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

Author:Suki Kim [Kim, Suki]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780307720672
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2014-10-14T00:00:00+00:00

THE NEXT DAY, at the staff meeting, we were told we had to reimburse PUST for gas and for the meals for our minders and driver. It was a modest amount, five or ten dollars for each of our outings, but considering that we were teaching for free and had spent our own money, or that of a sponsoring church, to fly there, it seemed strange that we were expected to pay to be guarded.

Then we were told that the Arirang Mass Games, a major festival that celebrates the DPRK each August, would cost each of us as much as $400 if we wanted to go. The school recommended that we purchase the mid-range tickets for $225. I had seen the games during one of my previous visits and was taken aback by the price. Once you got over the novelty of seeing tens of thousands of children forming the petals of Kimjongilias or Kimilsungias or a hammer and sickle, you couldn’t help but imagine the countless hours they must have been forced to rehearse. A few other teachers seemed shocked at the price but agreed to buy tickets since they did not know when they would return. This was always the case with North Korea. It was like the bad boyfriend whose presence could never be depended on, so you always had to seize the opportunity to spend time with him when he made himself available.

The next piece of news was delivered by Dr. Joseph, who looked almost embarrassed as he asked everyone for donations to feed the students. According to him, “the others”—the counterparts, I assumed—kept urging him to make a personal donation of $500 or more for “a meal with plenty of meat in it.” I suspected that the meat was not for the students but to satisfy the greedy demands of the counterparts. One of these men often liked to repeat, “Oh, you’re Comrade Kim Suki. You caused us much trouble. You have no idea what a headache it was for me to get your visa. After all I went through for you, maybe you should thank me.” I felt quite awkward the first time he said this but laughed along with him, pretending that it was a joke.

This kind of extortionary behavior was typical in transactions with North Korea. During the New York Philharmonic’s visit, I had met a number of South Korean journalists who were rather jaded by North Korea and uniformly said that to understand the DPRK, you needed to follow the money. The funding for PUST came from individual donors around the world, as well as from the South Korean Ministry of Unification, with no contribution that I knew of from North Korea. Apparently, the rest of the world was feeding and educating the children of their leaders. On a micro level, there were the frequent requests for small sums of money that we had gotten used to. The counterparts wanted to be fed, and we were expected to accommodate them.

The last bit of news was slightly alarming.

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