The Aquariums of Pyongyang

The Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag by Kang Chol-Hwan, Pierre Rigoulot,  Yair Reiner (Translator),  Basic Books, 2000. 

Happy Childhood

Kang Chol-Hwan grew up as part of a financially well-off family.

Yodok

The author's grandfather disappeared one day, because he criticized the regime. The government also punished the family. They looted their home and sent them to camp called Yodok, filled with other families that had also lived in Japan. The communists wanted to isolate those who new about the outside world, so that the other Koreans could be kept in ignorance. Many political prisoners felt betrayed, because they had always been loyal communists, and their only crime consisted of being in the wrong economic class, or being related to someone who had misbehaved. Anyone captured trying to escape Yodok was executed. Sometimes prisoners from other camps were transferred to Yodok. They learned that the other camps contained Christians and landowners.

Chosen Soren

Chosen Soren is an organization of ethnic Koreans living in Japan that is conyrolled by the North Korean government. It encouraged well-educated Koreans to return to North Korea. The communists needed their skills and their money. After Kang's family was released from the camp in 1987, he would secretly listen to South Korean radio. Later, he crossed the Yalu river into China.