Summary

In Chapter 13, Demick describes Jun-sang’s slow realization that life in North Korea was stifled and repressed and that their leader, Kim Jong-il, was not as competent as he claimed. Upon graduating university, Jun-sang moved into his own apartment in Pyongyang and bought a television which he then programmed to receive illegal satellite signals from South Korea. He watched news reports about Bill Clinton, read forbidden books by Western authors like Dale Carnegie, and educated himself about the world outside his country before forming the idea of one day leaving after witnessing a starving child sing a song praising their leader in an ironic and tragic show of patriotism. He did not tell Mi-ran about his plan.

In Chapter 14, Demick says that Mi-ran and Jun-sang began to experience friction in their relationship, but not on the surface. Jun-sang could not propose to Mi-ran...