It lives! It lives! (Also, herein I finish my travels)

After weeks of fretting collecting recommendations, writing essays, re-writing essays, going crazy, re-re-writing essays, eating stuff, re-re-re-writing essays and the like, the grad school application process is finally over. While the last week has been spent trying to slowly decompress from the last few weeks, I’m finally in a position to get back to finishing this travelogue – only 3 months after my visit. So, I’m going to try to wrap everything up in two posts. Bear with me, there’s a bit of stuff.

—

Our first stop on the next day was the Korean Folk Gift Store Folk Museum. Related in someways to the Korean Stamp Museum, the Folk Museum was also a collection of uninteresting exhibits that began (and ended) with a visit to one of the ubiquitous gift stores selling the same old tired copies of Kim Il-Sung’s Collected Works and posters and stuff. At this point, you could almost count on someone saying “Another gift store?” when we stopped somewhere.

It’s no surprise that they’d have a cultural museum in Kaesong though – the city was an ancient capital of Korea during the Koryo period (which, incidentally, is where we get our name of Korea from) and has a lot of old tombs scattered around, like the tomb of King Kong Min we had seen the day before. But it’s not as if this museum was interesting or anything – far from it. We were herded through a series of fake old Korea-style buildings, each housing some kind of Korean exhibit, until we found ourselves back in the parking lot.

Trying to peek over the wall

Add to this the fact that were once again in a walled compound and you might see our frustrations. Going to Pyongyang is one thing – Pyongyang is the jewel of the North Korean crown. Pyongyang is where everyone close to the DPRK authorities lives, it’s where the authorities themselves live. You don’t decide to live in Pyongyang, you’re chosen to do so. There’s not really anything to hide in Pyongyang because it’s the best that North Korea can be.

But, Kaesong doesn’t seem to be that way, despite the fact that most tours come here anyway. Tallying up my time in Kaesong, we spent our daylight hours either at the Tomb (far outside the city), the Museum (walled off) and the DMZ (far away). Otherwise, we were in the hotel which, surprise surprise, is also walled off. So, naturally you grow a little curious when you realize there’s a city somewhere out there, but you’re being hidden from it (or it’s being hidden from you, one of the two).

But hey, at least the big man came here (too).

Hey, he looks like he's enjoying it at least

And in the parking lot, we got our little taste of spontaneity – even the DPRK can’t control everything.

They just kind of walked up and their herder had no idea what to do

—

The DMZ was our next stop. It’s only the most dangerous border in the world, separating two countries that are at war.

It’s actually a pretty beautiful place, lots of fresh air and nature. The 4 kilometers or so that separate the two countries hasn’t been developed in roughly 50 years or so, so it’s become a refuge for all sorts of endangered animals that couldn’t leave elsewhere. That said, the border is also still heavily mined, so occasionally animals step on them and blow up. At least, those are the rumors I’ve heard.

Nature behind the wire

Having missed my chance to visit the DMZ from the South, I can only go by what I’ve heard, but getting to the DMZ is much easier coming from the North. Once you’re on a tour in the North, you’re almost certainly going to go see the DMZ (got to show the imperialist guards intruding on Korean land donchaknow?) and the process to get there is almost free of bureaucratic tape. South Korea has checkpoints, guards, terrifying US military personnel, that sort of thing.

In the North, you kinda just show up. We lounged around in a small parking lot area until things cleared up ahead (and until one of our fellow tourists got over his stomach bug) and then we started a slow lumbering roll down a path bordered with barbed wire, towards Panmunjom.

Where they worked out the Armistice to end hostilities

Panmunjom is a truce village that was constructed to open talks on an armistice between the DPRK and the United Nations – the DPRK makes a big point here to tell you that the cowardly Americans were unwilling to come out with it and say that they attacked instead of hiding behind the UN flag. The village straddled both sides of the conflict, but now sits on the Northern side of the border.

Next stop was a large building that was actually the room where they worked out many of the details and signed the actual armistice (which, incidentally, South Korea has yet to sign). It’s here where you can see the actual treaties that each side signed.

The English text of the Armistice

Here is also where the North Koreans will point out that the UN flag has faded over the years, while the colors of the DPRK flag have stayed bold without having to do anything (yup).

Korean text for the armistice / DPRK soldier

Of course, next was the place that most people consider to actually be the DMZ – the Joint Security Area.

The Joint Security Area

The Joint Security Area is managed by the South Korean and US armies on the Southern side, and the DPRK’s army on the North and is the only place where North and South Korean soldiers stand face to face. From the North, you walk past a big stone monument behind the main DPRK building (Panmungak) at the JSA in a double-file line. Then, you walk into one of the several buildings that the UN constructed for military meetings between the North and South. Each building is split evenly by the border, but is (usually) only occupied by one side or the other. When you come in from the North, you inhabit the entire building and North Korean soldiers stand guard at the entrance to the Southern side, and ditto for ROK soldiers guarding the door to the North should you enter on a Southern tour.

Notice the two DPRK soldiers to the right and rear of the picture? Through there lies the South.

Couple of things you can’t do when you come in on the Southern side: you can’t sit in the chairs or touch things (the DPRK soldiers almost ordered us to sit down and touch stuff – apparently it’s a bit of a fight between the two sides in that the North leaves things messy when they leave because the South will have to clean it up). You can’t smile or wave or make any kind of sign towards the North, nor can you wear anything that might look good to a DPRK propaganda video (needless to say, we’re probably on several propaganda videos now, but even without that, you can wave and smile and hoop and holler on the Northern side).

It's the South!

We then got to take some pictures, especially of the tourists on the Southern side, who I’m sure were more shocked to see us than we were to see them. If we strayed too close to the line, the KPA (Korean People’s Army – DPRK) soldiers would clap and gesture for us to get back. We didn’t see it fit to try and push that.

In Picture: North Korean and South Korean soldiers, demarcation line.

After that, we entered the tall building on the North Korean side (Panmunguk) and looked down at the South for a bit. The guards had to change position because the tourists from the South were going to enter, which meant that they had to leave the buildings and let the South Koreans in with the appropriate pomp and flair. While watching this, one of the generals on the line from the North came to talk to us, using the guides to interpret for him. It was a pretty shallow questions, and unable to come up with anything suitably challenging I watched mutely while the others exchanged pleasantries.

Anyway, we made it through and didn’t die through our visit, so I call that a success.

—

We had a bit of time before we were to leave Kaesong, so before lunch we took a bit of a street walk up to a hill. There was not much to do, probably because the restaurant wasn’t ready for us yet. So, we walked up a big hill to an overlook, and rested a bit before our next huge meal. That meal was fairly good, and was served in the old Korean style, which uses many tiny bowls filled with individual side dishes. Not much to say, but here are the pictures:

Of course, we had to save some time for fun

It wasn't only us, everyone walks in North Korea

This was the statue that was lit up last night - it's not as impressive in the daytime

Probably the better part of Kaesong if anything

After lunch, we hopped on the bus for another three hour drive to Pyongyang. Destination: the Mass Games “Arirang”, farewell dinner and clubbing at the Diplo, and our flight back to China.

A Message from our Sponsors

So, wondering where your (ir-)regularly scheduled dose of rapidly depreciating North Korean travelogue is?

I’m in the middle of grad school applications right now – statements of purpose are stalking my dreams, waiting around dark corners, and crawling into bed with me. So until I deal with these nasty things, I’m putting the posting here on hold.

If you’re bored, however, take a swing over at the BBC and check out their latest entry on North Korea – I went to the same places, took the same pictures, and even talked to the same people (!) as they did. Given how strict they lock down their tours, it’s not a surprise though.

See you when I’m finished!

A Stroll Through the Poppy Fields

So, what do you get when you take a legion of 30 or so Westerners, wake them up at 6 or so everyday with a wake-up call from the early 50’s, put them on an extensive tour of the world’s last hermit kingdom in 30C+ temperatures, use only somewhat broken English, and then put them on a bus for three hours?

You get a bunch of sleeping westerners and, happily, sleeping tour guards as well.

Behold! North Korea!

After our visit to every American’s home in Pyongyang (and really, if you can’t trust the USS Navy to build a ship who can you trust?) we were loaded back up on the bus and this time, we headed out of the city. Destination? Kaesong City.

According to Wikipedia (and yes, I know I need to find a better source for my North Korea knowledge than Wikipedia), Kaesong City is the only city to have changed hands after the end of the Korean War. A capital during the Koryo era, it now serves as the light industry center of North Korea.

Its one other claim to fame is how close it is to Panmunjom, the hastily constructed truce village for the signing of the armistice, which almost every (Western) visitor to North Korea visits. This and the DMZ, which is also quite close. In a better world, Kaesong might be doing as well as Seoul is now.

North Korean Countryside

But quite a few kilometers and three hours of bus ride stood between us and this city of pines. And given everyone’s relative state of exhaustion, most people fell asleep. Which meant I could take some pictures with my very loud camera relatively unhindered. (Taking pictures from the bus was, according to the guides, a no-no)

Road conditions aren’t good in North Korea. No lights for driving at night, no traffic going the other way, large potholes in the road and equally large buses meant that we stuck out a bit. So people who were out and about by the highway (and no, I don’t know why they were out there) pretty naturally came up and took a look.

Deforested Hills and Empty Bridges

We were supposed to take a faster route, but for some reason we couldn’t – our guides were always a little evasive about why we couldn’t do one thing instead of the other. The detour took us down into some of the smaller roads for a bit, which I have no pictures of. When the bus is tossing back and forth because of the poor road conditions, everyone tends to wake up and that makes for bad illicit picture taking.

The North Korean countryside, from what I could see, is beautiful, desolate, very green, and rather used-up. I saw some farms, but nothing particularly big or impressive. I don’t know my plants very well, but nothing seemed as big and ready for harvest as what I assume Western farms would look like. North Korea’s need for humanitarian aid to feed massive amounts of its population is well known, and I found out after I returned from my trip that there had been one of the largest droughts to date earlier this year. Many of the hills were badly deforested as well. But there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, at least.

The Bustling Highways of the DPRK

Halfway through our trip was a rest area where we all took a break. A large building, stretching over the road, housing quite a few empty rooms and a small eatery. I took pictures (well, we all took pictures) we bought water and flavourless, stale cookies, and kept on the road to Kaesong.

About half an hour outside of the city, our bus driver hit something and soon after began to back up. This ’something’ turned out to be a bird and, after backing up for a couple of minutes, the driver ran out of the bus, returning soon after with the bird, which he stowed in our baggage compartment. Our guides reaction? “I don’t understand the hunter spirit.”

More likely, our intrepid filmmaker knew better than to waste food in this country. He surely ate well while we were there, but I don’t hold any doubts that his meals would probably take a solid nosedive once we left.

Given that brief interruption, we soon made out timely arrival in Kaesong.

There are pictures of the city, which will go up next time. Suffice it to say, however, that even seeing Kaesong proved to me that Pyongyang, where the favored crust of DPRK society lives, is something wholly different than the rest of North Korea.

If you visit North Korea and only see Pyongyang, it’s possible, though hard, to fool yourself into believing things are ok. Sure, there aren’t many lights on at night, sure, there seems to be much more importance placed on the monuments and all than on public works or anything, and yes, people look small, malnourished and dirty. But the streets are clean, the buildings are (mostly) kept-together, there are some lights on, and cars, and some semblance of life as the modern world knows it. It’s difficult, but you can almost say to yourself “Ok, there are some weird things here, but really it’s just a country down on its luck.”

You can’t keep those illusions and visit Kaesong.

As far as I understand, Kaesong is still one of the upper cities in North Korea – if they bus westerners through it must be. But the streets are full of dirt, there are piles of rubble (not trash, but piles of old building materials, concrete, rocks) in front of decaying apartment buildings, and there’s a haze in the air that cannot be healthy. There were a lot less people walking around with purpose and a lot more in groups just watching. There was just a sense of slow but irrepressible death in the city. The bus, for its part, seemed to try and move us as quickly through the city as possible.

After a stop at our hotel (the Kaesong Folk Hotel below) we went on our one tour spot of the day: King Kong Min’s Tomb.

An Old King's Tomb

Designed by himself before he died, the tomb holds the remains of King Kong Min (a king during the Koryo period) and his wife. To get there we drove around some nerve-wracking roads perched on the edge of some very large hills. Our guides were not too forthcoming with what role Kong Min played in the Koryo period, and, for our parts, we didn’t push them. We were happy to have some time to just unwind.

But soon we were on the bus and taken back to the Kaesong Folk Hotel.

Kaesong Folk Hotel

Featuring its own private creek (rumored to have actually been diverted from a river that runs through Kaesong) this hotel is the only part of Kaesong City you will see as a westerner. A walled compound with no windows and a large gate that is closed once you enter, the only sites you’ll see are the other bungalows. A bunch of small courtyard bungalows to be exact, fashioned in traditional Korean style with heated floors (though not in the summer) and mats to sleep on.

Our own private paradise

One room for the two was about the size of two mats to sleep on. But first was dinner.

Apparently, Koreans eat dog soup three times a year, all during summer, to strengthen one’s resolve against the heat. It’s a spicy kimchi soup with dog meat meant to sweat the heat out of you and (surprise surprise) we just happened to be in on one of those days. We were lucky enough to be able to try dog soup for the low, low price of 5 euros.

But what the hell, I say, you only get to eat meat of questionable origin in a hermit dictatorship every so often, I thinks, and so I order a bowl.

Dinner is served in a hot room, with no air conditioning and one pathetic fan. You sit on the floor as the servers (unlike the ones in Pyongyang, these don’t know even the most basic of English…another level of difference) dish out the various plates. The quality is poor, to say the least. The beer is warm, the hot food is warm, the cold food is warm. Everything is roughly the same temperature.

The light by which you eat is one flickering bare lightbulb on the wall – due to power conservation you understand.

And dog soup? Well, it is a spicy soup (almost too spicy to get down) and bright red. It’s served in a thick metal bowl and there is meat in there. Somewhere.

You see, dogs are scrappy little beasts even when they’re well-fed, so it’s not a huge stretch of the imagination to consider that dogs in North Korea might be a bit on the lean side. To their credit, I’m sure they tried to put as much meat in as possible. But the majority of the soup was offal. Black, bulbous and soft bits from who-knows-where.

This time, we stopped eating because we wanted to, not because we couldn’t eat anymore.

And what do you do in a hotel with no electricity (remember, energy conservation) no tv, no books, and no lights? Well, given our early start for the next day, we figured that we would wash up before bed and just go straight out from there.

Well, there was no hot water (again, energy conservation) but we did have electricity for our room light…but not the bathroom light. The hotel has its own generator, but that can only go so far. We have some cold water, but no soap, no shampoo.

It was a bonding experience, to say the least, to take turns in the dark bathroom, door cracked open for a bit of light, passing remarks and swallowing screams as you washed off the days the travels with handfuls of ice cold water. Bedding down, my good friend and I shared the days impressions (mine somewhat less lucidly due to a couple of nighttime cold pills) before going to sleep, which came late after the talks.

Now, I know you’re probably thinking terrible things at this point. What kind of person am I to rag on the bad food and terrible amenities when, in all likelihood, I still ate better than a very high percentage of the Kaesong population and, unlike them, I had a light to turn off before I went to bed? You could hear people walking back and pushing carts outside the hotel walls, a world you and I could only imagine as to what it was. You couldn’t help but wonder what their dinner was, what their room looked like – did they know that we were enjoying (limited) electricity and edible food and turning our collective faces at it?

Maybe so. Maybe not. We couldn’t see them, nor they us. All we could hear was people going past – like hearing a heated argument behind a heavy door, the best you could get were vague impressions.

But as bad as Kaesong had it, at least they managed to conserve enough power to keep Kim Il-sung light up at night.

Mr. Kim and his hilltop vantage

What a cruel joke. I don’t know how many hours that statue was illuminated each night, but it was a glowing beacon in an otherwise wholly black night. I’m sure the official party line is that the North Korean people hold Kim Il-sung so highly in their hearts that they are happy to give up some (all?) power each night to keep the statue alight.

Still, how cruel.

The Dead and the Living, the Pyongyang Metro and the American Spy Ship

So, I’m back from South Korea. No visit to the DMZ, due (mostly) to my ineptitude with maps, but really, I’ve been there and done that.

In current affairs, Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jia-bao is planning a visit to Pyongyang soon – almost as big a visit as a former US President, and probably one that Kim Jong-il will pay more attention to. The BBC is reporting on the recent (that is, in April) changes to the North Korea constitution. Most interesting is the latest change to the language to refer (implicitly, mind you) to Kim Jong-il as “Supreme Leader” as well as increased roles for the National Defense Commission and Songun, the Military-First policy in North Korea.

What I find fascinating isn’t so much the increased roles for the military / defense aspects of the North Korean government (a totalitarian government shoring up political support through increased military presence in response to a real or imagined threat? I haven’t heard that before!) but the implicit reference to Kim Jong-il as “Supreme Leader.” When Kim Il-sung was dying, Kim Jong-il re-fashioned and strengthened the already present personality cult surrounding the elder Kim, and coined the term “Great Leader” or, this is the idea I got from some books I’ve read.

So, where is Kim Jong-il’s son to carry on this fine family tradition? Of course, Kim Jong-un, the supposed heir to the Kim dynastic throne might be a bit young to begin stirring up political and cultural support to idolize his father, who, to be honest, presided over a regime that had more problems than solutions. The BBC article suggests that this might be work by Kim and those loyal to him to shore up support before he dies, which is plausible.

—

Anyway, onto my trip to North Korea.

I’m going to try and knock out the remaining half-a-day in Pyongyang, follow up with Kaesong and the DMZ, and then the last day in Pyongyang in three posts. It’s been almost two months since I visited North Korea, and I’d like to at least get the story told in some form before it leaves my mind completely. Hopefully it’s still fresh enough to be interesting.

So, we woke up after our first full day of touring to a very special event – we were going to go see Kim Il-sung.

Yes, we had met a somewhat larger and bronzed version of him the previous day, and sure, he’s been dead for close to twenty years at this point, but we were going to go visit him. Or his body anyway.

Where the Big Man Lays and Waits

Kim Il-sung is one of only four heads of states (all Communist, I believe) whose body is embalmed and open for public viewing. The others, if I have my facts correct, are Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam, Mao in China, and Lenin in Russia. Kim Il-sung’s body is by far the hardest to visit.

This huge palace was supposedly Kim’s private office before his death. Now, it serves as one of the holiest places in North Korea, where everyone comes to pay their respects. We had to pay our respects as well, in dressy clothes.

Photography inside the Memorial Palace is strictly forbidden – I don’t know of any pictures that have been successfully taken inside and smuggled out. As such, you’ll have to deal with my somewhat less interesting explanation.

We arrived as early as we could in the morning (8-9 AM) and were shuttled into a waiting room along with what must have been every other group of foreigners in North Korea at the time. There we stood as group by group we were led away, until we finally got the chance to move from our detention area towards the actual entrance of the palace. The entrance into the palace is not the front of the palace in the picture above as you might expect – you actually enter from a building several hundred meters away.

So we enter this building and step onto one of the many moving walkways that would take us into the palace. You cannot simply walk through the palace, you have to stand on the moving walkways and be moved, slowly through the hundreds of meters to the palace. This is (I suppose) to give you ample time to contemplate Kim’s great accomplishments and so on.

Part of the way through we stopped and checked in the rest of our belongings, including all bags, cameras, and anything else. Non-Americans could check in things individually, Americans had to do it as a group. Then we began the next series of walkways. There are about ten-fifteen minutes of walkways, flat walkways, escalators heading down, escalators heading up, but always moving on walkways. On the right side are the many hundreds of North Koreans who came to visit the palace that day (or that morning, or only while we were there, we don’t know) who are shuttled past you and try not to stare at you as obviously as you are staring at them. All sorts of people, men wearing military uniforms or the blue three-quarters sleeve shirt, women in conservative dress or traditional Korean costume. No children as far as I can remember, though many high schoolers.

From outside the walkways looking inward

The above was taken probably two-thirds of the way towards the memorial palace – I’m still at least a hundred meters away from where I took the picture of the palace above. We were able to step out after going through the whole palace to take some pictures. On the other side of the building to the left are carved stone reliefs of doves, flowers and the like, each having a numeric significance to Kim Il-sung.

After about fifteen minutes of moving walkways, we finally make our way to the interior of the palace, where we are alternatively walked forward or made to wait while other groups finish up ahead. The interior is polished marble and stone everywhere.

The first stop (and I might have the orders messed up, so forgive me if I do) is the room of statues, where we are given small speakers to hold up to our ear and moved as a group from statue to artwork commemorating Kim Il-sung’s life and death. In one of the creepiest moments in North Korea, they have perfectly timed how long it will take for us to move from place to place, and we are shuttled around to match the timing of the audio recording perfectly. North Koreans get an authoritative woman who says what I assume is the same thing.

Next stop is the alabaster-white statue of Kim Il-sung, which we line up in groups of four and bow before. It’s located in a long deep hallway, the walls are lit with fuchsia lights. Nobody speaks (nor can we).

After climbing some more stairs, we hit our next target – his actual body. Here, we’re split up again into groups of four. As you enter the room, it is long, dark, and lit by a single ominous red light from above. Kim Il-sung’s body is in a clear (glass?) coffin, head resting on a pillow. His body looks like a wax replica, not at all human – though I don’t have any other embalmed communist leaders to compare it to in my experience. Each group bows before the body at each side before leaving the room. Before we begin bowing, our tour guide says in English that we will now honor President Kim Il-sung, who sacrificed and what-not for the Korean people. I have a feeling that phrase is required in Korean and that the English is a set translation.

The next stop of any interest is the Medal and Treasure room, where the hundreds (yes, hundreds) of different medals, honors, honorary degrees and the like given to Kim Il-sung are on display. Literally hundreds, many of them from non-aligned states to which Kim gave aid in the 1970’s to curry favor. Many African, Asian and former Soviet-bloc countries, significantly fewer European countries. As far as I can remember, one honorary degree from a University in the US.

We are almost pushed out of the medal room, loaded back onto the moving walkways, and taken out of the memorial palace, though not without 10-15 minutes of silence watching North Koreans shuttled past us into the jaws of the beast, as it were. A quick visit to the coat check, a visit outside to take pictures of the absolutely huge palace, and we were on our away again.

If my memories sound scattered or odd, it’s due simply to how solemn and frightening the area is. It feels that if you were to cough or smile you could be killed without question – not to mention it was the most North Koreans assembled in one place that we would see throughout our time in North Korea. It was a very heavy place, to give it a vague and ultimately undefinable one-word explanation.

Needless to say, Kim Il-sung’s death hit many of the North Korean people very hard.

—

As if that wasn’t enough death for one morning in the creepiest country on the planet, we visited the Revolutionary Martyr’s Cemetery next.

Given that the many monuments here to individual heroes of the revolution (defined loosely as anybody who died that Kim Il-sung considered worthy from 1925-ish onward – there are people who had died in the last twenty years buried there) are to people who died all over Korea and Japanese Manchukuo, it’s pretty likely that there aren’t any bodies here. Still, there are a hundred or so bronze busts of various heroes, including women, on this hill. Each bust has an entry detailing their date of birth, entrance into the People’s Army and party, and date of death. The path up to the cemetery is, of course, flanked by stone statues showing the brave deeds of the revolutionary fighters.

Also, each bust was apparently designed by the advice of Kim Il-sung himself, who remembered the faces of each and every person honored there. Thanks to that, the faces are accurate and could be built quickly…or so spake our tour guides. When asked about the impossibility of remembering that amount of people, some who may have been dead for years before the cemetery was built, our guide told us that because of how much Kim Il-sung cared about each and every revolutionary fighter, he could.

Yup, I believe that.

The Highest Heroes of the Revolution

At the very top are the highest heroes, including a bust dedicated to Kim Jong-il’s mother, Kim Jong-suk. We had to bow here as well, and had the chance to lay flowers in honor. It was, however, significantly less intense than Kim Il-sung’s palace. Strange, considering that Kim Jong-suk is only the “heroine of the anti-Japanese revolution.”

On the other hand, it was on the top of a bitchin’ hill.

View from the foot of the cemetery

—

Our next stop was one I had been looking forward to, being a bit of a train geek: The ride on the Pyongyang Metro.

Down into the bomb shelter and psuedo-metro

The Pyongyang metro, which boasts of some of the worlds deepest tracks (which double as bomb shelters) and two lines, the majority of stations on which are still believed not to exist by the rest of the world (supposedly they do, according to some of the few foreign workers in Pyongyang, but are never shown to tourists). It costs only five North Korean Won (pennies at the official exchange rate, fractions thereof in the black market rate) to ride, meaning it is one of the cheapest public transports in the world. One of the most mysterious public transportation systems in the world, and I was actually going to get a chance to ride it!

I didn’t expect it to smell like a damp basement though.

Kim is Watching You Commute

In all seriousness, the metro does smell like a slightly damp basement, and is dim to boot. Still, trains came and went, quite oblivious to the groups of foreigners puttering back and forth taking pictures of things that Pyongyang commuters, if they exist, must take for granted, such as: trains, train door handles, murals, newspaper stands, the floor, rubbish and tunnels. They must have thought we were batty.

Departing Train

Of course, once it was time to ride, we were shuttled into a car to ourselves for the action-filled ride one station south. Tourists are only ever allowed over two stations. The actual ride was comfortable, somewhat loud because of an open window, but overall, entirely uneventful. The most eventful moment was the rush to take pictures of the small pictures of the Kims on the top of the train car.

Getting off at the next station, we repeated the same procedure – take pictures of everything that moved and most things that didn’t. The one very bright spot of this station was a toddler who was apparently enamored with us. He (she?) stood for a while watching us, running away and coming back, while his (her?) mother stood by, helpless to the onslaught of camera-bearing tourists. Very cute.

Metro Sign and Station

—

Here we took a quick break back to the hotel to change, eat more unremarkable and (mostly) unpalatable buffet lunches, and get ready for our three-hour trip to Kaesong City and the Demilitarized Zone. (That’s DM-zed, in North Korean English, not DMZ (zee?) in South Korean English)

But before that, we visited every Americans home away from home in North Korea – the American Spy Ship, USS Pueblo.

Yes...that's it

After its ignominious capture in 1968, during which the US claimed it was in international waters and the DPRK claimed it was in their own, it spent quite a few years in one of North Korea’s seaside ports. Of course, then it was towed into Pyongyang and sat in the Taedong river to serve as a tourist attraction. (It certainly was, when we visited there were dozens of North Koreans enjoying the weather and watching us board the ship from the grass on the rise nearby) The Americans briefly tried to assert that it was just doing oceanographic research, which didn’t quite fly when the North Koreans found spy equipment, spy reports, and orders from the US government to spy on the North Koreans.

North Korea 1, US 0

Well, in the ensuing firefight before capture, one person died before the US captain surrendered his boat. The remaining soldiers spent nearly a year in POW camps (North Korea claims the soldiers found the conditions the best that had ever been seen in prison camps, the US claims it was deplorable) before being returned to US forces over the border in the South.

According to the propaganda video they showed us (which is supposedly the harshest piece of propaganda any tourist sees anymore, at least in English) each soldier was asked for comments by the state media as they walked across the Bridge of No Return. They all declined to comment.

Our tour guide and one DPRK guide for the Pueblo. Stunning hat and tie.

Oh, and the North Koreans also caught one of our unmanned spy submarines in the early 2000’s as well. Oops.

Ok, we've got to stop losing ships in DPRK waters

—

After this, we boarded our tour bus for a (very long) ride to Kaesong City, where we would spend the night and visit the DMZ.

North Korea Pictures on the BBC

A quick post to let you know about the new set of pictures on the BBC detailing life in North Korea.

Needless to say, I didn’t get to see this kind of stuff when I was there. The picture set makes some strong points though – most importantly about the heavy rains in July which ruined the rice harvest. Is North Korea’s latest overtures to the international community a timely blend of famine-fueled desperation and Clinton’s visit to the country?

I don’t know – there’s so much to consider when thinking about North Korea as a political actor – but I’m willing to bet that a poor harvest is impetuous enough to go back to engaging the world. Regardless, it’ll be interesting to see how long this continues.

Taejongdae, the end of the world

So, though I went to North Korea before going to South Korea I had originally planned to go to the southern part first. Going to North Korea just kind of happened, to be honest – I had the chance and went. South Korea, however, was to be my big trip of the summer, but it’s gotten a little overshadowed by my trip to its northern neighbor.

That said, there’s lots of cool stuff in South Korea. There’s little flashes of North Korea though, or rather, some proto-North / South Korean cultural, artistic and aesthetic similarities. The necessity of music in the public sphere, these weird semi-isometric hyper-realistic images of nature and people that sell things or what not…aesthetically, there’s still a lot connecting the two Korea’s, I think.

But South Korea isn’t North Korea, and North Korea isn’t South Korea, and so on. The difference here is night and day and still a little tough to put the two together.

Anyway, here is Busan:

Look out South Korea

Busan is home to the cliffs at Taejongdae, which are picturesque cliffs so far south that on a clear day you can see one of Japan’s islands from. Sheer rock cliffs jutting out from a mountainous country, they’re known not only as being one of South Korea’s national treasures, but also as a famous suicide spot.

That's a very far way down

South Korea, with its school history-backed culture, places an almost unbearable weight on students to succeed in school and pass the rigorous school entrance exams. It doesn’t stop there – modern society puts just as much pressure on adults to work, work and work. So, when the pressure gets too much, people kill themselves.

According to WHO, via Wikipedia, South Korea rates the highest for incidents of suicide among the OECD countries, and pretty high worldwide as well. Japan, similar in almost everything to Korea besides speaking Korea (shhh, don’t let them know I said that) follows up with second, and also has plenty of suicides.

Taejongdae is one of those picturesque cliffs where people come to kill themselves. Certain cliffs known for suicides in Japan have seen public phone booths installed with signs for free help lines, which have, as I understand it, pushed the suicide rates down for those areas.

South Korea, however, put up a statue.

Mother and Child Statue

The Mother and Child Statue was put up to deter and prevent possible suicides at Taejongdae. Taejongdae is about 2 or 3 kilometers around, is completely fenced off except for the roads and observation decks, and is constantly patrolled by park workers, but this statue is the king…or rather queen. Royal family, maybe.

For your safety...

However, I didn’t see any potential suicides in Taejongdae. Lots of couples and Korean tour groups, Japanese and Chinese tourists, photographers, old people, but no suicides. It was a very controlled, polished, and fenced-in end of the world.

(Really, the more exciting bit was the bus ride in, where I rode all the way to one end of the line before, after figuring out that I needed to go the other end of the bus line, the driver hopped out, took a pee, grabbed a water and turned the bus around. His best English? “Welcome. To Taejongdae!”)

Well, the end of Korea at least.

The End of Day One

In which our intrepid heroes see yet another monument and bed down for the night.

Well, this was it – the final stop of the day. We had crossed and crisscrossed every part of Pyongyang that our tour guides were willing to take us past, and were thoroughly impressed with all the glorious accomplishments of the two Kims. Now we got to see the monument honoring The Party (yes the Communist one, or more accurately the Workers’ Party of Korea, and no, not the party with everyone’s favorite communists heroes boozing it up and getting into trouble. This party is deadly serious.)

We had come to visit the Monument to the Founding of the Korea Workers Party.

Working time's finished - time to go home

Somewhat more abstract than the other monuments

Yet another tall monument, I know, but keep in mind that this one isn’t directly wrapped up with the Kims or the ideology they spawned – this one is dedicated to the moment that ushered in that socialist paradise on Earth. The Workers’ Party of Korea.

Ok, so the Secretary-General of the Workers’ Party of Korea is Kim Jong-il, and sure, the party handpicks each candidate for every seat in the Supreme People’s Assembly, which are then elected unanimously by the people to serve. And yes, Kim But hey, this monument doesn’t have Kim Il-sung’s face on it, that has to count for something, right?

There’s not much to say about the monument, we came, we took pictures, we oohed and aahed at the 50-meter high statue (50 meters high because, wouldn’t you know it, it was erected on the 50th anniversary of the Party’s Founding) and we tried not to get the sun in our eyes.

Faces of Revolutionaries

The text on the outside of the monument proclaims glory to the Workers’ Party, and the inside features a 360 degree panoramic history lesson (in bronze!) of the various stages and revolutionaries in the Workers’ Party of Korea.

North Korea has this to say:

The monument consists of the 50m-towers which depict a hammer, sickle and writing-brush held by the worker, peasant and intellectual symbolic of the components of the WPK, a circular band on which the slogan “Long live the Workers’ Party of Korea which organizes and guides all victories for the Korean people!” is embossed and the foundation which means the long history of the Party. It is an edifice of the times which combines well the originality of the structure with the architectural art.

Carved in relief in the inside of the circular band are three large sculptures showing the historical root of the WPK, the might of the single-minded unity of the leader, party and masses and the fighting feature of the Korean people to carry out the human cause of independence.

The monument will shine long as a symbol of the glorious Workers’ Party of Korea.

Well, with a shining description like that, I’m not sure why more people haven’t gone to see it already.

—

Two other quick points – we were finally allowed to take pictures out of the bus at one particular site of North Korea: the traffic ladies.

Ecologically friendly and pretty to boot

Point the first: One part of North Korea’s efforts to conserve energy (not so much for ecological friendliness, but more for a lack of energy to begin with) is the use of traffic guards instead of stop lights.

Some notes about the traffic ladies include the fact that they are all women, and that they work in one hour shifts. They all wear the same uniform, they move like robots, and they carry a small baton. As far as I could tell, traffic cannot move where she’s pointing the baton, but if she’s looking at you, you can cross.

People generally don’t follow crosswalks (to be blunt, there aren’t any) and traffic isn’t a big issue, so it’s more than a little amusing to see these proper and dedicated traffic ladies doing their best to guide the scant traffic that goes around.

Pyongyang at Night

Point the Second: Night in Pyongyang (or rather, night in North Korea) is terrifying.

There aren’t any street lights, there are barely any lights from the apartments, and it’s dark and still. Trolleys and buses, when they pass by, have one faded fluorescent light in the middle of a vehicle full to the brim of dirty, tired and haggard looking North Koreans. No cars. No planes. Lots of stars, but also the various glowing statues of Kim Il-sung, the Tower of Juche, Mayday stadium, etc. Needless to say, no action, no sound, no music, no laughter, just still, quiet darkness.

Night, as a concept, must be thought of in a way wholly foreign to you and I. I’ve always found night fun, a nice time to walk around when I’m not hitting the town. But night to a normal person in North Korea must be very different. Night is so dark you can’t see your hand in front of your face. Night is so quiet you can hear babies crying across the river, or cars driving across town. Not to mention if the secret police are out and about, they must take people at night.

But night is also where Kim Il-sung is lit up, and the tower of Juche, and probably some other statues across the DPRK (one in Kaesong City, to be sure – I saw it myself).

To the North Koreans, and this is only conjecture, night must be a mix of tribal-era fear that one won’t survive the night darkness, and the boldest recognition of the power of the state and the Kims. Light, or rather the power to keep away the darkness, is only found in the party and the state and nowhere else. Maybe there’s a mix of fear and adoration that the night brings out to the citizens of the DPRK.

Or maybe they do the same as we all do – go home after a long day of work and stay with one’s family, and sleep soundly.

I know what we did that night. We went back to our luxury hotel on its own dedicated island, and had a buffet dinner of easily forgettable food with food and chairs to serve a hundred. We bandied about a bit, watched some North Korean tv (which is absolute rubbish – karaoke videos or the two newscasters of the state media that you always see, showing stills of Kim Jong-il’s on-the-spot guidance) and went to bed. We were bone-tired, and the trip was already mostly over.

And so ended Day One.

Once more for the refrain

A quick note to let you know that all my pictures from North Korea have been uploaded to Flickr. The last 150 or so are still lacking descriptions, and the whole group are lacking proper tagging and geo-tagging, but the for the moment, they’re up. They include some of the many dozens of pictures I took at Arirang, the mass gymnastic games.

I’m heading to South Korea next week, so I’m hoping to finish up at least the end of Day One in the DPRK. Luckily, the first day was by far the busiest, so the other two and a half should be up not much longer after that.

Of course, then I’d like to put up some pictures and stories from the trip to Beijing before North Korea, and of South Korea…a growing list.

Here’s some pictures from Arirang to wet your appetite – you can click through to get to the Flickr page.

—

For the Socialist Paradise!

Twirling something for the show

They are the children of the revolution

Father of the Revolution

More Big News, One Big Tower, and a Little Tiny Oversight

Check out some of the latest news on the North Korean front: US Ready for N Korea Direct Talks.

The article is very quick to stress that these direct talks are only to get North Korea to return to the 6-nation talks for nuclear disarmament, but still, this is pretty big news.

As far as I can tell, one of the big things that sticks in North Korea’s craw is that it isn’t recognized internationally like South Korea. Participating in single party talks with the US, which the US has avoided as a matter of policy, is one way of being recognized and legitimized by the big dog on the block. Right now, North Korea’s basking in positive attention from the world, but they can’t keep it up forever. I’m pretty certain they’ll go back to being ornery again at some point.

—

The Flame for all Eternity

This thing towering overhead is the Tower to the Juche Idea, our next stop after the stamp museum. A huge tower tearing out of a field of white granite, staring over the Taedong river. It glows at night, it’s built in Kim Il-sung’s honor and opened on his birthday, and reminds everyone of the revolutionaries continued fight for the Party and so on and so forth.

Always Charging in Support of the Juche Idea

The three bronze statues in front of the tower are, of course, the worker, the farmer and the literati, symbolized by the hammer and the sickle, plus the writing brush which North Korea puts in.

The Juche idea is, essentially, the idea of self-sufficiency and independence from dependency. Created and championed by Kim Il-sung, Juche is a political and economic philosophy. North Korea, beset by enemies on all sides, should work to make itself able to support and develop itself without external help, which in turn lets North Korea exist and thrive without compromises. I don’t understand Juche as well as I should, but Wikipedia has a good description of it.

Songun, the Military-First policy developed by Kim Jong-il, by the way, has its basis in Juche – it’s difficult if not impossible to be self-sufficient politically and economically without a strong military force to defend it. In addition, Marxism-Leninism was actually written out of the North Korean constitution and replaced officially with the state ideology, Juche.

Various Kimilsungism and Juche Supporters

The tower was built to commemorate the 70 years since Kim Il-sung’s birth. Various support groups internationally which donated money or other kinds of support to North Korea are rewarded with plaques like these inside the tower – the plaques were pointed out as a mark of pride for the North Koreans by the tour guide. There are several Japanese groups, one American, and no South Korean (surprise surprise).

You can also go up and see Pyongyang from the top of the tower for 5 Euro…I chose to save my money.

—

Our next stop was the Pyongyang Department Store, where apparently upscale Pyongyang citizens go to buy their wares.

Sadly, pictures weren’t allowed for the most part. Taking pictures of capitalist activities inside the socialist paradise that is North Korea might be a sore spot for some.

Anyway, it was a big five story building, though the upper two floors were closed off at that time. Large interior with marble floors and grand pillars, and stores selling all sorts of things. Off the top of my head, there was furniture, snacks, fabric, clothes and toys for sale.

Everything had prices in North Korean Won and Euros. There were small white booths inside the store where you could exchange money – into and out of several currencies. I was lucky enough to be able to work my way into exchanging a couple of Euros for Won. 2 Euros got me 1000 North Korean Won, which I promptly snuck out of the country and will scan and put up at a later date. It must be one of the very few countries in the world where having several currency exchanges as permanent settings inside a department store is commonplace.

Bored at work - believe me, I sympathize

This was the one picture I managed to get inside, which is horribly grainy because I didn’t change my settings from earlier (I had been shooting in the sunlight, and there was little to no light inside the store because of power concerns – everything was natural light from the windows).

At one of the shops, I had wondered around looking at the cloth for sale when I realized that the shopkeeper was on the computer playing solitaire.

Just let that sink in for a moment – you’re a shopkeeper in the department store of Pyongyang, a tour of foreigners is wandering through your store, and you decide it’s a good time to start up a game of solitaire on the computer?

It was a bizarre situation to say the least.

Leaving the Department Store, we came across a little kitten who was laying in the main entrance. Apparently the kitten comes in often and the female shopkeepers feed it scraps. That added a very cuddly and equalizing aspect to our being there – sure, we might have disagreed on everything else and couldn’t actually speak each others language without the tour guides’ help, but hey, we could both enjoy how cute the kitten was.

Kim Il-sung is a man of the people, Kim Jong-il is a struggling artist, and some other stuff you didn’t know about the Kims.

So, having left the Mangyongdae Funfair, we went to its (somewhat less fun) namesake – Mangyongdae, the birthplace of Kim Il-sung.

Ubiquitous Portraits

It’s a tiny, heavily reconstructed hamlet outside of Pyongyang, where the the thatched hut where Kim Il-sung was born stands. You walk up a curving sidewalk path and make a brief pass through the buildings, which are open-air exhibits of the humble life Kim Il-sung led growing up.

Some of Kim's Early Life

Despite being a holy (or perhaps the one of the holiest) place(s) for North Koreans, there’s not much to see. You make the rounds, leave some flowers in respect, and walk on to the next spot.

Flowers laid in honor of Kim Il-sung

The difference between this and everything else in Pyongyang is striking, however. Almost every tour site is missing one very important thing – other tourists. Places so quiet you could shout and probably be heard a few streets down. While the other tour sites might be monuments to the glory of North Korea, they lack actual people paying any attention to them. Sure, the Grand Monument statue of Kim Il-sung has people there, but on the scale of a few dozens in an area that could hold a couple thousand.

I’d say a lot of the big sites in Pyongyang approach the size of Tienanmen Square or something like that – areas so large that you just don’t want to accept it. But unlike those Tienanmen, there’s nobody at the Juche Tower or the Grand Monument. It leaves you feeling ill at ease.

Here’s where the key difference between Mangyongdae and everywhere else lies – it’s small (almost cozy) and, when we went, it was full of people.

I don’t have any pictures, and I’m kicking myself over that. But there were easily a couple hundred people in line to visit the site. Military people, normal citizens, students in school uniforms, anyone and everyone. Korean girls in Korean costumes. It was a feast for our already starving eyes.

Certainly, it’s very possible that it was all a sham – that they were bussed in because we were going to be there. In fact, I’d say it’s likely that was the case. But the atmosphere was completely different. It sounded different there – people talked, at least a little bit. One thing you never saw on the streets was genuine, spontaneous conversation. People hurried from place to place, people walked in line to get to the trolleys, people sat and watched us go past, but nobody really talked. There wasn’t the chatter you have in other countries. Not sure if it was a lack of conversation topics or fear of reprisal or just our being there that did it. But really, for anyone that we weren’t allowed to get close to, you could bet that they’d be doing whatever as quietly and intently as possible.

So, Mangyongdae was appealing and surprising if only for that fact – that even if the whole scene was a sham, they acted like they enjoyed it.

—

We had lunch in a “typical” restaurant.

Our Eatery

Two long tables in a pretty dim room. Lots of dishes served family style, with more food than we could possibly eat. An ubiquitous (high def-) tv in the back, showing karaoke videos of revolutionary songs. A small bar. I remember a very weird clock by the door, which besides the time, also listed the temperature, date (including the year in Juche*) and which day of the week it was in numeral form (Sunday was 1, Monday 2, etc.)

I’ve explained my discomfort with the food situation – it wasn’t bad, but there was too much. I wonder if that was on purpose, so they could say how wasteful westerners were.

We finished and headed outside.

*Juche years, as defined by Wikipedia are a recent invention, being an era name from April 15, 1912 but only coming into common use several years ago. For example, today is September 7, Juche 98 (2009)

—

Outside, we got some time to engage in the beauty of Pyongyang, and, for me, taking as many pictures as I could without being noticed.

I think they're students.

Here's a member of the military - a taboo picture subject in North Korea

The nice part of the city, I guess?

—

We drove for a while after lunch – thankfully, as we were all a bit drowsy from our huge meal.

Our next stop was the Pyongyang Film Studio.

We were the only ones there

Did you know that, in addition to being the leader and Party Secretary of the North Korea, as well as a prolific writer of works and collector of movies, Kim Jong-il is also a movie director?

Of course, here's the real source of interpretation

It’s true – he’s directed many dozens of movies, often working into the night. These revolutionary movies show the glory of North Korea and the revolution, etc. Of course, he’s had to give that up for his day job, which is slightly more important.

We were promised that we could have a screening there, but, sadly, there were some technical difficulties.

Help doesn't seem to be on its way any time soon

Whether it’s an embodiment of the Juche idea, pure megalomania, or just a better use of resources, I’m not sure. But the film studio is a sprawling expanse of permanent movie sets.

Let's do the timewarp again

I mean, look at it from a budding Kimjongilian directors mind. You’re here to make movies that highlight the revolutionary struggle, the self-reliance and independence of the Korean nation, etc. There’s no call to make movies about fantasy worlds, there’s no high technology for editing, and you’ve got a lot of manpower and time but nothing much better in the way of setting than what you can build yourself, seeing as you’ve defaulted on most of your overseas loans.

So, why not build a permanent movie village? Heck, build several for all the different styles you’ll need. Let’s think…you’ll need ancient Korea, but we have that covered. What about Korean under Japanese colonialism?

It was nice being able to read signs again briefly

Yeah, that’ll do. What about modern day (North) Korea? Just the North’ll have to do for now, because we can’t show the South. Luckily, you live in North Korea, so that’s covered. But what about the rest of the world? What if you absolutely must show how much the rest of the world loves North Korea?

It was a very nice stroll through Europe

Hey, that works! Now you can show the rest of the world in solidarity with you too!

On a serious note, we walked for easily an hour through setting after setting. The Colonial Japan village in particular was the size of a real village – maybe not a big one, but big enough that it took 15 minutes to walk through it.

These buildings are entirely empty (I suppose you bring the props with you when you need them) but they are real. The only sound are the cicadas chirping. I’m sure we didn’t even scratch the surface of the film studio.

The tour guides pretty much just let us walk around by ourselves, it’s not like we could get out, or go anywhere, or get into trouble.

Oh, and they also let us play dress-up.

Not too bad for 5 Euro a pop.

It was very hot out - I chose to take pictures instead of get in costume.

—

We were getting tired at this point, and I’m sure that our tour guides could sense that our wallets felt especially heavy. So, we stopped at our next place to visit – the Pyongyang Stamp Museum.

Strangely, the stamp museum may have been most brightly lit building we visited

When I say stamp museum, I mean it actually was a stamp museum in some ways. There were displays with the various stamps that the post office had put out. But the main draw was the souvenir shop, where you could buy stamps, and books, and posters.

Yeah, our wallets were significantly lighter afterwards, I think.

I took a peek around. I managed to stick my head in one of the offices that somebody left open. Dim lighting, brown wall paper, maybe linoleum flooring, a big desk and an old plastic phone from the late 60’s that had yellowed. The office itself felt like it could have been in the Soviet Union, had it not been for the framed pictures of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il hanging overhead, looking down.

I would have taken a picture – the phone rang and someone came over. So, no shot.

One more thing you didn’t know about Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il – you can use them to send letters.

In case you were interested...