Summary

It is the day before a national holiday in Pyongyang, and Han Gyeong-hee is rushing home with her two-year-old son Myeong-shik, through crowds of people preparing for parades and other performances. Gyeong-hee is successful and confident, the manager of a marine supply shop. She recalls a conversation with a daycare worker earlier in the day when she picked her son up, the woman said he was afraid of the “Eobi,”a fictional character that punishes misbehaving children (36). She avoids taking Myeong-shik through bustling Kim Il-sung Square, and when they get home to their apartment, she quickly closes the curtains. She does this because their apartment overlooks the Square and its portraits of Karl Marx and Kim Il-sung and her son is afraid of these portraits. This is Gyeong-hee's fault, because in order to quiet Myeong-shik during a rally in the Square the...