Summary

A few months before the house fire Hyeonseo and her friends buy illegal cassette tapes of South Korean pop music. Hyeonseo plays the music quietly and in secret after hearing that a local woman was sentenced to a prison camp "for partying to South Korean pop" (54). This music gives Hyeonseo a vague awareness of the world outside North Korea. The tapes are soon destroyed in the house fire, which Hyeonseo now considers a stroke of luck since their discovery could have been fatal. After the fire, the family moves to a house directly facing the bank of the Yalu River which borders China. Hyeonseo is now as close to the outside world as physically possible.

At this time, the family gets a television. Although all North Korean content is provided by the government, the television is also able to pick up...