Feeling Guilty for Eating Rice

"A world in which we can eat rice and meat soup, which our Great Leader [Kim Il-sung] longed for so much, is becoming a reality due to the efforts of our Dear Leader [Kim Jong Il]."

Such were the words of a North Korean Workers Party propaganda officer during a party lecture earlier this year.

Back in the 1950’s, "rice and meat soup" was Kim Il-sung's slogan for a prosperous socialist society. Today North Korea's economy is in still in terrible shape.

Among North Korean defectors surveyed by the National Human Rights Commission, 58 percent said they had personally witnessed people starving to death in the North. Defectors say because of this factor it is at mealtimes that they think most about the family they left behind in the North.