Hello, for the past 3 weeks I've finished my first book of the new school year and I've been trying to read more outside of class by dedicating at least 20 minutes to reading but that has been a challenging goal to maintain. With taking 4 AP classes, I realized its been a hassle trying to find a peaceful time to read. I've never really hated reading but I've also never really loved it either so maybe that is a reason why I have trouble keeping the reading goals I've set for myself...Although the first few weeks of school have been pretty rough, I really want to grow a passion for reading through out my junior year. The book that I currently finished reading is memoir about a Korean-American journalist who receives an opportunity to teach at an all male elite university of North Korea. Suki Kim records her journey and feelings towards her experiences in living in one of the most dangerous countries in the world as a foreigner. Without You, There Is No Us is an incredible book that portrays the life of the most unknown country in the World. I choose to read this book because I am super interested in North Korea and finding out how the poeple of North Korea live their daily lives unexposed to the "outside" world.
Kim, through out her first month of teaching at PUST (Pyongyang University of Science and Technology) begins to realize that "the notion of following your heart's desire, of going wherever you choose, did not exist here" (Kim 88). If anyone knows anything about North Korea you know that it is one of the very few countries that is still under communist rule. The current leader Kim Jong-Un has his people starving to death, tortured in concentration camps, and captivated their hearts on worshiping him as the supreme leader of all. The people feel no sense of freedom nor individuality. There "is no 'I', even 'we' did not exist with the permission of their Great leader" (Kim 153). As for anyone reading this book would feel sympathy for the people of North Korea but I, however, discern guilt. For me as a South Korean I cannot but feel remorse for the freedoms I have today. I have the ability to speak my mind without having the fear of people listening in to every conversation or being able to have religious freedom without being persecuted. Its extremely heart breaking to see people who speak the same language and share the same culture to be living such devastating lives. In fact Seoul, the well known capital of South Korea, is merely only 35 miles away from the demilitarized zone which serves as a barrier to divide the Korean Peninsula in half. To put 35 miles in perspective, it is roughly a drive from Dallas to Fort Worth. To me, that is mind blowing to understand that the North Korean people are only 35 miles away from freedom.
Through the book, I began to ponder upon the ideas of the Korean war. What if South Korea lost the war? How would that have affected the way I've become today? This article writes upon the idea of what Korea would have been like if North had won the war. Analyst say that if we had a unified country maybe North Korea wouldn't of had the need to create nuclear weapons or build a frighting army but " Korea would have been united under rulers who could sleep soundly at night while their people ate grass to survive."
Works cited
Kim, Suki. Without You, There Is No Us: My Secret Life Teaching The Sons of North Korea's Elite.
Rider, 2015.
Micheal, Peck. "What If North Korea Won The Korean War." National Interest, 30 June 2017, http://national interest.org/blog/the-buzz/what-if-north-Korea-had-won-the-korean-war-21392 . Accessed 27 September 2017.
Kim, through out her first month of teaching at PUST (Pyongyang University of Science and Technology) begins to realize that "the notion of following your heart's desire, of going wherever you choose, did not exist here" (Kim 88). If anyone knows anything about North Korea you know that it is one of the very few countries that is still under communist rule. The current leader Kim Jong-Un has his people starving to death, tortured in concentration camps, and captivated their hearts on worshiping him as the supreme leader of all. The people feel no sense of freedom nor individuality. There "is no 'I', even 'we' did not exist with the permission of their Great leader" (Kim 153). As for anyone reading this book would feel sympathy for the people of North Korea but I, however, discern guilt. For me as a South Korean I cannot but feel remorse for the freedoms I have today. I have the ability to speak my mind without having the fear of people listening in to every conversation or being able to have religious freedom without being persecuted. Its extremely heart breaking to see people who speak the same language and share the same culture to be living such devastating lives. In fact Seoul, the well known capital of South Korea, is merely only 35 miles away from the demilitarized zone which serves as a barrier to divide the Korean Peninsula in half. To put 35 miles in perspective, it is roughly a drive from Dallas to Fort Worth. To me, that is mind blowing to understand that the North Korean people are only 35 miles away from freedom.
Through the book, I began to ponder upon the ideas of the Korean war. What if South Korea lost the war? How would that have affected the way I've become today? This article writes upon the idea of what Korea would have been like if North had won the war. Analyst say that if we had a unified country maybe North Korea wouldn't of had the need to create nuclear weapons or build a frighting army but " Korea would have been united under rulers who could sleep soundly at night while their people ate grass to survive."
Works cited
Kim, Suki. Without You, There Is No Us: My Secret Life Teaching The Sons of North Korea's Elite.
Rider, 2015.
Micheal, Peck. "What If North Korea Won The Korean War." National Interest, 30 June 2017, http://national interest.org/blog/the-buzz/what-if-north-Korea-had-won-the-korean-war-21392 . Accessed 27 September 2017.
Im really impressed you finished the book while keeping up with your AP classes. Wow! I'm really interested in Suki Kim's story because of your blog. I might go check it out after I finish my book. I too, am curious what would've happened if South Korea lost the war...
ReplyDeleteWow! I very impressed that you were able to read this and keep up with your AP classes because I'm in that very situation too. It really interested me that you chose this book because I love reading about North Korea because we have such little knowledge about the truth of what goes on there. I'm also curious as to what would've happened with a different outcome of the war.
ReplyDeleteAs a South Korean myself, I was interested right away and could directly relate your blog and reading to my summer reading which was also a book about North Koreans. I enjoyed reading your blog because I got to see the perspective of another fellow South Korean on North Korean suffering and also felt guilt due to the freedoms I have since I often find myself ungrateful of my freedoms. Any time I read anything about North Korea, I wonder, "Why do most South Koreans completely ignore the fact that they are still our people", and not feel a responsibility to help.
ReplyDeleteThough I have read many blogs about books depicting life in North Korea, your blog had two new points I found fascinating: first, the distance between 2 drastically different lifestyles is only 35 miles; second, had North Korea won the war, all Koreans would be suffering. I am glad that some people escaped the hardship of such selfish leaders, but I hate that we know some people still live under such a cruel regime. Obviously, there is no easy way to fix it, but reading about it and building concern helps us avoid forgetting that there are people behind the wall of privacy built by North Korea's leaders, and those people deserve our concern.
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