WITHOUT YOU, THERE IS NO US

Yesterday I finished a book that was recommended to me by my brother-in-law. It is a memoir by a South Korean American who lived there as a teacher to an all male class learning English. It was enlightening, and a great depiction of how life must feel like under such a suppressive regime.

Even though the author was not under the same pressure as the North Korean students she taught, it was clear that just to be in the country required a certain amount of self-censorship.This memoir captured the sense of that regime, and was an enlightenment of many realities of North Korean life, even if mostly based on the lucky elite. I can only begin to imagine what it was like for those of lesser fortune.