Suki Kim - This is what it's like to go undercover in North Korea (Jun 2015)

Rated: Courageous, Informative

0:11In 2011, during the final six months of Kim Jong-Il's life, I lived undercover in North
Korea.
0:22I was born and raised in South Korea, their enemy. I live in America, their other enemy.
0:31Since 2002, I had visited North Korea a few times. And I had come to realize that to
write about it with any meaning, or to understand the place beyond the regime's
propaganda, the only option was total immersion. So I posed as a teacher and a missionary at
an all-male university in Pyongyang.
1:05The Pyongyang University of Science and Technology was founded by Evangelical
Christians who cooperate with the regime to educate the sons of the North Korean
elite, without proselytizing, which is a capital crime there. The students were 270 young men,
expected to be the future leaders of the most isolated and brutal dictatorship in
existence. When I arrived, they became my students.
1:462011 was a special year, marking the 100th anniversary of the birth of North Korea's
original Great Leader, Kim Il-Sung. To celebrate the occasion, the regime shut down all
universities, and sent students off to the fields to build the DPRK's much-heralded ideal as the
world's most powerful and prosperous nation. My students were the only ones spared from
that fate.
2:20North Korea is a gulag posing as a nation. Everything there is about the Great
Leader. Every book, every newspaper article, every song, every TV program -- there is just
one subject. The flowers are named after him, the mountains are carved with his
slogans. Every citizen wears the badge of the Great Leader at all times. Even their calendar
system begins with the birth of Kim Il-Sung.
2:50The school was a heavily guarded prison, posing as a campus. Teachers could only leave
on group outings accompanied by an official minder. Even then, our trips were limited to
sanctioned national monuments celebrating the Great Leader. The students were not allowed
to leave the campus, or communicate with their parents. Their days were meticulously
mapped out, and any free time they hadwas devoted to honoring their Great Leader. Lesson
plans had to meet the approval of North Korean staff, every class was recorded and reported
on, every room was bugged, and every conversation, overheard. Every blank space was
covered with the portraits of Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il, like everywhere else in North
Korea.
3:52We were never allowed to discuss the outside world. As students of science and
technology, many of them were computer majors but they did not know the existence of the
Internet. They had never heard of Mark Zuckerberg or Steve Jobs. Facebook, Twitter -- none
of those things would have meant a thing.And I could not tell them.

4:17I went there looking for truth. But where do you even start when an entire nation's
ideology, my students' day-to-day realities, and even my own position at the
universities, were all built on lies?
4:36I started with a game. We played "Truth and Lie." A volunteer would write a sentence on
the chalkboard,and the other students had to guess whether it was a truth or a lie. Once a
student wrote, "I visited China last year on vacation," and everyone shouted, "Lie!" They all
knew this wasn't possible. Virtually no North Korean is allowed to leave the country. Even
traveling within their own country requires a travel pass.
5:11I had hoped that this game would reveal some truth about my students, because they lie
so often and so easily, whether about the mythical accomplishments of their Great Leader, or
the strange claim that they cloned a rabbit as fifth graders. The difference between truth and
lies seemed at times hazy to them. It took me a while to understand the different types of
lies; they lie to shield their system from the world, or they were taught lies, and were just
regurgitating them. Or, at moments, they lied out of habit. But if all they have ever known
were lies, how could we expect them to be otherwise?
6:00Next, I tried to teach them essay writing. But that turned out to be nearly
impossible. Essays are about coming up with one's own thesis, and making an evidence-based
argument to prove it. These students, however, were simply told what to think, and they
obeyed. In their world, critical thinking was not allowed.
6:25I also gave them the weekly assignment of writing a personal letter, to anybody. It took a
long time, but eventually some of them began to write to their mothers, their friends, their
girlfriends. Although those were just homework, and would never reach their intended
recipients, my students slowly began to reveal their true feelings in them. They wrote that
they were fed up with the sameness of everything. They were worried about their future. In
those letters, they rarely ever mentioned their Great Leader.
7:09I was spending all of my time with these young men. We all ate meals together, played
basketball together. I often called them gentlemen, which made them giggle. They blushed at
the mention of girls.And I came to adore them. And watching them open up even in the
tiniest of ways, was deeply moving.
7:36But something also felt wrong. During those months of living in their world, I often
wondered if the truth would, in fact, improve their lives. I wanted so much to tell them the
truth, of their country and of the outside world, where Arab youth were turning their rotten
regime inside out, using the power of social media, where everyone except them was
connected through the world wide web, which wasn't worldwide after all. But for them, the
truth was dangerous. By encouraging them to run after it, I was putting them at risk -- of
persecution, of heartbreak.
8:29When you're not allowed to express anything in the open, you become good at reading
what is unspoken. In one of their personal letters to me, a student wrote that he

understood why I always called them gentlemen. It was because I was wishing them to be
gentle in life, he said.
8:53On my last day in December of 2011, the day Kim Jong-Il's death was announced, their
world shattered. I had to leave without a proper goodbye. But I think they knew how sad I
was for them.
9:11Once, toward the end of my stay, a student said to me, "Professor, we never think of you
as being different from us. Our circumstances are different, but you're the same as us. We
want you to know that we truly think of you as being the same."
9:36Today, if I could respond to my students with a letter of my own, which is of course
impossible, I would tell them this: "My dear gentlemen, It's been a bit over three years since I
last saw you. And now, you must be 22 -- maybe even as old as 23. At our final class, I asked
you if there was anything you wanted.The only wish you expressed, the only thing you ever
asked of me in all those months we spent together,was for me to speak to you in Korean. Just
once. I was there to teach you English; you knew it wasn't allowed. But I understood then,
you wanted to share that bond of our mother tongue. I called you my gentlemen, but I don't
know if being gentle in Kim Jong-Un's merciless North Korea is a good thing. I don't want
you to lead a revolution -- let some other young person do it. The rest of the world might
casually encourage or even expect some sort of North Korean Spring, but I don't want you to
do anything risky, because I know in your world, someone is always watching. I don't want to
imagine what might happen to you. If my attempts to reach you have inspired something new
in you, I would rather you forget me. Become soldiers of your Great Leader, and live long,
safe lives. You once asked me if I thought your city of Pyongyang was beautiful, and I could
not answer truthfully then. But I know why you asked. I know that it was important for you to
hear that I, your teacher, the one who has seen the world that you are forbidden from, declare
your city as the most beautiful. I know hearing that would make your lives there a bit more
bearable, but no, I don't find your capital beautiful. Not because it's monotone and
concrete, but because of what it symbolizes: a monster that feeds off the rest of the
country, where citizens are soldiers and slaves. All I see there is darkness. But it's your home,
so I cannot hate it. And I hope instead that you, my lovely young gentlemen, will one day
help make it beautiful.
12:21Thank you.
12:23(Applause)

Example of Speech review

In my senior year, I became a fan of TED talks. When I watch TED talks, I always can get, or
realize, some information I never knew. Suki Kims This is whats like to teach in North
Korea is a TED talk that I was deeply moved. North Korean has been a forbidden country
over years and years, the countries great leaders make there country separate from rest of the
world. I was curious how North Korean students have been taught and their lives, Suki Kims
speech answered most of my questions.
Suki Kim worked as a English teacher in North Korean for six months. The school she taught
was at an elite school for North Koreas future leaders, all males. In the TED talk, she
mentioned about how the school decorated with only their great leaders. Students were not
allowed to communicate with the outside world, even their parents. Everyone included
teachers needed a permit when they need to went out, and they had to went out with a group
of people. The repressive regimes disconnected their citizens to the world students did not
even knew the existed of internet. Students were not allowed to have critical thinking
because all they should know was how great their country was and how grateful their great
leaders were. Actually, schools were tend to be jails which people in their did not have
freedom at all. Suki wanted to tell the students the truth, but it could be painful and put
students on risk. She hesitated to told the truth, of course, she did not do that. Sukis speech
gave me a picture of North Koreans education system, and I could imagine how North
Korean students have been tortured on campus. The speech definitely helped me to
understand more about North Korean.
Suki put a lot emotions and efforts in the speech. She has a orchestra which plays her
background music. The dolorous background music makes people feel the pain and more into
her speech. Suki uses her tone to express her emotions and her voice was shaking at the end.
She delivered her sadness and the pity to the audiences through her voice. Suki is good
speaker, and she used her ways to touch her audiences. I like her speech style, and I probably
gonna play a background music during my next speech.

Speech Critique
Aside from the powerful core message, Kims talk also has several speaking lessons for us,
including:
how to read a speech without being flat and emotionless - You can read a
speech.
It is possible to deliver an effective speech while reading, and Suki Kim demonstrates
this by compensating in a variety of ways:
1. Her preparation is obvious. At many times throughout the speech, she had clearly
committed the words to memory, and didnt need to rely on the page.
2. She uses pauses expertly, and varies the pace of her vocal delivery.
3. Her face and eyes convey a great deal of emotion.
4. Her writing is so strong, and her story is so powerful that I forgot she was even
reading after the first minute or two.
Could this speech have been even better without reading it? Perhaps. I sense that isnt
really Suki Kims strength, however. She chose to read this speech, and this speech was
undoubtedly very effective.

how to use pauses effectively - Master the pause.

Suki Kim, on the other hand, gives a perfect demonstration of how to use effective pauses.
Consider the opening 73 words of her speech which include nine lengthy pauses:
1. In 2011, [pause]
2. during the final six months of Kim Jong-Ils life, [pause]
3. I lived undercover in North Korea. [pause]
4. I was born and raised in South Korea, their enemy. [pause]
5. I live in America, their other enemy. [pause]
Note the significant words immediately preceding the pauses. By pausing as she does, Suki
Kim allows the weight (and significant contrast) of these words to linger in the minds of
her audience:
1. North Korea, their enemy, their other enemy
2. any meaning, regimes propaganda, total immersion
I cant recall any other speech where the speaker used pauses more effectively. I encourage
you to listen to this entire speech, focus on the pauses, and learn from her skill.

how to align words with facial expressions to convey emotion - Be expressive.

Reading a speech tends to blunt the emotions of speakers, resulting in monotone and
expressionless delivery.
Suki Kim avoids this pitfall. Indeed, she expresses many intertwined emotions: love,
frustration, confusion, hatred, regret, friendship. Her words contribute to conveying the
emotion, too, but thats the point! Her words were in perfect harmony with the
expressions she conveyed through her voice, eyes, and facial expressions. As just one
example, note her expressions on the video during the following passage very near the
end of her speech:
[~ 9:10] Once, toward the end of my stay, a student said to me, Professor, we never
think of you as being different from us. Our circumstances are different, but youre the
same as us. We want you to know that we truly think of you as being the same.
By sharing such honest, raw emotions, Suki Kim helps the audience feel these emotions
too.

how to make every word count - Make every word memorable.

The advantage of reading your speech is that every word can be carefully crafted, and every
phrase you write will reach your audience, untainted by a potentially faulty memory. As a
professional writer, the strategic use of words is Suki Kims strength, and her speech is
packed with dozens of evocative phrases.
Consider just a few of the examples quoted here.
Example 1
I was born and raised in South Korea, their enemy. I live in America, their other enemy.
The emphasis on enemy is powerful, especially as the second and third sentences in the
speech. These are the sentences which Ms. Kim uses to introduce herself to her audienceas
an enemy of North Korea. By mentioning America, she pulls her audience into this enemy
relationship.