Traveling internationally, even the small amount I've been able to do, is wonderful but alienating. The language is different (even when it's the same), the food is different, the entire pattern of life is different. And that's in first world, Western countries. I can't even imagine what it must be like to go to North Korea. It must be like going to the moon.

Suki Kim, author of Without You, There Is No Us, emigrated to the United States from South Korea with her parents when she was about 13 years old. She became a writer and a habitual wanderer, ending up on a few news trips to North Korea. When an opportunity came up to go there on an extended sojourn by joining the teaching staff of a missionary group running a university, she jumped at the chance. And so she found herself at Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST), teaching English to upper-class North Korean young men for about six months before returning to the U.S. and writing a book about her experiences there.

This is a memoir, so Kim's family history and personal struggles during her tenure at PUST are recounted along with what it's like to be one of very, very few foreigners living in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. The teachers (all missionaries apart from Kim) are effectively imprisoned on campus, only allowed off the grounds for carefully arranged and supervised outings. They are constantly wondering if revealing even small details about life outside the DPRK to their students will lead to their deportation (in the best case) or imprisonment (in the worst). They know their use of limited internet is being constantly monitored, so they have little contact with the outside world. Kim cares for her students, who are eager and obedient learners, while simultaneously being horrified by how easily and often they lie to her. She wonders if they are informing on her for even the smallest line-crossing. She loves them, but she can't trust them or anyone else.

I'm not usually drawn to memoirs, but information about how the hermit kingdom works on the inside, even on the limited scale Kim was able to experience, is fascinating. I'm honestly boggled that a country in our hyperconnected day and age manages to be so isolated from the world around it. You have to think that it'll end one day, that either reunification will happen or it will re-enter the global community as its own country. And when it does, what will North Korean citizens think? Kim's students, the best and brightest the country has to offer, struggle to write essays because the concept of supporting a thesis with facts is so foreign to them. How will the North Korean populace cope with an outside so different than they had been led to believe? ( )

Author Suki Kim goes undercover to teach college-level English for the DPRK's elite. I'm astonished this school actually exists (it's privately funded by Christian missionaries who promise not to proselytize). Kim describes a bleak North Korea (no surprise) where even the elite experience forced labor, food shortages, lack of access to basic medical services, routine power outages, lack of heat, etc. The populace is completely brainwashed into thinking that their country is the best in the world on literally ever measure. A good book to read if you'd like to learn more about what life is like in one of the most repressive regimes in the world. ( )

This is a memoir/investigative piece by Kim, who spends two semesters in North Korea teaching English to elite college men. The tension this entire book is under is sometimes dizzying. Kim walks a careful line between winding to find out as much about North Korea as she an and not wanting to arouse suspicion. She wants to tell these young men as much about the outside world as she can, but is held back both by restrictions on what she is allowed to teach/discuss, as well as the fear that she might make them more miserable in the end, as they currently seem to buy into the myths of North Korea's superiority over the rest of the world. (As for what current means in the context of this book, it ends shortly after the death of Kim Jong-il in 2011.) Add in that the school is run by Evangelical Christians (which she is not), and that all of her emails, phone calls, and most conversations are monitored, and the levels of secrecy, self-censorship, and faked opinions/identity/facts, quickly become suffocating.

I wish I hadn't left this on my shelves so long before reading it, but I am glad to have read it now. Reading it right after my Scientology binge was interesting, as there were a lot of unexpected parallels in the cult of personality and some of the mind/reality control. (Obviously, there are a lot of differences, too. But maybe only because LRH was never successful in taking over an entire country.)

An intriguing counterpart to all of the memoirs of defectors and refugees. ( )

Without You There Is No Us/Suki Kim This description of the author’s time in North Korea allows us to enter a world we know little about. While there are some details I want to know more about, she includes a lot of interesting small details. She talks enough about herself to want me knowing more but not to satisfy me.I'm entirely fascinated by North Korea. It's a location very few people are lucky enough to enter, and I was extremely jealous of Suki. However, this book is hard to read as memoir. At times it feels like there’s either too much or not enough detail about the author herself. We hear a lot about her love life and how she feels lonely, but we don’t get specific details about how she had recently broken off an engagement or about how she got to know the person she’s rekindling a flame with. I'd want her to either cut all of her personal life out or make it relevant and work it in.is is a very real look at a lifestyle very few others can imagine. As it stands, this book is about Suki and about North Korea whereas it would be much easier to read if these details intertwined.There are many details that lend this book a feeling of reality, small things like these are juicy, but these details are all that really keeps the book moving. Some details that are thrown in could be expanded more. I think it'd be more interesting to interview the author to really get a sense of what each reader individually would be interested in. ( )

Eleinte úgy éreztem, lyukra futottam – szerettem volna valami elemzést olvasni Észak-Koreáról, ehelyett kaptam egy elemzést egy koreai-amerikai hölgy távkapcsolati nehézségeiről. Aztán rájöttem, hogy ezt a könyvet nem szakirodalomként, hanem szépirodalomként helyesebb olvasni (mert van egy kapcsoló a fejemben, amivel ezt szabályozni lehet, bizony), és onnantól kezdve már működött a szöveg. Nyilván nem volt hátrány, hogy Suki Kimnek különben remek, szenzitív stílusa van, és hogy végül tényszerűen megérkezett az észak-koreai elit egyetemre, amit a fülszöveg beígért nekem. Meg aztán a szerző valójában nagyon is tisztességesen jár el – hiszen ő újságíró, nem pedig gazdaságtörténész vagy szociológus, és vélhetően mindenki úgy jár jobban, ha nem is álcázza magát annak. Publicistának viszont tényleg ügyes, úgyhogy írjon csak arról, amit lát, ne mélyelemezzen, ha nem akar – majd mélyelemzek én. (Ha akarok.)

Amúgy külön értéke a műnek, hogy nem az emigránsok oldaláról közelíti meg Észak-Koreát, hanem röpke betekintést nyújt a pártfunkcik gyerekeinek világába – vagyis azokéba, akik majd az ország krémje lesznek, ha a Bölcs Vezér nem végezteti ki őket addig (ami amúgy szokása). Nyilván van egy olyan erős (néha túl erős) üzenet, hogy ezek a srácok épp olyan fiatalok, mint bárki más, és ha a hatalom nem telepedne rájuk az agyleszívó propagandájával, talán még normális életet is élhetnének – így viszont a legerősebb érzésünk irántuk a szánalom*. Merthogy ezek a fiatalok egy olyan helyenként brutális, helyenként pedig nevetségesen groteszk nyomásnak vannak kitéve**, ami még a Kádár-korszak ismeretében is valószerűtlen hatást kelt. Ezeknek az elemeknek a visszafogott, mégis érzékletes megjelenítéséért mindenképpen érdemes volt elolvasni ezt a könyvet. Mindenesetre tapasztalataimat, remélem, nem kell majd hasznosítanom.

* Az például, hogy ezek az egyetemisták nyakra-főre hazudoznak amerikai tanáraiknak arról, hogy milyen vagány dolgokat csináltak hétvégén (holott épp krumplit gazoltak hajnaltól sötétedésig a nagyvezír parancsára), nagyon emberi. Én legalábbis csak úgy tudom értelmezni ezt, mint a szégyen és a megfelelési kényszer megnyilvánulását valakivel szemben, akinek nyilvánvalóan teljesebb élete van.
** Már maga az is milyen groteszk, hogy a fiúk angolul tanulnak, holott ha százból egy közülük átlépheti majd a határt, akkor már sokat mondtam. Ilyen erővel akár óegyiptomi dialektusban is megtanulhatnának beszélni, hisz kábé ugyanannyi óegyiptomi kószálhat per pillanat Észak-Koreában, mint angolszász. ( )