Preview

What Are You Trying To Write Shin's Story

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
434 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
What Are You Trying To Write Shin's Story
Q: It seems like you, the author, want to make the world more aware of what has been going on in North Korea. What were the challenges you faced writing Shin’s story?
A: One of the biggest challenges trying to write this story was getting him to cooperate with me. He didn’t want to recollect his time in the camps in North Korea. These camps were detrimental to the civilians of North Korea. I’m very grateful for his cooperation in writing this novel so I can make the general public more aware of how people are being treated in North Korea. Shin wanted the camps to be closed so he thought that this book would help.

Q: What does this story mean to you, as an author, after hearing it from Shin himself?
A: Readers need to understand what these people are going through in North Korea. These camps have been going on twice as long as Stalin’s gulags or the Nazi concentration camps. I understand that this was a very challenging story for him to tell. All my job was, was to be precise and provide context on the issue in North Korea and the improbability of Shin’s story. I tackled many obstacles, such as Shin lying about many of his involvement in the camps, such as with his mother’s execution.
…show more content…
What do you think individuals should do to deal with the problem in North Korea?
A: Shin provided me and the public with a lot of valuable information surrounding these camps in N. Korea. It’s actually rather hard for anyone to do anything. N. Korea doesn’t listen to any demands from others. If someone were to use military force on them, they would could easily counter attack on South Korea. The Korean war never really ended, it’s just at a prolonged stalemate. But one slip up, and thousands of S. Koreans would

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Loung Ung Chapter Summary

    • 1575 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Loung Ung-the author- is an average middle-class five year old. She has three older brothers, two older sisters and a younger sister. Her parents “ma” and “pa” have been married since they were teenagers. On April 17, 1975 the Ung’s life style would be changed for the rest of their lives, when the Khmer Rouge soldiers arrive in the family’s village. The soldiers quickly move all the families out of the village telling them to pack very little. Loung soon finds herself on an overcrowded truck with many families learning she will never be returning home.…

    • 1575 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    When the author describes the dinner scene I realized early into the story that the people operating the camp want to strip the prisoners of all hope, they worked to such an extent that even the food reached a new low level. The reader learns that Filip crawled out of bed with his bunk buddy and tried to get more tea. As a result, he and his friend were caught. This chapter makes me think about myself and what I would do if I was in Auschwitz, I would probably have died on the first day, this would not have been so bad if I think about it. Being with guards who beat prisoners for no reason and having to deal with a place that has no rules would be a disaster. In this first chapter I felt that everything that happened to the prisoners was wrong. (Questions: 1. I thought that Vacek was dead? 2. Is Vacek a title or a real person?…

    • 2512 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Farewell to Manzanar, by Jeanne Wakatsuki, is a book chronicling the author 's personal experiences before, during, and after her internment at Manzanar. Through the eyes of an innocent child, and subsequently, a teenaged Jeanne, we are able to see the cruel and heartless events that occurred to the Japanese people living in America during World War II. The book follows young Jeanne, a Japanese girl, who was taken to Manzanar, an internment camp in California. It describes life from inside the camp as well as the experience it had on her and her family. She, along with her family, were placed in a single one-room barrack in Manzanar. The smallness of the building made them have no privacy, which is an integral part of Japanese culture. Jeanne and her family lived there for close to four years, in a grubby, unsanitary, makeshift 16 x 20 room. Then, they are unceremoniously tossed back into a society that is racist and wary of the Japanese. This book not only describes Jeanne 's life at Manzanar, but shows as Jeanne makes the difficult transition to womanhood, at a difficult time, in a difficult location.…

    • 1653 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    When most people think of war, they consider combat to be the greatest danger. However, Unbroken teaches readers that more men in the air force died in training than in combat during World War II. One can also learn about the incredible amount of abuse that was taken in Japanese prisoner of war camps. After Louie is taken captive and is put in a Japanese camp, he states, "To be an enlisted prisoner of war under the Japanese was to be a slave" (Hillenbrand 240). In addition, the author teaches readers about the bonds that the soldiers have with one another. This makes life even more difficult for them because their friends die almost every day. This story is not only enjoyable for readers, but also helps them to learn about life as a…

    • 701 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the memoir Year of Impossible Goodbyes by Sook Nyul Choi, Sookan changes from someone who is scared and oppressed, and becomes someone who is strong-willed and determined. As the story plays out, this change is shown in many moments, but three are when grandfather dies, when the Japanese leave Korea and the war ends, and when their mother is separated from them.…

    • 506 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    They got louder and louder. Suddenly, we all heard a gunshot in the air and then the cattle car door opened. Everyone quieted down their conversations. An NKVD officer allowed one person to get out of the cattle car and gather some of the rainwater that began to fall. They handed a young women a bucket. Her child wanted to go with her, but the NKVD officer thrust him back in. She came back with about half of the bucket full. We took turns sipping the water from the bucket, although, some of the people were rather greedy when it came to sharing it. When it was my turn with the bucket I was relieved. It had been 2 days without any water or food. I could taste the lingering smell of personal odors as I drank the water. I drank it anyway, since I had been longing for just a sip. Throughout the rest of the day we all sat quietly in the cattle car. It had only been the second day, but all of us complained about being starving. “I might have as well got used to this if I was going to have to live with it,” I thought to…

    • 572 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Unbroken Essay

    • 728 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Over 2,600,000 civilians and militants died in Japan alone during World War II. One survivor named Louie Zamperini experienced unimaginable horrors, and faced death daily in a POW camp in Japan. He survived by refusing to let his captors deprive him of his humanity and make him “invisible.” Louie’s life could have been very different if he had never been captured. His experiences shaped him as a person and eventually made him a better man. In the book Unbroken, Laura Hillenbrand illuminates the theme that war and conflict have profound and varied effects on different individuals.…

    • 728 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Shin confessed to him that he really has no idea what can be done besides spreading the word like he has been trying to do since his escape (Philling). Shin continued to say to the interviewer that David Philling and him also went on to discuss that the only full proof solution to the political prison camps, besides the spreading of information about them, is complete invasion in North Korea to liberate my countrymen (Philling). The mentioning of liberation hung in the air between Shin and the interviewer; it was something that was so close yet so far from happening. Breaking the silence, the interviewer changed the subject by asking another set of questions.…

    • 1541 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the memoir Year of Impossible Goodbyes, the main character, Sookan, changes from a scared and hopeless young girl to a brave and fearless one. At first she has no hope when the war is still surging, next she cowers in fear because the sock girls are being taken away and grandfather died, but finally she feels brave when they must escape to the south. Sookan's life at home had been terrible. They tried to throw a surprise party for Haiwon, but the Japanese soldiers interrupted them and ordered more to cut down grandfather’s tree. As she watched, she felt more hopeless than ever before. "But suddenly, I was sorry I was born a Korean child" (Choi 30). Sookan portrayed the characteristics of a hopeless and scared child at the beginning of the…

    • 439 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The author Suki Kim is the person being described in this essay. This is her autobiography.…

    • 394 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    English Paper

    • 327 Words
    • 2 Pages

    11. Summarize what you think this story reveals about the psychology of a person in a life or death situation.…

    • 327 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    In “Crimes Against Humanity: unpacking the North Korean human rights debate”, published online on Critical Asian Studies on 19 February 2014, Hazel Smith provides a clear overview of the North Korean human rights discourse’s perspectives. Particularly, the author attempted to shine a light on the discriminatory use of the statistical indicators that UN humanitarian and development agencies have been issuing since the mid-1990s on North Korea. According to Smith, inconsistency and misinterpretation are mostly due to a securitization perspective through which knowledge about DPRK is filtered, rather than to a mere conscious bias (Smith, 2014, 127).…

    • 755 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Sookan changes to be more independent and when her mother is taken by the Russians. Grandfather was a constant in Sookan’s life. He was the one who taught her about Korean culture, making it easy for Sookan to quietly think for herself. When Grandfather died, she lost the crutch for her free thinking self. She could still think for herself, but there was no further guide. “I felt so alone and scared and full of hatred.” (Choi 45) She didn't know where to go. Sometimes, the best lessons are the harshest. Despite it being a crushing blow to Sookan, this helped Sookan know that she will not have a helping hand forever, and that she is her own person. For years after years, the Japanese suppressed the Koreans. When the Russians came, they seemed…

    • 337 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Throughout our lives, we will all experience occurrences of political and cultural changes. How we cope with these alterations can set our paths for the near or far future, though it may not be clear at the time. In the autobiography Assignment: Rescue, a man by the name of Varian Fry voluntarily goes to Europe to try to help the men and women on the Gestapo’s blacklist escape before they are sent to concentration camps or killed. In the book Wild Swans, Jung Chang writes about three generations of women in her family, including herself, and their experiences in China before, during and after the Communist Revolution. Finally, the novel Things fall apart, by Chinua Achebe, focuses on a man named Okonkwo who, throughout the second and third…

    • 1236 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    A Certain Night

    • 726 Words
    • 3 Pages

    3. The nationalists regard to the commended prisoners with no respect at all. It was because they didn’t care for them, because they were communists, and the nationalist police were just there to execute them. They were very rough towards them as they “pushed them clumsily and hard, hitting them with rifle butts and putting ropes round their chest to tie them…” As well, they would refer to them as “criminals”, as they would count them one by one making them seem no more important than counting the hairs on your chin. The nationalist’s regards towards these prisoners were cruel and very careless.…

    • 726 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays