The Aquariums of Pyongyang: Really good memoir by Kang Chol-hwan, North Korean defector (PDF)

[Baobab]

http://www.pdfarchive.info/pdf/C/Ch/Chol-Hwan_Kang_-_Rigoulot_Pierre_-_The_Aquariums_of_Pyongyang.pdf

Whenever I think of my own problems, books like this show me that they pale in comparison to those experienced by many others.

Kang Chol-hwan lived in Kuup-ri village which is north of the main gate along the Ipsoc river. Its distinguishable by the sharp bend in the river.

Yodok kwaliso (concentration camp for political prisoner and three generations of their families) GPS coordinates



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More links- some may be stale but worth looking around for their new locations.. or archive.org

http://www.asiapress.org/rimjingang/english/index.html (Rimjingang - Journalism by North Koreans living there risking their lives to write about it while still there - really interesting)

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http://nkwatch.org

http://nofence.netlive.ne.jp/english/testimony.html

http://en.nknet.org/

http://www.northkoreanrefugees.com

http://north-korea.narod.ru/control_lankov.htm (old but the best explanation in the shortest amount of text of how they maintain control- the NK caste system, still applies)

http://north-korea.narod.ru/propaganda_lankov.htm

http://eng.nkgulag.org/bbs/board.php?bo_table=b_01&wr_id=10

http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/CoIDPRK/Pages/ReportoftheCommissionofInquiryDPRK.aspx

http://www.hrnk.org/publications/hrnk-publications.php

http://www.eahrnk.org/

http://monthly.chosun.com/client/dataroom/databoardread.asp?idx=12&cPage=2&table=dataroom

http://www.aidanfc.net/a_year_in_pyongyang_p.html

http://hrnk.trycomp.net/

http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/collection/116/north-korea-august-1956-plenum-incident

http://monthly.chosun.com/client/dataroom/databoardread.asp?idx=5

Videos of defector testimony to the UN Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the DPRK

http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/CoIDPRK/Pages/CommissionInquiryonHRinDPRK.aspx

http://webtv.un.org/search?term=dprk+seoul

http://webtv.un.org/search?term=dprk+tokyo

http://webtv.un.org/search?term=dprk+london

http://webtv.un.org/search?term=dprk+washington


All in all a really horrible place. Not someplace to go as a tourist nor anything other than a major tragedy.