Abstract

North Korea-based foreign students enjoy unique circumstances as long-term foreign residents of Pyongyang. In contrast to short-term outside visitors such as international tourists, they partake in freedoms and privileges that the xenophobic North Korean state seldom grants to foreigners, such as the ability to walk the streets of Pyongyang unaccompanied. They also interact extensively with local Koreans such as the North Korean students who live alongside them in the dormitory, and their teachers at university. However, like other classes of foreigners in North Korea, they too are monitored and presented a propaganda front. Drawing upon interviews with foreigners who studied at Kim Il Sung University, this article utilizes Goffman’s dramaturgical framework to tease out ways in which the closer proximity and longer exposure to North Koreans that North Korea-based foreign students enjoy affords them opportunities to witness dramaturgical failure, thereby affording them glimpses into the North Korean backstage.

摘要

作为平壤的长期外国居民，居住在朝鲜的外国学生享有独特的环境。与国际游客等短期外来游客相比，他们享有仇外的朝鲜政府很少给予外国人的自由和特权，例如可以在无人陪伴的情况下在平壤街头行走。他们还与住在宿舍的朝鲜学生以及大学老师等当地韩国人进行了广泛的互动。然而，与朝鲜其他阶层的外国人一样，他们也受到监视并被置于宣传阵地。根据对在金日成大学学习的外国人的采访，