Among The Young And Privileged In North Korea
On how cut-off the students were from the wider world
Some were more sheltered than others. Whatever the reason was, on [the] surface, because it is a system so based — built on fear, they're not supposed to admit it, even if they knew. They were never supposed to admit to knowing what's going on outside. So for example, we talked about the way they celebrate birthdays.
Usually, they go back to their dormitory after dinner and they start singing songs, one by one. And they all always claimed, the Great Leader's songs, or songs about friendship. One time, one student said, "Rock 'n' roll." The minute he said that, the whole table went quiet. The student just looked out instantly, as if some horrible thing was just admitted. And then someone changed the topic and I realized, this is the fear. It was a kind of reality that is so impossible to imagine for us Americans, and I thought it was important to humanize North Koreans.
On how the elite fear they could be purged
I've covered North Korea for over a decade, interviewed so many defectors, and this was the other extreme of the society, and they had no freedom.
I don't know how they absolutely keep that control. But we just saw, you know, [current leader] Kim Jung-Un getting his uncle executed, Jang Song Thaek, at the end of 2013. And that is [the] No. 2 man in North Korea for decades, who is a relative of the Great Leader.
I think it's just a different system. I had assumed, also, that maybe the elite — you know, maybe the images that those people control – that they have so much freedom, but that just simply was not true.
On the ubiquitous female guards at the university
It is so controlled. The guards were only women — young women in their early 20s — and they never mixed words with the staff. I tried, but they wouldn't talk back to me. And they were minders, minders living in the faculty dormitory on the ground floor, and all they ever did was just guard us. It was very, very systematically controlled. ...
I did ask about that several times to the foreign teachers, "Why is this the case?" The answer that I got was that in the beginning of the school, they had put men there — soldiers — but they realized that maybe it just looks too threatening, so they changed the soldiers to women soldiers.
On whether the students and the guards ever fell in love
That would make a really good Hollywood movie. And I did imagine that because these were just, you know, 19-, 20-year-old beautiful boys. But then, I realized also, at some point, I learned that they come from a completely different social strata that it just wasn't possible, supposedly.
On what she took away from her six months at the university
This was my fifth visit in North Korea and I felt the incredible sorrow in my last time more so than ever because I spent so much time, and I got to observe so many things first hand at the school. And because they were so young – 19 and 20 – and I think from that, really loving them, to a degree, and understanding their world, it made me really think what a claustrophobic and inhuman place North Korea is.
You know, it's kind of like thinking my kids are trapped there. It was heartbreaking on a daily basis. And also to leave, and also knowing that's the world that they will possibly be the leaders — they're the future leaders of North Korea.