I visited North Korea in 2008. I was the so far most bizarre experience of my life.I wrote some posts about it on my old blog. I have put together the most important posts here. (Keep in mind that this was not meant to be an article, but quickly written blog posts).
North Korea
First of all: I had a great time there. It is hard not to, they do everything for the tourists and want us to get a good impression of the country. Too bad for them that it is so obvious that it is all propaganda. I was with a really good group. We were eight persons, very nice people. Our guides (supervisors/guards) were nice people as well. Possibly they just played a game with us, we’ll never know. They seemed however decent and genuinely interested in the world outside North Korea. Since the group had to stick together with each other and with the guides all the time (no exceptions) we got to know each other rather well.
It is ironic that it felt like arriving in a democratic and free Western country when crossing the border from North Korea to China. But that is exactly how it felt. That doesn’t say anything about China. But it says a lot about North Korea. And truly, compared with North Korea, China is a free democracy. There are levels in hell.
It is not possible for foreigners to go anywhere without the guides. (Frankly, it is difficult for locals to go anywhere as well) We were taken to monument after monument, often connected to the worship of the dead “Great Leader Comrade Kim Il Sung”.
Kim Il Sung fought in the resistance against the Japanese occupiers during the Second World War, and is now celebrated as the big liberator and father of the nation. Actually he is worshiped like a God. He created after the war the most closed and bizarre countries in the world.
The ideology is not just communism, it is Juche. Juche was invented by, of course, the Great Leader, and states basically that man is the master of himself and can accomplish anything. It also says that the country should be self-supporting and not depending on the outer world. Quit contradictory since many North Koreans would starve to death without food supplies from their so called “imperialist” neighbours. Juche is also the name of their chronology. The Great Leader Comrade Kim Il Sung was born in 1912. So in North Korea, it is not 2008 but the year 96.
On many North Korean maps, there is no border to South Korea. The South is “occupied” by the “American imperialists”, but will one day be “liberated” and reunified with the North under the name “Democratic republic of Koryo”. It is already decided in Pyongyang.
It is impossible to describe everything I experienced in this absurd country, in one week you see a lot if you do not do anything else except travel between different places.
Motorway but no cars
Southwards from Pyongyang towards the South Korean border is a twelve (!) lane, six on each side, motorway. Nothing strange with a big highway out from a city with 3 million people? Well, not in the normal world. The only thing is that there are almost no cars in North Korea. We met perhaps 10-20 cars many of them military vehicles, on a 2.5 hours trip from Kosang near the border to the capital. Exceptional. I saw people walking in the middle of the motorway. Is it irrational to build a motorway like this when there are no cars in the country? Well, not if you need room for tanks and a landing/starting place for military aircrafts… But that is just a qualified guess. Poor South Korea.
Militarizede country
The so called demilitarized zone (DMZ) at the border between North and South Korea is actually one of the least demilitarized pieces of land in the world. The border goes throw a house that was used for peace negotiations during the Korean War. In there, tourist groups from the north and south can go in (not at the same time) and cross the border inside the house. So in one sense I have been to South Korea as well. But it is of course not possible to exit the house on the other side.
All military personnel, policemen and guards were really friendly to us, smiled and even shock hands. Image making for sure, but still. I have never seen so many militaries as in North Korea, not just in DMZ but everywhere. Not only men. Young, sweet, smiling women with heavy machine guns is a somewhat complex sight. 🙂 I waved to one from the train window at a station. She pointed her machine gun towards me, smiled and waved back. Sweet on the outside…?
More about DPRK
Almost two weeks have now passed since I came home from North Korea but I haven’t landed totally yet. The more I think the more absurd and terrifying it is.
When I read blogs and look at pictures on the internet from other people who have been there, I cannot help recognizing all places and even most people. The militaries and local guides are the same as I met. It shows, again, that only very few people are trusted so much so they are allowed to meet foreigners.
There are so many enormous monuments, buildings and palaces. But the people are starving. The electricity supply is poor. In Pyongyang it worked while we were there but outside the capital there were regular power failures.
Pyongyang is a dead city after dark. No sounds from people or cars. No lights, except from some windows (Maybe fifty percent of the windows). No streetlights. The air in the center of this 3 million people city is totally fresh. No commercials, no people who try to sell things. Nothing. Sometimes you see very synchronized people doing mass gymnastic at Kim Il Sung square. Dressed the same, doing the exact same movements at the exact same time. They might have been there only because our tourist group were coming, or maybe not. I don’t know. I just know that I don’t trust anything I saw. Everything might have been a show. Even though some things looked as they were for real.
The rhetoric and propaganda felt like a parody. Only, it wasn’t meant to be. We visited a captured US-ship which was taken by the North Koreans in the 60ies when spying outside their coastline. The language in the video they showed was interesting. It was all about the heroic achievements of the People´s army and the Great Leader. I stopped counting the number of times they used ”imperialists” after eight times. Then two minutes had passed. The whole video seemed like a parody of war propaganda. The ship is still in the river at the center of Pyongyang.
They are really trying to keep the war memories alive. A bridge from North Korea to China is only half reconstructed after the Korean War. The Chinese built their half but North Korea wanted to keep a broken bridge as a memory of the war. As if they needed one more such memory…
And then some posts about the same topic but in Swedish:
Rätt att åka till Nordkorea?
Alla pengar man spenderar och allt vi betalade för resan går direkt till regimen, en av värdens absolut hårdaste och vidrigaste diktaturer. De köper vapen, inte mat, för pengarna med vars hjälp de hotar Sydkorea och trycker ner sitt eget folk. Hur kan man då åka dit?
Jag tror inte på bojkotter och isolering. Nånstans måste man börja. Även om informationskontrollen och hjärntvätten är total så måste några tankar väckas hos nån när de ser att folk från det där hemska utlandet kommer, välklädda (nåja) och välgödda. Nån kanske kommer på tanken att fråga sig varför de inte får åka utomlands. Även om vi inte fick ha kontakter med nordkoreaner kan de inte undgå att vi ser folk och att de ser oss. Dessutom pratar vi med guiderna. Berättar om livet i väst och om värden utanför. Om nu inte guiderna är mer cyniska och medvetna än de visar så borde ju funderinagar väckas även hos dem. De har sedan vänner och familjer de pratar med. Kanske inte om politik, det vågar de nog inte, men om digitalkameror och mp3 spelare, och om att världen utanför ser annorlunda ut. Vi berättade lite om det nämligen.
Kontakt förbjuden
Vi fick inte träffa några vanliga människor. Guiderna och vissa bartenders var de enda vi kunde prata med. Och då handlade det inte om barer som koreaner fick besöka utan hotellbaren. Även när det gäller andra restauranger fick vi inte beblandas med nordkoreaner. De såg vi inte till. Vi frågade specifikt om vi fick besöka en vanlig supermarket. Det fick vi inte. Ingen förklaring gavs. Ville de dölja bristen på varor? Eller är det rädda att vi ska prata med någon och berätta om världen utanför det gigantiska fängelset som kallas ” The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea”?
När vi besökte ”Grand People’s Study Palace” och gick in på en föreläsning för studenter som pluggar engelska började några av studenterna prata med oss. Oskyldiga samtalsämnen som vad vi hette, kom från och vad de pluggade hann avhandlas i cirka 20 sekunder. Sedan blev vi utkastade. Inga samtal mellan utlänningar och nordkoreaner tillåts. Det handlar trots allt om ett land där det råder dödsstraff för innehav av mobiltelefon och där inte ens ganska högt uppsatta personer betros tillgång till internet och e-post.
Mina enda observationer av vanliga nordkoreaners liv kommer således från det jag såg från bussfönsteret på vår lilla minibuss som körde oss mellan sevärdigheterna. (jodå, den hade faktiskt fönster). Jag såg som sagt inga bilar på motorvägen och väldigt få inne i Pyongyang. Bönder man såg hade inga traktorer, ibland drog oxar arbetsredskapen, ibland människor. En klass med sjuåringar vi besökte såg ut som femåringar. Och det handlar inte om att asiater är mindre än vi, det var bortom det. Matbrist?
Vi hade dock några positiva möten med ”vanliga människor”. Under en promenad vid floden började ett picknicksällskap plötsligt närma sig oss, dansa och sjunga. Vi blev tillfälligt inbjudna till deras party. Utan att guiderna ingrep. Arrangerat? Tja, man blir lätt cynisk av en vecka i Nordkorea. Skulle inte förvåna mig om allt var arrangerat och om guiderna var mer medvetna och mer inne i systemets topp än de ville påskina. Trots allt är de cirka 80 personerna som jobbar som guider handplockade av regeringen. Men jag väljer ändå att tro att det inte är hela sanningen. Jag tyckte guiderna var trevliga och pratade mycket speciellt med en av dem. Jag vill gärna tro att allt inte var teater, utan att de var genuint nyfikna på och intresserade av att lära sig mer om omvärlden.
