When Shin lived with his mother in shared quarters, conditions were the best that the camp had to offer. This was not saying much, as there was no running water or furniture, but Shin’s mother was able to bring food home if she met her daily work quota. Though every meal was the same, Shin’s hunger prompted him to eat his mother’s lunch as well as his own. This infuriated his mother and she would sometimes issue beatings as brutal as those of the prison guards. It did not occur to Shin that his mother would go hungry as a result of his actions, and it was only years later that he learned that a civilized child should love his or her mother.

Shin’s mother had never talked about why she was in the camp, but Shin was born as a result of an arranged “reward” marriage between herself and another prisoner. These marriages provided the only way around the camp’s no-sex rule and motivated prisoners to work hard and inform on one another. Where pregnancy resulted from unauthorized sex, the woman and her offspring were typically killed. If a person objected to the person with whom they were matched, they could sometimes choose to cancel the marriage.