In the novel, “The Girls with Seven Names” by Hyeonseo Lee, one can identify the adversity the author encounters, leaving North Korea and discovering the truth about her country. I characterize her as a courageous, smart, independent, and a survivor. Through her book, one can identify the corruption within the government, contrabands, the persistent fear over North Koreans, and importance of someone’s songbun. I really liked this novel because it reminded me of my mom’s experience leaving Guatemala and her experience in the United States.
My grandfather was killed during the genocide when my mom was only 5 years old and my grandmother had to sustain her six daughters which is an unfortunate common story in Guatemala. My mom was only 15 when she decided to leave her country due to poverty, the genocide of indigenous, and corruption all over the country. The author and my mother share similar characteristics such as stubbornness, braveness, and the ability to think on their feet.
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She was guided to the border of the U.S. by a “coyote”, which is someone who leads a group of people through the deserts of Mexico. They help illegal immigrants to pass the border, obtain a fake ID, helps them to locate, and find a job. Similar to the people in the book, who helps North Koreans to migrate and escape their doomed destiny if they stayed in their country. The author encounters many people like herself, who were escaping North Korea. They all hid their true identity because they feared to be caught and sent back to North Korea. There were also “coyotes” who would steal one’s money and abandon a whole group in the vast dry desert like in the book where the smugglers would abandon North Koreans and would take advantage over their
Blaine Harden, former national correspondent and writer for the New York Times, delivers an agonizing and heartbreaking story of one man’s extremely conflicted life in a labor camp and an endeavor of escaping this place he grew up in. This man’s name is Shin Dong-hyuk. Together, Blaine Harden and Shin Dong-hyuk tell us the story of this man’s imprisonment and escape into South Korea and eventually, the United States, from North Korea. This biography that takes place from 1982-2011, reports to its readers on what is really going on in “one of the world’s darkest nations” (back cover of the book), that is run under a communist state and totalitarian dictatorship that was lead by Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il, and currently lead by Kim-Jong un. In Escape from Camp 14, Shin shows us the adaptation of his life and how one man can truly evolve from an animal, into a real human being.
In this novel by Steve Tolbert, we experience the life of a young girl by the name of Channeary. Channeary lives in a small fishing village in Cambodia. During her life, she faces many challenges, like the loss of her family to the ruthless Khmer Rouge soldiers. She overcomes many of the tragedies faced, but some still haunt her to this day. In this essay, I intend to explore several of those challenges, including how she overcame them.
...sures such as missing limbs, rape, and deportation as they travel on top of trains to the United States. They persevere through these struggles simply to provide for their family. I believe that the risks the migrants are willing to take to keep their family happy and healthy are courageous and beyond reproach. The mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters who travel to the United States leave behind their country, language, and people in hopes that they will be able to build a life for their family and leave the crime, danger, and joblessness of their home country forever. In my opinion, the main idea of the story is one that should be shared with people from every nationality and ethnic background. This story’s main idea and theme exhibit the importance of family and just how hard people are willing to work in order to maintain happiness and peace within their home.
The Girl with Seven Names is an incredible memoir filled with suspense, drama, and bravery from a young girl who couldn’t even keep her name but overcame every obstacle in her path. After escaping North Korea, crossing China, and finally reaching South Korea, Hyeonseo Lee tells us her passionate story about every experience leading up to her arrival in South Korea, hunger, cold, fear, threats, and other complicated events took place in Lee’s Journey to obtain the freedom she deserved. As a North Korean defector, Hyeonseo Lee delivers an ambitious and powerful story about her escape from North Korea and the struggles to adapt into a completely different society.
Toni Yagyuu, the main character of the novel, experiences and overcomes many obstacles while growing up in the shadow of her siblings and failing to meet the expectatio...
1984 demonstrates a dystopian society in Oceania by presenting a relentless dictator, Big Brother, who uses his power to control the minds of his people and to ensure that his power never exhausts. Aspects of 1984 are evidently established in components of society in North Korea. With both of these society’s under a dictator’s rule, there are many similarities that are distinguished between the two. Orwell’s 1984 becomes parallel to the world of dystopia in North Korea by illustrating a nation that remains isolated under an almighty ruler.
She has many horrific stories of World War II that affected her life forever and her parents were a big impact as well, which really surprised me. Her parents had one goal for her and it was for her to become a teacher. Luckily she liked it and became the teacher she wanted to be now. Not many struggles were given to my grandmother other than tragic events as she was raised by two wealthy parents who truly cared about her. Silvana Giono is my inspiration and as she taught me, I will never give up on anything. Being able to interview her, I have learned that I need to become a better person and work harder for what I really want. This has a big impact on me because I will try even harder for things I really want and will always try my best from now on. I am very glad I was assigned this project, as I feel that I have turned into a better
Cho, G (2008). “Fleshing Out the Ghost”, in Haunting the Korean Diaspora: Shame, Secrecy, and the Forgotten War. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
The early 20th century was a turbulent time for many people in East Asia, especially for those in Korea. Korea legally became a part of Japan when the Treaty of Annexation was signed on August 22, 1910. Through the historical analysis of Lost Names by Richard E. Kim, the struggle that ‘the boy’ endeavors throughout the first thirteen years of his life will be put into context by Korea in World History by Donald N. Clark and an article from Los Angeles Times local news in 1941. The Japanese annexation of Korea thoroughly impacted the Korean youth in psychologically because of the changes to Korean culture through the use of schools, which produced the devastating effects the Koreans dealt with until the mid-nineteenth century.
By any measure, The Memoirs of Lady Hyegyong, known as Hanjungnok (Records written in silence), is a remarkable piece of Korean literature and an invaluable historical document, in which a Korean woman narrated an event that can be described as the ultimate male power rivalry surrounding a father-son conflict that culminates in her husband’s death. However, the Memoirs were much more than a political and historical murder mystery; writing this memoir was her way of seeking forgiveness. As Haboush pointed out in her informative Introduction, Lady Hyegyong experienced a conflict herself between the demands imposed by the roles that came with her marriage, each of which included both public and private aspects. We see that Lady Hyegyong justified her decision to live as choosing the most public of her duties, and she decided that for her and other members of her family must to be judged fairly, which required an accurate understanding of the her husband’s death. It was also important to understand that Lady Hyegyong had to endure the
The corruption is modeled after the very real corruption in North Korea and is used as a lens to examine the country’s governing style and its effect on the North Korean people. The oppression of these people is a direct result of the ghost of the original leader of North Korea, Kim Il-sung, manifesting as a personality cult that brainwashes many powerful people, in the same way the First King brainwashes and controls the Central Military Police, leading to the oppression of the common
The book I chose for this book review assignment is titled Korea Old and New: A History by author Carter J. Eckert along with other contributing authors Ki-baik Lee, Young Ick Lew, Michael Robinson and Edward W. Wagner. The book is published at Korea Institute, Harvard University in 1990. The book consists of 418 pages and it is more of a survey of Korean history and reference type of book, rather than selected readings on modern Korean politics. I chose this book because it is a complete survey of Korean history from the ancient Choson period up to the economic boom of the 1990's, a span of over 2000 years. Each chapter covers a different period, but they all share the same organization of describing the social, cultural, political, philosophical and scholarly aspects of the period in respective subsections. This made it easier to later refer to previous chapters and compare different periods in order to learn the comprehensive history of Korea.
As the youngest of five children she was often overlooked. The pride of the family often overrode the opportunity to receive health care, handouts and a decent chance to become something. My mother spent her childhood in a tiny house with her family and many relatives. She was never given the opportunities to excel in learning and life like my generation has. My grandfather was a carpenter and on that living fed many hungry mouths. But despite this already unfortunate lifestyle my mother maintained good grades and was on a path to overcoming her misfortune.
It seemed like a normal day when I entered Mrs. A’s AP Language and Composition class, but little did I know that she was going to assign a very important project that was going to take forever. I took my seat and wrote down what was on the board. Then I sat patiently and waited for Mrs. A to come explain what we were doing today. When the tardy bell rang, Mrs. A glided into the room and gave us all a stack of papers. She then proceeded to discuss our upcoming assignment, a memoir. As she explained the very important assignment, I wondered whom I would write about. No one really came to mind to write about and I thought for sure I would never be able to get this thing done on time. I finally decided that I would write in on my mother, Kari Jenson. I knew I would probably put the project off until the very end and do it the weekend before even though it would get on my mom’s nerves. Putting work off was just how I did everything, it worked for me. When I arrived home from school that day, I told mom about the project. I told her I would most likely write it about her and she was overjoyed.
The Japanese occupation of Korea affected so many people and families, both Korean and Japanese. In the book Year of Impossible Goodbyes, by Sook Nyul Choi, Sookan, a teenager living in the North of Korea, is a perfect example of how so many lives were changed and affected. In this book, Sookan’s personality changes to be more protective during the book because of the life-changing events that occurred. First, is when her Grandfather passes away, when the war is over, and when her mother gets taken away as she and Inchun, her younger brother, are escaping to the South. After her grandfather passes away, Sookan sits out the yard and thinks about the pain of being Korean, then Inchun comes and sits next to her, and Sookan becomes very protective