The Girl with Seven Names: Chapter 16 Summary & Analysis

Hyeonseo hasn’t seen Mother smile since Father’s death, but she still manages to support them with her illicit trading business. Not long after Kim Il-sung’s death, the government stops paying salaries and ration coupons are often worthless. One day, Mother comes home with a letter from a friend in North Hamgyong Province, which tells of widespread famine and food shortages. The woman who wrote the letter claimed to be dying of starvation and dreamed only of some corn cake. Hyeonseo immediately thinks of her friend—their family must not have food either.

Soon, beggars appear all over Hyesan, and children are ordered to bring a quota of their own excrement to school for use as fertilizer. There is no fuel, and factories begin to shut down, one after another. It is 1996, near Hyeonseo’s 16th birthday, and the government’s official explanation for the country’s difficulties is economic sanctions by the Americans and the United Nations, along with crop failures and record-breaking floods. The real reason, Hyeonseo will learn years later, is the collapse of the Soviet Union and the new Russian government’s refusal to subsidize North Korea with food and fuel. 

The Dear Leader, Kim Jong-il, is said to be eating only rice and potatoes, but he still looks portly and healthy. Law and order begins to break down across North Korea, and soldiers and police officers turn into thieves. Mother sends Hyeonseo and Min-ho to Uncle Cinema’s near Hamhung, and Hyeonseo is shocked to see what has become of the bustling city. The factories are all closed, and people are dying in the streets. On the trip back to Hyesan, Hyeonseo sees a man at the train station with his skull bashed in and his brain exposed. Accidents like this are common during famines.

One day during the summer, Hyeonseo and Min-ho come home from school to find a thief in their house. He is trying to steal their television, but he is too weak to lift it. Mother gives the man money and tells him to go buy some food. Rumors of cannibalism begin to spread, and the government issues harsh warnings against it. The travel permit system is the next to collapse, so Mother sends Hyeonseo and Min-ho to Pyongyang to visit Uncle Money. No one is hungry in Pyongyang, which looks the same as it always has, but even this doesn’t last. Not even the regime can keep the famine from spreading to Pyongyang.