About the book: year / From the text: Total information control. In North Korea since the early 60s. It is a criminal offense (formally still a criminal offense today) to have a free-tuning radio at home. 5 years of camps simply for the fact of finding a radio in your home. […]Complete information isolation.[…] to access the Internet you must have personal permission from the head of state. […]Rigid distribution system. That is, naturally, the liquidation of all types of private economic activity in the late 50s. Since 1957, the transition to cards, and from the late 60s. – total card system. […]One of my South Korean acquaintances, who worked with refugees in China, told me how around 1998 (when there was a wave of refugees) he interviewed a certain North Korean grandmother. She had just arrived, crossed the border a few days before and said that she had now visited China, where everything was wonderful, China simply overwhelmed North Koreans with wealth, it was a shock. It's a shock to see how insanely rich China's poorest areas are in comparison. And she has become so advanced in these four days, she tells him: “Now I know what’s good.” “What do you know, grandma?” - he asks her. “Well, I know that America lives well,” says the grandmother. He asks: “What is it to live well?” Grandmother’s answer: “And in America, everyone, even infants, is given 800 g of clean rice every day on ration cards.”».