Word: pyongyang
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...another occasion, Parrish sneaked out of the house one night to go looking for a girl he had a crush on. But Jenkins, as a practical joke, had given him a bogus address, and Parrish wandered the streets aimlessly for hours. He ultimately got picked up in central Pyongyang by police, who suspected he was meeting a spy contact; the leader had to get him out of jail...
...Despite the Americans' penchant for freedalisms, the North Koreans were, after seven years, evidently pleased with their behavior and apparent indoctrination. In 1972, the four received North Korean citizenship ("Whether we wanted it or not," says Jenkins) and were ordered to start teaching English at a military school in Pyongyang, run by the party's Reconnaissance Bureau. Jenkins taught three 90-minute classes a day, 10 to 15 days a month. There were about 30 students in each class. "They wanted us to teach them American pronunciation," he says, a prospect that seems amusing considering many Americans would have trouble...
...Pyongyang had designs on Jenkins beyond teaching English. Like his three colleagues, Jenkins was a prize cold-war souvenir: an American who had voluntarily wandered into North Korean hands. He was an asset and certainly more valuable alive than dead. "At some point, someone told us that Kim Il Sung said that one American was worth 100 Koreans," says Jenkins. "After that, I didn't think they would kill us without a good reason." His first experience as a propaganda tool occurred soon after he was captured, when he and his fellow deserters were profiled in a cover story...
...half-Korean, half-Togolese woman, and they had a son. Parrish wed a Lebanese Muslim, and they had three sons. Abshier married a Thai woman, but they didn't have children. (Jenkins says Parrish and Abshier are dead. Dresnok, he says, is still living with his family in Pyongyang...
...Such comforts did little for Jenkins' morale. He increasingly became despondent about his children's future. Jenkins was particularly distressed when the government enrolled the girls in Pyongyang's Foreign Language College, an ?lite institution believed to be a training ground for intelligence operatives. "I knew what they were trying to do," says Jenkins, starting to sob. "They wanted to turn them into spies. My daughters, they could pass as South Korean. There are lots of children of American G.I.s and South Korean mothers in South Korea. No one would doubt them for a second." Since he believed...