Writer Recalls Ignorance of N.Korean Elite Students

Korean-American novelist Suki Kim on Sunday described North Korea as "the most horrific place in the world" after teaching English at Pyongyang University of Science and Technology in 2011.

Kim (43) told CNN North Korean students there "were all completely sons of elite... They, first of all, didn't know anything about the rest of the world. If any of them did, they were fearful to admit that… Some of the students really thought people spoke Korean in the rest of the world."

Recounting her experience, she has recently published a book, "Without You, There Is No Us," based on a song with the same title hailing former North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.

"Absolute belief in the great leader, where, you know, this generation -- three generations of these men who, these hugely narcissistic men basically wiped everything out of their culture except themselves."

"They didn't know the existence of the Internet in 2011. And this was a Pyongyang University of Science and Technology. Their major was computer, a lot of them... The utter, utter lack of information was astounding," she added. "The phone calls are tapped or, you know, it's a small country. You can't travel within the country without a permission."

"I don't know how they're going to rise up. They can't even get to the next town without a permission. They don't have the Internet. They have no way of going there, transportation system. There's just nothing that connects people."

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