From "The Aquariums of Pyongyang" from which I have been quoting for a few days now, the following description of how some overcame starvation and its resultant health deterioration. Author Kang, in a concentration camp with his family, has been put on an outside detail. Normally outdoor work would be stimulating but this particular assignment has to do with burial of the many who die on a regular basis in this camp.

"The work did have one benefit, though it usually came too late to help the weakest among us. In the fields, it was sometimes possible for us to catch frogs, which were plentiful in this season. The amphibian could be skinned and cooked fresh or set out to dry in the sun and used later. Their eggs were also very much in demand.

"Besides the frogs, we also ate salamanders that we caught near a sweet-water spring. I never much liked the way they tasted, but they were said to be very nutritious. Eating three a day was supposed to keep you in great shape, like vitamin concentrates, though I have no idea whether this was science or faith.

"The way to eat a salamander is to grab it by the tail and swallow it in one quick gulp - before it can discharge a foul-tasting liquid. I often brought my grandmother salamanders so that she would stay healthy, but she never got the knack of swallowing them whole. We kids were the only ones who could do it easily.

"We ate anything that moved, making even the undiscriminating adults look picky by comparison. By the time a group of prisoners finished working a field, no animal was left alive. Even earthworms were fair game. When we were done with her, nature always needed a couple of seasons to recuperate before she could provide a fresh bounty of food. And yet our hunger remained, piercing, draining."