Escaping North Korea Book

Mike Kim is a gutsy guy. He's also admirable, having given up a cushy Stateside job for the infinitely riskier one of trying to smuggle people out of the hellhole that is North Korea. (If only he could do the same for the Disney World.) I didn't learn a great deal that I didn't know already from Escaping North Korea, except how people escape the place--turns out, corrupt border guards can be found pretty much all over the world--but the stories are nonetheless shocking & depressing. It's a valuable addition to our understanding of that nation and of ways that people triumph over repression.

Still, I had a hard time finishing the book. Partly that's because Kim writes in an artless, direct way that reads a bit like a high-school essay on what I did during my summer torment. That's all right, because no one is going to read Escaping for the writing; it's the facts and stories we're after. So he's not Hemingway; big deal. But the bigger issue for me is Kim's evangelism, which soaks the book like oleo wiped off of Pat Robertson's underarms. Kim isn't just out to help North Koreans, he's out to save them, and it's hard not to wonder just how many of his converts came to believe in the full faith and credit of Jesus Christ because that was the best way to stop their stomachs from growling. I admire Kim's desire to help, and his bravery, but anyone who's ever seen homeless people submitting to a Salvation Army singalong in order to get a plate of franks and beans has to flinch a little to picture the evangelizing of desperate refugees. I know this hardly makes Kim unique. Religions often target those who are weakest or most despairing, and missionaries are everywhere, often doing very laudable work. And his missionary position doesn't invalidate, at least completely, his rescue mission. Still, I would have liked to see fewer approving quotes by right-wing U.S. evangelicals and more evidence that refugees were being helped out of compassion rather than a desire to recruit more freshmen to the Korean Junior Varsity Christians.