This is the story of 18 fascinating months spent in Pyongyang, the capital of the DPRK, teaching at one of the local universities. Within the constraints of the environment, I was able to interact with the local students and teachers, and learn about their culture, their country and their lives. Although in many ways this was not an easy time, I developed a deep fondness and respect for the local people with whom I worked and interacted. They also showed me great respect and kindness in many ways, and I will be eternally grateful for the time that I was privileged to spend there. I also learned a great deal about myself, about self-reliance (Juche), about the value of the others with whom one shares one’s life, and about the importance of remembering there are always at least two sides to every story.
I've recently become fascinated with North Korea, so finding this on kindle for a reasonable price was an instant buy and read.
Overall I did find the book to be interesting and hard to put down, to the point I sacrificed a portion of my sleep hours to continue reading. My only personal gripe with this was the authors need to go into alot of detail of her friends non stop whenever she was out on a respite from the hermit kingdom, to the point I ended up skimming those pages. I felt they were simply there to be filler to make the book longer, and is something I've noticed can be common with literature of this type.
That being said, I would definitely recommend this to anyone who has an interest in the hermit kingdom.