Customer Reviews

The Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book will stun you. A previous reviewer made mention of the Wild Boar and he's right some of the tales about the Wild Boar will make you laugh. But this book is not a comedy. This book is a story of a family who viewed North Korea as the paradise destination. Ethnic Koreans who lived and prospered in Japan they were inticed back to Pyongyang, to return 'home'.

The wild boar is not a animal with four legs. He is an human animal,the nickname prison guard in the hell that the family found themselves. His particular cruelty to the family and anyone else is rooted in a love of the (now deceased) Great Leader.

To hear people so desperate to escape the country that they would leave their own families behind to face the consequences. Cannibalism, the death, the dulling of human senses. Its an amazing story.

This book is not horror show. Its not a gory death book with minutia details of pain. Rather it tells an awful story but it is in fact a story of how the human being can overcome. incredible adversity. You will admire this man and his story. You will also appreciate where you live. This book is well worth the money.

An absolutely excellent book. Could not put it down. Like reading Orwell's 1984, but the real life version.

Great book from a point of view rarely heard. Let's hope kim Jung un is more just than kim Jong il.

In my opinion this book is on par with Alan Patton's "Cry the Beloved Country." It powerfully conveys the plight of foreign oppression with both empathy and clarity.

Every US military officer, all federal politicians, diplomats, bureaucrats and personnel stationed in South Korea NEED TO READ THIS BOOK.

The author's family willingly emigrated to North Korea. They had been quite wealthy, but felt ideologically drawn to seek North Korean citizenship. Ultimately they were imprisoned.

Their experiences as related make it clear that the government of North Korea is by no means a true Marxist state, but has devolved into a cult of personality revolving around the ruling Kim family. No imperial government in history has been more repressive, exploitative or murderous of its people. North Korea's leader is truly evil. Its brainwashed citizens are at once victims and enablers that evil. Their plight is tragic.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough!

I had the chance to meet with the author, Kang Chol Hwan, this past summer in Seoul. Having spent ten years in a gulag for a crime his grandfather committed, he is among the lucky ones who survived. He took the risk and escaped because he felt it was his only option. In North Korea, political oppression is so severe that entire bloodlines, (normally two generations or more), are thrown in labor camps if one member is accused of "disloyalty" toward the regime. Kang's book is full of powerful images. The eyewitness account brings a detailed accuracy to a dark world unimaginable to those who haven't experienced it for themselves. Kang emphasized during our interview that every incident mentioned in his book was true and free of exaggeration. Kang, now a reporter for the Chosun Daily, continues to write editorial pieces about the atrocious human rights situation in the North.

An essential book on understanding life, politics and ideology in North Korea. While quite gruesome at times, this autobiography sheds light on an otherwise unknown subject: concentration camps in North Korea. The introduction of the book provides an easy-to-read and brief geopolitical history of how North Korea was created after WW2 and the rest of the book is the unbelievable account of the author's life in surviving 10 years in a prison camp. I found the book incredibly well-written as well as a page-turner that I could not put down.
The world can no longer ignore the severe injustice going on in North Korea and it is your duty to educate yourself on the issue. This book is the perfect place to start.

I came across this book after reading Tears of My Soul. I have to say that this book is absolutely captivating. It is a very quick read, but the impact will last forever. With so little information coming out of N.Korea unfiltered, this book and its perspective is invaluable. I recommend this book to everyone, to the point that people must think I am the publisher. Excellent book.

This is a must-read, an important testimony of life under an absolutist regime. It is part of a steady stream of testimonials that are finally appearing about what the self-proclaimed "Communist" regimes are actually like inside. I hope that the American academics will start paying attention to these testimonials, and accept the fact that those communist regimes should not have been idealized as they were (and still are by some!). Only after an honest scrutiny of these so-called communist societies and how they ALL turned into dictatorships, can the left recover its intellectual force.

As a recent amateur student of North Korea, I have read several of the popular autobiographies by people who have escaped this ultra-restrictive nation. "Aquariums" is an EXCELLENT book, reads easily and quickly, and conveys a considerable amount of background/history of the North Korean society. The parallels between this bizarre society and that portrayed in Orwell's "1984" are SOOOO pronounced as to be almost scary; it's almost as if Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il used it as a roadmap.

This book should be required reading for every high school student. In our modern American culture where our freedoms are not only taken for granted but not even recognized for their uniqueness in the world, I suspect most readers would think "Aquariums" to be a work of fiction rather than chilling modern day experience.

I encourage everyone to read this fine narrative.

I have read Aquariums several times and each time I think I have gained some new insight from it. It's not a deep work of insight so much as a very human true account of life in a terrible, terrible situation. It's also an invaluable aid to understanding North Korea and North Koreans, and the absolute hell that many of them have had to endure under the Kim dynasty. Honestly, Kang Chol Hwan and Soon Ok Lee (Eyes of the Tailless Beasts) are among the people on Earth who I most admire because people like them are definitely risking their lives to tell their stories. As Bush and company negotiate with North Korea on 'the nuclear issue' I can't help but think about the people in thse camps and pray that whatever deal occurs doesnt result in their mass murder.. all 200,000 of them.. Because they are only kept alive to be slaves till every last calorie is exhausted and Kim Jong Il doesnt want the world to know about the dark side of life in 'paradise'.

Kang is now one of the people behind the nkgulag.org organization.. If you speak Korean, check their site out.

Two NK Human Rights resources for English speakers are freenorthkorea.net and chosunjournal.com