Freshly Cut Grass

The Things We Take for Granted

We continue to make our way through Ask A North Korean (see below).  The various contributors to the volume are now all ex-pat--that is, they have fled North Korea.  If recaptured they would doubtless be thrown into the Gulag. 

In this matter, North Korea is acting in a manner consistent with all totalitarian states.  Their walls exist to keep the people in, not to protect citizens from outside threats. 

One contributor to this collection of essays upon North Korea comments upon her experiences in a free country--in this case the US.  She writes:

I am currently studying in America, taking ESL classes here.  One thing that startled me is that Americans are highly individualistic.  I know it's a capitalist country and that Americans aren't as collectivist as North Koreans.  But Americans were so individualistic and selfish that I found it almost shocking.  I even saw an American family at a restaurant that split the bill!  As I got used to living in America, I began to think that it's just their culture rather than selfishness.  . . . .

Now that I'm in America, I have grown to like this country a lot more.  People are friendly here and the environment is great, too.  On my way to classes every morning, people are moving their lawns.  O, how I love the fresh smell of the lawns!  [Je Son Lee, "The Outside World",  Ask a North Korean: Defectors Talk About Their Lives Inside the World's Most Secretive Nation.  Edited by Daniel Tudor.  (Tokyo: Tuttle Publishing, 2017),  p.124.]

We have enjoyed the smell of freshly mown lawns many, many times.  We have never before seen it as a symbol of freedom and of a clean environment.