[0110101001]

Reminds me of a story I read about a North Korean who defected to the US during the Korean War. He came across an American nail clipper and was amazed by the machining and intricacy that went into something as mundane as trimming nails. He realized that if this is the complexity of a nail-clipper, he was surely no match to American weapons. He'd defect soon after.

[orthoxerox]

I remember this story a bit differently: he came across the nail clipper in the grass next to the shared trail in the DMZ and left it alone, since if he picked it up, the South Korean that lost it would accuse the North Korean border guards of theft of a valuable tool and spark a diplomatic incident.

The next few times he patrolled the trail he would check if the clipper was still there, and it was. What was more puzzling, the grass along the sides of the trail showed no traces of a search. Then he realized that no one was coming back for it, that not only was South Korea so rich that a random border guard could afford a nail clipper, but it was so much richer that the loss of a delicate tool like that was just a mild inconvenience, that the guard must've just went and bought another one.

[0110101001]

Interesting. Perhaps different tellings of the same story? This appears to be the story I read from the book Nothing to Envy:

> A North Korean soldier would later recall a buddy who had been given an American-made nail clipper and was showing it off to his friends. The soldier clipped a few nails, admired the sharp, clean edges, and marveled at the mechanics of this simple item. Then he realized with a sinking heart: If North Korea couldn’t make such a fine nail clipper, how could it compete with American weapons?

[daemonologist]

Possibly from "Nothing to Envy" by Barbara Demick: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Nothing_to_Envy/BgKWDwA...

I've also seen the version recalled by orthoxerox elsewhere (reddit) but couldn't find a more authoritative source.

[0110101001]

Yes, that's where I read the story

[imbnwa]

> He realized that if this is the complexity of a nail-clipper, he was surely no match to American weapons. He'd defect soon after.

Heh, of course he failed to thus learn the lesson that sheer numbers can solve many problems when the People’s Liberation Army crossed the North Korean border

[dilyevsky]

“Quantity has a quality all its own”

He probably just realized SK priorities are completely different given that the north would never spend valuable industrial resources to produce a mundane item such as this instead of feeding the war machine

[jasonwatkinspdx]

Reminds me of the famous story about Boris Yeltsin.

While he was on a state visit to Johnson Space Center, he made an impulse decision to check out a grocery store. He was astonished by the selection and low prices. Apparently it was this visit that caused him to leave the communist party and start to reform Russia economically.

[dekhn]

and now the north koreans sell arms to Russia, which says something.