when a non-proliferation pact was negotiated and signed and there is nothing in Harrold's writing to indicate that maybe, just maybe, a totalitarian police state may not be a trustworthy signatory to such a pact. We now know that North Korea started breaking its promises almost immediately. No surprise to anyone familiar with how totalitarian states work, but apparently it would be a surprise to Harrold.
Further, in an attempt to be scrupulously fair, Harrold simply splits the difference between North Korea and free states on a wide variety of issues. But being fair does not necessarily mean going 50-50 every time. As one example, representative of many in the book, Harrold states that, while North Korea's poverty may be appalling, one can be equally appalled at the wealth discrepancies found in the capitalistic southern part of the peninsula. Really? Even if one were concerned with wealth discrepancy, can one really be equally appalled by a free society in which many people can work their way into at least a decent paying job, even if it does not make one a billionaire, and a society in which ten percent of its citizens have starved to death and people are eating bark off of trees? He compounds the problem with statements to the effect that other nations must put aside ideological differences in order to foster humanitarian aid. Yet the more obvious solution would be for North Korea, if its leaders were really concerned with the welfare of its citizens, to change its own purely ideological system that has a record of failure worldwide.
Even with respect to his interactions with citizens, Harrold often misses the big picture. Repeated references are made to North Korea's potential based on the character and opinions of its citizens. Yet the hallmark of a state such as North Korea is that the leaders do not care what its citizens think. It is a rather telling note that, after leaving North Korea, Harrold was invited back due in part to North Korean authorities being happy with interviews he gave about the country. No doubt they were.
One may argue, of course, that while Harrold spent seven years in North Korea, I have never even been to Asia. But others sure have, and they have also written books on North Korea that show more insight than this. Indeed, one need not be a political analyst. The graphic novel PYONGYANG by animator Guy Delisle shows an acute insight into North Korea, capturing the foibles of the society despite the book's light-hearted and humorous tone. Check that out instead.
Better choice: Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea, Guy Delisle
- Reviewed by customer ID: ABUV8YV3CT669
• An Excellent Memoir 13 March, 2008
This is an excellent first-hand account of a foreigner living in the worlds most closed society. Hired by the government as a translator, Harrold describes how his initial trepidation and suspicion of his new hosts eventually gives way to admiration and respect for the North Korean people and their society. Perhaps the most interesting portions of this book are his descriptions of how he was able to circumvent the omnipotent internal security restrictions. A facinating book that is also easy to read.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A2M692N4UAQ68I
• Good Account But Can Be Rather Depressing 21 October, 2007
Michael Harrold spent seven years in North Korea as language advisor of English translations of Kim Il Sung's (the country's President) speeches. The book is an account of his experiences in North Korea.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book even though I found some of the scenes Harrold describes about life in North Korea quite depressing - it's just unimaginable that in this day and age people are forced to live like this. The other aspect of this book that shocked me in a way is the privileged existence Harrold leads in North Korea. One does get the impression that every other person he meets in North Korea is part of the upper class or caters to them. In his foreword he admits to changing the identities of several people as well as obscuring their involvement in particular incidents. Whilst this is prudent given the nature of North Korea's regime, it may diminish the added value of the book. Lastly, I am amazed that Harrold managed to bear North Korea for seven years. Given his description of his life there I would be thoroughly fed up with it within weeks. And he does describe one or two characters who experienced this problem.
If you liked this book you might also want to read Andrew Holloway's A year in Pyongyang - it is listed in Harrold's Bibliography - and `Report of an Envoy to Paradise' by Eric Cornell, which are both excellent.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A1UKN1OJCWT1ZQ
• Great Book, Eye Opening 03 December, 2007
We forget that North Koreans are humans too.
The author reminds us of that fact. North Koreans have feelings and thoughts like we do. All too often through what little videos we receive on TV here we seem to forget that.
They love, they hate, they have friends, and this book proves it. Very well written and interesting, couldn't put it down.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A3NLUY9RIYT9TD
• Incorrigible 23 February, 2008
This book is only for those who can swallow something like this:
Seoul had refused to express condolences over the death of the greatest of Koreans. p. 400
He is referring to none other than Kim Il Sung. Not "one of the greatest." Just "the greatest."
I strongly recommend reading the article "Working through Korean unification blues" by Andrei Lankov, who is a great analyst of Korean affairs. You can find it on Asia Times Online site. Admitting that the reunification of the Korean peninsula appears almost impossibly difficult should be the start.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A1YA2S94DIYLLG
|
