Without You, There Is No Us

Starred review from September 8, 2014
In this extraordinary and troubling portrait of life under severe repression, South Korean–born Kim, who emigrated with her family to America when she was 13 years old, chronicles the two semesters she spent teaching English to North Korean teens at a Christian missionary school in Pyongyang. Having visited the highly closed and secretive state as part of various official American and journalist delegations starting in 2002, Kim jumped at the chance to live and teach at the newly opened Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST). “North Korea,” she writes, “has become a siren for the hankering mind,” and, despite some critical articles she had published and her work as a novelist (The Interpreter), she was accepted at PUST, a boarding school for the country’s male elite. Her earnest, obedient students elicited a warmly maternal, protective feeling in her, despite their ignorance of the outside world, their empty boasting of their country’s achievements, and the easy way they lied outright. The missionary teachers were never allowed outside of the compound without a group escort and were aware of constant surveillance; although they were provided access to the Internet, their students’ access was severely censored. While Kim hoped somehow to open their minds and insisted on honesty (playing Truth or Lie, for example), she was knowingly betraying the school and the teachers by writing her secret account and passing herself off as a missionary. Her account is both perplexing and deeply stirring.

August 1, 2014
A novelist and freelance journalist relates her experiences, both grim and gratifying, as an English teacher in a small North Korean university. Kim (The Interpreter, 2003) was undercover, teaching with a group of devout Christians bent on conversions, a group she managed to deceive successfully, her more liberal views emerging most patently during a debate about showing a Harry Potter film to her classes. She also deceived her North Korean hosts, privately keeping a journal-which, feeling paranoid, she stored on multiple flash drives concealed in her room and on her person. But her deception allows her to tell a most enlightening tale about the North Korean darkness. The author spent her childhood in South Korea and immigrated to the United States when she was 13. Although she shared the Korean language with her students, as an English teacher, she (and her superiors) insisted on English-only with them, and it's not until the end that-at their request-she addressed them in Korean. Kim keeps our focus on a number of issues: the abject poverty of people she sees outside the school; the absolute devotion of the North Korean media to Kim Jong-il (whose death in 2011 frames Kim's story); the feelings of paranoia she experienced; her periodic bouts of depression about being in such an intellectually and otherwise stale environment; the ignorance of her students (most were very bright) about history, geography, technology and cultural differences; and the inability to acquire all but the most basic consumer goods. But she also repeatedly reports her deep affection for the young men she taught (there were no female students) and her profound worries about their futures. A few minor quibbles: She occasionally slides into cliche ("weak in the knees") and records perhaps too many student comments praising her teaching skills. Directs the lights of emotion and intelligence on a country where ignorance is far from bliss.

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Starred review from September 15, 2014

Kim (The Interpreter) spent much of 2011 teaching English at Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST), North Korea's first privately funded university. She left the country in December 2011, one day after Kim Jong-Il's death was announced. During her time in North Korea, Pyongyang University was the only operating institute of higher education, as students from all other universities were dismissed to work on various construction projects. For unknown reasons, the elite students of Pyongyang were spared from this mandate. As Kim explains, her real purpose for being in North Korea was to gather material for writing this self-reflective work, leading her to hide her true intentions from both North Korean officials and the Christian missionaries who ran the school. The result is a touching portrayal of the student experience in North Korea, which provides readers with a rare glimpse of life in the enigmatic country. Kim describes a regimented system that is designed to make personal space, and even thoughts, impossible for learners and faculty alike. VERDICT This well-written and thoroughly captivating book is highly recommended for anyone looking to grasp a better understanding of North Korea. [See Prepub Alert, 5/4/14.]--Joshua Wallace, Ranger Coll., TX

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from September 15, 2014
For several years, Korean American writer Kim (The Interpreter, 2003) tried unsuccessfully to find a way to live in North Korea. She had interviewed defectors and traveled to North Korea as an international journalist, but she wanted to learn about the experience of everyday North Koreanssomething the government generally doesn't want outsiders to see. In 2011, she got her chance. By pretending to be a Christian missionary, she was able to get a job teaching at a special internationally funded school for the adolescent sons of high-ranking officials. There, in underheated classrooms and over shared cafeteria meals, she taught her students preapproved English words and did her best to answer their questions about the outside world without telling them about anything forbidden, like the fact that the North Korean soccer team was not the world champion or what they called the Internet was in reality just a tiny and heavily censored local area network. Her students were complicatedvariously sweet and cruel, endearing and chronically dishonestbut they were still just boys, and Kim begins to care for them. If they were not exactly everyday North Koreansas the sons of elite men, they were well fed and even had cell phonesthey offered Kim a glimpse at something even more elusive: the future leaders of the country, in their developing years. Eventually, worn down by loneliness and the bleak Pyongyang winter, Kim seizes the opportunity to nudge her students toward subversive independent thought, with the help of a Harry Potter DVD. The result is a rare and nuanced look at North Korean culture, and an uncommon addition to the inspirational-teacher genre.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)