[imText1]This letter is a contribution from a reader in China. –Editor
There was a South Korean woman who lived in China, and who my wife had known for a long time.
The woman had many children hired a housekeeper to help her take care of the children. She wanted to hire a Chinese woman, but since she could not find one, she hired a North Korean woman who had crossed the China-North Korea border in order to make a living.
A Chinese woman who lived in the same apartment building as the woman had recommended the North Korean woman. It was said that the North Korean woman came from the North Hamkyung province, and that her children were still living in North Korea, so she crossed the border to make some money.
At first, the South Korean woman was intrigued by the North Korean housekeeper. She had nowhere else to go, and therefore worked diligently, except that she refused to throw away food that passed its expiration date. When the South Korean woman told her to throw away the food, then the housekeeper hid it, saying “how could you throw away this food?” This North Korean housemaid ate the food in her room whenever she had a moment to spare.
The North Korean housekeeper also used a lot of seasoning on her food, even though the South Korean woman told her it was not good for her. Yet the housekeeper put it on everything she ate, saying it made the food tasty. The South Korean woman tried to understand what she was thinking, but could not.
Today I again heard about the North Korean housekeeper. The South Korean woman said that she had to send the housekeeper back to her relatives living in China because the North Korean woman’s digestive troubles had grown so bad that she could not fall asleep every night, and could not eat anything. She lost 10kg in two months, which worried the South Korean woman. who felt that the best thing would be to send her back to her relatives in China.
Many North Koreans have digestive trouble due to the lives of starvation that they come from, but I wondered why this particular case had become so bad. According to the South Korean woman, the North Korean housekeeper was not careful about what she ate. From the beginning, she had told the North Korean housekeeper to be careful of what she ate because she knew that she had digestive problems. But the housekeeper did not listen to her at all.
The housekeeper ate breads after slicing off the stale parts, and only ate processed food. Even worse, she never ate any vegetables, saying that she had had enough of them, and ate only some rice. Although the South Korean woman said that due to her digestive problems, she should have Doenjang-guk (bean-paste potage), the housekeeper ate only processed foods, particularly Korean noodles (Lamyeon), saying “when else could I eat this wonderful food?”
Being so worried about her health, the South Korean woman threw away all the Korean noodles in the house and did not buy any more, at which point, the housekeeper began to spend all her salary on buying Korean noodles. After seeing this, the South Korean woman totally gave up on dissuading her from eating the Korean noodles, although she was sure that this type of eating habit would definitely make her sick.
This is not a rare case. I often saw North Korean devouring bags of candies, and North Korea adults eating 10kg of rice within only a few days. Whenever I meet North Koreans, my heart breaks because I realize that the terms “well-being” and “health food diet” often used in South Korea are truly extravagant compared to how most people in the world are forced to live.
