In 2011, Korean-American journalist Suki Kim took a job teaching English at the elite, all-male Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST) in the North Korean capital. Her memoir, Without You, There Is No Us, chronicles her experience teaching the sons of North Korea's ruling class during the last six months of Kim Jong-il's reign.

In collaboration with the World Affairs Council of Houston, Asia Society Texas Center is pleased to welcome Kim for a discussion of her book next Wednesday, March 25. Leading up to the event, Kim spoke with Asia Blog about her time in Pyongyang, her writing process, and her interactions with her students. Below is an excerpt of her interview.

You worked on your book “undercover.” What did you do to make sure your project was kept secret? What was most challenging about it?

The most difficult part was being watched around the clock, never being left alone. Even when I was physically alone, I knew that I was being watched and reported on. Each meal, each class, each conversation — there was never a private moment. Losing privacy so absolutely is an alien experience. In some ways, I was amazed by how quickly I adapted to it, because I had no choice. If I hadn’t been able to accept that reality, I would have had to leave.

What surprised you about your classroom experiences?

My students were so easy to love, and yet also impossible to trust. They were innocent and yet corrupt. They were sincere, but they also lied so casually. They were the future leaders of North Korea, mostly from Pyongyang, and yet they were so clueless and sheltered in their upbringing that they sounded like children from a small village. It took a while for me to understand and accept these paradoxes, but ultimately, living in a walled compound with them and sharing so much — from eating meals together and playing basketball to laughing at inside jokes — I fell in love with them all.

In turn, what surprised your students about what their interactions with a foreign teacher?

Living alongside the foreign professors in such a small campus, they could only question their system, because now they had a point of comparison. Because they lived with us, they could only have felt a lack that they might not have been aware of. Even if they had been aware, they might not been able to explain what that lack consisted of — information and freedom. The powerlessness they had been used to all their lives might suddenly have felt like a handicap.

Read the full article on Asia Blog.