A Book by Kang Chol-hwan and Pierre Rigoulot

The Aquariums of Pyongyang was written via a collaboration between Kang Chol-hwan and French Historian Pierre Rigoulot acting somewhat like a ghostwriter. The two men met when Pierre was working for The International Organization for Human Rights interviewing defectors about political repression in North Korea. Rigoulot was particularly taken aback by Kang’s story and talked him into writing a book together to shed light on his very specific circumstances. The two men, alongside an unnamed woman that acted as an interpreter and cultural intermediary, met five or six times and hashed out the interview that would eventually become the book. Kang’s story is not typical of most North Korean defector stories. Kang Chol-hwan is the first known survivor of a North Korean concentration camp that escaped and was willing to talk about his ordeals. After his escape, he became a staunch civil rights advocate and went on to meet many prominent figures such as former President George W. Bush. Kang Chol-hwan Also converted to Christianity and uses his story as testimony for religious purposes.

“Kang Chol-Hwan is the first survivor of one of these camps to escape and tell his story to the world, documenting the extreme conditions in these gulags and providing a personal insight into life in North Korea. Sent to the notorious labor camp Yodok when he was nine years old, Kang observed frequent public executions and endured forced labor and near-starvation rations for ten years. In 1992, he escaped to South Korea, where he found God and now advocates for human rights in North Korea. Part horror story, part historical document, part memoir, part political tract, this book brings together unassailable firsthand experience, setting one young man’s personal suffering in the wider context of modern history, giving eyewitness proof to the abuses perpetrated by the North Korean regime.”

The book details his life in North Korea, including a decade spent in the Yodok concentration camp from 1977 to 1987. Born into a privileged family that had once lived in Japan, Kang’s life took a drastic turn when his grandfather was accused of political crimes, leading to their imprisonment. The book offers a rare and chilling account of life under the North Korean regime, exposing the brutal conditions of the prison camps, the extreme indoctrination, and the daily struggle for survival.

In speaking of any North Korean defector, there always has to be some modicum of skepticism when looking at their claims as there have been numerous cases in the past where defectors had made up some of their ordeals in order to gain asylum within South Korea during the laborious intake process. Kang speaks of these interviews in The Aquariums of Pyongyang a bit noting that “No matter how hard I and other defectors from the North have tried since then, far too many people in Seoul have turned a blind eye to the truth about North Korea’s concentration camps. When the Koreans refused to believe us, perhaps I was naive to expect the international community to respond more sympathetically. No one paid any particular attention to us.” (Kang, Preface) At that time, there was a slight indifference towards the plight of North Koreans, and discussing things like concentration camps seemed too fantastical to believe to many people. Many felt that testimonies such as Kang’s were potentially put together by South Korean “war-hawks” in order to drum up interest in renewed hostilities.

Kang Chol-hwan seems trustworthy enough, although with him being so young (at the time) and going through so much trauma at a young age, it is very possible that his memories may not be reliable for a myriad of reasons. He entered the camp system at nine years old and left at nineteen, it is very possible that facts are skewed a bit, however one has to ask what he has to gain by not being truthful? None of the ordeals he described were too outlandish, and they feel just like the harrowing tales of life inside of a hopeless prison with potentially no escape. It is for that reason that I trust the information in The Aquariums of Pyongyang, and hope that stories like it and similar help end such abuses.    

It is very clear that Kang hates the North Korean government and wants it to be dismantled alongside the toppling of the Kim family. Kang specifically choses the word “concentration camp” throughout this book rather than “gulag” when discussing his ordeals noting that it has come to synonymous with The Holocaust and the crimes of Adolf Hitler. Kang has made no qualms in that he sees what is happening in North Korea to be akin to a Holocaust for his own people, with the Kim family murdering potentially millions of people while lining their pockets while most of the world looks the other way. It was mentioned in the preface that the numerous agencies that he works with all have the end goal of liberating his people, and he has seemingly devoted his life to this.

The Kang family had been living in Japan, but were convinced to come to Pyongyang, in a drive to reunite all of the displaced peoples of North Korea. This was almost immediately seen as a mistake as the numerous promises were soon seen to be a sham, and anyone returning from Japan were often seen as untrustworthy or spies. Despite this Kang lived in relative luxury due to his grandfather’s position and choice of various supplies and sundries. He had a television, ample food, a large house and nice clothing. While most other families were lucky to have enough to eat each day, his family was able to live like aristocrats in comparison. Kang even had a collection of aquariums with numerous pet fish that he cared for. This was atypical for someone in North Korea. Kang, for this reason, it not a good source for information on peasant life at the time, however he would get a crash course in living far worse-off than even that.  

The Titular aquariums of Pyongyang have a double meaning, first referencing the boy’s childhood hobby and a metaphor for his loss of innocence. After his detention in Yodok Concentration Camp, Kang was allowed one of his aquariums to be taken along, much to the anger of the military police trying to quietly “disappear them” in the night. As more and more of his prized fish died, it seemed to coincide with his slow adaptation to camp life, and eventually there was just one black fish that stubbornly adapted to eating roaches and bits of corn. Eventually that fish also passed on, signaling the end of Kang’s childhood for good. Gone were the days of toys and playing with friends, life in Yodok was now all about survival.

In prison, he was subject to beatings, watching friends die of malnutrition around him, and backbreaking physical labor. This was all done to destroy his individuality and foster a climate of backstabbing where any sort of dissent would be tattled to higher-ups and dealt with in the most severe way imaginable. One of the most harrowing stories in the book was that of one of his friends being outright murdered by a teacher right in front of him as he was beaten and left to nearly drown in a latrine, later succumbing to his injuries.

“He grabbed the guilty student and started beating him savagely […] the boy fell into the septic tank, where he remained trapped for a long time, unable to find a foothold or get anyone to reach in and help him. […] After a long struggle, my friend managed to reach the edge and climb out, but he was in such a sad state that no one wanted to help him wash up or bandage his wounds. A few days later he died.” (Kang, Pg. 67)

When reading stories like this, it’s hard to fathom the outright breakdown in humanity that would allow a teacher to maim one of his students in such a way that he was presumably going to drown in a pool of filth, then show absolutely no sympathy when the boy that he had killed later died. What was the reason the boy was killed? He simply whined about having to do latrine duty more than others, and another child likely tattled on him to the teacher.  

Another terrible story in the book was that of Kang’s mother, who was deemed too important to go to prison due to her familial lineage of being part of  “a heroic family”. She was forcibly divorced from her husband (his family line now blemished forever) and was not allowed to enter the camp. For years Kang assumed his mother had either died or abandoned her family. It was not until after 1987, and after he had reunited with her, that he found out the truth. She had Never re-married and was hoping to one day see her family again, however most of Kang’s family had all passed away in the camp leaving just a few surviving such as his sister. It was at this time that Kang realized he was being surveilled and that he was likely being targeted to return to the camp system, so he planned his exit. In 1992, he escaped to South Korea, leaving his remaining family behind and potentially dooming them to further pain in his name.

After establishing a new life in South Korea, Kang became a journalist for a newspaper and has spent a lot of his life talking with fellow defectors and discussing what life was like after he had left. In 1994, North Korea experienced a stark economic downturn and horrific famine that killed many people. Kim Il-sung also passed away soon after Kang left, leaving his son Kim Jong-il in charge. “Almost all of the North Koreans I interviewed described similar incidents from the Great Famine in the late 1990s. People foraged throughout forests and on hillsides for edible herbs. Soon they had to resort to boiling tree bark and the roots of rice plants to make the tough fibers digestible.” (Kang, Preface)

The Aquariums of Pyongyang by Kang Chol-hwan and French Historian Pierre Rigoulot is an incredibly important book for many reasons. In a time when the author mentioned a general apathy towards the exploits of the Kim regime and their numerous human rights violations, it took numerous first-hand accounts like this to start to shake up the status quo in South Korea. Books like this making the rounds pressure neighboring countries and the rest of the world into doing something about the issues outlined in the book.

Kang points out that North Korea have largely pretended to stop these forced labor camps under fears that money coming in from Japanese family members of the condemned would dry up, which is also why Kang was released in the first place, but he has his doubts, and is angered by what sees:

“We are told that the answer to these little problems— the respect for human rights, the concentration camps, the kidnaping of South Korean and Japanese citizens—currently is not of primary concern. We are told that this debate would be better left for another day, that the North Koreans’ lot should improve before we undertake reunification; but by then they’ll all be dead!” (Kang, Pg. 237) Maybe one day in my lifetime we will see a unified Korea, but if anything, this book shows how hard reconciliation will be. With a culture that breeds selfishness and backstabbing, reintegration will be a massive uphill battle, and it will take men like Kang Chol-hwan to hopefully help ease the transition.