North Korea's Pyongyang University of Science & Technology: Background information when reading Without You, There Is No Us

North Korea's Pyongyang University of Science & Technology

This article relates to Without You, There Is No Us

Dr. Kim Chin-Kyung (aka Kim Jin Kyong, James Kim) is the founder of both the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST) and its older sister institution, the Yanbian University of Science and Technology (YUST) in China. It is at PUST that Suki Kim worked on assignment as an English teacher.

Born in 1935 in Seoul, Kim was a soldier in a South Korean student battalion during the Korean War. He was wounded in 1950 in a particularly ferocious battle (only 17 out of 800 members of his unit survived) and as he lay on the field he promised God that if he lived he would "return the love to my enemies." He cites this incident as the basis for his life-long ambition of opening pathways to peace between the United States and South Korea on the one hand and communist China and North Korea on the other.

Kim was educated first in Seoul and then in Bristol, England, before relocating to Florida where he continued his studies. He founded several successful businesses and obtained U.S. citizenship, but eventually decided to sell everything and establish a privately funded university in China in 1992 under the auspices of Kim's organization, the Northeast Asia Foundation for Education and Culture (NAFEC). YUST has since gone on to become one of the top 100 universities in China.

On the coattails of YUST's success, in 1998, Kim traveled to North Korea to speak with the education commission about establishing a similar institution. He was instead arrested as an American spy, sentenced to death and imprisoned for more than a month before his sentence was inexplicably commuted and he was permitted to return to China. His proposal gained traction with the increasing success of YUST, however, and in 2001 the Ministry of Education invited NAFEC to establish PUST, with the project being officially endorsed by Kim Jong-Il. PUST consequently became North Korea's first privately funded university (with much of the funding coming from evangelical Christian groups). Groundbreaking began in the countryside on the outskirts of Pyongyang in 2002 and the school opened in 2010 with a group of 150 graduate students.

The school currently has approximately 500 students and continues to grow (it has capacity for up to 600 graduate students and 2000 undergraduates, plus faculty). Students are not charged to attend and receive education, room and board despite the fact that they are generally the sons of the rich and powerful leaders of North Korea and hand-picked by Kim Jung-un's regime.

The institution is divided into several academic programs that focus on different aspects of technology. The faculty is comprised of volunteers from many countries, although most are from the Evangelical Christian communities in South Korea and the United States. Teachers are strictly forbidden to evangelize or mention certain topics, including their faith, to their students. Doing so is grounds for immediate expulsion from North Korea, and "minders" - senior North Korean officers - are always present to ensure compliance. Teachers are entirely supported by individual contributions or sponsored by organizations such as NAFEC.

Picture of PUST classroom from Pyongyang University of Science and Technology

Filed under Places, Cultures & Identities

This "beyond the book article" relates to Without You, There Is No Us. It originally ran in November 2014 and has been updated for the October 2015 paperback edition. Go to magazine.