Inside the hermit kingdom: A memoir

By Yi Sun-Kyung and Sun-Kyung Yi

Closed to the West for more than forty years, North Korea is an isolated and alien land. When Yi Sun-Kyung traveled there in the summer of 1994-the first Western journalist ever allowed in for an... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1550139045
• ISBN13: 9781550139044
• Release Date: January 1997
• Publisher: Key Porter Books,Canada
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 1.03 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.2" x 1.0" x 6.2"

Customer Reviews

A book I could relate to

After attending the author's presentation at my college (UBC) in 1997 on her journey to the Koreas, I had to read her book. I couldn't put her book down once I began, because her childhood experience with the whites and later her painful and bitter experience with the Korean community reminded me so much of my own. She went to the Koreas to seek healing, only to be disgusted and hurt by what she saw. I am only glad that I never went back to the land of gooks since I left at the age of ten.My identity as a Korean-Canadian male notwithstanding, I found myself agreeing with her assessment on "Little Korea." Like her, I, too, despised the quarrelsome, catty and gossip-prone Korean expatriate community (read Korean church), and held both my volatile father and his Korean friends in contempt. Then as now, I simply could not understand why they still cling to the old values from home in a place where such values are simply incompatible. Moreover, I could never understand why so many of my second-generation Korean-Canadian friends cling so dearly to an institution (Church) that is bound to destroy them. As early as fourteen I understood that the Korean church would ultimately destroy me and my friends, and cut my ties with it. Most of my friends did not. She may be right, after all, about the inability of the Korean kids to grow up.My understanding is that she wrote the book, not to change the flawed mentality of Little Korea and the two Koreas far away,--after all, such attempt is not only impossible but futile--but to sift through her confusion and anger. It took a lot of courage on her part to hold a mirror to the face that was flawed Korean mentality. That is why she commands my deep respect.

Bravo !

As a 2nd generation Korean American, I connected very well with Miss Kyung's book. I bought this book while I was studying in Montreal. It brings to light the persona and mentalities of the Korean community today. I was a bit suprised at how Miss Kyung placed her fellow Korean Canadians in such a negative view, but I understand that it was necessary to try to fix the problems within Korean communities today. Reading about her trip to North Korea was very intrigueing. She gave a very good account of daily life in North Korea. Miss Kyung was also good at exposing the stigmas placed against Korean Canadians (and Korean women) by 'newcomer' Koreans. An excellent read !