In this passage, Barbara Demick reconstructs Jun-sang’s thought process as he weighs his growing anti-regime feelings—and his longing to defect—against his desire to connect with his girlfriend, Mi-ran, about his new ideas and thoughts. Though Jun-sang is, at this point in his life, closer to Mi-ran than anyone in the world, he is still unable to tell her about his secret late-night viewings of South Korean news broadcasts or his desire to leave North Korea behind.
Jun-sang’s very real fears speak to the way that a constant atmosphere of surveillance hampers one’s ability to be truthful even with one’s closest…