North Korea’s building an all-English university funded by Christian evangelicals.
Yes, you read that right.
Construction of the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology is nearing completion on a 100ha plot leased by the People’s Army in the North’s capital. The Army has loaned 800 solders to build the campus, which is largely funded by a network of Christian evangelicals.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Il is believed to have personally ordered the site cleared for use and granted the university the right to hire staff from anywhere in the world.
The university is expected to eventually have 2600 undergraduate and postgraduate students and to help train a new generation of elite business executives and technicians.
We’ll have to wait and see how that turns out, I guess.
16 Comments
“We’ll have to wait and see how that turns out, I guess.”
Dude, understatement of the century!
Will alien ink get spilled in the Taedong River?
“Despite crumbling facilities, Pyongyang’s standards of computer science, software and applied mathematics are world-class, say experts, and its youth are bursting with pent-up business energy”.
I didn’t get that impression when I watched that National Geographic special with the eye doctor from Nepal. It was actually quite the opposite, considering they had fairly advanced optical gadgets but didn’t know what to do with them.
so English teaching jobs in the DPRK—but will they screen for fake degrees or allow just any riff-raff to float in and drink too much and shag the locals. no matter how tightly they think they can control a large influx of foreign meat sacks, new people and ideas are always the beginning of the end for strict cultures and regimes.
McNeill seems to have gotten the PUST project wrong. I am familiar with some people involved in this project and from what I have heard the faculty are nearly all Korean. There may be some English speakers among them, or even English teachers, but I don’t think most classes will be taught in English. But yes, KJI did obviously order it built and he knows that most or all of the faculty are Christians. Who else would volunteer to live in the DPRK?
Two words: open-ended contracts. They reserve the right to renew your contract indefinitely…and there’s nothing you can do about it.
Are there really happy-clappies in North Korea? I’d have thought everybody would be kind of sad.
Sad-clappies doesn’t have the same ring.
Gotta give Kim Jong Il credit. By hopping in bed with evangelical Christians, he’s guaranteed himself the pleasure of dealing with easily manipulated lemmings who are already inclined to follow orders blindly and believe in myths.
Myths like “Sure professor, you’ll get paid.” Or “Your phone calls are not being monitored.”
Did Jesus tell them to build a university in one of the world’s most brutal dictatorships, or did they come up with that idea on their own?
Oh that’s right, maybe some North Korean will be “saved” by the Xtians, making it alright to aid Kim’s regime by training his elite.
“The project’s leaders in South Korea and the United States “…
Let me guess. They are Moonies.
Next: A branch campus in Hell,
Well, judging from so many of the evangelicals I’ve seen in Seoul, I could only have cynical thoughts about such an idea. The love of Mammon, corruption and blind-faith in so many so-called churches in Seoul is very un-Christian to the point of giving Christianity a bad reputation.
The world of evangelical Christianity (or more precisely, those who might be labelled or label themselves as “evangelical”) is a wide and variegated one—everything from the most stereotypical fundamentalists who think Jesus spoke in King James English, to I’m okay-you’re okay, liberal Democrats who are only interested in the “nice” things that Jesus said and did; with a fairly big helping of the types of people R. Elgin described thrown in. The first question would be, who are these “evangelical Christians,” where do they come from, and what is the purpose of this? My money is on either folks of the type described in comments 9 and 12, or sadly naive folks further afield who have absolutely no idea what they’re getting into.
Anyhow, given what we know of NK, I’m not sure if an English-language university for the elite is the best use of funds in the here and now, unless they’re banking on a long-term social transformation when the first generation that graduates from there starts to establish itself in the middle tiers of power. But that’s a long way off; and I have no doubt that KJI will not let them teach whatever they like at the university. Genuine Christian faith is a direct threat to the KIS-KJI mythos that is used to keep the folks in line up there.
i’d like to read what baduk has to say about this one.
My guess is these dudes are Jeolla Christian Commies.
“i’d like to read what baduk has to say about this one.
My guess is these dudes are Jeolla Christian Commies.”
That’s classic!
Hmm…dogmatic evangelicals living with dogmatic communists??? Hmm…what’s the connection?
Duscussions over lunch in the basement cafeteria will be interesting.
Happy Constitution Day!