What parasitic worms in defector reveal about North Korea

North Korean poop quotas.

Have been reading accounts of people who have escaped from North Korea and the old Soviet Union. Several times in each book I read, I am shocked by something I read that I never could have imagined without reading it. A few days ago, just before the North Korean soldier got shot crossing the border, I had yet another shock from a North Korean defector's story -- poop quotas. From the book In Order To Live by Yeonmi Park:

"The big effort to collect waste peaked in January, so it could be ready for growing season. Our bathrooms in North Korea were usually far away from the house, so you had to be careful that your neighbors didn't steal from you at night. Some people would lock up their outhouses to keep the poop thieves away. At school the teachers would send us out into the streets to find poop and carry it back to class. So if we saw a dog pooping in the street, it was like gold. My uncle in Kowon had a big dog who made a big poop -- and everyone in the family would fight over it. This is not something you see every day in the West."

And now we find that the North Korean soldier is riddled with parasites. Two things I take from this -- 1. This is the legacy of communism, people so poor and an economy so dysfunctional that this is what the people are reduced to. 2. Any estimate of military strength of the North Korean Army has to take into account more than just the number of troops. Most North Koreans are not well fed, and if this soldier-escapee is any indication, most are not in optimum health as well.