Tough Neighborhood

Writing in the Washington Post, Samuel Songhoon Lee relates the experiences of some of the North Korean students who taught him English, including this rather remarkable report:

[B] graduated from School 34 a few weeks ago and is studying at Sungkyunkwan University, one of the nation’s top colleges. He grew up a few minutes away from one of North Korea’s most notorious political prisons, Prison 22 in Hyeryung, Ham-Kyung Province, at the northern tip of North Korea. Because food and alcohol are scarce in the countryside, the prison guards went to  [B’s] house for libations. “They always drank heavily,” he told me. “And when they got drunk, they would mumble about how sorry they felt for what they did to prisoners.” [WaPo]

You will recall that in this post, my Google Earth tour of Camp 22, I had focused in on some of the farms just outside the main gate, on the road to Hoeryong, and wondered about the lives of the people living there. Now we know a little more.  (Hat tip:  The Marmot)