Courtesy of Todor Merdjanov
Life at Kim Il Sung University differed greatly from my time as a 22-year-old student of Korean Studies in Sofia, Bulgaria.
When I accepted the offer by my professors to travel to the mysterious nation — with no safety instruction besides what we had learned about the Koreas in our lectures — I was excited to meet North Koreans firsthand.
Courtesy of Todor Merdjanov
My Bulgarian classmate and I were given our lessons separately from the rest of the North Korean student body that attended the university. We had two seminars per day, one on Korean reading comprehension, another on Korean conversation, and an extra class on Saturday.
Classes at Kim Il Sung University were hard work. My exchange partner and I would spend hours completing homework and memorizing hundreds of new words a week. We would often be asked to summarize complicated texts based on North Korean folk tales or the life and achievements of Kim Il Sung, the country’s founding leader.
Ideology was integrated into the curriculum. Our role was always to learn the language and better understand North Korean culture.
Courtesy of Todor Merdjanov
One day, a group of North Korean students told all the foreigners in the dorm to dress formally and to meet in the lobby. We couldn’t take our keys or wallets, and none of us knew what was in store.
After being loaded onto a bus, I realized we were headed to the Arirang Mass Games.
The show is the world’s largest gymnastics display and one of the most important events in the North Korean calendar. It has also previously included over 100,000 performers.
We were seated in a section of the stadium reserved for foreign students and diplomats.
What looked like tens of thousands of North Korean children and adults played music, gave traditional dance performances, and conducted intricate gymnastics routines. Colored lights and lasers danced around the crowd, and fireworks cracked overhead.
The spectacle of the Mass Games is the scale of the participation. We knew we had just witnessed something that few people outside North Korea could ever claim to have seen.
Courtesy of Todor Merdjanov
Saying goodbye, knowing we’d never be back
After four weeks in the country, it was time to say goodbye.
As soon as we arrived in Beijing, I video-called my parents. In Pyongyang, I had only been able to call them twice: once from an international hotel and once during a visit to the Bulgarian embassy. Each call was only a couple of minutes long.
During my exchange, I spoke to young North Korean people, asking them about their ambitions. Many students wanted the same things as we did: to travel and experience the world. I was discouraged and sad, knowing they could not travel as I had.
Two years later, in 2015, I went on another university exchange, this time to South Korea.
We were allowed to visit the 38th parallel, the demilitarized border zone between North and South Korea.
On the way there, the other exchange students chatted excitedly over the opportunity to glimpse such a forbidden country.
As I gazed over the border to the North Korean hills and fields in the distance, I could vividly see the names and faces of people I knew there. Knowing that I would never see or speak to them again, I wondered, sadly, what they were doing now.