Review by New York Times Review
travis Jeppesen, an American novelist and art critic based in Berlin, went to North Korea on a monthlong university program in 2016 to learn the Korean language. But classroom study did not appear to have been the primary focus. (A fellow student complained that he was not able to improve his language skills because his overseers would not allow him to download a dictionary app.) Inst, it seems that the bulk of Jeppesen's time was spent visiting a variety of restaurants, museums and tourist attractions that have recently popped up in Pyongyang, the exclusive residence of North Korea's elite. The tour package also included excursions to tourist sites outside of the nation's capital. "See You Again in Pyongyang" is written in a crisp and engaging style. Jeppesen, who made several previous trips to the country lasting a week or less, provides a probing look at a slice of privileged life inside Kim Jong-un's North Korea by describing what it is like to live in a totalitarian state where the "undercurrent of paranoia is woven into the fabric of daily life." Many of the observations in the book are striking. "In most countries, you are generally permitted to do anything you want, unless there is a law forbidding it," a friend says. "In the D.P.R.K., it is the opposite: Everything is forbidden, until you are told that it is allowed." He notices how his overseers exhibit passive-aggressive tendencies to create friction between him and a French classmate by criticizing the classmate's progress in Korean and implying that he's not all too bright. Since everyone is traumatized by bullying, "they take every opportunity to terrorize those who are perceived to be in any way beneath them on the social scale. Such a top-down structure ... is key to ensuring that no groups are formed." Jeppesen gives us a direct glimpse of North Korea's psychological techniques at work. When he takes a video of his teacher that accidentally cuts off a portion of Kim Jong-il's portrait in the background, he is reprimanded, and the video is deleted. Jeppesen lamented afterward that he was an "idiot." "Don't say that," his French companion whispered to him. "You didn't do anything wrong_It's them_Not us." Structured as part memoir, part travelogue and part history, Jeppesen's artful narrative falls short in the history portion of the book. We are told, for example, that the division of the peninsula at the 38th parallel was "sealed by two antagonistic powers" - the Soviet Union and the United States - "that knew nearly nothing" about Korea when, in fact, Russia's historical interests in the peninsula ran very deep (Russia fought a war with Japan over control of Korea in 1904-5). "Stalin cared very little" about North Korea, Jeppesen writes, when quite the opposite was true. And there are more specific errors. The Korean War started on June 25, not the 24th. The American-led United Nations forces did not "join the war in September 1950," but in July 1950, and the bombing of North Korean dams that resulted in mass flooding occurred much later in the war and played no role in allowing United Nations forces to retake Seoul in March 1951 (not April 1951). These are not minor historical details, and they distract from the overall flow of the narrative. When Jeppesen implicitly likens South Korea's "chaebol" system to North Korea's "songbun" system or definitively declares that there is "no standard procedure for a foreigner in applying to study at any university" in North Korea, I had to wonder where he was getting his information from. (In fact, dozens of Russians, Vietnamese and Chinese, among other nationalities, have studied at Kim II Sung University over the years.) Still, if the intent of the book is to provide an up-close and vivid account of what life is like for an American tourist in North Korea, it succeeds splendidly. Jeppesen was in North Korea on a study program, but study was not its primary focus. sheila MiYOSHi jager teaches history at Oberlin College and is the author of "Brothers at War: T.he Unending Conflict in Korea "
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [July 15, 2018]
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Novelist and art critic Jeppesen uses a 2016 study tour of Pyongyang and environs as a jumping-off point for a breezy overview of North Korea's political history, various musings on its culture, and a speculative recreation of a typical day in the life of his North Korean travel agent. Perched uncomfortably among journalism, memoir, and pop history, this account is more an impersonal recitation of details than an evocation of inner experience; even a recounting of witnessing police brutality in broad daylight feels oddly detached, and Jeppesen mentions hiding his sexual orientation from his hosts almost as an afterthought. The few moments of feeling are concentrated at the end, leaching urgency and emotional connection from the rest of the narrative. There is some thoughtful interrogation of American journalism on and foreign policy toward the country, but condescension surfaces periodically: Jeppesen repetitively dismisses the public art he encounters as "kitsch" or "unintentional comedic atrocity," sums up a Chinese-inspired interior design as "monkey see, monkey do," and daydreams about someday persuading his tour guide he understands North Korea better than she does. It never becomes clear what has drawn him there except for curiosity about the forbidden. Though this book may appeal to readers seeking a big-picture introduction to the country, those seeking a sense of North Korean life will be disappointed. (June) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Review by Library Journal Review
In 2016, journalist Jeppesen attended a month-long course in North Korea that taught Korean language and culture to foreigners. His experiences and travels, carefully managed by a Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) tour company, gave him the opportunity to meet a number of ordinary citizens as well as expats doing business in the country. His experiences somewhat contradict the general narrative about North Korea being dangerous and terrifying; he describes an extremely Stalinist society, overlain with a hereditary elite and subject to constant surveillance. All art, cinema, music, and business stems directly from the pronouncements of the Dear Leader, Kim Jong Un. Status and privilege generally relate to one's family history, not the individual; propaganda is pervasive. Much of the government's efforts go toward acquiring, by legal and covert methods, foreign currency, and any business is, in the end, government. The author effectively conveys the complex atmosphere of pervasive hypocrisy, struggle, and empty patriotic display. The largely cultural approach, mostly absent international politics, will attract students of the peninsula. Verdict With a specialized scope, this book will be of limited appeal to academic Korean studies.-Edwin Burgess, Kansas City, KS © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
An American's travels in North Korea.Jeppesen, an American novelist (The Suiciders, 2013, etc.) and art critic who lives in Berlin, earned a doctorate in London and set off in 2016 to learn the Korean language at Kim Hyong Jik University in Pyongyang, North Korea's capital. A self-described wanderer drawn to "the seemingly incomprehensible," he has made his study trip (and several earlier visits) the basis for this first-person account of life in a "multifaceted, misunderstood, and unsummarizable" nation. The author read and traveled widely enough (to festivals, revolutionary sites, etc.) to understand that "paranoia and suspicion" are omnipresent in the police state, finding himself "alternately charmed, intrigued, disgusted, amused, terrifiedoften all of these at once." North Koreans are heavily monitored. (Jeppesen complains that he spent little time alone.) They are forbidden to speak or move freely, travel abroad, or watch foreign media. Amid the oppression of their lives in a poor country, the author was struck by the "humanity" and "sweetness" of ordinary people encountered in shops, museums, and elsewhere. Language barriers and Korean shyness often prevented interactions. Also, the "ultra-nationalist ideology" of posters, murals, mosaics, and the ever present patriotic music of the Moranbong Band (its 20 female members hand-picked by Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un), combined with present-day state denunciation of "American bastards" and a brutal 35-year occupation by Japan (1910-1945), has fostered strong suspicion of foreigners. The author's account of his visit to the Sinchon Museum of American War Atrocities, with its "outlandish" claims of American brutality in the Korean War, will rattle many readers. Jeppesen insists the propaganda works both ways, with the U.S. decrying "the axis of evil" and enforcing an "unwritten rule" against positive news coverage of North Korea. Unfortunately, the author's constant "rendering" of information through dialogue with his travel companions adds little to the narrative. He finds "a great diversity of opinion unvoiced, unvoicable" and even small signs of resistance by individual artists.A candid and disturbing portrait of life under a dictatorship. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
