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And there is certainly nothing new in what she has to report. On the scale of North Korean horror stories, hers might rate 1 out of a magnitude Mostly she gossips about the social discipline exhibited by her pupils. That and their lack of trivial cultural knowledge, for example about the latest Harry Potter film. Who on the planet with the least interest in North Korea doesn't know that the Internet is highly restricted and censored?
Any existential detail she provides is based almost solely on her classroom interactions, which are probably not that different from the highly regimented educational regimes in South Korea or Japan.
So the only real consequences of Suki Kim's publicised 'investigation' are likely to be the reduced credibility of the missionaries and the increased political vulnerability of her former students. North Korean undoubtedly will remain as dismal and as mad as it has been. Having said that, I like gossip as much as anyone. So I hard a hard time putting it down.
I feel shame. Until then I had hoped that perhaps I could change one student, open up one path of understanding. But what kind of a future did I envision for the one student I reached? Opening up this country would mean sacrificing these lives. Opening up this country would mean the blood of my beautiful students. I recalled Ji-hoon's face and tried not to think of the terrible consequences, and that night, and many nights afterward, passed like this in Pyongyang.
This particular night there was an endless, mournful rain. Fear can creep up on you anywhere, but when it does in North Korea it is a lonely feeling. A heart-pounding book of stellar investigative journalism. Let's cover the main points I want to make first.
Obviously, it's harder for me to review non-fiction books since any criticism is criticism of the author. It's more direct. In fiction you are criticizing characters, and there is a barrier between you and the author, but in non-fiction that is not the case.
I also receive most of my author comments on my reviews in non-fiction. Positive and negative. It's hard to review non-fiction, but it has to be done, of course. Her way of dealing with North Korea, North Koreans and the Christian missionaries she's embedded with is smart. I can't really convey to you how fiercely intelligent she is. Her intelligence shines from every page and I'm sorry to say not many if any!
I honestly have no idea how she was able to do this job. How she held it together. How she kept going. The conditions in North Korea are awful. The food is terrible. Living in a place where you are constantly watched, monitored, and recorded is soul-crushing. He had been to villages in China where as many as ten people slept in one room, where three brothers only owned two pairs of pants and took turns wearing them, yet this was the worst place he had ever experienced.
I asked him why. I know they are recording everything we say and keeping files on us, and I feel really bad all the time. I just don't feel comfortable here. It's not about the terrible food and the material lack of everything. It's the basic humanity. It's missing here. She loves them. On some level she longs to teach them about the world outside of North Korea.
About everything in life they have been denied. She wants to teach them that life doesn't have to be like this. But she can't. It's heart-wrenchingly painful. And if she DID teach them that, if they actually ever really grasped what the truth was, they would be killed. So she's walking a fine line here. She loves her students and wants what is best for them, and that includes not telling them anything that will get them murdered later.
I don't know how she got through this twice. Two semesters. It's absolutely some of the most painful stuff I've ever read about. I'm in awe of Suki Kim's strength. I'm not someone who gets easily moved by books. I think a lot of people normal people would cry while reading this.
It's absolutely devastating. NOT because Suki Kim writes in an emotional, maudlin, overwrought way. She does not. She is an excellent writer. She is very fierce, as well. She never gets sappy or unnecessarily dramatic. She doesn't need to. The reality is dramatic enough.
There was no mercy here. I knew that, and yet each time it was confirmed I found myself surprised all over again. On the last evening, the students were for the first time given permission to join us after dinner in the cafeteria, where we sang and performed skits. It lasted about half an hour, and after the first twenty minutes, a few of the counterparts showed up. Their presence meant time was running out, and the students became visibly tense.
Some of the boys made eye contact with me and did not look away; that was all they could do. When nothing can be expressed openly, you become quite good at interpreting silence. And I read theirs as they read mine. For days, they had been teaching me a song. It was the least nationalistic song I had heard there, and when I told them I loved it, they were delighted and offered to teach it to me. Together, we translated the lyrics: Dandelions blooming in the hills of my hometown, Those times when I played flying a white kite, Ah, that blue sky I saw as a child, Why didn't I know then that was the pride of my motherland?
That evening I sang it with them, in English, then in Korean. It was the only way I could show them that I loved them and would miss them dearly.
When I began crying, which I could no longer help, some of them whispered, Teacher, smile please. I kept hearing those words: Teacher, smile please. I wondered what they would say if they could speak freely, and this wondering made me cry more, and I worried that the counterparts would notice and would not like it. The last thing we were allowed to do together was pose for group photos. For the sake of efficiency, the teachers were seated in a single row, and each class of students took turns standing behind them, forming three rows.
After a class had been photographed, the students in that group were to shake hands with the teachers and make room for the next group, then return to their dorm immediately. I heard my class calling out "Sophomores first! One very tall student stood behind me during the photo session, and no matter how much the teacher taking the photo demanded that he move to the back row, he would not budge.
When I turned around to meet his eyes, he mumbled, "Thank you and goodbye, Teacher," and I realized he had stuck to his spot just to tell me that. When the photographer told him yet again to move, I nodded, my eyes on his, hoping he knew I understood him, and it was only then that he moved. Later the teacher who took the photos told me that all the students wanted to stand close to their teachers.
Being physically near them was the most they could do to show their love. I was as speechless as my students. I could not say, as I shook hands with each of them, Leave this wretched place. Leave your wretched Great Leader. Leave it, or shake it all up. Please do something. Instead I cried and cried, and I smiled. And each student met my eyes and smiled in return. And that was our goodbye. Some still said, "We see you off tomorrow, Teacher.
As they stood in their units and marched back to their dormitories that evening, they bellowed out the song I had come to know best, as if to remind us and themselves to whom they really belonged: Without you, there is no us. That night, I looked out my window at the student dormitory, but it was completely dark, as though they had all instantly fallen asleep at the same time. But we had been together for a month by then, so even buried in that darkness, behind those opaque windows, each one was special and known to me.
It will be hard to read this book and not tear up. And not because Kim is jerking you around. At one point she is looking at her students and she's wishing they could simply have fresh milk. That they could have heat, and not wearing heavy winter coats in the classroom.
Beyond trying to free their minds, she has basic wishes for her students like "being well-nourished" and "having access to good medical care" that are impossible under this regime. It's shocking. This is the most prestigious "university" in the country and she can't hold the chalk because her hands are numb from the freezing cold.
Goal this month: continue hot yoga practice 5 times per week in mental and physical preparation for trekking everest base camp in November…. Wow Natalie, what a goal! Nepal is one of my favorite countries, and Everest Basecamp is ambitious, I wish you lots of luck this month. Goal for this month? To read this book. Not necessarily in that order.
Good luck with finishing it! That sounds perfect Jen! I have met a couple of travel nurses on the road and the flexibility they get with they jobs was why I met them in Central America, Asia, and elsewhere. This sounds like a fascinating and informative book. As for goals? I hope your summer reunion is full of joy! This next month I wish to be healthy and strong.
Having an incurable, not treatable immune deficiency disorder is a real bitch! I will send you all the good juju and positive thoughts I can; I have had close friends live with untreatable pain and illness as well, and I know it takes a huge mental toll along with effecting your life hugely. I hope this month brings you all kinds of health. Thank you so much for your warm wishes, kind thoughts and generosity. I appreciate the good juju and positive thoughts! Yes, health problems are exhausting.
I mean it! You keep dodging the bullet. Write your will, write your DNR, write your advanced directive, get your documents in order, blah, blah, blah. This most recent death prediction was for July I managed to recover from kidney failure with the use of herbs. It only seemed to anger the doctors instead of cheer them up. Yes, I understand the virus will get me and kill me. I get it!
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