Pyongyang Chapter 3 Summary

How It All Goes Down

  • Sandrine returns home, and Guy is given a new translator: Mister Sin.
  • The next day, in his room, Guy tries to listen to a radio that he smuggled through customs. “They all play the same station” (3.33).
  • That afternoon, Guy reads 1984 and watches a pair of waitresses try to squash a bug. One of them succeeds, crushing it beneath her heel.
  • On a trip to the NGO quarter, Guy learns about all the food aid being given to North Korea… and about how the North Koreans are mismanaging it by dividing their people into the “useful population” and “useless population”—including people like the “political prisoners (approx. 200,000)” (3.96)—and divvying up the food accordingly.
  • That’s depressing. To blow off steam, Guy plays golf and pool with Richard.