I had heard this lady who wrote this book speak about it on CNN on TV. Considering what has happened the last few weeks I thought you might be interested in this too.
Tales Told Out of School in Pyongyang Cause Stir
A
memoir by a Korean-American author about teaching English to adolescent
boys at a private university in Pyongyang was certain to anger the
North Korean government.
But the author, Suki Kim,
may have provoked even more anger among the university’s Christian
educators. They have denounced Ms. Kim for breaking a promise not to
write anything about her experiences and said her memoir contains
inaccuracies, notably her portrayal of them as missionaries, which could
cause them trouble with the North Korean authorities.
The private university, the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology,
was approved in 2001 by the North Korean authorities, despite their
distrust of outsiders. Fenced and heavily guarded, the university opened
eight years later. It was there that Ms. Kim secretly took notes as she
taught English in 2011 to 50 teenage boys and young men drawn from North Korea’s most privileged families.
It
is unclear whether the school will suffer any repercussions because of
the book, “Without You, There Is No Us” (Crown Publishers), named for a
lyric in an ode to the ruling Kim family, often sung by the students in
their regimented routines.
But
the school’s president and founder, James Chin-Kyung Kim, said that
because of the book, he had been sharply questioned by the North Korean
authorities about Ms. Kim.
The
book, which has been acclaimed by some Western experts on North Korea,
has added another irritant to the troubled relations between North Korea
and the United States. A Korean-language version is planned for this
spring.
Ms.
Kim, who is not a practicing Christian, conceded in an interview that
she had been deceptive in applying for a teaching position at the school
and clandestinely taking notes for the purpose of a book.
Ms.
Kim said she would furtively scribble memorable quotes and anecdotes,
destroy any paper notes after transcribing them secretly onto her
laptop, then copy the transcriptions to thumb drives and erase them from
the laptop. She wore the thumb drives around her neck like pieces of
jewelry, she said, or stashed them in the garbage can in her residence
on campus.
All
faculty members, she said, were constantly monitored and North Korean
officials subjected their belongings to occasional unannounced searches.
She
hid her intentions not only from colleagues but also from Dr. Kim, a
Korean-American entrepreneur who also founded a similar school in
northeast China.
“I do feel really bad for hurting them,” she said. “Some of them were really nice, good, hardworking people.”
However,
Ms. Kim argued, her fellow teachers had another motive. “As much as
they say they wanted to educate North Korean kids for no reason, and
poured money — life’s savings — into this school, really the larger goal
was to convert them, one day, if North Korea were to open up,” she
said. “It’s a long-term project of turning them to Jesus, that’s really
their larger goal.” Dr. Kim denied her allegations, saying that the
school is committed to education, not proselytizing.
Publication of the book has come as both proselytizing and human rights in North Korea are in the news.
Two
of the three Americans who were incarcerated in North Korea, and only
recently released, had been accused of hostile acts by seeking to spread
the Christian faith. And the North’s state media has reacted with
outrage over the past few weeks to an American-backed resolution at the
United Nations urging that North Korean leaders face prosecution at the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.
Ms.
Kim, 44, immigrated to the United States with her family from South
Korea when she was a child. A recipient of Fulbright and Guggenheim
fellowships, she had her first book, “The Interpreter,” a novel about a
Korean-American court interpreter in New York, published in 2003. She
has been traveling to North Korea as a journalist since 2002.
She
said she had been drawn to teaching at the Pyongyang school partly
because it offered an opportunity to get beyond what she called the
superficial reporting that often comes out of North Korea.
“I realized this was the only chance that I have of actually telling a longer story,” she said.
Her
most worrisome inner conflict, she said, was in causing inadvertent
danger to her students, with whom she had established trusting
relationships. She gave them pseudonyms and muddled their identities in
the book, she said, so the North Korean authorities would not seek
retribution by punishing them.
Dr.
Kim sent her what she described as a series of angry and distressed
emails when he found out about her plans to publish the book. At least
two of her former fellow teachers also wrote, imploring her to scrap the
idea.
In a telephone interview from China, Dr. Kim sought to rebut the entire book.
“I am really upset about the attitude, her writings, her telling lies, her cheating us,” he said.
He
was especially critical of what he called the erroneous assertion that
the other teachers were missionaries. “We are educators,” he said.
If
the North Korean authorities thought that the school was seeking to
convert the students to Christianity, Dr. Kim said, “we would have
trouble.”
“They
know we are Christian, we do not hide that,” he said. “But we are not
missionaries. Christians and missionaries are different.”
Ms.
Kim acknowledged that the university’s Christians did not want to be
called missionaries or proselytizers. “It’s far more subtle than that,”
she said. “It’s why they call themselves educators. It’s another code
word for what they’re doing.”
Correction: December 23, 2014
An article on Nov. 30 about the angry reaction to a memoir by Suki Kim, a Korean-American who taught English in North Korea, misstated, in some editions, part of the name of the university where she taught. It is the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, not the Pyongyang Institute of Science and Technology.
An article on Nov. 30 about the angry reaction to a memoir by Suki Kim, a Korean-American who taught English in North Korea, misstated, in some editions, part of the name of the university where she taught. It is the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, not the Pyongyang Institute of Science and Technology.
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