Undercover in North Korea w/Suki Kim

In 2011, Korean American journalist Suki Kim went to North Korea to teach English to the children of the country's elite for six months. But she was in fact an undercover journalist documenting everyday life under the regime Kim Jong-il, which she turned into a book without you, there is no us. Which makes Suki Kim wonder-- [singing] Hello and welcome to Wise, it's not a movie the podcast where we look at a moment in history or a book or a story we can rip from the headlines and ask Hollywood why no one's ever put it onto the big screen. I'm Mike Bego and with me is Suki Kim the only investigative journalist who have ever gone undercover in North Korea, a contributing editor at the New Republic and author of two books. One, the interpreter is a novel about a Korean American interpreter in New York who investigates her parents' murder. The other, without you, there is no us, is a nonfiction account of her six months living under Kim Jong-il's regime. Suki, thanks so much for coming on the show. Tell us about your book and your experiences in North Korea and why they need to be made into a movie. Thank you for having me on your show. So the book is an account of living inside North Korea. It's a topic, a place that I followed for a decade. I started going to North Korea from 2002 and I went in repeatedly under different guises. And finally in 2011, which is really the year 100 for North Korea, they count the years. They have a calendar system differently from the rest of the world. So their year one really begins with the birth of their original great leader, Kim Il-sung. And now we are on great leader three with Kim Jong-il and their heavy three men. That year 2011, great leader two, the second, Kim Jong-il was still in power. So that year was a year 100 celebrating that year 100. They had shut down every university in the whole country for a year and put all those young men into construction fields and women. And they plucked 270 young men from their best universities, Kremlin, Della Kreme and put those men into a brand new university that was being set up in the suburb of Kyeong-yang, staffed entirely with foreigners. And it's that university I ended up in living with and teaching the selected Kreme, Della Kreme, young man for age 20. So for those six months in 2011, I ended up living with the future leadership of North Korea. And the book is really an account of me learning what this world was because we've never learned what it's like to be inside. We have a count from the factors, but we don't know what life is like in North Korea, especially for those elite. And that's who I ended up basically eating with every day, playing sports with every day and ultimately fell in love with them all. While this was going on, also the great leader was dying. That is the final six months of Kim Jong Il's life, the last great leader. And Kim Jong Un was rising the power. By the end of my stay, my little little last day, the great leader himself died in December 2011 and will see the rise of the new great leader. So this is really the account of the final six months of the great leader's life with the 270 young men who are going to inherit the nation and me as an undercover journalist. Oh, there's whole other languages that I my cover was as an evangelical question. The university was set up by evangelicals from around the world for Westerners. So I was pretending to be an evangelical question in order to be in there. Also pretending to be a teacher because I'm not a teacher. Actually, one of my questions, I read sections of the book and I read some of your interviews online. I've never I didn't find the answer to this. How did you get that job? And did they put together that you had been there as a journalist before? It took years of pursuit. So the part of actually finding this opportunity to go in isn't really included in the book because it actually was a long process. While I was covering and following research in North Korea for a decade, I followed many thread of how to get in there. Some of which works. I went in multiple times. This university that was being set up was just one of the thread. So I apply for a job that many I heard, which was back in 2008 and I pursue them very aggressively for three years following. I never knew such a university was going to happen because a lot of these projects never happened when it comes to North Korea. They were brand new at this because this had never happened before in university being set up there. Also, there were fundamental evangelicals and proselytizing is an executionable crime in North Korea. So what that means is why is North Korea wasting any time with fundamental evangelicals? They shook hands, the evangelicals who are from around the world and North Korean government, where the evangelical decided that they're going to basically spend all this money to set up a very fancy school for the elite. They're basically funding the education of the ruling class of North Korea and North Korea was supposed was going to basically ask them to not say anything about religion. So basically coming here, but pretend you're not evangelicals was their deal. So what was the evangelicals motivation? I mean, they do it all the time, where you set up some sort of charitable organization. The ultimate goal would be ultimately, people would be converted except that's not on paper. It's not outwardly, nobody would know that, but the organization is actually funded by Christians, by fundamental. So they were basically hoping they could quietly spread the religion without getting in trouble of it. And they're also the first ones there. If North Korea were to fall, which in their estimation, that would be the eventual course, then they're the first ones there. Right. They're already on the ground and they already established trust. That makes sense. So it's really a fascinating that whole angle of what evangelicals are doing in North Korea is not an area I really touched because you know, the book really had to focus on the young men Oh, sure. North Korean and their psychology is what the book is. But obviously these evangelicals angle, which I went in with about 30 of them and living with them and pretending to be one of them. So that's a big part of my existence there because these evangelicals, although the North Korean regime knew who they were, their deal was to never talk about it. So what that means is they're kind of undercover. And I only got away. I'm not religious at all in any religion. So the only way I got away being there, not knowing anything about the Bible because we were actually allowed to have a weekly mass, which I had to take part in secret in our dorm. And how could I do a church service, you know, where we do prayers and things like that, if when I don't actually know anything about it. So that's definitely something I were worried about being there for so many months. But one of the reasons I did get away with that is because they kind of had to be low key about it. Oh, that makes sense. So basically double undercover, you know, here I am writing the book in secret. There were Minder's living directly below my room. We weren't in this dormitory where we weren't allowed to ever leave except with these Minder's on a guided tour outside the campus. And those guided tours all had to do with the great leader. And the Minder's living their job is to watch over me. So they're living right below my room 21st 7 watching me. So, you know, that's really my only, in a way, people I could relate, you know, that my people were actually the evangelicals. They're the ones that I came into North Korea with, except I was not one of them. And then with his students who I lived with, they were never allowed out. So we are basically prisoners all together. And the kids I became incredibly close with. But I wasn't really a teacher, you know, my job was to write down everything that I was observing into a book. Well, one of the things that really strikes me about the story is that you have to lead this double life, almost a triple life because you have to pretend to be any evangelical so that you can pretend to be a teacher. And it's basically a spine movie where you have all these layers of deception and you're effectively in prison. But so is everyone else in the country. You know, that's the thing you keep coming back to. that it sounds like the students have to do a lot of pretending. One passage that really struck me was you were writing about how they would talk about like happy memories from childhood that couldn't have happened because the age they were, the childhood was in the middle of the worst famine the country had ever had. And so there's this intense pressure to talk about how North Korea is the greatest country and glorious to your leader has made all this possible. And so it seems like everybody's living a series of lies and a double life, not just you. I mean, that's why it took me 10 years of trying to understand what North Korea is going in there repeatedly, interviewing so many defectors. The actual reality of what it's like to live inside such people have all these words for like totalitarian, whatever dictatorship. It's really a singular existence, what it means to be in North Korea. That's been that way for the regeneration. So you're exactly right. What does that mean when every single thing is a lie, right? I mean, their history is made up, the great leader stuff, you know, most of which is just all made up. They're not allowed internet. And though these were the school was called Pyongyang University of Science and Technology. It's an MIT equivalent. They didn't know the internet was in 2011. These were students who are computer majors who were also coming from the brightest in their nation. They all came from, remember, they were plucked out of their schools because this was year 100. So they came from Kim Il Sung University and Kim Chek University. Those are Harvard and MIT of North Korea. So these were incredibly bright students. And yet they want a lot to know things like Facebook or, you know, literally what internet is. But they knew that something was missing. You know, it was very clear as I lived with them, they knew they didn't know, except they couldn't really say that. They had to keep repeating how great their country was. And you're exactly right about their past. There were so many things that were allowed. Yet they would always say, you know, how wonderful, free, beautiful their lives are. And they just didn't know anything about anything. They didn't know that there was a train between England and France. They knew there was an ocean there, but they didn't know. They'd never seen Taj Mahar if you were to show them a picture. They'd never heard of most things that the rest of the world knows. And I think what is really amazing is the fact that they didn't know and to realize that you are really knowledge is being robbed from you. You know, they knew that things were constantly being kept from them. And I think living with me who's an outsider, you know, some of those moments would happen where, you know, they're lack or there's something wrong in their world. They would let that knowledge be seen by me. And I think that it was a very complicated thing to be an undercover journalist in that world hoping to capture those moments, you know, I actually lived with them and would eat with them. And they also all watch each other. That's another thing. They're never alone. They're all traveling pairs. They have to report on each other. Every North Command has to report on each other once a week in a meeting. So I knew everything we were saying to each other was being recorded. And yet I would glimpse these moments when clearly something is wrong in that world and that they knew it. You know, I mean, there was a moment where they all said, under birthdays, they sing songs to celebrate. And songs are always about, you know, they're how great their country is and the brotherhood and their happiness. And yet ones didn't this say, "Rakhenwell." And the minute he said that, everyone around us froze and all looked down. And I knew that, you know, he shouldn't have said that. He knew it, he shouldn't have said it. Everybody else knew it. Now it was fear that just descended upon us in that moment. And I was afraid that I was now getting a student in serious trouble, trouble in their world is serious, you know. Oh, I can't imagine. But yeah, he knew what that was and his peers knew what Rakhenwell was. So they're, yeah, absolutely. So there were many things like that where slips would happen about their world, cracks where their unhappiness. And yet, and yet, I mean, I think this is the complicated thing, which I think literally living in the amongst them made me see that it's a very, you know, the try to abuse is, abuse is, you know, that, you know, violence is being acted upon you. And yet, what if you were to part of that violence, you know, like they love their great leader at the same time. Their great leader is the one that made them. It's kind of like a religion, the great leader. They only celebrate the great leader birthdays, not their own birthdays. They really, the whole nation is about everything that has to do with the great leader is the reason why they exist. So if you actually come from this world, which exists because of God or Jesus, which to for them is the great leader, yeah, yeah, you love what that is. At the same time, you realize maybe everything you've been taught are not quite true, you know, that their world is not the greatest in the world because they can't even travel between pounds, never mind our side. And they realize like I'm there, which means I'm free to travel. I was going to say, you're just your existence as an American must have been, like it's just very eye opening to them because you, you know, we're born in South Korea, you've lived all over the US and traveled around and sort of everything that your whole life was everything that was denied to them. I mean, there were those other things I wasn't allowed to talk about. One of the conditions I was, you know, had to agree to being there was that I could never talk about anything. I couldn't talk about the outside world. I couldn't talk about like we can do this outside, which you can't, you know, which makes their world into a worst one. So that's what I was not allowed to talk about. However, living with each other and there were 20. So 19 and 20, you know, little things start breaking down that all rules, you know, although we weren't supposed to talk about the outside world, sometimes it would come out, you know, that I've traveled a lot. But they wouldn't really ask what is England like, what is Paris like, you know, they kind of go quiet because it's actually those are questions are not allowed. Right, right. But I think what's really was amazing, you know, because also I for them. So these evangelicals, there were about half of them or Westerners, Caucasians from the Netherlands, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, all these countries, UK. And then the other half were from outside world, like US, but of Korean origin, like me, I'm South Korean origin. So for them, I was possibly one of the few who were fluent in Korean. So they felt sort of affinity because I'm Korean and I'm South Korean, yet at the same time I'm Korean speaking Korean with them. Yet I was what they considered enemies. They're technically at war with South Korea, North Korea. So I'm actually from their enemy land. And that war North Koreans are taught was the result of American imperialism. So they're biggest enemies are the US and South Korea, which is what I embodied for them. So it was confusing for them in a way because I'm also the only thing that exists for them other than their great leader schedule. They were under this unbelievable militant schedule, which all had to do with great leader, great leader. You know, they do things like exercise group exercise, shouting their loyalty to the great leader. They go and guard the great leader building. There is a great leader study building within the campus. Great leader study building is a place you go to study the greatness of the great leader. It's an empty building kind of like a church. You know, when you really look at it like a religious aspect, it's actually not that surprising, right? So it's their church, a place of worship, where you go and study all about the great leader and their job was to go and guard the building all night. So because they had all these duties that had to do with the great leader, was there anyone even to guard it from? No, no, no, it's at the garden is really to show your go here. They grew up doing this. You know, and these are things that I never knew. I mean, I'd been following North Korea for so long. I didn't know they grew up doing this. Every town has this great leader buildings. and every North Korean takes turns guarding them from like when they were little in little. You know, there was actually four, five. And they don't tell you this until, you know, I found that by 'cause they all take turns. Like six of them always guarded the building all night, standing outside. And the North Korean is very cold. When you was freezing and they'll be like snowstorm. And although these were the crème de la crème, they didn't even really have warm coats. And I was worried that they have to stand out there. And I would say, it's really horrible weather today. And I hope you don't have to go out there. 'Cause when they have to go out and guard the building, they change it into this military outfit. - Okay. - And I would say that I hope the weather is so bad. And they said, "Teacher, it's not about the weather. This is an honor, it's not about the weather." And of course, when you think about it from their perspective, of course it's not about the weather. It's like me saying, "Oh, the weather sucks. I hope you don't have to do this." And they were telling me, it's actually an honor they have grown up with. So just psychology of their world that I was beginning to understand. - And if you really believe that it's an act of devotion to guard this building for a dear leader, it's probably a great act of devotion to do it in the colder of the rain. - You're proving your loyalty even more. - Yeah, when this says, "Teacher, this has nothing to do with the weather." They were teaching me something in a way. And there were so many things like that about their world that I began to understand. And I think you begin to also understand the normality of what's at stake, how different it is. They've been living this way for the Regenerations. All of them thought kimchi, the Korean pickled dish, was the official food of the Atlantic. Talk about the American limpita when it happened in Atlanta. And the nonsense of that made up fake news was in their textbooks. So if I were to try to discuss that with them, that it doesn't really make sense. Why would kimchi be the official Olympic food and Olympic that happens in America? You can't really talk about those things because it's first of all in their textbooks, that's what their great leader told them. So one can't really disagree with that. - And you could probably get in serious trouble for contradicting that. - There were just so many things that changes the way you look at North Korea. Like it was impossible to teach them how to write an essay. And that really struck me. I remember having a hard time coming up with a thing called DC Sentence. However old I was. - Yeah. - And then you realize when you look at what an essay is later on in life, you realize it's really all about trying to prove your point. You try to convince the reader, this is my argument, you start with an introduction and you go through a body with a DC Sentence and you do a conclusion. There's a logic to the whole thing. That was impossible. And at first I just thought it was impossible because it was just hard to teach about these sentences. It was impossible because in their world, you don't prove anything. You don't use introduction because you only talk about that great leader. They only have one television station and one newspaper. They've never been allowed out. They all live under orders. They never choose anything. They don't choose jobs. They don't choose college. They don't choose anything. And if you are in a world where you have never known what a thing called choice is, then you don't come up with things like these to sentence, try to prove something. So. - You almost wouldn't have an experience even making an argument. - There is no such thing. So I think for me to literally make them understand, I actually thought introduction, I mean, you don't need to explain what an introduction is. I thought, but I would try to make them understand the concept of you introduce something and they're like, why? I know they wouldn't say why. They're like, what I don't understand what you mean by that. And then I spent so many class lessons tried to even come up with making them understand and then I realized at some point don't do me, my brightest students couldn't understand this. And they were so bright. They spoke English so well. It was remarkable. And yet I realized, oh, essays are about critical thinking and you can't do things like critical thinking in a world where 100% everything is about the great leader. The whole system is designed in order to dumb down their nation. So things like critical thinking uses the brain and it's designed so that people don't use their brain. And I think what was amazing to me is me as a teacher using these tools. I don't have the reporting tools there. So I'm using teacher tools like teaching them critical thinking, making them write an essay. I also made them write me weekly letters with an excuse that it's necessary in order to learn English, how to write letters. So in those letters, some of their feelings would come through personal feelings. So that was a method that I used for reporting really for the book. And through those things that I used, I was beginning to get a glimpse of how they think what this world is and how horrendously, it was heartbreaking that this has existed for 70 years. - Oh, of course. And one thing I keep thinking about, when you talk about that this has gone on for three generations, it means that there aren't that many people who even remember what life was like before. - They're all dead. You also realize not only because of the time, but also I think anyone who rebelled had been killed. I think-- - Yeah, I'm sure. - So absolute and so merciless. And there were moments which happened in the book that I saw other, other mercilessness depicted when we actually left the town. I left the campus, but a tour outside. I saw a minder shutting down an old woman when we were actually using her, one of the teachers said to use a bathroom. And there was actually no public bathroom and we went into this private home of someone, which was the first time I saw supposedly a private home outside Kyeonghyeon. And the minder was not our minder. It was like a town's minder was also there. And that minder, because the woman was inside that this old woman really looked like she was in her 80s or 90s, was inside her room and she was sliding door and she opened the door to see who was outside using her outhouse. And the town's minder came out of nowhere and he shouted at the woman in Korea and basically just screamed at her to get back into her room. And she was so scared and she immediately shouted at her and went inside. And I remember at that moment, everything was so wrong about this episode that although this woman is a private citizen living in her home, it is really not her home. If you're not even allowed to open your door to look out to see who's using your bathroom. - Oh yeah. - Who is this town's minder? Like every community because they're basically there is this minder/polish man everywhere. And the fear that I saw in this old woman's face when someone the minder yelled at her. So the system that works in North Korea is beyond our scope of imagination, what happens there. But I think what I was after was trying to understand it in our terms so that the reader outside can grasp what this is. Not just a some exotic story of horrible suffering but actual lived experience, which is what I did, because I was trapped in that school for six months. - What's remarkable to me, just hearing how closed off and repressed everything in everyone there is, that in only six months you manage to get a sense of these kids in their lives because it seems like it would take a long time to break through. - It's actually time in North Korea is very different because everything is watched 24/7 and you follow the schedule of what they give you. You basically, it's all regimented the life because there's so many duties. Because my duty had to do with my students duty and then it's all many great-eater duties. And also it's so tired to watch yourself all the time. It's a system of so balance. - I was gonna say, it must have been so stressful for you knowing you're always being watched, knowing you have multiple secrets that could be discovered and then also not having, you know, not being in control of your own time. And even having to watch yourself with the students, it has to be very hard to just assume they don't know things like what the Taj Mahal is. There must have been so many. moments when you could have slipped up? Um, always. I mean, the fear was there always every second. Also, it is just exhausting to be, you know, I mean, it's an art example, but living this pandemic life in the worst part of the pandemic, lockdown, was the barest resemblance to North Korea. I remember thinking, where you're not, you can't go anywhere. You have to watch everything. Yeah, you're always on your guard. You're always on your guard. You can't, like love can't really save you, you know, I think I actually have a line in the book when I realized love cannot actually save me. In fact, the ones you love the most, you can get them killed. That's what existence North Korea is. They have a thing called regeneration penalty, which what you do, they will punish your loved ones first. So that's why North Koreans don't go against the rules because they can be central, who love, but so can their parents, their children, you know, their wives and husbands. So that's how in a way it's the whole entire world. There is a hostage, but I think my existence was a particular one because I didn't stumble upon it. You know, I knew what I was getting myself into, which I knew that the chance of me pulling it off was less than 5%. I mean, this had never been done before where someone actually went in and lived amongst them for a length of time. You know, I think people might have gone in the past as like tourists or something for like five days or whatever it is, you know, but you don't actually go under another guy's and live there for months and months and months. I mean, it's not a feasible cover. And your and your previous visits had been sort of diplomatic events, and what they know. No, no, no, I went in or media or media events. I mean, first time I went in also undercover for like eight days in 2002, but that wasn't, you know, it was my first experience. So I didn't go in to prepare like this. First time I went in as a great leader, like a fan club. I mean, which yeah, I ended up writing a cover essay for the new book. There was something similar, but the other times I did go as a journalist for Harper's magazine, which really worried me why I passed and got in this time. And I realized it's because Harper's isn't, I was not a staff writer anywhere. You know, it was a long narrative piece. I wasn't on the list of this journalist. And also because I'd written a novel, you know, way I wasn't, you know, in their culture, like a novelist and journalists are completely different things entirely, which they are. So I think I passed this time as just like an evangelical English teacher. It's how I passed. But what was really, because I knew that they also go through my stuff, you know, the minders and my previous visits, my, I knew that my computer they'd want through it. You can tell it's a DevGram and you open it. And my, you know, my suitcase was definitely, you know, they went through it. So knowing that saving my document was a really big homework. How I do this and keep it safe and keep it with me. So I created a document within a document. So it looked like a school note, but it was actually the book. But the book begins like page 100 after grammar lessons. All right. Okay. And then I really raised it like I would write it, you know, like 4 AM, I'll get up because I have to start getting ready to teach, you know, from like 6, 30 AM. So 4 AM, I would write on the same thing in the middle of the night. And then I would save it onto a describe that I brought with me, which was the smallest describe that looked like a necklace pendant. And then I kept that saved it. And then I raised everything from the computer and, you know, got rid of all the trace of it, deleted all the trace every single time I signed off. So there's nothing on my computer. And then I only had a document on this small pendant. I had a couple of them. So I had it like around my neck. And then I also saved it on an SD card, which then I would hide it in the room in case I lose the one that's on my body. So the one on my body, I had it with me 24/7. Like I, even when I would go shower, like I had it with me next to me, you know, like I would never. Yeah, yeah, you wouldn't forget it out of your side. And then I would have a notebook. I also carried my laptop, you know, which I was allowed to have since I'm a teacher with me 24/7. And then I did have a notebook in case I couldn't write it down, like I would write down whatever, just quote. And then rip it up, you know, and flush down the toilet. So I really did have a hard copy and also digital copy. I didn't know if this is how people do things. There's no handbook for how to do undercover work in North Korea. So I was just winging it and trying to make it as simple as possible. It really is a spy story. I mean, it is to their eyes. And I knew exactly what the consequences would be, you know, I knew that this would be if our caught with these notes, clearly the best scenario would be to get kicked out. The worst scenario is get detained. And detainment could go, you know, I mean, out of on-beer, you know, the young college student from Virginia, who took down the poster, got 16 years in a gulag, and then ended up dying. So the punishment for breaking their rules is really a, I mean, lifetime sentence, really, in a gulag was I knew what we were looking at if not execution. So the fact that I'm also South Korean was not that helpful, I thought, not just American, but South Korean. So enemy, you know, it's really be a crime against their national security really from their perspective, right? Oh, of course, yeah. So knowing that I think the fear was palpable, you know, it was every time I would go to sleep, I would be scared that would I wake up tomorrow? Oh, it had to be with you every minute. Were you ever afraid that even if you didn't do anything wrong and didn't get caught with anything, they still might not let you leave? Yeah, I mean, I think that even, at least one evangelical colleague with time was becoming less convinced that I was a Christian, you know, I was afraid that I mean, how long could I pull that off? Right, right. That was worrying me. So there was that tension with, I mean, I do think they would report me to the North Korean authority, but they would pull me and then kick me out, right? Right, right. But again, that's the best case scenario. And then also, there was a whole drama that's in the book to resend. I was trying so hard to get my students to watch Harry Potter, and which they never heard of until us was in a textbook so they kind of heard about this. They knew it was something really exciting that they missed out on, except they all told me they read the book because of course, North Korea, they know everything. But then there was eight things like, is Quidditch really fun? Have you played it before? And you know, that's the sport that you play on, you know, you fly around in a broomstick. Yeah, yeah. Obviously, they didn't know what it was. And I think it was really heartbreaking for me that they were so curious what this was. So I had this idea of towing them the film. And we were actually allowed to pick one film to show to students, they were not allowed a film. And one of the young evangelicals had a copy of DVD with her, which was a miracle I bought. So I suggested we show this to the students and students got so excited, they couldn't believe it. And then, you know, even among evangelicals, there were different degrees of their fundamentalism because they came from kind of different sects in different countries. And another evangelical became so furious because she said that Harry Potter is double because there's witchcraft in it. So she and I got into a fight over this whole issue of showing Harry Potter and she wouldn't let it happen. Ultimately, I was not allowed to show it to the whole students. She told me I taught two groups. Each group was like 21st students, 26 students. And she said, I can only choose one group to show it to. And for me, that was like choosing one child or for the other. You know, they were so excited, but she said, I can only show one of the two groups, but not all of them. So despite that we had, where I was weeping by the end, because I felt like she was blocking their glimpse of the outside world. Yeah, yeah. To deny their whole life. This fight we had was really something bigger than what it seems. You know, when you go through the journey of living there, and I remember weeping and weeping and weeping, and by then I had developed such tenderness to my students. And they, to me also, I mean imagine their life, you know, also in the world. Another thing that's really fascinating is that when you've been abused all your life, which I consider North Korea to be a country of abuse, the students are much younger than 19. They're 19 and 20, but they felt like they could be eight. So there are these young men who are all infant-wise, because they've never made a decision for themselves, all their lives. They're trapped here. They've never been on internet or any of it. They don't know anything other than crit-liter, and basically the only thing other than the crit-liter they had was me. So the way kids just hang on to their parents when they're like five, you know? Like they're just up and down when you show. Although they saw you in the morning, they can't believe that you're home again. That's kind of what it was like. It was really a bizarre way to be a teacher. I felt like I was both also the only woman. You know, it's a campus of 270 young men. So I was one of the only women other than the evangelicals that was the only one. So for them, it was like I was their mom. I was also the only Korean among these Western evangelical teachers. So there was this bond that we had that was really close beyond anything I'd ever experienced. So I think there is, I guess, because we are talking about why is this not a movie. There was definitely that teacher and a student bond thing that I've seen in films where it goes beyond teacher and a student. Phenomenal thing happened in our relationship. And as the crit-liter is dying, you know, the backdrop through all of this is, there's actually a routine change happening in the background. You know, it's not an accident. The end of that year, Kim Jong-il had been sick for a number of years. They were trying to bring up Kim Jong-un's presence across North Korea as the person who's now going to inherit. So they were also outside world, Eric Spring was happening that year. I mean, it's not a coincidence why North Korea isolated their Kremlin-elect-frem young men who are the sons of North Korea's biggest powerful men. That's what my students were. They were all sons of North Korea's leadership. So they put them away in a safe environment in the shelter because they were afraid of their country going into a chaos, you know, like Eric Spring. Of course. While one great leader is dying, the next one is rising power. They isolated the young, next generation powerful ones who are going to be leadership and shelter them. That's what that school was. That's who I was living with that year. So it was a vulnerable time, this single most vulnerable time in North Korea as history. And they're not just sheltered in the sense that they're protected if anything, you know, if chaos were to erupt, but they're also under lock and key in case there was some sort of struggle for power, anybody else of significance in the country sounds like their children were, you know, locked up by the regime. It's absolutely. I mean, because it was a sudden transference, you know, my students were so upset. They were a grand dollar grand. They were so proud of the fact that they go to Kim Il Sung University. Kim Il Sung is a poor brother of North Korea. And yet, 70 days have been plucked away from home into this brand new university they never heard of. They have to fight foreigners learning English. You know, it was called a school of science and technology and there were no science or technology teachers. It was only old evangelical people teaching them English. It made no sense. It was an excuse for school, but it was not a school. So clearly it was a shelter, political shelter, because political storm was coming because the regime change was coming. It was very obvious to me when I realized every other people their age are in construction field this year, except these 270 young men. So who are they? I mean, that was my big question. So on the front level, it's almost like a mystery, right? I was trying to understand who are my students. What is going on in this country? Something huge is going to happen in this country because they've now isolated. It's 270 young men here in this secret location. And of course the answer was made clear to me by the end when Kim Jong-un dies and young Kim Jong-un was however. While this was going on inside that secret campus, I was really falling in love with all my students and learning in some way they were no different than kids their age outside. And how lovely. And humanity is like that, you know? I mean, they were just really lovely 19-year-old kids who were homesick and missing their moms and very scared what's going to happen to them. Well that's the thing kids are kids, you know, regardless of the environment that you put them in. It had to have been so heartbreaking to leave them behind even as you must have been tremendously relieved to be able to go back. I mean, it was both because my last day wasn't planned that way. I mean, I really felt like, you know, when I heard I was packing my suitcase because I was supposed to leave the next day and then there was a knock and I was told Kim Jong-un just died. I remember thinking, oh my god, I guess there is God. I was like, you know, I was like, I'm going to die. And here is my final chapter. That was like a writer. Oh, you couldn't have written a better ending. I was like, here's my ending to the story. And I got to also see how my students reacted, which was their world just shattered. Yeah, yeah. I saw in their faces where nothing like what I saw later on, an American television, you know, people leaping and crying exaggerated before some camera because obviously some Western camera was capturing those moments. The story I saw in my students were far more powerful. You know, it's like Seoul had been taken out of them. They were devastated beyond belief. It's like their parents had just gone. And I cried watching them because I loved them and I was leaving them and I cried because I could feel how sad they were. And I remember weeping because they were sad. I was sad. Well, you had said that this was effectively a religion and he was their God. So I can't imagine that, you know, God dying with what that does to somebody. I mean, it's really a complicated position there in. But I think that priceless and the most special thing about the experience really was in some way really understanding them and empathizing with them. When I think about my time there, you know, my bond with them, I mean, we play like sports together and basketball together. I would always practice. I'll play with them, but I tried to get better at practice. It was right under their dorm. So all the windows, their faces would be pressed against their window, watching me do the, you know, what do you call it when you're just doing the, you know, getting the ball into the hoop. Yeah, just taking shots. Taking shots. So I would do that in my spare time. And I guess they weren't allowed out of, you know, they had to, they had their own duties in the dormitory. But at some point all their faces were pressed to the window and then next day at lunch they told me, "I'll teach her yesterday. You got in 51 shots out of 100. Wow." And it's like last time it was 43 and you are getting better teacher. So I was one of their past times to see how better I was getting with it because, you know, I was just so terrible when we played together because the only sports they played was soccer or basketball because obviously you don't need any. I mean, although they were the crammed out of the crammed, they literally had nothing. So those sports are the only things you can play if you just have a ball. And also those are group activities. You don't do it alone because everything there is done as a group. Of course. Yeah. But what was also amazing was the resilience, you know, in this situation they really felt like prison or a gula. There were so many moments of just laughter, pure laughter and private jokes and I mean, there were boys, you know, like at first they told me they had no interesting girls because they only served their great leader. But with time, you know, girls became the topic of the letters to me. They'll tell me secretly they do have a girlfriend, although, you know, they haven't seen her. Whenever they've been sent here. Yeah, yeah. They're allowed to like have phone or they were not allowed to send letters. So it's literally they were just disconnected from outside world. So like their jokes about the girls, they wanted to get better with English because they thought that once they go home, they can chat in press the girls with their English skill. And there were many just adorable, absolutely adorable. I remember, I remember also signing them how to get a girlfriend as a topic. Like. It was just to see how they actually have girlfriends in North Korea, you know, because they, because every adolescent plan I had to get it approved by the counter part, which are the North Korean staff. They had to look at everything I was doing. My class was recorded and reported on. So I had to make a reason why I was assigning something so nonsense to them, but I said, you know, how to say. I have to do, I'll teach them the grammar of how to. Right, right, right. So from those things I was able to get a glimpse of North Korean young life, of social life, and how they meet girls. And when we brought up those topics, they suddenly became boys their age. And how, in a way, divided it was, because once they'd started talking about the great leader, it's as if this other personality sets in, you know, and they start just basically be gargitated in all these rules and achievements of their great leader. So there is definitely like a divided side, which is not best surprising. It happens through abuse, you know, I mean, I don't realize like that, but I feel like I was able to glimpse what actual abusive society can do to an individual. It was heartbreaking. They became my kids, you know, and I felt like I really got to know them more and more and they were just so unique and individual and hilarious and them having to live this way forever and ever became hard-frenching. Oh, of course. And I'm curious, how do they meet girls when everything they do is so controlled? The funny ones would say it was so easy because he was so handsome because he was from the best family and from the best. They would always tell me the best avenues in Pyongyang because I would imagine that kind of like, I don't know Beverly Hills or Madison Avenue. Right, right, right. So there was the eye living this, you know, street and I go to Kim Il Sung University and I'm so handsome, so all the girls would all say to him, you know, what a good looking gentleman. So it was never a issue. But from what I'm. But before they were sort of locked into the school, they hadn't enough freedom of emotion to, you know, to walk on the street and see pretty girls and. Yeah, I mean, they also have a lot of group activities. Oh, of course. Yeah. Like youth meetings and, you know, according to this street because obviously long-distance relationships would be hard there because they're not really allowed to travel. They don't have a lot of time. Right, right. Right. Because there are so many duties to fulfill. And don't have the communications that, you know, like kids here have. You can't just text your boyfriend or whatever. Right. It's not as freely, even if you are, you know, allowed limited version because you're elite. It's still not enough for you to really see someone who's. I mean, certainly not in different town, but even within Pyongyang and the other district because you mix really within your district. So within those, you know, schools they would meet or a lot of activities, youth activities that they had to go to. Okay, okay. That seemed to be where their romantic life happened. Should we get into directors and actors? Or is there more of the story you want to talk about? It's a remarkable story because it's so many different kinds of story. It is the inspiring teacher makes them, you know, has the bomb to the students. The story as you were saying, it's also a spy story about how you have to be very, very secretive and, you know, live these, live these double lives to fool not only the North Koreans, but also the evangelicals. And then it's also just this glimpse into this world that's not like anything else on Earth. So I feel like there's so much. There's so much to put into this movie. There's so much tension, you know, every minute. And there's also so much fascination at what these kids' lives are like and so much sympathy for them. And you touch on so many different aspects of North Korean life, even just from your limited perspective of being kind of locked into this school, we often talk on the show about different approaches to take for a movie. You know, sometimes if you're doing a comedy, it can be a dark comedy, it can be very silly, it can be. You know, you can take different tones, but here I feel like you want it to be all these things at once. You want it to be this very tense story of you going undercover. You also want it to be a story about you making a bond with these students. You also want it to be a little bit documentary about, well, this is what life in North Korea is like under this abuse of regime. And you kind of have to put it all in there. So do you have any ideas about who could direct this and handle all that? I mean, actually the movie that I always thought, you're exactly right by the way. With all those different, I always thought that there are those different huge stories within this one story. But the movie I always thought was most modeled for this kind of story was actually brought back mountain. On me. Ah, that makes sense because it's that same feeling of not being able to express yourself or say who you are. And all of Angli's films are about people who can express their true feelings. You know, whether it's somebody who can't acknowledge your love with somebody or all those characters, you know, even crashing tiger hidden dragon, like all those characters are very closed off. And I think about it that way. Yeah, I mean, probably. I just think that um, it's not because like, Robert Mount is my favorite film or any of that. That's not why. I think I was, I was really struck when I saw that because I thought anyone else would have made this. I mean, it's a gay cowboy love affair story, right? And he made it just into a love story. That by the end I was weeping and everyone was we we all forgot like also the landscape of Wyoming, which is very overpowering and how he was able to use that. And it's there, but it didn't become like a gay film or a cowboy film or like landscape, um, American, you know, country film. It just became this like enormousness of what he was talking about came through, but it was a human love story. Well, the line from a review that I remember that stayed with me is that it would have been very easy to make a movie about the impossibility of, you know, two gay men falling in love in that era, but it was really about the impossibility of loving this man. He's ledger's character. Yeah. You know, it's it's such a singular story about those characters, which then makes it feel universal. Even if you're not gay, if you're not a cowboy, like it doesn't matter. It speaks to you to anybody who's ever, you know, either love somebody and not being able to be with them or like, yeah, I think he's I think he's a great choice. And he's just got such a strong filmography where he's done so many good movies and so many different genres. He can handle all kinds of material. I thought, and you and also just make this into about like North Korea, North Korea is such a powerful symbol on each own. The weird dictator, whatever it is, I could care less of the weirdness of North Korea. You know, I really, I find that this tastes full. So I think maybe that's why I thought about me, like that how he could really take that topic and make into something that anybody could see and empathize and be amazed by. And I think you'd really do want to ground the story, not in a look how, you know, strange North Korea is, but really in your story, in your experience. And then the kids experience too. Yeah, only then it becomes a universal story. Yeah. You know, enormity of what's a stake, right? Absolutely. That really should come through. Then it becomes heartbreaking. That's why it was heartbreaking to me. And also, I mean, I really played that down in the book that the angel I was facing, but the angel I was facing was it was impossible for me to come out of their lives. You know, and and and you somehow did. And I did and that's only possible. I think that is also something I hate like when there's just movies of like savior going somewhere and like being brave journalists. I mean, that's not, I don't care about that. But I think risking your life becomes worthy when the loveliness of uniqueness of those individuals, you know, my students become very clear in the story. Then you realize why it's important that this woman, American journalist went in there to get the reality. And then what I try to do becomes actually important interviewers mind, you know what I mean? And I feel like on me, oh yeah, he did it in that movie. He convinced all of us, you know. Well, I think in your story, the fact that you downplay the violence because there is this constant threat of being imprisoned or being executed. But the fact that you downplay that means that the focus of the story is on how the experience changed you and the bond you formed with these students. And that really is the heart of the story. And as far as only being the person to tell that I like that better than my, than the directors I came up with. I think you'd be terrific. But well, I want you to have only no one else. Oh yeah, well, I only had two and I started looking at Korean directors because I don't think think it's impossible for a non-Korean director to tell the story well because it's really just about the emotions and your experiences. But I feel like a South Korean director is going to have a more personal connection to the story and just a better understanding of the North and it seemed like a good place to start. And then when you talk about South Korean directors, it's sort of the obvious starting places Bong-jun-ho because he's been on such a remarkable run of terrific movies and he also seems to be able to make a great film in any genre. And he always speaks to social issues in his films and so I felt like he would have an interesting take on the story. But he also felt like a little obvious on the nose. So I also like Bong Sang-soo. I'm sure I'm mispronouncing all these Korean names so I apologize. But he's a Korean art house director who's less well known in America. He's directed 26 films in the last 25 years. Some of them are competed with Cannes, Venice. At the Berlin Festival, he won Best Director last year for the woman who ran. And the thing that struck me about him is he's known for having a really realistic style and focusing on people's everyday lives and making movies that are very down to earth and very driven by dialogue and not action. And so I think that makes him a good fit here because for one, the story, there's not action. There's not even though there's this ever-present danger, it doesn't escalate to anything. There isn't a, you're not arrest, there isn't a gunfight, there isn't anything. It's really just this constant tension. But the real story is the day-to-day lives of these kids and of North Koreans in general. And that seems to be, you know, in all of those films, he seems very interested in kind of the mundane details. A lot of his films have just long scenes of people talking and eating food and walking on the street and it feels, his movies feel very lived in and very down to earth. I think that's the approach you want to take for this story. The only worry is that he's a writer-director and he's never adapted into someone else's writing. He's written all of his own movies. So who knows if he'd say yes to our imaginary movie. Well, am I allowed to disagree? No, of course, yeah. So Hong Sang-sik, a Bong-joon, or the most famous South Korean directors at this point, I can't really see Hong Sang-sik ever being interested. You know, he's Eric Romell of Korea. You're right. He's not really interested in the larger, that's not really what gets him going, right? His films are generally almost like an interior dynamic of very few people. Yeah, I thought maybe that worked because it is this very interior story about one, you have to have this very hidden interior life. But the story is very self-contained too with you in these students because it doesn't sound like you spend a lot of time with anybody else apart from the evangelicals a little bit. I also agree that he probably wouldn't do it. It seems like his films are all very personal to him. Yeah, it's all about him. Yeah, yeah. Hong Sang-sik is very much about him over and over. Well, like I said, I like your choice a lot better. I think I said this already, but what I really love about Hong Lee as a director for this is that is that so many of his films are about characters like internal turmoil and people who can't really express what they're feeling for one reason or other. And that just seems so perfect for this. He's pretty amazing. I should see that film again and why he's stuck with me and why I always started without you. There is no us as program mountain. I think because I was also really struck by how he made the landscape because Calibur is in a landscape is so important and landscape was always there in the film and I fell out by the end landscape was a character which I own and landscape became like oppressive and landscape became like America. And I was thinking that's kind of what North Korea is, the documentary angle you talked about, you know, like this ever present great leader and all those endless North Korean rules and images and propaganda. And I could imagine under on these direction it would be that beautiful character landscape. You know what I mean without it becoming some sort of like weird North Korea thing, but I feel like of all the people he could turn that into like an epic without resorting to cliche or you know what I mean. Well, you want North Korea to feel like a real place and not just this western idea of what North Korea is or even a South Korean idea of what North Korea is. You want it to feel like a real lived in place that are these kids home. But also like a giant political symbol in the story as a beautiful symbol like the way I think I'm needed with the landscape. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, you know, like it's just like a brilliant take how to use those and still tell the story. But I imagine that would be my dream director. So now the really tough question, who plays you? Yeah, that's a very tough one. I don't have one. I thought about this and I don't have one. And I think that is no one seemed right. It's very hard to cast yourself. And the couple of guests that I've told their own story, I find it kind of weird to say this is who you should be. But the one thing that I came up with, I loved Park Sodom in Parasite and she does the same thing in that film that you have to do in real life where she basically creates a whole persona for her employer's benefit while hiding who she really was and what she really wanted. And she was very good in that film at kind of snapping back and forth between these different personalities of her sort of real self and the like upper class tutor that she was pretending to be and that just struck me as very similar to this role, not just because she played a pretend to be a teacher in that. It's funny that shifting between different personas in a film always impresses me even though that's what actors do and that's what acting is. And yet it was still very, it's we're still very striking when she did that. And again, maybe it's too obvious because the, you know, it's a similar role, but it's also something that we know that she can do. I think that, I mean, there was an actress I love and I thought, but that image, but she wasn't right. It's actually the actress who was in on this film once, Tang Wei. Remember that movie love caution? Oh, of course. Except she's not Korean. She's, I believe Taiwanese or from Hong Kong. So and I do think that actress should be Korean, but I really liked her just image. Like her look, you know, I thought she could play a journalist, which is, you know, a particular look, right? I guess. Yeah. I mean, sometimes she's dolled up, but when she's not dolled up, you know, she can kind of play anything. She has kind of layers. She looks like a woman with secret. That's exactly what you want. That's great. I hate a compelling way, but and she was in this Korean film with Han Bin. I forget what it was called. I think middle flavor. I think it was she was in some Korean film where her look was just so what I had imagined for the net and the character, although it's me still the character, you know, the character in without you, there is no us because I think one and really had to be a woman with a secret and quiet. This has to be a quiet energy there. And he's strong, right? If she's going to get through this whole thing with us. And someone also looked like she could be fun and hang out with the students, you know, because that's whole other aspect to her. You know, boys have to fall in love with her. Right, right, right. Right? She looked like someone you want to hang out with. So I felt like probably the actress has to have all of that. And I do think ultimately it has to be a South Korean actress who speaks fluent English. And at this point, there's so many, you know, um, oh, exactly. I don't really see, I mean, I'm probably not aware, you know, I haven't really seen Asian America. I mean, I just don't want TV to know Asian American actresses. But I think there are a number of South Korean actresses who are fluent in English. I think with the right director, someone actually was really interested in without you. There is no us at some point. A director and he met with me and he said, there isn't an Asian actress who can carry a movie like this. This was a number of years ago. And I disagree. I think there actually is a whole lot, especially with the Asian market. You know, I mean, there are these South Korean actresses who are super star in Asia. So you already have the Asian market. Oh, exactly. Yeah. I would star in it. But I think with the right director, I mean, if somebody like on me almost doesn't matter who is the main actress. That's true. But not casting the students, I was looking at young Korean American actors and Korean actors. And the more I thought about it, the more you don't really want recognizable actors as the students, I think you want to cast unknowns because I agree. Because one thing you talk about in the book is how it takes so long for their personalities to emerge because there's so much pressure to be conformist. And so it takes you a lot to get to know them. You want them to be the same. You don't want to know who these kids are. You want them to kind of all be, you know, in identical school uniforms. And over the course of the film, you get to know them the same way that you did over the course of the six months. But the one thing about casting is I do think it's important to not do what a lot of movies do in cast. you know, 27-year-olds as high school students. You know, it's, it feels important to the story that these, like you said, like they're 1920 and they feel like they're eight. You know, you want really actors that are the correct age, but also even youthful for that age. Who feel like kids who are naive about the larger world and maybe curious about it as you are at that age? - Yeah, I mean, I think it's really, I mean, it would be interesting for many upcoming, right, Asian American actors. There's so many of them, or Korean actors, but also I think where the name value for actors can happen is evangelicals, you know, 'cause those are basically white people in the film. - Well, exactly, yeah. - And, you know, the names that they're looking to carry the phone could happen there. For the first time, they will be playing maybe sidekick to the Asian female. - Right, exactly. - And they're right in the center, but there's many of them though. I mean, this is who I was with, older white evangelicals from around the world. - And I think it even works. The same way the casting unknowns helps the audience feel the same way you do about these characters. Maybe casting some recognizable, you know, character actors, even if it's just very small roles as the evangelicals, you know, those are the Westerns you're interacting with. Those are the people who are familiar to you somewhat, even not being a Christian or even evangelical. And I think those are the people that are more familiar to the audience. - Yeah, I mean, this is an environment can be an evangelical, one of the evangelical ladies. I mean, there are really so many of them in the story. Yeah, I think the casting them, so having actually recognizable names would not be an issue. - Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. - I think it's really a director, because I mean, it's really North Korea is a character in the story. And obviously whoever would play me has to be a really good actress more than anything, I think. - It's so much your story that you really need somebody who can carry the film. - Right, like someone who's very, very, very good actress has to play that role. Yeah, I mean, it would just really have to come out of South Korea. - But I agree that so much of it is her and the director. But you could, the stories are, you've already written the story, the stories are you there. It's just somebody who can capture all the different tones of you needed to be impressive kind of all the time, but then also have these light hearted moments of you bonding with the students and have you constantly be on guard against being found out by the Koreans and evangelicals. There's a lot of emotions, a lot of tones to juggle in this movie and make it feel like a cohesive story. And what you were talking about too, of making the landscape of North Korea, be a part of the story. - Yeah, I mean, someone is expecting in some sense, although it's a very, very, very individual, a personal story of love. At the same time, it's a huge, a big political story, in a way, right? Like a director who can really bring that epic sense onto a screen. It's, I mean, I think of it as a very big movie. So, I mean, it's really like one of those huge, Oscar films, like I think of it as like, it has to be like a scope has to be very big, which I think is why I keep going back to ONLY. He's like my number one. - Well, he just checks all the boxes for this. And actually, I keep thinking about Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon because I rewatched that recently with my kids. And when I saw it when it came out, you know, 20 years ago, like everybody else, I was caught up in the martial arts and the special effects. And the epic sweep of that, because you have all these gorgeous landscape, it's kind of shot like a Chinese western, because there's that whole extended scene when Jang-Z runs away and she's in the mountains and you get all these beautiful landscapes. And the story has this epic feel. But watching it again years later, the thing that really struck me so much was how much it's about the characters and their emotions and their frustrations because all of them can't have what they want. You know, whether it's a romance or whether, you know, Jang-Z's character just wants to be free and doesn't really even know what that means, but her marriage is being arranged for her. You know, these others for the great hero, she kind of looks up to, but they want to train her and bring her to school and kind of tame her. And she just wants to get away from everyone else's expectations and everyone else's control and just doesn't know how to do it. And I think the ending where she just flies away is because there is no real answer and there is no real way for her to have the freedom she wants. The more I think about that, the more it's kind of a similar tone here where to an even starker degree, no one has any kind of freedom and no one can make any choices and no one, you know, in that film everyone sort of has one thing they want, they can't have, whereas where's no one gets decide or want anything other than what the regime wants them to want. - There's such a universe or human emotion of heartbreak associated with all that. - Of course, yeah, yeah. - You know, when actually my editor who edited the book without you, there is no us at our first meeting after reading the draft, she told me he reminded her of her favorite novel and although this is nonfiction, her favorite novel, which actually happened to be my favorite novel, "Never Let Me Go" by Kazu Ishiguro. - Oh yeah. - Which takes place at her school and you slowly learn that these are actually clones the characters they're all gonna die. And that was made into a film and not a very effective film, I think. All the heartbreak got lost. You know, it's a book that novel that you really, it's literally heart-wrenching. And in the film version, that just wasn't there. And I remember thinking how it's so important to get everything right, right? To bring that onto a screen. It's so possible to not be able to bring any of it. - Oh yeah, it's. - Which is not like, on Nick and do a martial art film and yet he can bring all the characters across, you know? - Oh yeah, it's such an important skill. It's such a danger of adapting both a book and a real life story and this is both. It is just missing the point or misjudging what the tone has to be to get the story across. - Yeah. - You know, or even just misjudging what's important about the story because I could see someone approaching this as ooh, behind the scenes, you know, glimpse into North Korea, well that's not really the heart of the story. - Exactly. I'm so glad you said that exactly. - Well, I'm so glad you got to tell the story the way you wanted to in the book and that we just got to get somebody to do that in the movie. - I hope only. (laughs) - Most of the podcast. - That's always the dream that somebody's gonna listen to it and say, okay. All right, well, that's our movie. If you have any thoughts on North Korea under cover journalism, or ideas for the movies that need to get made, hit us up on Twitter at YMovie. Thank you so much to Ganda Suke Kim for coming on the show. You can read more of her books, or more about her books on her website, sukekim.com, or follow her on Twitter at Suke's World, or watch her Ted Talk on YouTube where she talks more about her experiences, you know, being in North Korea. One last note before we wrap up, this is the end of season two of Why This Not A Movie. We'll take a little break and be back in September. And in the meantime, you can read student journalism here at College Radio and listen to other lesser podcasts on our parent website, subjectmedia.org. Stay safe out there, get your shot, keep yourself sane, and we'll be back next time on. (singing)