Without You, There Is No Us: My Time with the Sons of North Korea's Elite

by Suki Kim

Some experiences are like that. You live through them, and yet you aren’t quite there.

When you lose your home at a young age, you spend your life looking for its replacement.

This was a country where no one was allowed free time.

When nothing can be expressed openly, you become quite good at interpreting silence. And I read theirs as they read mine.

The free world I had so longed for, with its intoxicating lights and abundance, overwhelmed me, the way the dawning of spring stops me each year. The sheer suddenness of the sun feels like an intrusion, and I spend most of those months indoors.

For more than sixty years, North Korea’s closest ally, apart from the Soviet Union, had been China. While South Koreans became consumed by American influences to the point that its youth adopted American names and mannerisms and looks, and its young women dyed their hair blond or red and turned to plastic surgery to Westernize their features, North Koreans took up the aesthetics of China. Culturally and visually, the nation seemed to have grown to resemble China. And this made me wonder: If North Koreans were to see Seoul today, would it look American to their eyes?