I just finished reading ''Aquariums of Pyongyang''....Just last week we had this news about the collision of the 2 trains in North Korea and hordes of people died. A thought just struck me.....the number of people who died in North Korea was the same as the number who died in teh Sept 11 attacks. Still there was so much of talk in teh news about Sept 11...even today we talk about it. In comparison to that N Korea is hardly talked about.Is it because the N Koreans who died aint human beings and the right to live was only a prerogative of the Americans.....makes u feel sick at times that so much undue importance is given to America when so much worse is happening in these developing countries....

On Saturday was looking thro' the Biography section in the library and saw this book. The title attracted me....I really have never thought abt reading abt N Korea .....I dunno why....but have always been restricted to stupid self help books and fiction...After coming here to London.....my reading has really improved...atleast now I pick up books which are to do with what is happening in our world today.....So when I saw ''Pyongyang''I picked it up....reading this book was unbelievable.....its a memoir of a guy who escaped from NKorea in teh 1990s and has seeked asylum in S Korea. He has described the travails of life in NKOrea under the realm of Kim Il Sung and Kim JongIL....was a revelation...and I had thought that the Nazis were the worst.....u know we consider the Holocaust as something which happened a years back.....something which should be forgotten....we dont know that we have almost something like Nazism happening in N Korea. They still have concentration camps there.......I cd not belive it....that in the 21st century we have concentration camps where people are incarcerated for teh slightest political misconduct.....there is nuthing called as democracy there....the life in the camps has been described in graphical details....and its nuthing less than an animal existence and we say that human beings are different as compared to animals....well in conditions like this.....human beings can be worse than animals....during the course of my reading......at times I went ''aaaahhhh''' and ''whaaaaat'''''...it was so horrible.....

the author lives in Seoul and works for a newspaper there.....and he is trying to attract attention to the life of the common man in N Korea......