DPRK Travellogue: Day Three

The hangover from the Taedŏnggang Beer was rather slight; we stopped at the coffee place of the previous day on our route back to Pyongyang. I had a rather interesting conversation with my male guide about the South, when I asked him about Sŏngbun (the North Korean hereditary class system) he told me that it was the name for a worker, expertly dodging what would have been an impossibly politically dangerous question. I also asked him what he thought of the South, and he told me that he had no problem with the people, whilst making vague references to the horrors of the Korean War. He was very interested in Seoul and the way South Koreans talk; I found it rather interesting discussing the levels of formality. North Koreans talk to each other as if they were addressing their very senior elders, whilst in the South people seem most of the time to be far more familiar with each other. He told me that the way he talks to his wife is equivalent to the way a southerner would address the President.

The other interesting thing about this conversation is that my guide did know that No Mu-hyŏn had died, whilst my female guide did not know. Neither of them knew that at that time Kim Dae-Jung was at death’s door. He was also very interested in the list of all the world leaders who have been embalmed, Lenin, Stalin, Ho Chi Minh, Mao Zedong, and Kim Il Sung. He also knew that Stalin’s body had been buried on Khrushchev’s orders. My male guide seemed always to have a look of pained discomfort on his face long before I started asking what I subsequently realised were awkward questions. When he talked about the division it looked like he held the grief and pain of the Korean nation in his heart; when he talked about daily life in Pyongyang he didn’t look happy. Part of me suspects that he is very sad about what has happened to his country since the death of Kim Il Sung; without access to outside information he would probably not blame his own government. But it would be very naive to assume that he was a true believer; I felt that he accepted his system as a fact of life, almost second nature, but did not actively approve or disapprove of it. Maybe the way I think about human biological realities is comparable to this feeling; I accept the inevitability of aging and death, but I do not like or approve of it in the abstract, but it would be folly to actively disapprove of it.

A monument that you will see a lot of if you ever leave Pyongyang to go southward in the DPRK is the Arch of Reunification (Choguk Tongil is National reunification in Korean, and that it is worth memorising). It’s a rather large arch that overhangs the road that leads out of Pyongyang to the south. It’s rather bizarre that they would build an arch composed of two women in a neoclassical style in a country where even the nicer apartment blocks in the showcase capital look like they were last repaired in the 1970s. No matter, this is Pyongyang to a tee. We stopped there and I fraternised with our very sociable driver who looked like the Korean Scarface; when he drove he wore white gloves and shades. He drove like a maniac as fast as the coach would move, and honked his horn at anything that got in the way. The one time he gave way it was to an expensive car in Kaesŏng that was honking its horn; I got the impression that the driver’s were high Nomenklatura of the military variety. But Driver Lee as he was known was damn cool, I had running jokes with him where I would mime myself being killed in ever more intricate ways which he found hysterically funny. He told me through my female guide that he didn’t know who Scarface was (no surprise given the absence of American culture of any kind in the DPRK). He thought I was referring to Chinese martial arts films, and he condemned them for their gratuitous violence. I thought this was rather funny considering his sense of style and his driving abilities.

The Korean War Museum was the next port of call for our on-the-rails tour of the DPRK. If you don’t the back story I will give you a brief overview; the real story so far as the world is concerned (including the Russian archives) is that on June 25th 1950 Kim Il Sung launched an invasion of South Korea. The North have a rather funny story about the Americans invading the North first on the aforementioned date; the reason why this is so comical is that there weren’t any American troops in South Korea when they were supposed to be invading the North. Anyway, the Museum’s rather funny propaganda film makes the same point. On a serious note, the DPRK was bombed into rubble and Napalm was used first in Korea. Wada Haruki called the DPRK a “garrison state”, this means the place is filled with underground facilities from homes to arms production; this originates from the Korean war time, and is as a result of the war crimes perpetrated by the USA in their aerial bombardment of the DPRK. It’s not difficult to explain why anti-Americanism in the DPRK is still official state ideology and why it was so easy to drill into the national consciousness, the Americans did the job for the leadership. The museum was horrifying in its cataloguing of US atrocities (and no mention of the KPA atrocities), but I was quite bored by the whole experience.

I spent most of the time talking to the very attractive guide for the other tour group; she had a kind of beautiful but deadly sex appeal about her, indomitable, an ideal partner for a rather overbearing person like me. She had heard from her colleagues about my knowledge of Korean history, and my impossible number of questions. She said that she was interested in history; this is something I have noticed about East Asia in general, it’s not a taboo for people to be interested in intelligent things, and I find that it so often is in the west. The other point is that there are very few women as beautiful as this guide in the west who could have a serious and stimulating chat with me about North Korean history. Anyway she asked how obscure my knowledge could get, so I recited Kim Jong-il’s family tree, which she was extremely impressed by. I saw on Wikipedia when I got back that I had forgotten Kim’s first wife, but the guide didn’t correct me. Wikipedia also told me why she wouldn’t have been able to correct me, because she wouldn’t have known Kim Jong-il’s family history, because it is state secret. I didn’t know that when I was parroting the names, but in retrospect I should be more careful! I mentioned Hwang Jang-yop, the most senior defector from the DPRK (and Kim Jong-il’s tutor, as well as the architect of the Juche idea). This was a very interesting avenue of conversation, she wanted to know what the man had to say about the country, and I duly told her some of it in very polite and apologetic language. She wrote him off as being greedy, which I suppose is fair enough considering her very limited access to fair and impartial information.

Lunch was a very interesting experience; the usual fusion of bizarre pseudo-western foods like Corn based faux-sausage. There is also a great deal of fried and grilled meat with every meal in the DPRK; they seem to be most enthusiastic about showing the carnivorous triumph of Juche socialism. But this was my only opportunity to have North Korean raengmyŏn. Raengmyŏn is a Korean summer delicacy; it is a specific kind of thin noodles served ice cold. I caused quite a funny situation when I asked for my noodles to be cut with scissors; this is a common practice in the south. My waitress was very confused and didn’t understand, so the waiter/manager type male came over, it took a minute for him to understand. When he did he erupted into laughter, North Koreans never cut their raengmyŏn with scissors, how bizarre. The other point worth noting is that North Korea has never been rice-self-sufficient. As a result, even before the collapse of production in the 1990s many North Koreans had to eat a mixture of Rice and Corn as their staple food, this is of course not ideal for a people who use the same word for rice as they do for meal (Pap). You notice the lack of food in the country in very subtle ways when eating in the DPRK; you are given a lot of food, but 85% is not Korean in style, and clearly comes from China along with the small bottles of shampoo in your en suite bath room. The rice however does come from the north, and is of a much lower quality than what you would get in the South even in the cheapest restraints. This is some of the best food there is in the country, a show case, and it is bad quality, to the point where 5% of your rice is not ripe and therefore very crunchy.

The afternoon started with the USS Pueblo, the US ‘spy’ ship that was captured by the North Koreans in 1968. This is quite an interesting story; my friends told me that it certainly had too much genuine US equipment on it not to be a spy ship, so I will take their word for it. But it is almost certain that the DPRK was not within its rights to seize the ship; Charles Jenkins the US defector to the DPRK wrote in his book that the first English draft of a pamphlet the North was going to publish on the incident makes reference the ship being captured on the “high seas”. It was captured to the East of Wŏnsan, and the crew were held in custody by the DPRK for 11 months, apparently in rather appalling conditions. It is now docked in Pyongyang in almost the same place where the General Sherman was destroyed in 1866. The General Sherman incident was the first incursion of the ‘US imperialist aggression forces’ on Korean territory, when an American trading vessel tried to force its way up the Taedong River, and fired on hostile Koreans. The ship ran aground and was burnt by a crowd that according to North Korean historiography contained the Great-grandfather of Kim Il Sung, Kim Ung-u. There is no evidence beyond what North Korean historians assert, but it adds to the compelling narrative of US imperialist aggression toward Korea, and to the revolutionary lineage of the Kim family.

The USS Pueblo itself is alright, to be frank I would have preferred to have gone to the Korean history museum to see the differing interpretations of Korean history. Or to the ‘restored tomb’ of the legendary founder of Korea, Tan’gun. Nonetheless, the Pueblo was rather amusing, the North Koreans had put all the magazines the crew had in a display cabinet, such choice articles as Reader’s Digest 1967 vintage; the country is so isolated they can’t seem to tell the difference between complete mundanity and outright mendacity.

Man’gyŏngdae was the next stop on a rather stilted day. This is the sight of Kim Il Sung’s early life; actually he was born Kim Sŏng-ju, Il Sung was his nom de gurre. Man’gyŏngdae is a rather nice traditional Korean cottage with a well nearby, that will give you explosive diarrhoea (that wasn’t a nice experience). It is a sacred revolutionary site as you would expect, and not in the least bit interesting; except for the crowds of ‘young-pioneer-esque’ children that come on school trips to the site, and the rather standoffish cadres on their day trip.

What came next was a long walk up the park that surrounds Man’gyŏngdae, the walk was interesting for two reasons. North Korean ice cream is not nice and is ridiculously overpriced at €1.50 for a shitty little cone; it tastes like frozen and partially curdled milk, I thought it was what gave me my upset stomach until two of my friends told me they had upset stomachs as well and that they hadn’t had the ice cream, but had Kim’s water from the well. The other curiosity which was much more interesting was a small cart that I saw on a side path as we were descending down the hill. It was being moved by a woman who was selling dried-out sea food, cidar and beer; she was clearly not a state employee given the set up of the stall and how almost illicit it felt to see her; she didn’t know any English whilst most of the state employees know enough to get by. My guide didn’t try to keep me away from her, in fact when she saw me approach she had a world-weary look of resignation on her face. Even the show case capital cannot maintain the façade of socialism for its tourists. I bought nothing from the vendor, and in hindsight I feel a bit guilty for not giving her some money that she probably needed a lot more than me.

The next stop was the best part of the whole trip, a trip to Moran Hill (Moranbong) park; this is where the young people like to be, so my guides said any way. It’s quite a pretty place; there was street entertainment which was rather silly, one American tourist resorted to self-humiliation, I hate street entertainment, but the North Koreans thought Americans being silly rather than bastard-like was good fun. I found some students who were talking, singing and laughing; they were all very welcoming, they insisted I have as much Beer and Kimpap (Korean equivalent of Sushi) as I could eat. North Korean Kimpap is lacking in meat which is to be expected, but the rice is greased with egg as it should be. The beer as already mentioned is the best you can have in Asia, and vastly superior to South Korean stuff. The students sung me a folk song that I had never hear before, they demanded a song in return, and the only song I can ever remember the words to is ‘Tainted Love’ by Soft Sell, so I sung that. I doubt they have ever heard it before, or are familiar English synthpop (I just looked the term up on Wikipedia).

We climbed the Moran hill which is rather pretty and we saw many different gatherings of very friendly North Koreans. When we got to the top we descended to the monument commemorating the liberation of the north by the USSR. Around there was a group of North Korean students from Kim Il Sung University, who were very friendly; among their number was the most beautiful girl I saw in all of the North, and maybe even the south, she was truly perfect. I think she must have been around my age, I asked her for a photo which she refused me; but I did manage to get a photo for posterity, of the whole group of Kim Il Sung undergraduates, which she was in. Like all Kim Il Sung university undergrads she must have been from an elite family, she had the look of someone who eats a very good diet and the face she pulled on the photo made her look like a Japanese anime character smiling, eyes closing. Looking back, out of all my 2 months on the Korean peninsula, this was the time that I most wanted to speak Korean. To be able to socialise with people my age who have a very similar standard of living to me and live in the most interesting country in the world. They were very friendly and did their best to understand my very broken Korean, but it just was so frustrating; if I had known the language I could have conversed with the future cadres, these upper stratum elite children will be the ones who perpetuate, reform or collapse North Korea. What do they want, what do they know about the South and China and the wider world. What do they think of their country, its history, and culture; have they met Kim Jong-il? I had so many questions, and no way to ask them. My guess would be that these students would know a lot more than we would expect; considering their upper elite status, they probably have VCRs, and videos of at least Chinese TV, and possibly South Korean soap operas. They must know something of the wealth of South Korea considering they have South Korean Samsung Cameras. If asked directly they probably wouldn’t have anything bad to say about South Korea, just like my guide, they would probably not just parrot state policy. I get the feeling from watching documentaries on the DPRK, that there is one line for journalists, heavily scripted by party guides and officials who echo a 1970s style anti-imperialist line. Then there is the contemporary tourist line, which seems resigned to the decline of the DPRK economically, and treats the Kim cult as a fact of life not as something to enthuse over, just something that has to necessarily be acknowledged, but an uncomfortable subject.

The next stop was the second traditional restaurant of the trip; the food was excellent if a bit on the sparing side. We had grilled meat, and I don’t think it was Bulgogi but maybe it was, the quality wasn’t bad, but in South Korea I could eat about three times as much at a buffet near Korea University for £3.50. The best part of the restaurant was introducing my guides to So-maek, a South Korean drink that their Northern brethren had never heard of. So-maek is a neologism, Soju is a rice based clear alcohol of 20% and Maekju is the Korean name for Beer. So when you mix them you get So-maek, a punchy light brown drink which tastes better in the North because the beer is so much better. My Korean guides seemed to appreciate it to the extent that they downed it; it’s really bizarre to think that I know more about South Korean popular culture than North Koreans.

The supposed highlight of the entire trip so far as most tourists was next on our itinerary, the Arirang Mass games. Our guide did the best she could to give us a synopsis of the event, but it goes on for a while and has a series of interconnected images which often make no sense unless you have an intimate understanding of the motifs of North Korean propaganda and an advanced ability in the Korean language (for a somewhat comprehensive breakdown see: http://1stopkorea.com/index.htm?nk-trip5.htm~mainframe). This is not the half of it however; it is never noted in the western press or in other travelogues of the DPRK that I have read, or for that matter in any publication on the DPRK that I have read, Arirang is a violation of U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child. This isn’t my idea, I read it here: http://www.dailynk.com/english/read.php?cataId=nk00300&num=3578, and I think it is a compelling case. It is in some ways the greatest show on earth, when the boys and girls holding the cards that make up the flashcard picture in front of you let out their first screams at the start, you feel a burst of excitement. There are many beautiful images, and the old Korean folk song is so ubiquitous throughout the performance (check it out here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FlXH9CGnvw ) it sounds more beautiful when it’s sung by a girl you love, but it is still beautiful. The symbolism is apt; the song is about a woman left by her lover, singing for him to come back and for them to be reunited (read: reunified). This is a theme of the display; as we queued up to enter the stadium we saw young men dressed from head to foot in white carrying very large light blue flags. The colours white and light blue are part of the symbolism of the reunification in both North and South Koreas.
There is a very simple reason why it is called a “display”, the performance is jaw dropping in its size and coordination, but it has no soul. There are no protagonists except for the collective, the Korean people. The aim of the display is to interweave the revolutionary exploits of the two leaders into the fabric of modern Korean History, within the art form of gymnastics. If you can read the Korean alphabet, even with minimal vocabulary, it works. I picked out the names and titles of the two Kim’s hundreds of times over the course of two hours. The revolutionary mythology of the regime is ubiquitous in all North Korean art and culture. I don’t have much else to say about Arirang, it is worth seeing, but personally I preferred other events on the tour, like actually meeting North Korean elite children. One funny thing I noted was how bored the tour guides were, they had seen it so many times before. I sat with my tour guide alone, because everyone else bought more expensive tickets, my poor guide was constantly pestered by questions about the revolutionary slogans that were appearing on the mosaic opposite us.