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Bowibu
Songbun refers to the North Korean caste system. The songbun system is broken into three broad categories and holds 51 degrees of status. No one in North Korea is told their songbun status exactly, although most have a general idea where they fall. It is nearly impossible to rise in songbun, but it is incredibly easy to fall, and one’s job and lifestyle are based upon songbun status. Hyeonseo and her family are from very high songbun, achieved by Grandmother during the Korean War when she hid the family’s Communist Party membership cards instead of destroying them when the Americans arrived. One’s songbun is fiercely guarded in North Korea, and it can protect one from poverty, arrest, and imprisonment.
Songbun Quotes in The Girl with Seven Names
The The Girl with Seven Names quotes below are all either spoken by Songbun or refer to Songbun. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 1
Quotes
No one was ever told their precise ranking in the songbun system, and yet I think most people knew by intuition, in the same way that in a flock of fifty-one sheep every individual will know precisely which sheep ranks above it and below it in the pecking order. The insidious beauty of it was that it was very easy to sink, but almost impossible to rise in the system, even through marriage, except by some special indulgence of the Great Leader himself. The elite, about 10 or 15 per cent of the population, had to be careful never to make mistakes.
At the time my parents met, a family’s songbun was of great importance. It determined a person’s life, and the lives of their children.
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Chapter 16
Quotes
As I travelled back to Hyesan, I thought the whole visit had seemed like a strange dream. I could not believe Pyongyang was in the same country where people were dying on the sidewalks in Hamhung, and vagrant children swarmed in the markets of Hyesan. In the end, though, not even Pyongyang stayed immune. The regime could not prevent famine coming to the heart of its own power base
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Chapter 33
Quotes
I thought of my uncle’s tirade against North Korea when I’d arrived in his apartment in Shenyang over six years ago, and the bizarre truths he’d told me about the Korean War, and the private life of Kim Jong-il. I’d refused to believe him. Ever since, I’d closed my mind to the reality of the regime in North Korea. Unless it directly affected my family, I had never wanted to know. I thought the reason people escaped was because of hunger, or, like me, out of an unexamined sense of curiosity. It had never occurred to me that people would escape for political reasons.
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Songbun Term Timeline in The Girl with Seven Names
The timeline below shows where the term Songbun appears in The Girl with Seven Names. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 1: A Train Through the Mountains
...Father asks Mother to marry him, and she happily accepts. Both families have a good songbun, the North Korean caste system, which is broken into three broad categories and holds 51...
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Grandmother is a dedicated communist, and she secured her own family’s songbun when she hid the family’s Communist Party membership cards from American soldiers during the Korean...
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Chapter 2: The City at the Edge of the World
...is a successful executive at a trading company in Pyongyang, but Uncle Poor fell in songbun after marrying a woman from a collective farm. Uncle Poor is a talented painter and...
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Chapter 13: Sunlight on Dark Water
...divorce and put the three children up for adoption—the only way to save the family’s songbun after a spouse is imprisoned. No one in North Korea talks openly about the gulags,...
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...considered the ultimate form of defection in North Korea and is detrimental to a family’s songbun. Mother manages to bribe the hospital staff and gets Father’s death certificate reclassified to reflect...
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Chapter 18: Over the Ice
...named Ri Chang-ho. Chang-ho is six years older than Hyeonseo and of the absolute highest songbun. One day, when Hyeonseo is leaving for Hamhung to visit Aunt Pretty, Chang-ho asks Hyeonseo...
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Chapter 31: Career Woman
...a business group in Pyongyang. The waitresses are all beautiful and selected based on their songbun. Hyeonseo knows the restaurant offers cover for Bowibu spies, but her new ID makes her...
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Chapter 39: House of Unity
...calls Mother, who tells her about Min-ho’s new girlfriend, a lovely young girl of high songbun. Hyeonseo feels a sting of sadness. She will likely never meet Min-ho’s love.
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Chapter 40: The Learning Race
...status is important in South Korea, too, only one’s status is based on education, not songbun. Many North Korean defectors are uneducated, which means they are given only the most menial...
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Chapter 52: “I am Prepared to Die”
...a rough life in North Korea, the adjustment is easy. However, for people of high songbun, like Mother, the adjustment period isn’t so easy. She misses Aunt Pretty and her other...
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