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Chang-bo
Nam-oak was Mrs. Song’s son. He was a rebel who defied North Korean social mores by engaging in premarital sex with a woman much older than he. As a result, Nam-oak’s childhood dreams of athletic glory never came to fruition. He died in 1997, at the height of the famine, after a bout of pneumonia worsened by starvation.
Nam-oak Quotes in Nothing to Envy
The Nothing to Envy quotes below are all either spoken by Nam-oak or refer to Nam-oak. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 9
Quotes
Even with his weight loss, Nam-oak was too heavy for Mrs. Song to carry to the hospital-there were no ambulances working by now-so she went herself and explained his condition. A doctor wrote her a prescription for penicillin, but when she got to the market she found it cost 50 won—the same price as a kilo of corn.
She chose the corn.
Nam-oak died in March 1998, alone in the shack.
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Chapter 17
Quotes
She thought of Chang-bo especially when she was eating. How that man loved to eat! He would have so enjoyed the sausage. […] Then her thoughts drifted to her son. Her memories were so tinged with guilt and shame that she couldn't even speak about him. So strong, so handsome—such a tragedy to have lost him at twenty-five. How much life he had missed. How much they had all missed, herself too, her daughters, locked away in North Korea, working themselves to death. For what? We will do as the party tells us. We will die for the general. We have nothing to envy. We will go our own way. She had believed it all and wasted her life. Or maybe not.
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Nam-oak Quotes in Nothing to Envy
The Nothing to Envy quotes below are all either spoken by Nam-oak or refer to Nam-oak. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 9
Quotes
Even with his weight loss, Nam-oak was too heavy for Mrs. Song to carry to the hospital-there were no ambulances working by now-so she went herself and explained his condition. A doctor wrote her a prescription for penicillin, but when she got to the market she found it cost 50 won—the same price as a kilo of corn.
She chose the corn.
Nam-oak died in March 1998, alone in the shack.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 17
Quotes
She thought of Chang-bo especially when she was eating. How that man loved to eat! He would have so enjoyed the sausage. […] Then her thoughts drifted to her son. Her memories were so tinged with guilt and shame that she couldn't even speak about him. So strong, so handsome—such a tragedy to have lost him at twenty-five. How much life he had missed. How much they had all missed, herself too, her daughters, locked away in North Korea, working themselves to death. For what? We will do as the party tells us. We will die for the general. We have nothing to envy. We will go our own way. She had believed it all and wasted her life. Or maybe not.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
