A New Window on the Hermit Kingdom
Lifting the veil on life inside the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is challenging at the best of times, given its secretive nature. Few foreigners have had the chance to live for extended periods of time in North Korea, but Andray Abrahamian, an Angloarmenian, has taken advantage of some 10 years of direct experience of working there to offer a rare insight. Abrahamian’s contact derives from his involvement in Choson Exchange, a Singapore-based non-governmental organization that he helped run with Geoffrey See, focusing on providing training in business and management to North Korean citizens.
Abrahamian’s personal memoir vividly introduces the foreign reader to multiple aspects of life in North Korea. Whether navigating the at times questionable safety standards of flying into the country, or the practicalities of moving around the capital, Pyongyang, with or without dedicated guides, or the need to respect North Korean pride, Abrahamian details the challenges of engaging with a country that is highly suspicious of foreigners. His fluency in Korean and the breadth of his analysis (including economic reform, social hardship and diplomatic relations) testify to his enthusiasm for understanding the country, although this is tempered by the regime’s authoritarianism and the failure of bilateral talks with the US to produce a resolution to the nuclear crisis on the peninsula.