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Without You, There Is No Us

My Time with the Sons of North Korea's Elite

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Without You, There Is No Us

By: Suki Kim
Narrated by: Janet Song
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About this listen

 A haunting account of teaching English to the sons of North Korea's ruling class during the last six months of Kim Jong-il's reign

Every day, three times a day, the students march in two straight lines, singing praises to Kim Jong-il and North Korea: Without you, there is no motherland. Without you, there is no us. It is a chilling scene, but gradually Suki Kim, too, learns the tune and, without noticing, begins to hum it. It is 2011, and all universities in North Korea have been shut down for an entire year, the students sent to construction fields—except for the 270 students at the all-male Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST), a walled compound where portraits of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il look on impassively from the walls of every room, and where Suki has gone undercover as a missionary and a teacher. Over the next six months, she will eat three meals a day with her young charges and struggle to teach them English, all under the watchful eye of the regime.

Life at PUST is lonely and claustrophobic, especially for Suki, whose letters are read by censors and who must hide her notes and photographs not only from her minders but from her colleagues—evangelical Christian missionaries who don't know or choose to ignore that Suki doesn't share their faith. As the weeks pass, she is mystified by how easily her students lie, unnerved by their obedience to the regime. At the same time, they offer Suki tantalizing glimpses of their private selves—their boyish enthusiasm, their eagerness to please, the flashes of curiosity that have not yet been extinguished. She in turn begins to hint at the existence of a world beyond their own—at such exotic activities as surfing the Internet or traveling freely and, more dangerously, at electoral democracy and other ideas forbidden in a country where defectors risk torture and execution. But when Kim Jong-il dies, and the boys she has come to love appear devastated, she wonders whether the gulf between her world and theirs can ever be bridged.

Without You, There Is No Us offers a moving and incalculably rare glimpse of life in the world's most unknowable country, and at the privileged young men she calls "soldiers and slaves." Asia Freedom & Security Politics & Government World Student Imperial Japan Human Rights North Korea
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This book gives you an amazing insight into a country that is almost forgotten and lost to our modern world.
A country only ever mentioned when talking about war. A country that few see and even fewer see behind the curtain.
A look at the everyday life, the diversity and difference. An almost 9hour audio book that I'm about to finish 3 days after purchasing. I cannot stop listening!
Apart from it being an engaging story: the person who voices this story does it justice in a way few audio books do.
The voice is of a person whose pronunciation of the English is perfect AND the Korean!
They use different tones & pitches for different people without it ever seeming like a caricature or overacting.

Would recommend to all.
This book made me want to go to North Korea: to experience (as much as the government will allow) their culture and country for myself!

Engaging & haunting

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Good insight to North Korea. A bit naive and biased at times about western world.

Great book a must read/listen

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How frustrating it was for Suki to live as a double agent in the DPRK... this was relatable as a listener who yearned for more depth of information - the information that was just not accessible to Suki, or the rest of the North Korean people for that matter.

Respectfully written and well narrated, it was a break from the more emotionally tolling books out there on North Korea.

Interesting and digestable

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As someone very much unfamiliar with North Korean culture or history besides that portrayed in Western media, this was a fascinating glimpse into a part of it.

I also found the author's parallels with Christianity thought provoking.

A fascinating glimpse

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I strongly recommend this book. As someone who knows very little about the country, I found this such an interesting read, and admire the author's bravery for living in (and writing about) Pyongyang. It's both touching to hear the stories of the author's interactions with the students, and chilling to hear how almost every detail of their lives is regimented.

Amazing story

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