DOCSLIB.ORG

Interview with Suki Kim, Author, Without You, There Is No Us For

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Interview with Suki Kim, Author, Without You, There Is No Us For Interview with Suki Kim, author, Without You, There Is No Us For podcast release Monday, January 18, 2016 KENNEALLY: The 38th parallel dividing the Korean peninsula is not the only line Suki Kim has ever crossed. An award-winning novelist and a journalist, Kim emigrated with her family from Seoul to New York City when she was 13. Over a number of officially sanctioned visits to North Korea, she reported for the New York Review of Books and Harper's Magazine on that country's bewildering, even byzantine self- absorption and its obsessions with the Great Leader, Kim Jong-il, and the Great Enemy, the United States. Then in 2011, she crossed another line, returning to Pyongyang undercover. Welcome to Copyright Clearance Center's podcast series. I'm Christopher Kenneally for Beyond the Book. Without You, There Is No Us is Suki Kim's account of her six-month stint teaching English at the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, a school privately funded and founded in 2002 by evangelical Christians with ties to South Korea and the US. Suki Kim was not a teacher, nor is she even Christian, yet these were not her deepest secrets. More covert still was her mission to record what she saw and heard so she might offer the world what it had never had before – an inside, unscripted, and unvarnished picture of life in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Suki Kim joins me now from New York, and welcome, anyong haseyo, Suki Kim. KIM: Hello, Chris. Thank you for having me on the show. KENNEALLY: Thank you for joining me. We met first at the Miami Book Fair in November, where you participated on a panel for authors of memoirs. Later you told me you felt out of place then and that you strongly reject the label of memoir for your book. Your reasons reveal much about the marketing of nonfiction today that should concern all of us as readers. But first, can you summarize the book, Without You, There Is No Us, and tell us how you came to write it? KIM: It is the only undercover account from inside North Korea. I was following it since 2002, when I went in there for the 60th birthday celebration of the then-Great Leader, Kim Jong-il, and I ended up writing a long cover feature essay for New York Review of Books. I returned repeatedly, and I also covered the New York Philharmonic in Pyongyang for Harper's Magazine and did a feature essay. Then finally I found this chance to actually live there, because anything coming out of North Korea, there are two kinds. Either you have sanctioned visits by journalists, which is you write what the regime tells you to write. That, to me, is just basically a press release. Or you have defector accounts, people who flee North Korea and tell their confession or stories to journalists once they have fled North Korea. Neither really you can get a picture of what's going on inside while it's happening. So when I found out about this school that was educating the future leaders of North Korea, all aged about 20-year-old young men, sons of elites, I posed as a teacher and went in there with a book contract. I already had a book contract on North Korea to write a book. But in order to do that, I had to go undercover, because North Korea will never tell you any reality if you are to interview them. The only way to really know what's going on was to get embedded in North Korea. KENNEALLY: I think that's a pretty critical point, is that you went there as a writer. I didn't know you had a contract at that point, but you certainly had a background as a writer. You were a journalist. I wonder what thought you gave to the kind of book you were going to be writing. Obviously you had a stake in it as a journalist, but you also had something of a personal stake as well. You are from South Korea, after all. KIM: Yeah, so any nonfiction I've done actually, unless it was – I've done straightforward op/eds and stuff, but my essays were personal, and I guess that's the category they put under New Journalism, because it's a personal blend. Still me, but doing heavy reporting. Even New York Philharmonic in Pyongyang was a very personal and yet reported piece. It's more long-form journalism. This book also – because I am born and raised in South Korea, my family was separated by the war, so it was not just about facts and figures of North Korea, reporting aspect, but also the history of Korea and the personal reflections. It's hard to categorize that, but it's an investigative journalism from a personal standpoint. KENNEALLY: Right. I think that's important. The intentions are what seem to me to be the central issue here. You went as a writer, as a reporter, and I think it's important to share with our listeners the kind of work you had to do to conceal that you were writing. Apart from being an undercover journalist, you were also exposed to the charge that you were a spy if you were caught. KIM: It is what UN calls the most brutal nation in the world. There is absolutely no sense of freedom, and everything is watched. So I had to put all my notes on USB sticks and erase them from the computer every single time. I had to hide my documents, which I recorded every single day, within another document, so that if I were to be caught, the sentence obviously – I can only guess, but it's a country where they send any political prisoners gulag, and any information they do not want revealed to the outside world would be considered a class information that shouldn't – it would've been a gulag sentence. Knowing that, I had to really keep those USB sticks on my body at all times. KENNEALLY: I think in Miami you told me that you had fashioned them as a necklace or something like that, and there was another trick you used is you say you buried the notes deep into other documents on the assumption that anyone who was looking at these things would only go up to page 10 and they wouldn't find their way all the way through to the very end. KIM: Yeah, because I was there posing as a teacher, I had my own laptop, which I knew they would look through me. We had minders living in the same building. Their jobs were to watch us. And so I would have these documents that were class notes, and my real book would start, let's say, page 100. The rest of it was teaching material. Things like that. And then I had several USB sticks. If I were to lose one, for example, what would happen? I would make my computer clean everything and then keep them on a necklace on my body – like tiny, tiny USB sticks. KENNEALLY: It's fascinating, and it certainly does enough to establish for me, at least, that this is journalism, and indeed this is undercover investigative journalism. You mentioned some of these other categories of nonfiction, such as New Journalism, the phrase Tom Wolfe coined back in the early 1970s. We're familiar with things like literary journalism and narrative journalism, all of which are journalism, none of which are memoir. The book, though, as it sits here on my desk, I could see on the cover is labeled a memoir by the publisher, and I suppose by the publicist as well. So why would it be important to you that this distinction be cleared up, that this is journalism rather than memoir? Tell us about your reaction when, indeed, you learned that the publishers intended to call it just that. KIM: It was a huge battle. They didn't just put that on the cover without finally me relenting. But I had a very big publisher, and I argued and argued. It's a battle I couldn't win. They all stepped in, and they said this has to be called a memoir. I said it's absolutely not a memoir. Because for me, memoir's coming from memories, not reporting that you are – I came out of North Korea with 400 pages of investigative notes. There was nothing about that that was a memoir. The battle went on and on and on, and there was no way that my book would go out without it being called a memoir. But I didn't also understand the consequence of that. It's amazing. As an author, it's hard to tell what's going to happen with a book. The book got tons of attention, but because it was called a memoir, a lot of people thought I was a teacher who went in there and taught and came out and wrote from her memories. It's a very different kind of writing when you're actually investigating undercover. Also, it's one country, one topic in the world there is no real investigative journalism from inside, because investigation is not possible, and going undercover is not possible. In fact, on this topic of North Korea, it was really important that this material be really taken seriously as this important historical document for it to claim what it was supposed to be, which is investigative journalism.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • SHERLOCK in PYONGYANG a Thesis Submitted to the Faculty Of
    SHERLOCK IN PYONGYANG A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Georgetown University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Arts in Asian Studies By Charlotte F. Fitzek, B.A. Washington, DC April 20, 2017 Copyright 2017 by Charlotte F. Fitzek All Rights Reserved ii SHERLOCK IN PYONGYANG Charlotte F. Fitzek, B.A. Thesis Advisor: Victor D. Cha, Ph.D. ABSTRACT Since 2000, the British Council, under the auspices of the Foreign & Commonwealth Office has run an English Language Teacher Training Programme in Pyongyang, North Korea. Its primary aim is to train North Korean teachers on best practices for instructing the English language. The program’s longevity and absence of drama underlines several important characteristics necessary for successful NGO work in North Korea. It highlights that the long-term vision of the DPRK and providing NGO must be shared, and that sustained engagement can lead to continued programming. Embassy support also plays a crucial role in protecting the capabilities of NGOs to perform their functions. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS A particular thanks to the interviewees for their time, and to Dr. Cha for his guidance and mentorship. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ...............................................................................................................1 BACKGROUND .................................................................................................................3 THE PROGRAMME IN ACTION......................................................................................7
    [Show full text]
  • Necessary Absence: Familial Distance and the Adult Immigrant Child in Korean American Fiction
    NECESSARY ABSENCE: FAMILIAL DISTANCE AND THE ADULT IMMIGRANT CHILD IN KOREAN AMERICAN FICTION by Alexandria Faulkenbury March, 2016 Director of Thesis: Dr. Su-ching Huang Major Department: English In the novels Native Speaker by Chang-rae Lee, The Interpreter by Suki Kim, and Free Food for Millionaires by Min Jin Lee, adult immigrant children feature as protagonists and experience moments of life-defining difficulty and distance associated with their parental relationships. Having come to the U.S. as young children, the protagonists are members of the 1.5 generation and retain some memories of their home country while lacking the deep-seated connections of their parents. They also find themselves caught between first generation immigrants who feel strongly connected to their home country and their second generation peers who feel more connected to the U.S. The absences caused by this in-between status become catalysts for characters addressing the disconnect between their adult selves and their aging or deceased parents. The reconciliation of these disconnections often leads to further examination of competing cultures in these characters’ lives as they struggle to form distinct identities. These divides highlight the chasm between the American dream and the daily realities faced by immigrants in the U.S. and point to larger themes of loss, identity, and family that can be more broadly applied. NECESSARY ABSENCE: FAMILIAL DISTANCE AND THE ADULT IMMIGRANT CHILD IN KOREAN AMERICAN FICTION A Thesis Presented To the Faculty of the Department
    [Show full text]
  • 1- POS 394/H COOR HALL L1-18 Professor Peter L. Bergen Email
    FUTURE OF WAR POS 394/HON 394 SPRING 2019; WEDNESDAY 4:50 PM – 7:35 PM COOR HALL L1-18 Professor Peter L. Bergen Email: [email protected] Professor Daniel Rothenberg Email: [email protected] Office Hours: Coor 6692, Wednesdays 2:00-4:00 PM and by appointment COURSE OVERVIEW This course engages the social, political, economic, and cultural implications of the changing nature of war and conflict. The class provides an overview of some major philosophical and military-strategic theories and conceptions of war, an introduction to the laws of war and a consideration of broad trends in global politics. The class looks at some significant issues related to contemporary conflict including: drones and autonomous weapons; intelligence operations; refugees and internally displaced persons; the use of rape and sexual violence as tools of war; and the challenges of protecting civilians. It also engages issues of war and conflict in Afghanistan, Haiti, Iraq, North Korea and elsewhere. In general, the course contextualizes these issues and debates in relation to the post-9/11 wars, with a review of how the U.S. goes to war, the rise of ISIS, domestic terrorism and how recent conflicts have impacted American society. The class is taught by Prof. Peter L. Bergen and Prof. Daniel Rothenberg, co-directors of ASU’s Center on the Future of War (https://futureofwar.asu.edu/). Many class meetings feature guest lectures and presentations by nationally and internationally recognized experts including: journalists specializing in conflict reporting; scholars; former general officers; current military officers; former high ranking government officials; and key policy makers, the majority of whom are Center on the Future of War Faculty Affiliates or ASU Future of War Fellows at New America, a DC-based think tank.
    [Show full text]
  • Media 2070: an Invitation to Dream up Media Reparations
    An Invitation to Dream Up Media Reparations AN INVITATION TO DREAM UP MEDIA REPARATIONS Collaborators: Joseph Torres Alicia Bell Collette Watson Tauhid Chappell Diamond Hardiman Christina Pierce a project of Free Press 2 WWW.MEDIA2070.ORG CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 9 I. A Day at the Beach 13 II. Media 2070: An Invitation to Dream 18 III. Modern Calls for Reparations for Slavery 19 IV. The Case for Media Reparations 24 V. How the Media Profited from and Participated in Slavery 26 VI. The Power of Acknowledging and Apologizing 29 VII. Government Moves to Suppress Black Journalism 40 VIII. Black People Fight to Tell Our Stories in the Jim Crow Era 43 IX. Media Are the Instruments of a White Power Structure 50 X. The Struggle to Integrate Media 52 XI. How Public Policy Has Entrenched Anti-Blackness in the Media 56 XII. White Media Power and the Trump Feeding Frenzy 58 XIII. Media Racism from the Newsroom to the Boardroom 62 XIV. 2020: A Global Reckoning on Race 66 X V. Upending White Supremacy in Newsrooms 70 XVI. Are Newsrooms Ready to Make Things Right? 77 XVII. The Struggles of Black Media Resistance 80 XVIII. Black Activists Confront Online Gatekeepers 83 XIX. Media Reparations Are Necessary to Our Nation’s Future 90 XX. Making Media Reparations Real 95 Epilogue 97 About Team Media 2070 98 Definitions 99 #MEDIA2070 3 TRIGGER WARNING There are numerous stories in this essay that explore the harms the news media have inflicted on the Black community. While these stories may be difficult or painful to read, they are not widely known, and they need to be.
    [Show full text]
  • Living in a Translational World
    ³Transfer´9,,I: 1-2 (mayo 2013), pp. 70-90. ISSN: 1886-5542 LIVING IN A TRANSNATIONAL WORLD. TRANSLATION AS PART OF TRANSCULTURAL IDENTITY Dora Sales, Universitat Jaume I Unlike my parents, I translate not so much to survive in the world around me as to create and illuminate a nonexistent one. Fiction is the foreign land of my choosing, the place where I strive to convey and preserve the meaningful. And whether I write as an American or an Indian, about things American or Indian or otherwise, one thing remains constant: I translate, therefore I am.1 On the Road of Translatability As the Indian writer Jhumpa Lahiri puts forward in the above quotation, for a bilingual and transcultural writer such as herself, translation is a fertile starting point for fiction. Belonging to a contemporary cross-cultural society means that translation, understood as negotiation and mediation between the asymmetrical relations among languages and cultures, is a daily communicative need. The centrality of translation in plurilingual places where diverse cultures meet is a fact, and fiction writers who create both in (former) colonial tongues and in native languages are challenging and redefining many translation concepts. Literary production in recent decades has opened itself to the cross-cultural encounters that define the present context. In this paper, the anthro-pological concept of transculturation (Ortiz 1940) as applied to literary creation (Rama 1982) will be used (Sales 2001).2 In 1940, on the anthropological sphere, the Cuban 1 JHUMPA /DKLUL ³,QWLPDWH$OLHQDWLRQ,PPLJUDQW)LFWLRQDQG7UDQVODWLRQ´LQ Translation, Text, and Theory: The Paradigm of India, ed.
    [Show full text]
  • Undercover Journalism in North Korea
    Undercover Journalism in North Korea Suki Kim An Interview with Laila Rodenbeck Providence, RI, 02 February 2019 Suki Kim is author of the New York Times bestseller Without You, Tere Is No Us: Undercover Among the Sons of North Korean Elite. She is the only writer ever to have lived undercover in North Korea for immersive journalism. Her novel Te Interpreter was the winner of the PEN Open Book Award and a fnalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award, and her nonfction has appeared in Harper’s Magazine, the New York Times, the New York Review of Books, and the New Republic, where she is a contributing editor. She has been awarded Guggenheim, Fulbright, Open Society, and New America fellowships, the American Academy in Berlin Prize, 223 and was a Ferris Professor of journalism at Princeton University. Her TED Talk has drawn millions of viewers, and her essay on fear appears in Te Best American Essays 2018. Brown Journal of World Afairs: For those who have not read your book, could you describe how you found yourself in Pyongyang in 2011, and for what purpose? Suki Kim: I had been pursuing North Korea as a writer and as a topic for about a decade. I had gone there multiple times previously, but it was impossible to get any kind of real access because you could only see the place according to the prescribed agenda of the regime and under the regime’s permission. What that meant was that I had to fnd a way to be immersed undercover within the system, which was a nearly impossible thing to do because that had never before been done by a writer for an extensive time.
    [Show full text]
  • Association for Asian American Studies 2016 Conference Program Miami Hilton Downtown, Florida
    Association for Asian American Studies 2016 Conference Program Miami Hilton Downtown, Florida Wednesday, April 27th 8:30am - 4:30pm JUNIOR FACULTY PRE-CONFERENCE WORKSHOP VENUE: Picasso 2:00pm - 4:00pm NEW BOARD MEMBER ORIENTATION VENUE: Degas 5:00pm - 10:00pm EXECUTIVE BOARD MEMBER MEETING VENUE: Concierto A Thursday, April 28th 7:00am - 5:00pm REGISTRATION VENUE: Ballroom Level VENDORS / EXHIBITORS VENUE: Overture I Foyer 7:30am - 9:00am MORNING COFFEE BREAK (Sponsored by Johns Hopkins University Press) VENUE: Overture I Foyer 8:00am - 9:30am T1. Settler Colonialism, Theories of the Human, and Critique as a Structure of Feeling in Asian American Studies VENUE: Picasso Roundtable: Ma Vang, University of California, Merced Davorn Sisavath, University of California, Riverside Lee Ann Wang, University of California, Berkeley Kit Myers, University of California, Merced Brian Chung, University of Hawai’i at Manoa Chair: Nhu Le, University of South Florida T2. From Admissions to Campus Life to Activism: Dimensions of Asian American Student Experience VENUE: Tenor Presenters: Marc Johnson-Guerrero, Ohio State University Gaming the System or Embracing Fluidity? Asian Americans and Selective Racial Identification in College Admissions Reuben Deleon, University of California, Los Angeles Heuristic Legacies: Promises and Perils of Pilipino Culture Nights Chair: Rachel Endo, Hamline University T3. Philippine Trans/National Infrastructures: Movements to and from Asia and the Americas VENUE: Soprano Presenters: Paul Michael Leonardo Atienza, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign The Infrastructures of Headless Torsos: Gay Dating App Ecologies in Manila and Los Angeles Josen Masangkay Diaz, University of San Diego Cold War Balikbayans and the Ruses of Martial Law Infrastructure Jan Maghinay Padios, University of Maryland, College Park Imperial Infrastructure and Racial Investments: U.S.
    [Show full text]
  • Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know? the Strange Allure and Elusive Reality of North Korea
    REVIEW ESSAY Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know? The Strange Allure and Elusive Reality of North Korea John Lie, University of California, Berkeley Sandra Fahy. Marching Through Suffering: Loss and Survival in North Korea. New York: Columbia University Press, 2015. 272 pp. $40 (cloth/e-book). Hazel Smith. North Korea: Markets and Military Rule. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. 394 pp. $90 (cloth), $33 (paper), $26 (e-book). Lady Caroline Lamb famously called Lord Byron “mad, bad, and dangerous to know.” In describing North Korea, Hazel Smith replaces “dangerous to know” with “sad,” but she, like Sandra Fahy, seeks to recuperate the ultimate humanity of North Koreans. Both Smith and Fahy have spent considerable time in North Korea or with North Koreans, and they convey the contemporary dynamics of North Korea without relying on the ready-made caricatures and stereotypes that dominate in the West (and the rest) (see Choi 2015; Ryang 2002). After all, in matters North Korea, knowledge and experience seem to have little cachet; instead, stentorian denunciations silence voices of information and insight. To be sure, there’s much that cannot be known about contemporary North Korea: it is secretive and hermetic like most authoritarian states, if not more so. Seemingly surmountable but surprisingly recalcitrant, too, is the general scholarly (and non-scholarly) penchant to regard North Korea as a singular, unique case: incomparable and inscrutable. In the West and elsewhere, what we do know is that North Korea is, inter alia, a totalitarian society and a rogue state to which the only rational and reasonable response of North Koreans should be to seek regime change or personal exit.
    [Show full text]
  • Reinterpreting the Hermit Kingdom in the Era of Kim Jong-Un Margaret Pence University of San Francisco, [email protected]
    The University of San Francisco USF Scholarship: a digital repository @ Gleeson Library | Geschke Center Master's Projects and Capstones Theses, Dissertations, Capstones and Projects Spring 5-18-2019 Aggression, Information, and Economics: Reinterpreting the Hermit Kingdom in the Era of Kim Jong-un Margaret Pence University of San Francisco, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.usfca.edu/capstone Part of the Asian Studies Commons, Economics Commons, and the International Relations Commons Recommended Citation Pence, Margaret, "Aggression, Information, and Economics: Reinterpreting the Hermit Kingdom in the Era of Kim Jong-un" (2019). Master's Projects and Capstones. 917. https://repository.usfca.edu/capstone/917 This Project/Capstone is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses, Dissertations, Capstones and Projects at USF Scholarship: a digital repository @ Gleeson Library | Geschke Center. It has been accepted for inclusion in Master's Projects and Capstones by an authorized administrator of USF Scholarship: a digital repository @ Gleeson Library | Geschke Center. For more information, please contact [email protected]. AGGRESSION, INFORMATION, AND ECONOMICS: REINTERPRETING THE HERMIT KINGDOM IN THE ERA OF KIM JONG-UN Margaret Pence APS 650: MAPS Capstone Seminar Professor Brian Komei Dempster May 18, 2019 1 Abstract North Korea has been the most isolated country on the planet for the past sixty years. Due to its isolation, the Hermit Kingdom has naturally become mysterious, resulting in a common narrative that describes Pyongyang as aggressive and driven by nuclear weapons. Missing from this narrative is what motivates North Korea and its young leader, Kim Jong-un: survival.
    [Show full text]
  • Post-Weinstein, These Are the Powerful Men Facing Sexual Harassment Allegations
    SUBSCRIBE NEWS & CULTURE Post-Weinstein, These Are the Powerful Men Facing Sexual Harassment Allegations 91 PHOTOS BY GLAMOUR SEPTEMBER 27, 2018 2:30 PM After The New York Times published an explosive report in October 2017 detailing decades of sexual harassment allegations against Harvey Weinstein, dozens of women came forward with their own accusations against the Hollywood mogul. Within a week Weinstein had been fired from his company and expelled from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. RELATED: The Problem with Privilege and Sexual Assault Now, in a post-Weinstein world, legions of women have felt empowered to speak out and share their own #MeToo stories—both on social media and in news outlets. The reports against the powerful producer sparked an avalanche of accusations against high-profile men in media, politics, Silicon Valley, and Hollywood, all with varying degrees of repercussions. Sexual harassment in the workplace is certainly nothing new, but it’s safe to say the issue is now, rightfully, taking center stage. Here, a list of the high-profile menRE whoCOM MhaveENDE beenD FOR accused YOU of sexual harassment, assault, and/or misconduct since the Weinstein story broke, which we’ll keep updating as new allegationsAn Explosive surface. Report Alleges Decades of Sexual Harassment by Hollywood Powerhouse Harvey W… PHOTO: WIN MCNAMEE/GETTY IMAGES Brett Kavanaugh In September 2018, Palo Alto University professor Christine Blasey Ford came forward with an allegation of sexual assault against Brett Kavanaugh, the conservative D.C. judge whom President Donald Trump had previously chosen to replace the retiring Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy.
    [Show full text]
  • Future of War Conference 2018 Program
    04.09.18. / D.C. Washington, 1 Future of War Conference 2018 New America and Arizona State University welcome you to the Future of War Conference 2018. This conference features leaders from government, military, journalism, academia, and the private sector exploring questions of international security and defense, including future military innovation, the post-ISIS Middle East, U.S. relations with North Korea, cyber warfare, and more. This conference is one of the signature events of the Future of War project—a partnership between New America and Arizona State University—which brings together experts working to develop new paradigms for understanding and addressing the changing nature of armed conflict and systematic violence. The Future of War Conference 2018 thanks the Global SOF Foundation for their collaboration. facebook.com/newamerica @NewAmericaISP newamerica.org/futureofwar2018 #FutureOfWar About The Future of War project—a partnership between New America and Arizona State University—brings together a collection of experts across sectors to address key issues and challenges arising from the changing nature of war and conflict. Developments both in the technological drivers of warfare and the enemies we face have erased the boundaries between what we have traditionally regarded as “war” and “peace.” Today, we are at a major inflection point in which technology is reshaping the way wars are fought. The future of war will be influenced by the role of ever-smaller drones and robots on the battlefield, offensive cyber war capabilities, the massive expansion of surveillance, greater reliance on Special Operations Forces, and the militarization of space. The Future of War project addresses these issues by convening some of the most creative and influential thinkers, writers, and decision makers to develop bold conceptual frameworks, create legal and policy proposals, and write and talk about the changing character of war and conflict in a manner that attracts public interest and engagement.
    [Show full text]
  • A REALLY BIG SHOW the New York Philharmonic’S Fantasia in North Korea by Suki Kim
    (61-70)Kim Final2 10/23/08 1:46 PM Page 61 LETTER FROM PYONGYANG A REALLY BIG SHOW The New York Philharmonic’s fantasia in North Korea By Suki Kim By noon on February 25, 2008, of carry-on bags, the musicians were juxtaposed with recent shots of the mae- seventy-five journalists were crowding joined by an entourage of twenty-five stro wielding a baton. the Asiana Airlines gate at Beijing wealthy patrons who had paid $50,000 “What is being offered to you is a Capital Interna- privilege,” I was tional Airport. told by the Phil- Many had their harmonic’s P.R. di- laptops open, since rector, Eric Latzky, this would be their before my depar- last chance to use ture from New the Internet for the York. Apparently, next forty-eight the privilege didn’t hours. Some were include the chance pacing the floor to speak freely to with cell phones any of the Philhar- pressed tightly to monic’s musicians, their ears, knowing including the eight they would soon who are of Korean have to part with origin, a point them, along with made clear when their passports. The Latzky insisted that correspondents had I speak to the musi- come from around cians only with his the world for the permission and as- chance to travel to sured me he would the forbidden des- arrange interviews. tination whose name was gleaming per person to accompany the Philhar- During the tour I got tired of waiting, from the flat-screen monitors: monic into North Korea.
    [Show full text]