A haunting account of teaching English to the sons of North Korea’s ruling class during the last six months of Kim Jong-il’s reign Every day, three times a day, the students march in two straight lines, singing praises to Kim Jong-il and North Korea: Without you, there is no motherland. Without you, there is no us. It is a chilling scene, but gradually Suki Kim, too, learns the tune and, … learns the tune and, without noticing, begins to hum it. It is 2011, and all universities in North Korea have been shut down for an entire year, the students sent to construction fields—except for the 270 students at the all-male Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST), a walled compound where portraits of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il look on impassively from the walls of every room, and where Suki has gone undercover as a missionary and a teacher. Over the next six months, she will eat three meals a day with her young charges and struggle to teach them English, all under the watchful eye of the regime.
Life at PUST is lonely and claustrophobic, especially for Suki, whose letters are read by censors and who must hide her notes and photographs not only from her minders but from her colleagues—evangelical Christian missionaries who don’t know or choose to ignore that Suki doesn’t share their faith. As the weeks pass, she is mystified by how easily her students lie, unnerved by their obedience to the regime. At the same time, they offer Suki tantalizing glimpses of their private selves—their boyish enthusiasm, their eagerness to please, the flashes of curiosity that have not yet been extinguished. She in turn begins to hint at the existence of a world beyond their own—at such exotic activities as surfing the Internet or traveling freely and, more dangerously, at electoral democracy and other ideas forbidden in a country where defectors risk torture and execution. But when Kim Jong-il dies, and the boys she has come to love appear devastated, she wonders whether the gulf between her world and theirs can ever be bridged.
Without You, There Is No Us offers a moving and incalculably rare glimpse of life in the world’s most unknowable country, and at the privileged young men she calls “soldiers and slaves.”
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The Author, who was born in South Korea, but moved with her family to the USA when she was 13 years old, wanted to go back to North Korea, not as a reporter who was only allowed to write on what was shown to her as a foreigner, but to get a real feel for the country. She joined a group of missionaries disguised as teachers, who hoped to bring their Christian religion to the area, and she as a writer, also disguised as a missionary and teacher. They taught at a new University, Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST) a well guarded campus for 270 sons of North Korea’s elite. She found the young men who she had grown attached to, very naive, lead to believe that their country, its food, people etc. are envied around the world and they are blindly loyal to their leader and his vision, and who’s photo could be seen where ever you went.. The teachers were there to teach these students English, but it was very hard in a place where they are not able to research anything, they are not able to use the Internet or read books. Everything that the teachers wanted to do, had to be approved by the Minders. The staff was never to speak about the outside world, but this was something that the author would let slip, from time to time, to allow the students to see a different perspective, or to envision things that they did not know existed. They became for the most part quite inquisitive, yet not always believers when told of something they did not understand. I found it very interesting that the regime would allow foreign teachers to teach here when their societies were so hated by the North Koreans. We also get a view of the authors life before they left South Korea and the start of the North/South division. This was a very worthwhile read, as it taught me a lot about a society, we are not able to infiltrate. This book I received for free through Goodreads First Reads.
eye opener to life in North Korea among the elite. Biographical, from the perspective of a missionary serving as a teacher in a school for the elite. Easy to read and keeps you engaged
A very good documentary of life in North Korea and very enlightening regarding the was North Koreans think and what they think about the rest of the world. In some ways depressing and heart-breaking.
Very well written and insightful
I had hoped for more insight into the life and people of North Korea, but the author was teaching at an American university (secretly a missionary school; she, in a double-cross, allowed them to think that she, too was a committed Christian – she wasn’t) and rarely left the campus. The book is mostly about her difficulties in living there, the scarcity of food, and missing her boyfriend.
This book offered a unique viewpoint about what life is like in North Korea, especially because it was about late teens whose parent could afford to send them to boarding school and be taught ESL by a native Korean, albeit a South Korean who had traveled widely and called the USA home. The author kept journals hidden on jump drives during her months there. The saddest parts told of practically brain-washed youth, whose future should be bright but was hampered by the constant banners, incessant music and carefully choreographed instruction about how wonderful life was under the Great Leader. Re-read 1984 and you’ll get the picture. only this is not fiction and 1984 is long in the past. The author’s was tortured by what her constraints as a visiting professor were and wanting to tell these boys that they were being denied a big beautiful wonderful world out there. I came away in awe; the author did a fantastic job of makeing the reader feel the angst.
Read this haunting memoir to be reminded how much we should cherish and protect our freedom. Today, Memorial Day 2019, as I finish reading Without You, There Is No Us about life inside the insidiously repressive state of North Korea, I am very grateful for our freedom and thank the men and women who gave so much for it.
Amazing insights into a segment of North Korean society. Fascinating.