37 pages • 1 hour read
Barbara DemickNothing to Envy
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2009A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 13-15Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 13 Summary: “Frogs in the Well”
Jun-sang witnesses a public execution and contemplates the realities of life in Chongjin. He sees that even soldiers are stunted and starving. At university, he is exposed to more international literature—some of it illicitly traded by his friends and classmates—and learns that even Russia has embraced some degree of capitalism. He purchases a TV and modifies it to get South Korean television; confronted with images of life there, he wonders if it is all a fabrication before coming to accept his own ignorance of the outside world. He also hears Kim Jong-il’s voice for the first time—in North Korea, his words are “voiced by professional announcers” (194). He contemplates the irony of the song with the lyrics “we have nothing to envy” and comes to realize that many of his classmates must feel the same way as he does: deeply skeptical of their nation. Nonetheless, under the regime’s strict repression, he hesitates to express his views to anyone, including Mi-ran.
Chapter 14 Summary: “The River”
Mi-ran and Jun-sang’s relationship suffers: both have doubts about the regime, but neither is comfortable expressing them. Jun-sang kisses Mi-ran for the first time, and she begins to believe that they will never get married, that there is no future for them together. When her father, Tae-woo, gets sick, he forces her brother to learn the names of their South Korean ancestors so that they can inform them of his death. After his death, her sister So-hee hatches a plan to get in contact with them. So-hee, Mi-ran, her mother and brother plan a journey to China, from where they will call their relatives; Mi-ran knows “she might never come back” (206). She destroys her letters from Jun-sang before leaving to ensure their romance will never be discovered, and that he will never be punished for her defection. She does not warn him that she is leaving. She and her family members become some of the first defectors when they cross the river to China.
Chapter 15 Summary: “Epiphany”
This chapter details the tide of migration, with 100,000 defectors going to China (and sometimes eventually South Korea) by 2001, while South Korean and Western products including DVDs flow into North Korea. As citizens see glimpses of Western life—nail clippers, ballpoint pens—they realize the comparative wealth and ease of life in other nations and begin to defect in larger numbers. Jun-sang realizes that Mi-ran has defected, and chides himself for his foolishness: he “didn’t have the courage” to ask Mi-ran to leave with him, nor to defect himself (212). Dr. Kim realizes the Worker’s Party holds suspicions about her due to her father’s heritage, and takes out her father’s list of relatives in China. She defects. Upon crossing the border, she sees a bowl of rice and realizes that “dogs in China [eat] better than doctors in North Korea” (220).
Chapters 13-15 Analysis
These three chapters turn back to the central relationship in the book, Jun-sang and Mi-ran’s romance, to investigate the ultimate effects of the society’s strict surveillance, the famine, and the rising tide of defections. As is established in the proceeding chapters, Mi-ran has long held doubts about the regime after witnessing her student’s starvation, especially when she hears them sing the song lyrics proclaiming there is “nothing to envy.”
The same song’s irony serves as a catalyst for Jun-sang’s increasing skepticism as well: as he comes into contact with more South Korean and Western media and ideas, he sees that there is indeed much to envy. However, the lack of privacy in North Korea has made the two reluctant to confide in one another. The star-crossed lovers do not learn that their desire to defect is mutual.
Mi-ran is the first character in the book to officially defect, and her decision is made by circumstance: the opportunity presents itself, and her family seizes upon it. This casual decision to upend an entire family’s life indicates the direness of the situation in North Korea: it actually takes little thought for Mi-ran to leave it all behind. The same is true for Dr. Kim.
Anecdotes and details from other defectors highlight that, exposed to years of famine, ideological training becomes flimsy. The availability of nail-clippers and ballpoint pens in South Korea seems as though it would be less significant than the availability of food. Images and experiences of even the smallest luxuries, though, are enough to undermine the idea that there is “nothing to envy in the world.” As that idea collapses, so does faithfulness to North Korea and its way of life.
Upon defecting, Dr. Kim and others realize that what they have illegally procured, seen, or heard is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to other nations’ comparative wealth, as is epitomized in Dr. Kim’s seeing a bowl of white rice laid out for a pet dog.
