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Kim Jong-il's Sushi Chef

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Re: Kim Jong-il's Sushi Chef

#61

Post by anonymous »

carlob wrote: post #53
Taylorious wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the suggestion. I will definitely check it out. Although, I have trouble reading those types of books (and articles) because they tend to be a bittersweet experience. On the one hand I feel like it is sort of like a sin to be willfully ignorant of the terrible things happening in places like NK, but it is also incredibly depressing learning about these things and being so powerless. For some reason the bru…

Pop quiz time: Papua New Guinea is one of the four countries without mandatory paid maternity leave. What are the other three?

East Coast, West Coast and Texas.

Re: Kim Jong-il's Sushi Chef

#62

Post by gbog »

rdtsc wrote: post #12

Agree with others here, a very captivating read. Couldn't stop reading once I started. The personality of the protagonist is interesting to think about. Disturbed individual or hero? Both? We are presented with his actions, wonder what was going on in his head. Left his wife and kids to live for 3 years in a strange country. Did it again for 10 years. Remarried there to someone who doesn't speak his language. Had oth…

> Disturbed individual or hero?

No, just yet another human being with contradictions, light-heartedness, courage, blindness, dreams, and sins.

Just a unique destiny. One should refrain from judging him. Who are we to judge a Japanese old man who crossed unadvertently the path of an ugly dictator, and managed to survive, and became half-addicted?

Re: Kim Jong-il's Sushi Chef

#63

Post by tinco »

uvdiv wrote: post #10

After eight years in captivity, she made a life-or-death escape from her guards after being sent to Vienna to promote Kim's latest film. Could someone explain how Austria permitted slaves to be held within its borders? Is this some sort of diplomatic privilege? This would be 1986 [1]. edit: Or a parallel (?) situation, Cuban athletes "escaping" from government minders inside the USA (2002 [2]). What power do foreign…

"What power do foreign government agents have in these situations?"

Guns and strong arms, I can only assume..

"Could someone explain how Austria permitted slaves to be held within its borders?"

I agree with Dominik that that is a rather offensive question. Ofcourse it doesn't, even Kim himself did not believe she was a slave still, of course she was and felt that way.

There's only one way to assert that you are not a slave, and that is to test your freedom.

Re: Kim Jong-il's Sushi Chef

#64

Post by varjag »

rosser wrote: post #30

As noted by many of the other comments, this is a fascinating article in so many different respects, but the most interesting take-away for me personally is a little detail that shows just how far the ripples cast from a seemingly small action can reach. If one day, decades ago, a teenaged boy's co-worker and friend hadn't wanted to live like "normal" folks instead of scroungers, and shared a sushi dinner with his fr…

In some way, the butterfly effect highlights that North Korea is in meta-stable state, and relatively minor events on few select people can effect its political course. In the modern world, much less is governed by outliers of chance, simply by virtue of many more agents involved.

Re: Kim Jong-il's Sushi Chef

#65

Post by epaga » 

     The sushi chef was leaving his apartment when he noticed the stranger outside.
     He could tell by the man's suit—black and badly made—that he was North Korean.
     Right away, the chef was nervous. Even in his midsixties, the chef is a
     formidable man: He has thick shoulders, a broad chest; the rings on
     his strong hands would one day have to be cut off. But he'd long since
     quit wearing his bulletproof vest, and the last time a North Korean made
     the journey to visit him in Japan, a decade ago, he was there to kill him.
Incredibly well-written first paragraph, it's been a while since I've read such an engrossing opening to an article.

Re: Kim Jong-il's Sushi Chef

#67

Post by DoubleMalt »

DominikR wrote: post #57
uvdiv wrote: post #10

After eight years in captivity, she made a life-or-death escape from her guards after being sent to Vienna to promote Kim's latest film. Could someone explain how Austria permitted slaves to be held within its borders? Is this some sort of diplomatic privilege? This would be 1986 [1]. edit: Or a parallel (?) situation, Cuban athletes "escaping" from government minders inside the USA (2002 [2]). What power do foreign…

You must be seriously brain damaged to ask such a question. I am from Austria and I can assure you that there are no diplomatic privileges to hold slaves in my country.

I also live in Austria.

Of course there is no official way to hold slaves in Austria. However stories of foreign diplomats that hold "household staff" under slave like condition surface with saddening regularity.

Very often they are stripped of their passports in a country where they don't speak the language, so their perceived options are very limited.

Being a UN seat with a lot of diplomats certainly aggravates this problem, as do the restrictive immigration laws, that do little to protect people that want to escape from such circumstances.

Also in the case of the actress, her perceived options might have been very limited, while in practice the "only" thing she would have to fear after defecting would be assassins sent after her. Scary enough.

So I also think the question shows a limited view of the world, but is not offensive enough to accuse someone of being brain damaged.

Re: Kim Jong-il's Sushi Chef

#69

Post by contingencies »

avgarrison wrote: post #7
Taylorious wrote: post #2

I don't normally upvote non-tech things on HN, but that was one of the most fascinating articles I have read in awhile. I started to idly read it, but immediately become engrossed.

You might like the book "Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea." There's quite a few jaw dropping stories from people who defected from NK. It's such a mysterious country, I am completely fascinated by it. edit: a word

That book's good - but it's about people fleeing the northern part of the country, one of the industrial centers, neither at the border or near the capital in the south. It's quite a different situation there and probably far more representative of the country as a whole.

Re: Kim Jong-il's Sushi Chef

#70

Post by mseebach »

pasechnikk wrote: post #55

How come the article's publishing date is July 2013?

It will probably appear in the July edition of the magazine, which might actually be out now. [month/year] editions rarely seem to track the actually calendar very tightly, just like you can buy the 2014 models of cars now.
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