Barbara Demick quotes

China's one-child policy was born in 1980, after years of less severe measures to discourage births. The Communist Party promised that the policy would be temporary. (Barbara Demick)
In 1991, few North Koreans had ever used a telephone. You had to go to a post office to make a phone call. View quote
Barbara Demick
A North Korean soldier would later recall a buddy who had been given an American-made nail clipper and was showing it off to his friends. The soldier clipped a few nails, admired the sharp, clean edges, and marveled at the mechanics of this simple item. Then he realized with a sinking heart: If North Korea couldn't make such a fine nail clipper, how could it compete with American weapons? View quote
Barbara Demick
Kim Jong Un came in as a fresh face, so I think there's a great disappointment that he's playing the same game as his father. View quote
Barbara Demick
Walking down the street with a portrait of the Dalai Lama will get one immediately arrested in most parts of China. Tiny medallions are routinely confiscated and destroyed. View quote
Barbara Demick
We see North Koreans as automatons, goose-steeping at parades, doing mass gymnastics with fixed smiles on their faces - but beneath all that, real life goes on with the same complexity of human emotion as anywhere else. View quote
Barbara Demick
One of the ways the North Korea regime has kept power is by keeping its people ignorant of the living standards in the outside world. That's the underlying lie that supports the regime - not that their country is 'normal' but that they are better off. View quote
Barbara Demick
In 1984, George Orwell wrote of a world where the only colour to be found was in the propaganda posters. Such is the case in North Korea. Images of Kim Il-sung are depicted in vivid colours. Rays of yellow and orange emanate from his face: he is the sun. View quote
Barbara Demick
In 1949, Mao Tse-tung's Communists established the People's Republic of China, and the following year, his People's Liberation Army invaded central Tibet. View quote
Barbara Demick
Over the years, so many exceptions and amendments were made to China's one-child policy that it was hard to pinpoint a moment to pronounce it dead. View quote
Barbara Demick
By 2022, China is expected to cede the dubious distinction of being the world's most populous nation to India, according to the population division of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. (Barbara Demick)
If you look at satellite photographs of the Far East by night, you'll see a large splotch curiously lacking in light. This area of darkness is the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. View quote
Barbara Demick
The anti-Japanese resistance was as familiar a theme in North Korean cinema as cowboys and Indians was in early Hollywood. View quote
Barbara Demick
North Korea is probably the only country in the world deliberately kept out of the Internet. View quote
Barbara Demick
North Korea faded to black in the early 1990s. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, which had propped up its old Communist ally with cheap fuel oil, North Korea's creakily inefficient economy collapsed. Power stations rusted into ruin. View quote
Barbara Demick
In the 1990s, the United States offered to help North Korea with its energy needs if it gave up its nuclear weapons programme. View quote
Barbara Demick