Google Maps Covers North Korea

At the end of January, Google unveiled a new more detailed map of North Korea including detailed features like monuments, landmarks, and prison camps.  Assembled with the help of citizen cartographers it's a great leap forward in open information availability about this secretive nation.  The Washington Post did a great job of presenting the difference visually in this article.  Play with the slider for some real fun.

National Geographic published a comparison between their own map and Google's, in their article advising caution about maps created by amateurs.  Of course the comparison between the Google and National Geographic maps is not totally fair, because Google's detail is only revealed when you zoom in.  So what do you think is the value of having this information out there, even if there are some inaccuracies?  Do you think that the act of publishing will yield a deluge of feedback to improve the maps?

James Church's North Korea

A while ago I wrote a a post about James Church's novel  A Corpse in the Koryo.  Set in North Korea, Church's novels feature the dedicated Inspector O.  O is apolitical in a sea of back-stabbing politics.  O is shielded by his grandfather's reputation, a famous North Korean revolutionary, but he's always hovering at the edge of that protective shield.   

Although Inspector O is an interesting, multifaceted character, to me the key protagonist is North Korea itself.  In this surreal society, cases aren't cases, and mysteries aren't meant to be unravelled.  Everyone is paranoid, society is deprived, and Inspector O never has the tools to solve the mysteries presented to him.  That doesn't matter too much since his superiors usually want the mysteries buried rather than solved.  O spends most of his time trying to decipher the dangerous, ever-shifting power balance within the police department, and keeping himself safe from internal threats while he doggedly seeks the truth. 

Besides being a respected revolutionary, O's grandfather was a woodworker, with a passion and sensitivity for wood.  O has inherited this harmony with wood, and carries around bits of wood in his pocket, like worry beads to be rubbed in times of trouble.  Depending on the trouble, he matches the wood to the occasion.  His grandfather taught him that different woods have different personalities.  For instance chestnut is 'touchy and ill-tempered...but... beautiful, lustrous, hard, calm in the storm.'  


The Man with the Baltic Stare is my favourite book so far.  O comes out of 'retirement' (or is it banishment?) from his remote hilltop cabin to be thrown into baffling swirls of intrigue in Pyongyang, as everyone prepares for the rumoured reunification of North and South Korea. When my husband and I toured Korea, we met people who felt strongly on both sides of that question.  Our main guide considered reunification as a cultural necessity, and he was very moved when we visited the demilitarization zone.  Another guide in the city took the pragmatic view that reviving the North would swamp South Korea and send it reeling back into poverty.  There was an interesting article in The Economist some month ago, comparing the situation of the two Koreas with that of the two Germanys before reunification.  This chart was telling:

 There are proportionately more people in North Korea compared to South Korea than there were in East Germany compared to West Germany, and the difference economically is staggering compared to the differences between East and West Germany.  This book deftly describes the other nations with vested interests in the country after reunification.

Author James Church is a 'former Western intelligence officer with decades of experience in Asia'.  I haven't been able to find detailed biographical information about him, but an entry in Wikipedia states that he was over 60 in 2009.  I hope he's still writing books, because I am hungry for more Inspector O. 

A Corpse in the Koryo: An Inspector O Mystery

I'm continuing my habit of reading mystery/thriller books set in unusual locales .  The latest is about a police inspector in North Korea.  Really, North Korea. 


 The book opens with Inspector O being assigned to dawn surveillance on a deserted country road.  The assignment: take photos of any cars that pass.  When he returns to base, he hasn't any photos to show for his uncomfortable dawn vigil, because the camera's battery was dead.  In North Korea, the police can't always put their hands on batteries. 

So begins the slow unraveling of a mystery based on intense rivalry between the military and intelligence services, while simultaneously giving us insights into the privations of North Korean society.  Inspector O is that traditional mystery character, the assiduous detective who really wants to find the truth, despite the web of intrigue that the bureaucracy weaves around him.  O walks a tightrope between opposing forces, but he's not just fighting for his career.  He's struggling to save his own life.

The author, James Church, is a pseudonym for a a Western intelligence officer with lots of experience in Asia.  The picture he paints of North Korea is more evocative than all the news articles you read about this repressive, deprived country.  One vignette that really brought it all home to me was O's experience with sandpaper.  O's grandfather was a cabinet-maker, and O is assembling pieces of wood to build a bookcase.  He has a cache of sandpaper he has brought back from various trips to the West because there is no sandpaper in North Korea.  However, his apartment is searched and the sandpaper is confiscated, and he has only one used-up piece left, which he keeps in his office desk drawer.

This is Church's first book and I personally can't wait for a follow-up.