Book review: In Order to Live by Yeonmi Park

Hello dear readers!

I am recently a little bit crazy about reading books. This old hobby is making its comeback to my hobby list, apparently! For several years, I was not really interested in reading books, like for 4-5 years, and somehow I just got a motivation to do it since a month ago.

For one month, I have been reading two interesting books, and I am going to do a review for the second book that I read: In Order to Live by Yeonmi Park.

I found this book accidentally at University Library of RUG in Groningen. They have a lot of books and albums about Korea (South and North Korea). Then I found this book. I am quite interested in the life of North Koreans and I have seen several YouTube videos about travellers travelling to North Korea, that is why I gave the book a go.

After one week of reading, I did a little bit of review in my Instastory. But, I am thinking to write more review here in my blog. After writing it, actually it is more like my own self reflection hahaha. You will see what I mean. Anyways, here is my review from Instastory:

Then my other review/self reflection:

It's interesting to read and to imagine a life of a young woman who struggled to find freedom for herself and her family

At a very young age, she needed to be responsible for herself and for her family; leading her mother, and eventually her late father, to escape from North Korea, to searching her sister. She acted beyond her age and stand up for her family. Given my situation right now, in which I never experienced the things she experienced, I would not be able to be as strong as she is.

What fascinated me was that, even the simple and normal thing as lights or electricity or going for a trip to the capital city was considered as extraordinary for her

I found this really interesting. My 'experience' with old and traditional life is when I watch Korean colossal drama, where everything is ancient and not modernized. I was stunned by her story about it. I tried to imagine how shock she was when she saw South Korea for the first time. Despite that, she can point some good things about her life. I was reminded by this, that I should be grateful for what I have now.

Sometimes, several things that she experienced made me frustrated, but I then realized that I was thinking from my point of view, not from her point of view.

I, just like most of everyone in this world, are used to a modern world, where everything is related to technology. Furthermore, I was (and still am) 22 years old when I read the book, which is more mature than her when the story happened (but she actually is older than me). Thus, some of her experiences made me wonder, how she did not think other solution for a certain problem (just like what I thought). I was carried away with the thought. Then, I realized that I was thinking a solution based on my own perspective, which is influenced by my current situation and how I live my life. It should be totally different from her situation.

What I can learn from Yeonmi Park is to not give up though life is hard for in the end the hard work pays off. There is always rainbow after the rain

#TheThoughts #Books