The School of Rock

Dear Jack Black,

I know this might never reach you, but I had to try.

My name is Tae-jin. I’m a music teacher in Pyongyang—or rather, I teach music by day, and by night, I teach rock. In secret. In a classroom that smells of chalk dust and revolution.

A few months ago, I got my hands on a bootleg VHS of School of Rock. I don’t know how it got here—some say it traveled hidden in a shipment of donated rice. Others say it fell from the sky. But it found me. And Jack… it changed everything.

Now, after school, when the halls are empty and no one’s listening, I meet with a few students—our future rebels, our dreamers, our loudest hearts. We’ve turned a forgotten storage room into a makeshift rehearsal space. Drums held together by hope. Guitars with more tape than wood. And the amps? They painted them bright orange—because they saw it in a magazine once and used watercolors to make them “look like the ones real bands use.”

We blast our music just loud enough to feel alive, but quiet enough not to get caught. We play glam rock, power chords, stolen melodies. And when the lights flicker, and a solo hits just right—I swear, for a moment, it’s not Pyongyang anymore. It’s freedom.

Thank you, Jack. You didn’t just start a revolution in a movie. You lit a spark halfway across the world. And now, there’s a tiny army of kids in North Korea who believe in rock 'n' roll because of you.

Long live the noise.

Tae-jin