In the aftermath of the Korean war my mother’s brother left an enigmatic note on his pillow before stepping out for school. He never returned and the family lamented his apparent suicide.

A half century later a list of names is published in Koreas’ national paper. Part of the warming relations between North and South Korea, it offered the chance for families separated by the border to connect. So far nearly 20 thousand Koreans have participated in face-to-face meetings. My uncle’s name is there along with some briefly sketched details of the family tree. He is very much alive and living in North Korea. This was the first any of the family had ever heard from him.

My mother eventually traveled to North Korea to meet with her brother. My uncle was wearing a gold watch and a thinning suit. He confided that they were provided by the government solely for the visit. Other Koreans reunited with long lost relations were at nearby tables. Many visitors had brought gifts of linens, food and clothing. He quietly admitted that gifts were pointless as their intended recipients would probably never see them again.

My mother never talked too much about the visit. After a lifetime apart what do you say? Her brother is relatively affluent by North Korean standards, a professor who has raised a large family. Still, his face was gaunt, his teeth stained and crooked. His hands trembled constantly.

I thought about this uncle a lot while I was reading “Nothing to Envy“. Author Barbara Demick pieces together the lives of 6 North Koreans who eventually defect to South Korea. In the aftermath of the Korean War, North Korea’s economy dwarfed that of it’s southern neighbour. By 1960 the gross national product per capita of North Korea was $208 – nearly 4 times that of the South. A 1965 academic article entitled the “Korean Miracle” at the time referred to the North, not the South.

But in the 1990′s North Korea falls victim to a devastating famine. By 1998 an estimated 600,000 to 2 million North Koreans, almost 10% of the population, had died as a result of the famine. One defector, a doctor recalls that time:

“They would look at me with accusing eyes. Even four-year-olds knew they were dying and that I wasn’t doing anything to help them,” Dr. Kim told me years later. “All I was capable of doing was to cry with their mothers over their bodies afterward.”

It becomes too much and Dr. Kim makes for the Chinese border, crossing the Tumen river.

Dr. Kim staggered up the riverbank. her legs were numb, encased in frozen trousers. She made her way through the woods until the first light of dawn illuminated the outskirts of a small village. …She didn’t have the strength to go much farther. She would have to take a chance on the kindness of the local residents.

Dr. Kim looked down a dirt road that lead to farmhouses. Most of them had walls around them with metal gates. She tried one; it turned out to be unlocked. She pushed it open and peered inside. On the ground she saw a small metal bowl with food. She looked closer – it was rice, white rice, mixed with scraps of meat. Dr. Kim couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen a bowl of pure white rice. What was a bowl of rice doing there, just sitting out on the ground? She figured it out just before she heard the dog’s bark.

Up until that moment, a part of her had hoped that China would be just as poor as North Korea. She still wanted to believe that her country was the best place in the world. The beliefs she had cherished for a lifetime would be vindicated. But now she couldn’t deny what was staring her plain in the face; dogs in China ate better than doctors in North Korea.

Dr. Kim makes it to South Korea but her life isn’t immediately changed for the better. It’s not so cut and dried. While Koreans yearn for reunification it’s no small task to acclimatize an entire nation so sealed off from the rest of the world. South Korea isn’t ready to take on 23 million people in need of food and shelter and reports pin reunifications costs somewhere between 300 billion to 1.8 trillion.

“I wouldn’t have come here if I knew what I know now” Dr. Kim admits after her first year in South Korea. It can be a riot of colors, images, noise. Public displays of affection and people only too happy to take advantage of naive Northerners. In a society where neighbours are encouraged to spy on neighbours and a disparaging word could land you in prison, North Koreans are not accustomed to making small talk with strangers. They can seem rude and ungrateful. It’s hard to adjust. Despite having escaped a totalitarian regime they can’t help but defend it against criticism, having been indoctrinated since birth.

I think of my uncle in his borrowed suit repeatedly proffering a pin of Kim Jong-il to my mother.