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By Root 945 0

that even a single disappearance would be immediately noticed. A short while after the departure of my favorite teacher, I was nevertheless able to pull off the trick a couple of times. Though I had been relieved of my post as rabbit guard some time before, I still knew the system by heart: the layout of the rabbit area, the duration of the rounds, the habits of the various personnel. My chance came on a night when my work team was being punished for missing a lumber quota and kept late to finish the job. The shortfall hadn’t been our fault. The work site was a long way from the village, making it impossible for us to go home for lunch and get the energy we needed to complete the job. When night fell, we sneaked into a nearby field and stole some corn, but rather than satisfy our hunger it only whet it. Then someone suggested we steal a rabbit, which everyone thought was a great idea. I swear I could see my cohorts’ eyes glistening in anticipation. I was chosen for the mission, along with two friends—Hwang Yong-soo and Bae Jong-chol—who kept the lookout while I slipped into the warren. Within a few minutes, a rabbit had been pulled from its cage, killed, skinned, eviscerated, and its intestines buried. Our only fear now was that the smell of cooking might give us away. So while the rest of us went back to work, one member of our gang cooked the rabbit at a safe distance. It was one of the most delicious dinners I ever had. It had been six months since I had so much as tasted meat. I still think about that night sometimes, wishing I could see those kids again. The last time I saw them was when they left the camp. Hwang was the first to go, then me, then Bae. And that was it, silence. . . . They probably remember that night, too, and shake their heads thinking about the huge risk we had taken. With North Korea ravaged by famine, they may even regret not being back in Yodok, within reach of the rabbit cage.

If I were to improve my nutritional intake and realize my dream of becoming the family’s provider of meat, the better option was rat. One of my coworkers—a camp veteran—was the first to introduce me to the dish, going so far as to demonstrate its proper preparation. Despite my revulsion, I couldn’t resist the odor of grilled meat—which was not deceptive, because the rat was truly delicious. Though the rodents were everywhere, trapping them was difficult, especially because most were quite small. The other challenge was figuring out how to reuse the traps, since the first captured rat left behind a smell that warded off the others. After much experimentation, I discovered that the smell could be eliminated by passing the contraption over a fire. By this time, however, I was already perfecting my newest trap design, which used wires strung across the entrance of the rats’ nest to snare and strangle the animals as they tried to exit. My clever little invention was completed in 1982, and thanks to its increased catch, I was able to supplement the family’s small food ration.

Mi-ho made less fuss about eating her first grilled rat than I did. True, I initially lied to her about the nature of the meat, but when I later told her the truth she wasn’t the least bit disgusted. The poor girl was so hungry. She was suffering from pellagra, and that dish may have been her last shot at survival. At my urging, the entire family eventually took to eating rat. My uncle was the hardest to convince, but after a few months of demurring, the day came when his hunger pains were just too sharp and he, too, relented. That was the last time I saw him turn down a piece of grilled rat meat. The Yodok rats, it should be said, were fine specimens—much finer than any rat I ever caught in Seoul—and since they reproduced quickly, they were the only food product in the camp that was never in short supply.

I was not the only prisoner in Yodok to hunt rats. There were many devotees of the sport, and each had his or her own technique for trapping and preserving the game. I discovered that a friend of mine had turned his hut into a full-blown breeding ground.