Suki Kim

Suki Kim was given an extraordinary opportunity for someone with a South Korean and American upbringing: she spent four or five months teaching English at a university in North Korea, where her students were the children of the country's elite. The university was run by Christian missionaries, and was apparently permitted because it was providing English education free of charge, though the teachers were not allowed to talk about religion with the students. Kim herself was not religious at show more all, but basically went as an undercover journalist, secretly taking notes for use in the writing of this book.

I've read other books about North Korea, and this isn't the best one; I'd recommend Nothing to Envy or Escape from Camp 14 as a starting point instead. But Kim's book stands out in the access that she had to the country's elite youth, and in the potential impact that she could have made. Although her job was to teach English, using pre-approved textbooks and with all of her lesson plans subjected to scrutiny, she also wanted to gradually make her students aware of what they were missing in their very limited existence, cut off from all access to the outside world. She made sure that her MacBook and Kindle were frequently visible, and impressed students with her ability to find answers to questions on the internet, which they themselves were not permitted to use. She taught them to write argumentative essays, backing up their reasoning with evidence, a completely foreign concept in a world build around unthinking acceptance of official accounts. She came to love her students, and found them gradually opening up to her.

But Kim generally comes off as frustrated with her limited progress, not appreciating the time required to come to terms with a completely different worldview. When her students constantly lie to cover for each other's absences, in a world where disobedience could mean death, she wonders whether they just don't have a sense of right or wrong. When she pushes too hard in presenting new ways of thinking, leading the students to take refuge in their familiar nationalist stories about how North Korea is the best place in the world, she laments that "nothing could break through their belligerent isolation". Yet I thought that the students showed a remarkable interest in learning about the world, considering all the constraints placed on their thought and expression throughout their lives. They don't suddenly turn into Westerners, but Kim recounts plenty of telling incidents that reveal a steadily increasing awareness.

I feel like the real problem with this book is that it stopped too soon. So much time had to be spent gaining the trust and respect of the students, and gradually opening them up to the possibility of new ideas, but Kim left after less than six months to return to North America, and didn't really have time to reap the fruits of her labour. I understand that North Korea is a brutal place to live in many ways, both because of the lack of freedom and constant surveillance, and because of the lack of basic comforts like reliable electricity and heat, and Kim constantly reports that she found it depressing and difficult to tolerate. Still, I can't help feeling that in some ways this was a wasted opportunity, and I wonder how much more of a difference she could have made—not just to her students, but to the country and even the world—if she had stayed there for a whole year, steadily building on the foundation that she had laid. She says in the acknowledgements that she had to publish this book, to tell the truth about North Korea, because she cares deeply about the country and feels an obligation to improve the lives of North Koreans. But I don't really see how this book, for outsiders, will have a deep impact, certainly not compared to the impact of daily interaction with the country's future elites at a time when they are still open to new possibilities. This is still an interesting memoir, but I personally felt like it ended almost before it had begun. I would have liked to see more about what the future held for these students with their increasing awareness that life could be different. show less

I've experienced a wide range of emotions with this book. Last year, when the hardcover version came out, I saw a televised interview with author Suki Kim about her time spent posing as a missionary teacher at an elite English language university program in North Korea. My initial thoughts were that her story must be fabricated, surely the regime of Escape from Camp 44 would not allow Americans access to impressionable young college students, but indeed they did - at least to a point. Suki show more and her colleagues were very closely monitored and lived almost as if imprisoned themselves.

I think we are attracted to North Korean stories as we are to scary movies, so we can recoil in horror and feel a little better about our own circumstances. While it does illustrate the far reach and total control of the Kim dynasty, this memoir also shows the humanity of the North Korean people. Suki Kim grows to care deeply for the young men she teaches. She also adeptly expresses the dilemma faced by those trying to help. If she tells her students the truth about the outside world, she could well be signing their death warrants.

This was different from anything else I've read about North Korea. It wasn't told through the eyes of a labor camp escapee or the rhetoric of a leader, but offered a glimpse of life for the sons of Pyongyang's elite. Well written and very readable - highly recommended! show less

Suki Kim’s long interest in and personal connection to North Korea make this memoir of the time she spent there teaching English to college students especially poignant and riveting. She writes with the skill of an investigative journalist and the heart of someone recounting a heartbreaking story about relatives. Though she moved to America as a child, Kim was born in South Korea and both her mother and father lost close family members to the North when Korea was partitioned, people they show more were never able to see or even hear from again.

The North Korean government places rigid controls on the internal travels of its few foreign visitors--even the movements of its own citizens are highly restricted--so Kim spent most of her time on campus, jogging between buildings when she wanted some exercise. There were occasional arranged outings when she did sometimes catch glimpses of roadside workers so emaciated and malnourished it horrified her, but the subjugation of her elite and privileged college students was in its own way just as shocking because it showed that no one is exempt from government control.

These young men weren’t allowed to call, email, or visit their families, though most of them lived just a short distance from the school, and the students never knew when they might be whisked away from their studies to spend weeks or months working at a construction site or laboring on a government run farm. Even when allowed to stay at school there were chores like all night guard duty to perform, and constant surveillance meant the students had to always guard their speech and curtail their activities to avoid punishment.

As far as Kim could tell her students took great pride in their country and believed what they had been told--that North Korea is superior to and the envy of all nations and that their leaders are virtually infallible--but the students would get quiet and thoughtful when she gave them illicit sneak glimpses of the outside world and its relative freedoms by casually pulling out her Kindle or laptop, or mentioning her use of the internet or her global travel experiences.

All of Kim’s fellow teachers felt the strain of constantly censoring their speech and being careful about their actions, but for Kim this was especially difficult and if you have an interest in the range and potency of human worldviews you’ll find this book doubly thought-provoking because Kim had to navigate her way between two powerful belief systems both with moral teachings, behavioral dictates, and a divine or as if divine leader since her co-workers were all Christian missionaries and she had to hide from them that she didn’t share their faith.

The missionaries Kim taught with weren’t allowed to mention anything about their religion, but they hoped their presence and charitable actions would eventually win converts among the North Koreans. Kim had different reasons and personal goals for working at the school. Along with wanting some connection to the country where even now she might have living relatives, she hoped that by giving her students small peeks into life outside North Korea that she’d plant seeds of doubt in her their minds, so that as future leaders they might be able to help change things and open up their society. Her worry was that her words would just confuse and upset them or possibly lead them to actions that would bring on severe punishments. It’s a fascinating, heartbreaking, eye-opening story.

I read an eBook Advanced Review Copy of this book provided at no cost to me by the publisher through NetGalley. Review opinions are mine. show less

Kim's novel is wonderful, fully exploring the intricacies of life for the elite of North Korea and the Evangelical Christian missionaries who make it their life's work to "crack" North Korea. Through her writing you feel the same sense of being out of place in time that the author describes feeling in her travels, reading through several chapters to find out only a week or two has passed. While disorienting, it lends credence to the author's perception of her time there.

The book is filled show more with juicy bits about life for the North Korean students, describing their understanding of the internet, outdated vocabularies, and inability to write a job application. Kim intersperses these tidbits with more information about her experiences teaching her interactions with the missionaries, her personal history as a South Korean and American, and political happenings in North Korea to create a very complex, vivid and concerning narrative of one of the world's most isolated countries. show less