from Barbara Demick's Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea:
In the first years of the food shortage, the children at the train station survived by begging food, but before long there were simply too many of them and too few people with food to spare. "Charity begins with a full stomach," the North Koreans like to say; you can't feed somebody else's kids if your own are starving.
When begging failed, the children picked up anything on the ground that was vaguely edible. If they couldn't find food, they would pick up cigarette butts and reroll whatever tobacco remained with discarded paper. Almost all the children smoked to dampen their hunger.
Hyuck sometimes joined up with children who formed themselves into gangs to steal together. Chongjin always had a nasty reputation due to its street gangs, but their activities took on new urgency in hard times. There was a natural division of labor between the bigger kids--who were faster and stronger--and the little ones, who were less likely to get beaten up and arrested if caught. The big ones would rush at a food stand, toppling everything onto the ground. As they sprinted off with the angry vendor in hot pursuit, the little kids would scoop up the food.
Another trick was to find a slow-moving train or a truck carrying grain and slit the sacks with a sharp stick. Whatever spilled out was fair game for the children. Eventually, the railroad company hired armed guards with shoot-to-kill orders to prevent such thefts.
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