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Loading... Without You, There Is No Us: My Time with the Sons of North Korea's Elite (original 2014; edition 2015)by Suki Kim (Author)
Work InformationWithout You, There Is No Us: My Time with the Sons of North Korea's Elite by Suki Kim (2014)
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. 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 Ăşgy Ă©reztem, lyukra futottam – szerettem volna valami elemzĂ©st olvasni Észak-KoreárĂłl, ehelyett kaptam egy elemzĂ©st egy koreai-amerikai hölgy távkapcsolati nehĂ©zsĂ©geirĹ‘l. Aztán rájöttem, hogy ezt a könyvet nem szakirodalomkĂ©nt, hanem szĂ©pirodalomkĂ©nt helyesebb olvasni (mert van egy kapcsolĂł a fejemben, amivel ezt szabályozni lehet, bizony), Ă©s onnantĂłl kezdve már működött a szöveg. Nyilván nem volt hátrány, hogy Suki Kimnek kĂĽlönben remek, szenzitĂv stĂlusa van, Ă©s hogy vĂ©gĂĽl tĂ©nyszerűen megĂ©rkezett az Ă©szak-koreai elit egyetemre, amit a fĂĽlszöveg beĂgĂ©rt nekem. Meg aztán a szerzĹ‘ valĂłjában nagyon is tisztessĂ©gesen jár el – hiszen Ĺ‘ ĂşjságĂrĂł, nem pedig gazdaságtörtĂ©nĂ©sz vagy szociolĂłgus, Ă©s vĂ©lhetĹ‘en mindenki Ăşgy jár jobban, ha nem is álcázza magát annak. Publicistának viszont tĂ©nyleg ĂĽgyes, Ăşgyhogy Ărjon csak arrĂłl, amit lát, ne mĂ©lyelemezzen, ha nem akar – majd mĂ©lyelemzek Ă©n. (Ha akarok.) AmĂşgy kĂĽlön Ă©rtĂ©ke a műnek, hogy nem az emigránsok oldalárĂłl közelĂti meg Észak-Koreát, hanem röpke betekintĂ©st nyĂşjt a pártfunkcik gyerekeinek világába – vagyis azokĂ©ba, akik majd az ország krĂ©mje lesznek, ha a Bölcs VezĂ©r nem vĂ©gezteti ki Ĺ‘ket addig (ami amĂşgy szokása). Nyilván van egy olyan erĹ‘s (nĂ©ha tĂşl erĹ‘s) ĂĽzenet, hogy ezek a srácok Ă©pp olyan fiatalok, mint bárki más, Ă©s ha a hatalom nem telepedne rájuk az agyleszĂvĂł propagandájával, talán mĂ©g normális Ă©letet is Ă©lhetnĂ©nek – Ăgy viszont a legerĹ‘sebb Ă©rzĂ©sĂĽnk irántuk a szánalom*. Merthogy ezek a fiatalok egy olyan helyenkĂ©nt brutális, helyenkĂ©nt pedig nevetsĂ©gesen groteszk nyomásnak vannak kitĂ©ve**, ami mĂ©g a Kádár-korszak ismeretĂ©ben is valĂłszerűtlen hatást kelt. Ezeknek az elemeknek a visszafogott, mĂ©gis Ă©rzĂ©kletes megjelenĂtĂ©sĂ©Ă©rt mindenkĂ©ppen Ă©rdemes volt elolvasni ezt a könyvet. Mindenesetre tapasztalataimat, remĂ©lem, nem kell majd hasznosĂtanom. * Az pĂ©ldául, hogy ezek az egyetemisták nyakra-fĹ‘re hazudoznak amerikai tanáraiknak arrĂłl, hogy milyen vagány dolgokat csináltak hĂ©tvĂ©gĂ©n (holott Ă©pp krumplit gazoltak hajnaltĂłl sötĂ©tedĂ©sig a nagyvezĂr parancsára), nagyon emberi. Én legalábbis csak Ăşgy tudom Ă©rtelmezni ezt, mint a szĂ©gyen Ă©s a megfelelĂ©si kĂ©nyszer megnyilvánulását valakivel szemben, akinek nyilvánvalĂłan teljesebb Ă©lete van. ** Már maga az is milyen groteszk, hogy a fiĂşk angolul tanulnak, holott ha százbĂłl egy közĂĽlĂĽk átlĂ©pheti majd a határt, akkor már sokat mondtam. Ilyen erĹ‘vel akár Ăłegyiptomi dialektusban is megtanulhatnának beszĂ©lni, hisz kábĂ© ugyanannyi Ăłegyiptomi kĂłszálhat per pillanat Észak-Koreában, mint angolszász. I've read several books about North Korea now, fiction and non-fiction, but this is the first memoir I've read, and I have to say it is the saddest book about that enigmatic place that I have read. Suki Kim takes us inside the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, where she taught English to the sons of North Korea's elites for two terms in 2011. More so than any other book, Kim's tale demonstrates how the North Korean people are trapped by their imposed Juche culture, which makes it nearly impossible to even comprehend a world where there is more to life than the Great Leader and his works. I didn’t even know about this book until a couple weeks ago when I saw someone’s review of it on their blog. And as someone who has never read any book on this subject, I thought why not. But now I’m having trouble articulating what I feel. This is a memoir of the author who worked as an English teacher in a university in North Korea. I have no clue about the DKRK at all because I’ve never read books on the subject, except listening to the sensational news items about its current leader. So I definitely went in to this to understand how the country works, from the perspective of someone who got to experience it atleast for a time. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise, but the narrative is pretty bleak. The constraints on freedom, being completely cutoff from the world, being scared to even email family members who live in other countries, the same exact routine everyday - I could feel in the author’s words her despair over what was happening and how helpless she was feeling. At the same time, she is also surrounded by evangelical Christian professors whose aim is completely different, and I thought there were quite a few parallels between the DPRK regime and the religious professors, especially in the way they tried to control what could be taught and what couldn’t, how to manipulate the thinking of other people, and how they believed in their own made up reality which had nothing to do with the real world. It’s a world unto itself and just like the author, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to pity her students who were so brainwashed about the greatness of their country that they couldn’t accept anything else from their professor, or if I should be angry that they were just being willfully bling to all the faults. It’s hard to judge them by our moras and standards, because the consequences for them even asking a question about the outside world can be too much and their living in denial (willfully or not) is probably their best survival mechanism. I don’t know if it was the nature of the book or the writing style, but I felt like the author’s despair permeated my head too and I have only felt dreary day after day since I started it. It obviously doesn’t help that the outside world is currently scary as hell because the pandemic is wreaking havoc in my country, and I’m trying to live in denial so that I may keep my sanity. But I have to mention that the author does get very repetitive at times, which might bore us as a reader, but I also thought it reflected the kind of repetitive life she had to live there. The audiobook helped in making me want to continue reading, because I’m pretty sure I would have ditched it if it was a physical copy. In the end, I think this is a unique perspective because we see how the life and education of the children of the elite in NK is, and how insular and manipulative their lives are. I just think you need to be in the right mood to read it, because it’s not very engaging and it’s bleak nature can put off a reader, despite the bleakness being a major feature of life in the country and the feeling is completely unavoidable. no reviews | add a review
Biography & Autobiography.
History.
Politics.
Nonfiction.
HTML: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, 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 fieldsâ??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 colleaguesâ??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 selvesâ??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 ownâ??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 a No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)818.603Literature English (North America) Authors, American and American miscellany 21st CenturyLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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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. ( )