Without You, There Is No Us

This book was difficult to read. It is unfathomable to me, as someone born and raised in Canada, that a place could be so unreachable by the rest of the world. Kim's stories of these kids raised to believe that North Korea is the greatest country in the world while eating shitty food and constantly monitoring their own speech were heartbreaking. Her desire to tell them about the world, to let them know that things aren't really as they seem is something I sympathize with and applaud and yet how could you change things? Even if all the boys in her classes started asking more questions and understand more about the regime they're living under, how do you start a revolution in a place like North Korea? It seems impossible.

I'm more and more unnerved by humourous portrayals of North Korea in western media, like South Park or The Interview. It's easy to treat an entire country like a joke because it's so different from what we're used to, it seems like it can't be real. We know so little about the actual people who live there that it feels like the butt of our jokes is always the evil dictator at the top, but it's hard to make these jokes without also inadvertently implying that the people who believe in the regime are idiots. We can laugh at North Korea, picture Kim Jong-Un like a child playing with adult toys he doesn't understand, but the legacy he inherited and props up is built on human suffering and I don't want to forget that. Treating him as silly or stupid diminishes his horror and the pain he causes.