Summary

Chapter 5 of Nothing to Envy returns to the story of Mi-ran’s life in North Korea prior to her defection. Whereas her family had to become inventive to come up with ways to feed themselves when paychecks became smaller and smaller from the 1970s on, Jun-sang’s family was doing well for itself, and Jun-sang even got into a prestigious university that Demick calls the “North Korean equivalent of MIT” (77). Shortly thereafter, he and Mi-ran finally officially met as he befriended her sister to get closer to her. They began ‘dating’ immediately, walking together at night and slowly opening up to each other and speaking of their families and futures. Jun-sang moved to Pyongyang to study but the pair wrote letters to each other and met up when he was back in Chongjin visiting his family. It was during this time that he...