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understood the longing of lovers, and I imagined them waiting for the border to open, the days turning into weeks and then years, which then became the rest of their lives. I imagined the longing of not just one person but of an entire nation. The idea of it put the concept of a long-distance relationship to shame. The eternal wait must have become a test of loyalty. Who could stay faithful to their beloved the longest? Love did not conquer all. Lovers were punished for loving—the forced separation bled their hearts. I imagined these pent-up feelings percolating in the air and hushed in the soil of the Korean peninsula, this diseased nation split in two.
    THAT FIRST MORNING , as I looked out at their alert faces, a boy rose from his seat, and all the others followed. They then shouted out, in unison, in English, “Good morning, Professor!” I scanned the room once and said, “Good morning, gentlemen!” I am not sure why I addressed them as “gentlemen.” It was not a word I would have used with a group of American college students. Perhaps it was the way these particular boys looked in that particular moment, so immaculate and orderly that I was reminded of the way my father often used the word gentleman to describe any foreign male he admired. It was one of those English words that had infiltrated the Korean language, where it came to denote a sort of dashing modern man.
    The boys burst out laughing. Some looked embarrassed and kept giggling. And so the first lesson began—more of a get-to-know-you session than a real lesson. I told them to ask anything they wanted to know about me and Katie. One by one, they stood up from their seats to ask questions.
    “How many siblings do you have?”
    “When is your birthday?”
    “What is your favorite color?”
    One boy asked, “Did you enjoy the flowers outside this morning on your walk to class?” These must have been the tiny orange and pink flowers I had seen, and Katie was quick to ask, “Did you plant them?” They nodded, smiling shyly.
    Suddenly I remembered a similar moment just a few years before at a private university in the Midwest where I taught creative writing to undergraduates. On the first day of class, I had told the students to ask me anything. I hoped they would want to know about the secret to writing well, and I was prepared to tell them that there was no secret and that we each had to find our own voice, so welcome to class! Instead, they had only one question: “Did our university approach you for this job or did you have to apply for it?” The message was clear. They wanted to know if I was worth their tuition. That moment had been like a splash of cold water, and I never liked to reflect upon it afterward. I wondered what made young people of a similar age think so differently.
    The young men in my first period belonged to Class 4, which meant their English was expected to be the weakest, yet I had no problem understanding them. Still, the next group, Class 2, spoke markedly better English, and their questions were more sophisticated. One asked Katie, “You look Asian. Are you Korean?” Katie told them that her mother was Korean and her father was American. The class nodded, although I could not tell if her answer made sense to them.
    Then a tall boy stood up to ask me if I suffered from motion sickness. The last time he had flown, he told me, he found it quite shaky. I asked him where he flew from and to, and he mumbled that it was domestic. I was not sure if I should ask further about the exact location, so I left it at that. I had never heard of domestic routes in North Korea and still haven’t, so if there were any, he must have been one of the very few who experienced plane travel.
    I asked the students to pick a topic of their choice and write a letter in English to me or Katie. On the board, I showed them the way a formal letter is written—the date, address “Dear so-and-so,” followed by a comma, some sample sentences,