Imagine a conversation like this taking place when your husband comes home from work, ladies:

"You're home from work early again! Did you have any lunch?"

"Oh, I'm so sick I feel like I'm going to die. I left work early because my fever is really high. Maybe I'll be an addition to the fifty or so of our town's people dying today! Then you can eat my body," Pil Soo replied in all seriousness. That was a reality in their area. But no one openly talked about it. Two sons of a nearby neighbor had recently starved to death. Surprisingly, there had been no funeral. Rumors were rampant. It was too close to home!

"Nonsense," retorted Myung Hee. "You've just got a cold again, from this changing weather! Come lie down on the bed and I'll get you some hot water to drink." On the one hand, she sought to downplay her husband's condition; on the other, she inwardly fretted about his pain and fever.

"How was your day?" Pil Soo grimaced as he held his aching stomach.

"Nothing more notable than neighbors begging for food again! Of course, I had nothing for them. The Soon family thinks their Grandma may die of hunger tonight. She regularly insists her grandchildren be given her portion of food."

"Where's my mother?" Pil Soo queried as he looked around the cottage for their resident grandmother.

"Oh she's gone to the mountainside to gather grass to make porridge. The children went with her. They'll try and find some pine bark also."

"You mean we're out of corn rice again already," Pil Soo replied in a tone of frustration...