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By Root 1003 0

of Kim Il-sung. The curriculum (called “the teachings”) consisted largely of listening to articles read out loud from the Rodong Sinmun newspaper, of which three copies arrived weekly at the supply office. We weren’t allowed to read the paper ourselves, because the direct word of the Party was reserved for security agents. Reprobates that we were, it would have been dangerous to expose us to more than a few preselected articles, and even these needed to be interpreted for us by the agents. With our rotten ideology, we were quite capable of misunderstanding their true intent. To say “interpreted” really gives the agents too much credit. All they ever did was pound us over the head with the Great Leader’s most tired platitudes. “I read you this article because the Americans and their puppets in Seoul are once again threatening war. The imperialists’ appetite for conquest threatens the peace, and to withstand it we must be ideologically armed.”

I don’t know whether the guards believed everything they said, but when they raised the possibility of a new war, some of us got nervous. We had always been told that if “the imperialists and their lackeys” ever invaded North Korea, the camp’s personnel would kill us before the enemy arrived. I still had hopes of leaving Yodok one day. I had no desire to be shot by guards without having the pleasure of seeing them run for their lives. These sorts of threats sent a chill up my spine, but they made very little impression on the older veterans. Whatever Will Be, Will Be was their motto, and whatever happened outside the camp was of no interest to them.

Still under the rubric of our ideological reeducation, the agents sometimes tested our allegiance to Kim Il-sung by making us sing endless verses of “The Song of General Kim Il-sung.” Part of the song goes, “In North Korea a new spring is everywhere on its way.” “Pang-bang kok-kok” means “everywhere, without exception.” I remember one old prisoner in the camp who had emigrated from Japan, like my parents, and who spoke Korean with a heavy accent. Instead of singing “pang-bang kok-kok,” he accidentally used a slightly different semantic form—“yogi chogi,” four syllables that mean “scattered in disorder” that have a rather negative association with filth and trash. The people who heard his slip began to laugh so hard they cried. As a consequence, he was criticized and labeled an “ideological deviant” and was almost sent to the sweatbox.

At the beginning of every year, we had the privilege of having Kim Il-sung’s extended New Year’s address read to us. The speech was the focal point of a two-day event featuring an absurd recitation contest. It could have been worse, though. It was January—a time when the thermometer often dipped well below 0˚F—and instead of being outside, we were gathered in a well-heated room. On the first day, we transcribed the speech in one of our notebooks, while the guards walked around to make sure we were making an effort. The next day, we worked on memorizing the speech by heart. The biggest challenge was figuring out how to doze off without being caught. The guards really only expected us to study the Great Leader’s message and to regurgitate a few quotes. To keep us honest, they picked a handful of prisoners to recite what they had learned. The top three contestants won prizes—considerable ones, given our condition. The winner got a coat, the runner-up, a pair of socks, and the second runner-up, a pair of gloves. The kids’ recitation contests were held in class, with the winner receiving a short reprieve from the usual work schedule.

My memory of these speeches has blurred somewhat, but I remember that they always started with an account of the previous year’s accomplishments in agriculture, industry, the armed forces, and so forth, and ended with a list of “goals for the future.” Somewhere in the middle came a nod to the Koreans residing in Japan, who under the clairvoyant leadership of Han Duk-su were continuing to lead a courageous battle in the heart of enemy land. There was also the inevitable mention of