
Without You, There Is No Us
My Time with the Sons of North Korea's Elite
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
3 months free
Buy for $18.00
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Janet Song
-
By:
-
Suki Kim
A haunting memoir 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 accepted a job teaching English. Over the next six months, she will eat three meals a day with her young charges and struggle to teach them to write, 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.
©2014 Suki Kim (P)2014 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...




















Editorial reviews
Critic reviews
People who viewed this also viewed...











Wonderful read!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Interesting, to say the least.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I pray for the natives and the soldiers
that remain living and keeping the peace.
Unbelievable
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Personal and political
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A rare insight into North Korea?
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Fascinating
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Where does Without You, There Is No Us rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
This book is so educational about the life and culture of a group of "elite" young males in North Korea (DPRK) and their South Korean/American English teacher. Elite in North Korea is an oxymoron. I respect and value the mental and emotional struggles she experienced in always trying to be honest at all times with her students and her missionary coworkers who assumed she was Christian; description of their daily life - monotonous, and pervasive indoctrination and total distrust; and constantly having to be mentally careful of her words and actions. She so well explained the psyche of these students who since birth have been isolated from the rest of the world; indoctrinated to believe that North Korea is all powerful; and without "their dictator" who was all knowing and powerful that they would not be or survive. I had a read a couple of books about struggles of poor North Koreans and this book is important because it shows the reader why the next generation of influential male adults will act as they do.Who was your favorite character and why?
The author Suki Kim who risked returning to the country where her grandparents had fled to learn about life in DPRK today and tell this story in a book.What does Janet Song bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
I appreciate that both the author and narrator were women since this is a critical part of the memoirs.Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
There is so much not to be forgotten in this book, but I shall always remember that one student was not upset about being caught cheating at Trivia, but he "should have cheated better.A Must Read
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
eye opening
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Very interesting read
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Very good information about n Korean society
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.