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

by Suki Kim

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

In this world, sentimental reflection on a shared history was not a thing we could afford.

we exchanged glances and Katie mouthed the exact word that struck me at that moment: “Slaves.”

It was at moments like these that I could not help but think that they—my beloved students—were insane. Either they were so terrified that they felt compelled to lie and boast of the greatness of their Leader, or they sincerely believed everything they were telling me. I could not decide which was worse.

For the first time in my life, thinking was dangerous to my survival.

Each time I visited the DPRK, I was shocked anew by their bastardization of the Korean language. Curses had taken root not only in their conversation and speeches but in their written language. They were everywhere—in poems, newspapers, in official Workers’ Party speeches, even in the lyrics of songs performed on this most hallowed day. It was like finding the words fuck and shit in a presidential speech or on the front page of the New York Times. Their spoken language was equally crude, no matter the occasion.

Of course, the DPRK purposely infantilized its citizens, making everyone helpless and powerless so that they depended on the state.

That was the inherent contradiction. This was a nation backed into a corner. They did not want to open up, and yet they had no choice but to move toward engagement if they wanted to survive. They had built the entire foundation of their country on isolationism and wanting to kill Americans and South Koreans, yet they needed to learn English and feed their children with foreign money.

The nationalism that had been instilled in them for so many generations had produced a citizenry whose ego was so fragile that they refused to acknowledge the rest of the world.