Hong Kong teacher pushes boundaries and trains future tour guides in North Korea

Ronny Mintjens went to teach English to trainee tour guides but soon realised there would be difficulties – which prompted his surprising solution

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Ronny Mintjens first visited North Korea in 2006 and has since organised tours to the secretive country. Photo: Roy Issa

Published: 4:45pm, 21 Apr 2018Updated: 6:37pm, 21 Apr 2018

Hong Kong language teacher Ronny Mintjens, who had flown to North Korea to teach soon-to-be tour guides English, did the unheard of there – he asked for freedom for his students’ sake.

In the capital Pyongyang, he had been given a textbook and especially told to teach chapters one and two – advertising and critical thinking – which he knew would be difficult given that both subjects are forbidden in one of the world’s most secretive countries.

He knew that the country only ran government propaganda, while its 25 million people were forbidden to criticise supreme leader Kim Jong-un.

So, it was not hard to imagine that both Mintjens and his students at Pyongyang Tourism College were not enjoying their first day of the 2½-week summer programme in 2016.

Portraits of late leaders Kim Il-sung (left) and his son Kim Jong-il in a Pyongyang square. Photo: AFP

“The teaching materials were completely removed not only from their world, but also from the job they have to do,” Mintjens says.

“They needed to be comfortable and confident when speaking with foreigners, which they had never practised because they were stuck in the classroom with Korean teachers.”

It was then that Mintjens then did something unheard of in the totalitarian one-party state – he asked for freedom to teach the students the way he wanted.

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“I don’t think this is what the students need,” he told the principal after his first lesson.