Without You, There Is No Us offers a glimpse at the most
secretive state in the world, North Korea. This is a very real, very powerful
look at the sons of the elite in the DPNK, and author Suki Kim manages to give
a human face to the faceless mass that is North Korean, sharing the underlying
connections between all of us as human, and exploring the very real differences
when you live in a place that refuses to let you think for yourself.
I read this book in a night, caught up in the same fascination
that led Suki to seek out a way back to Pyongyang after her initial visit in
2002. Disguising herself as a missionary/teacher of English, she manages to
land a position at PUST, The Pyongyang University of Science and Technology.
This is her story of her two semesters teaching there.
My husband lived in South Korea, and I’ve always been fascinated
by his description of his time there, and his trips to the DMZ. His father was
in the military and the strangeness and sadness of a country quite literally
divided has always gripped me, made me think about what we have here, and the
simplest things, smallest freedoms, we experience every day and think nothing
of.
Kim gives a honest, earnest look at the students she falls
in love with, their trials and struggles and the incredible contradiction she
sees because of where they were raised and the limits they face. She gives an
honest look at the missionary/teachers as well, and the reasons they are really
there.
What struck me was the irony of the missionaries, the desire
to free these poor oppressed students under the rule and brainwashing of a dictator
by planting themselves in North Korea so they can provide another set of dogma
for them to eventually live by. Kim, an atheist, realizes this strangeness too.
But money talks, and PUST is what it is because of it.
Kim leaves with a little hope, maybe something she said,
something she did, in some way reaches her students. But she leaves, of course.
Read this, and learn a little more about some place we can
never really know about, at least not yet. But maybe reading this will offer
some humanity and perspective on all we have.
*this book was received for free via Blogging For Books.
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