North Korea Noteworthy

North Korea Noteworthy

Most people who visit North Korea first fly to Beijing. There, at the Air Koryo desk you check in to visit the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. All the stuff you want to take with you is looked through carefully. Also you may have to pick up your visa here.

It is a short flight. You notice the beautiful stewardesses. Young girls stop doing this work when they turn 26. In most other airlines it’s reversed.

Pyongyang International Airport is not that big. The only flights are from/to Beijing and Vladivostok. Our passport and visa are checked. We have to show books, magazines, mobile phone and camera.

When everything is OK our guides are welcoming us. On our way to the city we get acquainted. Our guides try to give the impression that they and we will form a family for a few days, all being sisters and brothers.

First view is the Kim Il-sung Square. The square where military parades take place. The square where people wave and dance in harmony. It is impressive to stand here. On a place you see on television and yet in your mind is so far away. There are dots on the ground where people have to stand. We see the balcony where the Supreme Leader and his generals stand.

We walk a little. Not much people in the streets. I don’t see anybody walking a dog. No cats. When I asked the guide she answers ‘It was discovered that cats and dogs are unhealthy for kids. Therefore people don’t have them.’

A beautiful view: the traffic ladies. In a nice uniform they direct the cars in Pyongyang. All young and chosen for their looks. Like the stewardesses they have to retire by the age of 26. They gathered a large following and there is even a website dedicated to the traffic ladies.

Check-in in the Pyongyang Koryo Hotel. We have a drink – locally brewed beer – in the hotel lobby. With the guides of course. We are fully free to see everything we want. But they have a few suggestions. Oh and if we like to stroll around the hotel before breakfast next morning please call the guides so they can accompany you.

On my room there’s a decades old phone that doesn’t work. When I tell this to the guides the phone is switched for another one – that doesn’t work either.

Today we start in the metro. There are two lines and a total of 16 public stations. Many stations are very grand and magnificent. In style and design the system is similar to the Moscow metro. Very old wagons they bought some time ago from former East-Germany. From loudspeakers you hear revolutionary singing and music. The metro stations are really beautiful. Each station has artwork like mosaics, bronze work and/or decorative lighting.

There’s a nice park close by. Flowers, a pond. In the distance we see the large statues of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-Il. No pictures from here, we are told.

To the Juche Tower. Juche is the state ideology of North Korea. It’s hard to explain but it comes close to ‘that by becoming self-reliant and strong, a nation can achieve true socialism’. At the entrance of the tower there are a lot of plaques from organizations all over the world who embrace the idea of Juche. On top of the tower you have a wonderful view of Pyongyang. Also on top of the tower: a gigantic plastic flame. One of the few things illuminated at night.

After lunch (Hot pot) we go to the barber. First you choose from a number of prescribed hair models. Then the lady barber starts. She ends with a nice head massage.

Kim Il-sung was born in a small place close to Pyongyang. The farm where he was born is now a small museum. First you have to walk a few miles. You pass a big painting on which we see Kim, aged 13, confident, going to fight to liberate Korea from the Japanese occupiers. With some help he conquered North Korea. He had the idea he had a divine order to establish a socialist society. In doing so he developed a personality cult comparable to a royal family.

In reality the northern part of Korea was occupied by the Soviet Union after World War 2, the south by the United States. It was to be one Korea but due to the Cold War this failed. The power in the North was handed (by Stalin) to Kim Il-sung in 1948.

Anyway the small farm was sober. Kim was to work hard here. A lady guide shows us around. She is very motivated. She says ‘His grandson Kim Jong-un is now our Supreme Leader. By choosing the right weapons he made North Korea the strongest country in the world’. She is a believer.

Dinner in a place where all tourists are put. This one is specialized in a Korean specialty: “Long life noodles”. Good food.

On top of our own hotel there’s a revolving restaurant on the 44th floor. We ask our guides if one may go there to make some pictures. Arriving there we conclude the revolving stopped long ago. Unlike most other big cities there is almost no lights to see in the city. No pictures allowed by the way.

Only five former leaders (all from communist regimes) are embalmed and lay on public display in their mausoleums. Lenin in Moscow, Mao Zedong in Beijing, Ho Chi Minh in Hanoi and in Pyongyang Kim Il-sung and his son Kim Jong-il. Today we visit the Kim mausoleum. The dress code is a tie and a jacket.

On our way to the place I talk about the mausoleum. One of our lady guides says ‘I rather prefer you wouldn’t call it a mausoleum. I am going there to visit my family’.

It’s a big place. Somewhere outside we come together. Then, two by two we march like soldiers to the entrance. The camera stays here of course. We are thoroughly searched. Then further inside. Pictures of the leaders in their life-time on both sides. We go through a kind of cold air curtain. Temperature low here. Very slow classical music. And in the middle of this hall the embalmed body of Kim Il-sung. We stand there, three on the left, three on the right and have to bow our heads.

When we leave our lady guide dries her eyes.

The next hall shows all kind of awards, decorations given to Kim. Also a lot of pictures of Kim with common people. Kim with colleague leaders. And of course Kim with his family.

Same procedure after this when we see his son lying in his casket. We see the train he worked in as he suffered his heart attack. There are some guards standing here and listening in to our conversation. The lady guide explanation becomes immediately more intense, more revolutionary.

Outside we make some pictures. There are two big portraits of the former leaders. When you make a picture of such a portrait (or a statue) always remember to make a picture of the total view. It’s not allowed to photograph half of a leaders portrait or half a statue!

All in all an impressive visit.

We’re on our way to the DMZ, the heavily guarded border with South Korea. We stop in a place to see the Agricultural Museum. In each museum there’s information over on which date and year one of the Kim leaders visited this museum and what the people learned from this visit. Here in the seventies of the last century Kim Il-sung visited. Harvest was poor in those days. Kim looked around and said ‘Why don’t you built your houses somewhere else and use the free land as farmland?’ The people were stunned. They never thought about this! Over the next years they did as Kim suggested – and the harvest more than doubled!

Kaesong is a place close to the DMZ. We walk around there a little. Here we also see two big statues of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il. Masses of people lay flowers before the statues. The guide explains it is the birthday of the mother of Kim Il-sung. So North Korea has a lot of commemoration days; the birthdays of the Kim clan members, their death anniversary, the days the leaders became party chairman, the days the leaders came to power, etc etc.

We start driving towards the DMZ. Several miles of rice fields pass us by. The military is active in a lot of them. Our guides explain us they are helping with the rice transplantation like it was nothing out of the ordinary. No machines to be seen, those aren’t abundant. A few shovels and many people. No pictures allowed there because of the military uniforms.

We reach the DMZ. Feeling excited because of what we are going to see. First a gift shop. Here they sell propaganda posters on which you see how a Korean hand crushes an American heavily armed soldier. Stuff like that. We strike a conversation with a North Korean officer. He smiles all the time.

At last. The DMZ. Two by two we march into a big house, upstairs to a balcony with the view of the three blue houses and a big building on the other side of the border. What an interesting view!

This balcony is fairly new. Only a few years ago you had to look through a window on the first floor. Then Kim Jong-un paid a visit. He looked around and said ‘Why don’t you built a balcony for a better view?’ The people were stunned. They never thought about this! Of course the balcony was built, as Kim suggested. It’s a big hit.

This very same compound can also be visited from the side of South Korea. We did just that one year before we visited North Korea. When you visit the south side, the rules are stricter. Before you even enter you need to sign a document, which basically says you’re entering a war zone and that you enter at your own risk. Soldiers giving the tour are a mix of South Koreans and Americans. South Korean civilians aren’t allowed to visit.

Driving back to Pyongyang we visit a Buddhist monastery. The site is still maintained but Buddhism is not really encouraged of course. And before checking in another hotel in Pyongyang we drive through the ‘Arch of Reunification’. In both Koreas they hope to reunite someday – both on their own terms.

This museum is about the war 1950-1953 when North Korea tried to reunite Korea by force. The history books in North Korea tell another story by the way. A lot to see here. Leftovers from the war, many pictures and some black & white movies.

Striking is the fact that American soldiers are shown in all kind of cruel acts. Killing civilians, try to starve Korean kids, not fighting fair. Masses of school children visit the museum and learn to think as they are shown. For future peace the North Korean schoolbooks need to be rewritten.

On display here too is the USS Pueblo. This American ship was captured by the North Koreans in 1968. It is shown here with all pictures and stories as if it happened yesterday.

Everything ends someday. We drive to the airport, say goodbye to the guides and the driver, hand them some gifts, hug them. Not long after that we fly back. Air Koryo again. The plane swings to the left, then to the right. ‘This is your captain speaking. If you look below you see the river where Kim Il-sung started the revolution’.

This trip was made in 2018.

If you have any thoughts or questions feel free to leave a comment!

 asia culture