Are almost all foreign English teachers in North Korea evangelicals?

[pampango]

This article is really about the difficulty of teaching North Korean students to write essays but the author in passing noted that he was the only one out of 30 teachers who was not an evangelical.

Teaching Essay Writing in Pyongyang
I taught English to college students in North Korea. They struggled with the concept of an essay.

Essay was a much-dreaded word among my students. It was the fall of 2011, and I was teaching English at Pyongyang University of Science and Technology in North Korea. Two hundred and seventy young men, and about 30 teachers, all Christian evangelicals besides me, were isolated together in a guarded compound, where our classes and movements were watched round the clock. Each lesson had to be approved by a group of North Korean staff known to us as the “counterparts.” Hoping to slip in information about the outside world, which we were not allowed to discuss, I had devised a lesson on essay writing, and it had been approved.

I had told my students that the essay would be as important as the final exam in calculating their grades for the semester, and they were very stressed. Each student was supposed to come up with his own topic and hand in a thesis and outline. When I asked them how it was going, they would sigh and say, “Disaster.”

I emphasized the importance of essays since, as scientists, they would one day have to write papers to prove their theories. But in reality, nothing was ever proven in their world, since everything was at the whim of the Great Leader. Their writing skills were as stunted as their research skills. Writing inevitably consisted of an endless repetition of his achievements, none of which was ever verified, since they lacked the concept of backing up a claim with evidence. A quick look at the articles in the daily newspaper revealed the exact same tone from start to finish, with neither progression nor pacing. There was no beginning and no end.



It was not until later that day that I looked on the Internet (to which only the teachers were allowed access; the students were not aware of its existence) and learned that North Korea had already been knocked out, and the results had been announced some time ago. The match against Japan had to be played simply because it was a game owed. Either the students would not admit this, or they did not know the truth. Not only that, I learned that the game had not actually been televised live. Rather, it had been broadcast as soon as it ended, when the regime could be certain that their team had won. One student told me that it was very boring to watch only winning games.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2014/12/what_it_was_like_to_teach_essay_writing_to_north_korean_graduate_students.html?google_editors_picks=true

I wonder if evangelicals are cheaper to hire for North Korea. Perhaps they view their time there are a mission of sorts. Or maybe they can handle the intellectual straight-jacket imposed by the NK regime better than a normal person would.

There seems to periodically be evangelicals arrested in North Korea but I had imagined that was just a few wackos who wanted to make a name for themselves. Perhaps there are a larger number of evangelicals traveling to NK than I had imagined.

[jwirr]

1. I do not know if all of them are but I do know that when it comes to pay it is probably their

churches at home paying their wages. That would be who sent them there.

[seveneyes]

2. Mass opiates

Hive characteristics are unique to biological species as far as we know. It's not like a box or universe of rocks are going to get suckered anytime soon...that requires irrational tendencies.

[Fred Sanders]

3. A nation packed with souls not touched by Jesus must be like flame to a moth for the raptured.

Always missing from the "rescued" from N.K. News in America is they are all, all, evangelicals caught trying to sneak in their official Christian fairy tales to replace the official State fairy tales.

[seveneyes]

4. A Paradox by The Church

The more that you want it
The more that you need it
The less that it does