Summary

In Chapter 1 of Nothing To Envy, author Barbara Demick opens by commenting on how dark North Korea looks in satellite imagery, given the lack of electricity in most places there for much of the year. Under cover of this darkness, at night teenagers and young adults could slip away from home to meet their clandestine boyfriends and girlfriends, she writes, thus one woman named Mi-ran describes her own experiences sneaking around with her boyfriend as a teenager. After having defected to South Korea, she explains to Demick from the comfort of her new hometown, Seoul, how conservative North Korean culture is, with the pair not even kissing for many years of their romance. Mi-ran hailed from a typical mining town but her family ranked low in the rigid class system, while her boyfriend, Jun-sang, ranked high. One day, at the theatre with his...