Robert Boynton

When my wife told me that her parents had warned her, as a child, to stay away from the Korean community in Japan because teenage girls like her were being kidnapped by North Korean agents.....I must admit to incredulity. It sounded very much like an urban myth. Though I guess her parents were warning her around 1977 when these kidnappings were actually taking place...so there must have been some discussion about it in Japan at the time. And now this book gives some considerable detail about this incredible, inhumane project by North Korea to kidnap young people, brainwash them, and bring them (and their children) up as spies or tutors for North Korea. (Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean that you are not being followed by North Korean agents). Young couples were snatched off beaches, individuals snatched off the streets ...families left for years with no knowledge about their whereabouts or even if they were alive. I really feel for the parents.
Interestingly enough, the abductees seemed to end up in slightly better physical circumstances than the local North Koreans...they had food and often houses. Though, like everyone, they were constantly watched and every word analysed and had minders allocated. When word did eventually leak out and the Japanese were taking steps to have the abductees returned they came up against something like the Stockholm syndrome...where the abductees sympathised with the captors. In their case it was more complex than sympathising because they had wives/husbands and children to think about. Though I noticed that one group of children were brought around to the idea of going to Japan by the realisation that with Japanese parents in North Korea they were effectively doomed. A class system has been instituted (in 1957) and if you are born into a particular caste...such as one of the original revolutionaries against the Japanese...you are in the top caste. The hostile class consists of Christians, prostitutes, landowners and wealthy businessmen. The three main classes are further subdivided into fifty-one sub-divisions. And life prospects are essentially determined by one's caste. If you are in the hostile class you and your children are essentially untouchables....forbidden from living in the major cities or attending the best schools, or serving in the military.
I found the book fascinating ..though a bit confusing as he traces the fate of a number of different abductees and it was a bit hard to keep track of them all. Oh, one thing he glosses over and that is that most of the abductees were abducted from South Korea. What a strange awful country is North Korea at the moment. And one can't see it changing in the near future. I give the book 3.5 stars..mainly because it was an interesting subject not because it's so well written.… (meer)