Read Online Without You, There Is No Us by Suki Kim - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Suki Kim
Tags: Travel, Non-Fiction
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say that the stroke took her soul away, but by everyone’s testimony, her soul was already long gone.
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*1 The United States plans to relocate its military base outside Seoul by 2016.
5
O N MY THIRD DAY , THE STUDENTS COLLECTIVELY SHOWED up at dinner around 7 p.m., far later than the scheduled 6:30 p.m. arrival. This was unusual since their timing had been exact until then. When I sat down with a few and asked why they were late, they looked nervous. Finally, one said they had had a social studies class for two hours in Korean. Although that still did not explain why the class had run over by thirty minutes, I did not probe further. From their letters, I knew that they spent afternoons studying Juche, though I had no idea where. Maybe the powers that be had decided they needed to counteract any brainwashing of their elite youth that we, the foreigners, might attempt.
Then I saw six of my students wearing khaki army uniforms rather than shirts and ties, and asked the others why. “They’re on duty,” one said. The rest lowered their heads and stared at their food. I asked them what kind of duty, but they would not answer. So I made a joke of it and said, “They look older in uniform, like fine young gentlemen!” At this, their faces softened, and they seemed to forget whatever they might have done that afternoon to make them so tense. The word gentleman always made them blush and giggle.
Katie came up to me after dinner and whispered brightly, “Don’t you think Choi Min-jun is the cutest boy you’ve ever seen?” It had not occurred to me until then that at twenty-three, she was not much older than the students. It was entirely possible that they might have crushes on one another. For the first time since we arrived, her face was filled with girlish giddiness, and for a moment, life seemed almost normal. Boys and girls. The stuff that makes the world go around, or at least a tad brighter. It was happening here in Pyongyang too, even across taboo lines.
“He looks so nice in his military uniform, so I asked him why he was wearing it,” Katie continued. I was hoping she might have found out more than I had. “He wouldn’t say and just blushed.”
Teachers in this tiny, locked compound were like superstars. The students competed to sit with us at all three meals. For them, we seemed to be everything—walking English dictionaries, a window to the outside world. Although we were forbidden to tell them anything, they knew we had the answers. Some were bold enough to approach me directly and ask, “Professor, would you care to join me?” Their English was often quite formal because, since middle school, they had been taught British English. Others were so shy that we had to assign them to eat with us.
The question of seating could be complicated. Each table seated four people, but we had been warned that the counterparts discouraged sitting with the same students more than once. We were told it was so that the students would have an equal chance to practice their English, but it also appeared that they did not want us to get close to any particular one. However, we inevitably ended up sitting with the same students more than once.
Breakfast was porridge and boiled eggs. Lunch and dinner were almost always the same too: rice and some sort of watery soup, often with just a couple of marinated vegetables such as kimchi, bean sprouts, or potatoes. Even kimchi, the Korean staple on both sides, was tasteless because it was made with hard green cabbage instead of traditional Napa cabbage, which was scarce that year, supposedly due to a bad harvest. There was hardly ever any meat.
The students usually led the conversation. “How can I learn English better, Professor?” was the question I heard at almost every meal. Improving their English was our mutual concern, but also our cover, which is ironic, given how much they are taught to hate imperialist America. We both hid behind that question.
They admitted to
----
*1 The United States plans to relocate its military base outside Seoul by 2016.
5
O N MY THIRD DAY , THE STUDENTS COLLECTIVELY SHOWED up at dinner around 7 p.m., far later than the scheduled 6:30 p.m. arrival. This was unusual since their timing had been exact until then. When I sat down with a few and asked why they were late, they looked nervous. Finally, one said they had had a social studies class for two hours in Korean. Although that still did not explain why the class had run over by thirty minutes, I did not probe further. From their letters, I knew that they spent afternoons studying Juche, though I had no idea where. Maybe the powers that be had decided they needed to counteract any brainwashing of their elite youth that we, the foreigners, might attempt.
Then I saw six of my students wearing khaki army uniforms rather than shirts and ties, and asked the others why. “They’re on duty,” one said. The rest lowered their heads and stared at their food. I asked them what kind of duty, but they would not answer. So I made a joke of it and said, “They look older in uniform, like fine young gentlemen!” At this, their faces softened, and they seemed to forget whatever they might have done that afternoon to make them so tense. The word gentleman always made them blush and giggle.
Katie came up to me after dinner and whispered brightly, “Don’t you think Choi Min-jun is the cutest boy you’ve ever seen?” It had not occurred to me until then that at twenty-three, she was not much older than the students. It was entirely possible that they might have crushes on one another. For the first time since we arrived, her face was filled with girlish giddiness, and for a moment, life seemed almost normal. Boys and girls. The stuff that makes the world go around, or at least a tad brighter. It was happening here in Pyongyang too, even across taboo lines.
“He looks so nice in his military uniform, so I asked him why he was wearing it,” Katie continued. I was hoping she might have found out more than I had. “He wouldn’t say and just blushed.”
Teachers in this tiny, locked compound were like superstars. The students competed to sit with us at all three meals. For them, we seemed to be everything—walking English dictionaries, a window to the outside world. Although we were forbidden to tell them anything, they knew we had the answers. Some were bold enough to approach me directly and ask, “Professor, would you care to join me?” Their English was often quite formal because, since middle school, they had been taught British English. Others were so shy that we had to assign them to eat with us.
The question of seating could be complicated. Each table seated four people, but we had been warned that the counterparts discouraged sitting with the same students more than once. We were told it was so that the students would have an equal chance to practice their English, but it also appeared that they did not want us to get close to any particular one. However, we inevitably ended up sitting with the same students more than once.
Breakfast was porridge and boiled eggs. Lunch and dinner were almost always the same too: rice and some sort of watery soup, often with just a couple of marinated vegetables such as kimchi, bean sprouts, or potatoes. Even kimchi, the Korean staple on both sides, was tasteless because it was made with hard green cabbage instead of traditional Napa cabbage, which was scarce that year, supposedly due to a bad harvest. There was hardly ever any meat.
The students usually led the conversation. “How can I learn English better, Professor?” was the question I heard at almost every meal. Improving their English was our mutual concern, but also our cover, which is ironic, given how much they are taught to hate imperialist America. We both hid behind that question.
They admitted to
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