NORTH KOREA – THE STAGE IS SET AND THE ACTORS PLAY

The scene has been  set.  Our previous post outlined the previous 70 year history of North Korea under the demi-God Kims.  We have had a chance to look at the ways in which this oddest of countries continuously acts out its ongoing charade as a supposed leader of nations and a beacon of light to the working man.  Now we shall look at how this is enacted day by day for the benefit of visitors in this reclusive place.

Perhaps the best example in North Korea of the Napoleonic Complex addiction to “show” construction projects for the rest of the world is the Ryugyong Hotel, begun in 1987 as the world’s tallest hotel and still not complete 27 years later.  In fact, the massive three-lobed skyscraper remains a massive 330 meter topped-out shell, complete only with its radio mast summit and exterior wrap.  The building completely dominates the Pyongyang skyline.  But as is commonly whispered locally, “nobody stays there.”

The Ryugyong was begun as an intended jab in the eye to South Korea, which declined the North’s invitation to co-host the Olympic Games in 1988 (eventually held in Seoul).  So the Kims dedicated 2% of North Korea’s gross national product ($750 million) to construction of a monument to Juche strength.  The situation is similar to a small statured strip club owner with hugely padded shoulders snarling to the owner of the adjacent but much more elegant Copacabana: “Share the parking lot.  My place has twice the game as yours.”  The reality however, is that the hotel remains a hollow shell of dusty concrete tiers, plumbing stubs, and tangles of electric wire.

The 105-story showpiece was to have at least 3,000 guest rooms (this despite the fact only 2500 westerners  a year come to North Korea, primarily Europeans), five revolving restaurants, shops, a casino and eight revolving floors of luxury suites in its spaceship like upper tier.  When the Soviet Union dissolved two years after construction began, financing support evaporated.  Construction came to a lurching halt.

The building nicknamed the “Hotel of Doom” remained nearly untouched for 15 years, and was not continued until Egyptian Telecom giant Orascom put $180 million into the project (for which it received a 75 per cent stake in Koryolink, North Korea’s only mobile phone operator) to complete its pinnacle and glass siding in 2000.  Still awaiting completion funding, it was surpassed as the tallest hotel in the world in February of 2013 with completion of the 355 meter Marriott Marquis Hotel in Dubai.

Other venues that attempt to add authenticity or awe to the carefully managed impression of North Korean life and infrastructure, the women of Pyongyang themselves, a bowling alley, a clothing factory and secondary school in Pyong-sung (45 minutes away), the jingoistic drum beat of the “Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum,” a ride on the local tram, and our base for the five-day stay at the Yangeakdo Hotel.

By “We” I refer to the Koryo Tour Group, the Beijing based and longest standing tour promoters for westerners in North Korea.  You can NOT travel unaccompanied anywhere in North Korea, so the best way to visit is to attach to a tour group with already scheduled itineraries.  Normally for me, this method of travel is the kiss of death.  But I found an exception in that this highly efficient group expedited arrangements for North Korea very skillfully.  North Korea was actually easier to get into than most of the 35 other countries on this Around The World trip.

Five North Koreans were assigned to our small group of 16 as guides and handlers.  They included Pak (the driver), three gentlemen named Li (our photographer, junior guide, and primary guide), and Pang (our female senior guide).  We are told emphatically by the personable but very orthodox primary guide Mr. Li to practice “Single Minded Unity.”  Meaning:  Stick together. Don’t wander. Don’t go outside the lines. Remain in sight.

Yanggakdo International Hotel is the largest working hotel in North Korea. The hotel is located on Yanggak Island in the Taedong River, two kilometers to the south-east of the Pyongyang city center. It is 170 meters in height and has a revolving restaurant on the 47th floor. The hotel is said to contain 1,000 rooms and a total floor space of 87,870 square meters.  It was begun in 1986 and opened in 1995. The hotel is jokingly called “Alcatraz” because it is on an island, and there is nowhere to go even if you could escape.

Besides the top floor restaurant, the hotel features six dining rooms, Korean and western goods at highly inflated prices that nobody really seems interested in buying, a reception lounge, bar, bookshop, large suites, and basement featuring a bowling alley, pool room, swimming pool,  barber shop, casino, and massage club.

The illusion of “Alcatraz” comes from strict confinement when not on tour and being unable to get away and compare facilities or talk to real people -- at places that locals would stay at or congregate.  It is clear the North Koreans would love to have you believe this robust facility with its large and generously appointed rooms (that suffer frequent power outages, something that can never be hidden) are normal accommodations.  “We all live this way.  This type of facility is customary” is the contrived implication.

The women of Pyongyang are included in this staged presentation.  North Korea operates on a caste system.  The connected, the beautiful, the lithe of limb are allowed to live in Pyongyang.  They may be party members, athletes, government workers, professors, or approved artists.  I saw several apartment blocks in fact where professors and artists had been given preferred housing units, complete with free furniture.  The ultimate in “go along, get along” politics.

The Women Of Pyongyang are complicit.  It is hard to fault them.  In a nation where 10% of the population is starving, they will take the best offer in a system that maximizes shows of loyalty, joy, happiness, contentment, and being at peace.  Only those fitting this profile – or willing to model it – are allowed in the city (at least where tourists are allowed).  The whole visitor central area reminded me of Disneyland, with its painted on smiles and the required/rewarded/enforced behaviors being so evident.

My Koryo travel colleague Anjaly Thomas from Dubai writes about this extensively:

“It just so happened that every woman I met in Pyongyang be it at the hotel, the ‘tourist’ sites, the flower girls at Munsudae Hill, the police-women, the girls who served us beer or just about any woman in Pyongyang – were just the right kind of women to be seen in the capital city – by this I mean, the women were beautiful, very fair, without a blemish, tall and slim..  And they always smiled.

On the other hand, there was something about these Pyongyang women that I couldn’t help notice. If you asked them a question they were not trained to answer – their faces would turn expressionless, blanched with a sudden fear – which didn’t match well with an otherwise confident portrayal of their well-defined and scripted roles.

A classic example : When we finished dining at one of the tourist restaurants (with much food remaining afterward), I asked a particularly frail waitress if she had eaten. She reacted as though I had slapped her. The reason? The help always ate at only certain times of the day and their meals mostly contained local staples.  One did not, even in their wildest dreams, think of eating what the tourists had left over, because it did not fit in with their  ’socialist’ ideals. I think it had something to do with the ideology of the Great Leader who attributed “fancy dining” to laziness and immorality and showed disrespect to a nation that believed in sharing and the equal carrying of burdens (or at least the appearance of it).

Apparently if you weren’t one of the smiling Pyongyang girls, attractive, of a certain height, and slim, you could never be a tour guide, an interpreter, a police woman, or even a salesgirl currying to tourists.  You would be assigned to live out of town.  Probably to scratch out a living for yourself and others with your hands.  We saw very little mechanization once outside Pyongyang.

There are other faces I saw when visiting nearby villages.  Those people lived in their minimal houses, slogging away in government owned fields up mountain slopes, carrying heavy weights on their shoulders, living on meager meals of corn or rice and sometimes potatoes and cabbage.  They were definitely not smiling. This is a country made up of only a few classes of people.  Your work and residency assignments within North Korea depend on that class.  The rural/agricultural class has no say in their assignments and cannot aspire beyond them.”

This illusion of “Pyongyang presentability” showed up in a tram ride we experienced.  We were told over and over how privileged we were to share in this ride with local residents.  Said fellow travelers, of course, were carefully coiffed and buttoned down in bright, shiny clothing, uniforms, and shoes.  They spoke little English.  They also never initiated contact with us, though they were polite in response. Like props, they never alighted from our ride.

Immediately outside at one stop and allegedly quite by coincidence, we just happened to run into a stationary set of cheerful, smiling, waving and well-dressed school children.  They were each adorned in patriotic red Youth Explorer scarves and uniformly white shirts. They all spoke English.  What were the odds?  We were supposed to believe this was a genuine and spontaneous interaction that somehow reflected reality in North Korea.  We knew better.  Every Koryo group going through Pyongyang mentions this ‘chance’ encounter.

Roughly the same thing happened at a bowling alley we were encouraged to visit (either that or stay in the bus).  A choice much like “be staked out in the sun to be eaten alive by fire ants, or come inside for ice cream.”  Mixing was not encouraged.  There was no interaction with the locals.  Mostly party members and their friends and children habited this R&R retreat and stage for westerners.  What was being presented once again was: This is open to everybody.  We all have access to this.  Despite the airs power went out three times in one hour, making for rolling challenges to scorekeepers as blackouts repeatedly occurred in the middle of frames.

Another fascinating example of incongruity between reality and presentation exists at the otherwise marvelous Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum in Pyongyang (built in 1993).  This is a beautiful world class military museum.  It commemorates the so-called victory of the DPRK over imperialist Americans during the 1950-53 Korean War.  As one of the few westerners visiting, the locals (many of whom are required to visit, including new recruits) looked me over like I was a war criminal.  And no wonder …

Inside were crude displays of US casualties on the battlefields of Korea, in macabre positions of disfiguration or being eaten by crows.  A particular section was devoted to “US Wartime Atrocities.”  Another spoke of over 80,000 violations by US troops since the Armistice agreement of 1953 … and none on the part of DPRK troops (South Korea is not mentioned).

The myths are sustained with crude propaganda films showing the US starting the war in June of 1950 by invading North Korea (only trouble was the films actually depict US counterattacks six months later, after narrowly surviving compression into the Pusan Perimeter in South Korea).  It did not matter that the US had less than 1000 troops in South Korea in June of that year.  Since that time the US has made peace with former enemies China, Russia, and Viet Nam.  The impression one is left with is that the world has moved on.  Yet North Korea still fights a war that ended 70 years ago.

Of particular fascination at the museum is the presence of the USS Pueblo, a US electronic spy ship which was captured by DPRK gunboats in 1968 while supposedly in International waters.  It took 11 months for the crew to be released, and only after signing apologies and detailed “confessions” admitting their alleged aggressions against North Korea.  The boat itself remains moored in Pyongyang.  New recruits to the North Korea Army are required to board.  The message: “This is what happens to bullies.  Mess with us at your own peril.  We have beaten you before, and we can do it again.”

A day trip to Pyongsung, about 45 minutes away (where much camaraderie was warmly cemented finally with our guides when they told jokes and sang to us in both English and Korean on the bus) resulted in impressive visits to the Pyongsung Taedonggang Clothing Factory and the Kim Jong Suk (Kim Jong-il’s Mother) Higher Middle School for gifted children.

The secondary school was solidly built, if somewhat boxy in design, with excellent lighting and electrical circuits.  The children were eager to query us and very eager to practice their English.  They were earnest in their curiosity about the thoughts of westerners in a frank if controlled question and answer session.  The school featured a basketball court, vegetable garden, solar panels, and especially a biology room with virtually every stuffed animal known to man that was smaller than a kid goat.

The illusory part of course, was that this was a common middle school.  We only learned that the children were gifted and had been previously identified and in some cases removed from their families earlier.  It saddened me in part, to see these bright faces stretching so diligently to connect, and yet knowing they would eventually become government functionaries and ideologues devoted to the state rather than captains of industry, guides, translators, doctors, writers, diplomats, and humanitarians.

Second verse, same as the first …The Taedonggang Clothing Factory in Pyongsung is a concrete shell displayed for us due to its production of sporting goods apparel primarily.  It turns out 50,000 pieces a month.  Management bragged about how the workers only had to work eight hours a day (six days a week) and received actual water breaks.  We noticed the labels on virtually every item said “Made in China.”

Once again, you can fool some of the people all the time and all of the people some of the time, but … a few of us who were a bit more inquisitive went up to the fourth floor.  It was not monitored.  Only the lead designer was engaged there with new designs.  We looked out over hidden large interior courtyards at the rear of the factory, where the workers lived (tenements in East London in the last century were more picturesque).  Photos were taken.  The designer looked up and was startled at our cameras not being directed at her.  She yelled out for the handlers and monitors downstairs.  We were gone before they could arrive, taking care to switch out memory cards before descending the stairs.

One final event I wish to report on prior to describing some of the best aspects of North Korea (in my next North Korea post) is an unmonitored conversation I had with one of our guides during our five days of traversing the country by bus.  I mentioned that no, the United States did NOT start the Korean War by invading the north.  It was explained that is why the United Nations sent troops from 20 countries to assist South Korea.

I also mentioned we westerners are free to live where we wish, travel where we wish, work where we wish and for whom we please, and contact whomever we please as well.  I added that we got to select from among multiple candidates in elections.  That we could run for office ourselves without needing to be a member of a particular party.  That we did not have to worry about police breaking down our door at night in raids if the government was displeased with us. That we could travel as we pleased.  And most of all, we could criticize the government and even our leaders, without fear of reprisal.

I told him the world did not feel about the Kims or North Korea or Juche in the ways portrayed for him by his government.  The government told him what they wanted him to hear, and only allowed him to see certain realities … that they certainly were not allowing him to see or hear about regular DPRK executions or the high percentage of starving citizens in his country.  The young man reflected on this and said: “I think you are lying to me.”

But he continued to ask questions.  He admitted he’d seen photos of skyscrapers in South Korea and was aware how successful its economy was.  We discussed additional limitations in North Korea that westerners were aware of that could not be hidden.  We then contrasted those with western freedoms.

“You know,” I told him, “I can make a call to anybody in the world I want.  I can write a letter to anybody.  I can send a package anywhere.  I can fax wherever I wish.  I can read a newspaper from anywhere in the world.  I can send or receive e-mails from anywhere in the world. You can not say the same.  You have only one source of information -- your government.  I have every source of information from multiple countries available to me.  Think about that when you accuse me of lying.”

He thought about that briefly.  I could see the gears whirring in his head.  He bit his lip, looked at me, looked away several times, and looked at me again.  He finally spoke.  “Is it really true you can criticize your government, and your leaders?”