I am a bit in a pickle here…
Do I write and publish the article I have been thinking about for several weeks now – or do I keep my mouth shut? In October I went back to the DPRK for a second time, an experience even more intense than *the first trip in spring*, way more disturbing, way more conflicting. On the one hand I enjoyed both trips tremendously, on the other hand I saw and experienced things I would like to share with all of you. But if I do it in an honest way, I probably shouldn’t show my face again in North Korea for a third time…
When I first visited the “Hermit Kingdom” in spring of 2013 I did it with a slightly ignorant attitude, willing to enjoy the experience, knowingly accepting that I will be fooled and restricted. And I actually enjoyed the tour. A lot! So much that I visited the DPRK again in October of 2013, this time the northern parts; North Hamgyong province and Rason.
The guides in Pyongyang were nice and surprisingly open-minded, the food was fantastic, Pyongyang with its high-rise buildings and solar-powered streetlights was a lot more modern than expected, the photography and video limitations were a lot more loose than (almost) everybody claims… and the bowing in front of statues, the bumpy countryside roads, the regular power-cuts outside of Pyongyang, the restrictions of free movement – all of that was commonly accepted as North Korean quirkiness in a combination of group effort and voluntary Stockholm Syndrome; it became natural within hours, everybody always gave the home team the benefit of the doubt. And I was intrigued, I wanted to see and experience more… despite my friends and family universally thought that it wasn’t a good idea, some of them being worried about the articles I wrote about my first trip, about remarks I made in the comments.
Of course I went anyway, fueled by what appeared to be authentic moments – and I still think that some of them actually were honest and unstaged, like the *picnic at the Taesongsan Park & Fun Fair*. I also believe that life in Pyongyang is decent, but I had to come back with a clear mind and travel to the countryside to get a look at the costs of it, because Pyongyang isn’t a typical example of North Korean progress – it’s an exception, a severely subsidized prestige project that only exists because the almighty political elite doesn’t care much about, and in some regards even sucks dry, the rest of the country. The power-cuts in Nampo and Kaesong weren’t the exceptions, they were just small glimpses at reality in the DPRK outside of Pyongyang – and the southern parts of North Korea are quite blessed. The temperatures are rather mild in comparison to North Hamgyong, the economy is comparatively successful thanks to the train and ship connections to China, and the much larger amount of Western tourists doesn’t hurt either…
Fool me once…
I really enjoyed my first trip to the DPRK, but after going there a second time, I have to admit that I’ve been fooled a lot more than I thought while writing about my experiences. The strange thing is: I liked my second trip to North Korea even more than the first one! Despite (or maybe because?) it dawned on me that this trip was a lot more real – a much better look at the current state of the DPRK, yet still just a scratch on the surface. On the first trip pretty much everybody ate up what the guides / guards / guardguides / guideguards had to say, but this time the vibe was different. People behaved even better, but for different reasons. Some were hardcore North Korea fans, others just wanted to allay all the worries our constant companions might have had about us to get a little bit more freedom and insight than previous visitors. I don’t think the minders were blatantly lying to us, but they were controlling all information – what we heard, what we saw, what we smelled, what we tasted. And when you are in almost total control and nobody questions that power, it is actually quite easy to shape impressions just by leaving things out. Some of it became very apparent during this second tour, some of it only while I was reconstructing the experience with the help of my photos, the adjusted itinerary, GoogleMaps and Wikimapia. (I added lots of new locations to my original GoogleMap about North Korea. *Please click here to have a look.*)
The fact that shocked me the most after my return was that we passed three of the biggest concentration camps in North Korea by less than 10 km! When we visited the city Hoeryong right at the beginning of the tour, our guide kept repeating that the city is famous for its three beauties: Beautiful women, beautiful white peaches and beautiful earthenware. I knew that he was bullshitting us just by looking at photos of Hoeryong’s most famous daughter, Kim Jong-suk, the wife of Kim Il-sung and mother of Kim Jong-il – no offense, but when I talk about the beauty of German women I don’t get Angela Merkel associated! (And after this comment I guess I better not return to North Korea…) Luckily Germans are more forgiving and Mrs. Merkel won’t throw me and my family into jail for the rest of our lives. Speaking of which: Hoeryong is famous for another thing, though it’s everything but beautiful – Kwan-li-so 22, Labor Camp 22; one of North Korea’s biggest and harshest concentration camps, where (according to two defected eyewitnesses) 1500 to 2000 people per year get worked or tortured to death, up to 4% of its total population. Maybe got, as the camp might have been closed in 2012 – which means that those prisoners were either killed or continue their sufferings in other camps. All of that I didn’t know at the time when I was spending a night at a hotel in Hoeryong, just about 5 kilometers away from the camp’s gate… (BTW: Prisoners only receive(d) a small amount of the food per day, despite a food factory in the camp’s labor colony Haengyong-ri. Like everywhere else in the country most of it was delivered to the capital Pyongyang, even if the locals and prisoners were starving, like during the Arduous March between 1994 and 1998.)
Get them while they are young!
Other examples for leaving out information we experienced at two kindergartens, where we were about to watch typical performances by local children; singing, dancing and playing musical instruments. At the first kindergarten we walked through long hallways on the first floor with Hello Kitty and other colorful child-oriented images painted to the walls, then we were rushed through a staircase directly to the third floor, where the children were waiting to perform for us. I was able to sneak five meters down a hallway on the second floor and took quick photos of a painting depicting two snowmen being attacked by armed children, a subject that didn’t go along well with the stuff I saw on the first floor. Back home I asked friends what was written on the snowmen: American Bastard and a derogatory play on words about a former president of South Korea…
At the other kindergarten (with a different layout) we weren’t shown much of the second floor neither – and this time it was a fellow traveler who found a room she later described as “a war museum”. Sadly I wasn’t able to see it myself, but it goes without saying that our Korean guides didn’t mention it. They also didn’t mention the huge chariot sculpture in front of the kindergarten. At first sight it looked a lot like a simplified version of the one in front of the *Mangyongdae Schoolchildren’s Palace* in Pyongyang, which is all about the future and having fun. The one in Rason? Well, the first child is holding an automatic rifle in his hand, the second one a missile. Nobody pointed out those details…
Instead we went through yet another musical performance, because North Koreans like to sing and dance – I don’t. Malicious gossip has it that it’s because they don’t have anything else, but hey, they love it, so if it helps the understanding among nations I suffer through 20 minutes of creepily smiling kids at a kindergarten… or a guide singing the national anthem / their favorite NK pop song. Usually both the kids and the adults (guides, waitresses…) are pretty good at what they are doing, which eases the suffering. What really started to irritate me is that you never know when you get dragged into the whole thing. You are never safe… not at kindergartens, not at schools, not at restaurants, not at BBQs, not even on the bus. What is announced and starts as a more or less harmless performance can end with you starring it – and I HATE that kind of attention. At the same time you don’t want to be impolite, so you basically have to choose between the devil and the deep blue sea. One time on the first trip all the guides, one after another, were singing the national anthem of North Korea on the bus – and then kept nagging all tourists into singing theirs. My only way out was to claim that Germany is so anti-nationalistic now, that it is actually punishable to sing the national anthem without written permission by the government; interestingly enough not only the Korean guides but also some of my fellow travelers from all over the world believed that story… (And yes, the singing and dancing was even more intense on the second trip!)
While I visited North Korea for a second time in October I felt like being part of “Hunger Games – The Musical”: A totalitarian system concentrating all the power and wealth in the capital… and everybody was singing and dancing all the time! This wasn’t the rather cozy Pyongyang bubble anymore, this was a glimpse at a system that is plain and simple batshit crazy. Back in spring I actually thought that the DPRK was a little bit misunderstood and just needs some good PR, that Pyongyang was just a sample of what’s going on in all of North Korea, but obviously I was wrong. North Korea needs massive change from the inside, the mindset of the population has to change drastically. And I don’t blame individual average people, most of them are just doing what they are told to do (look at the communism loving Russians that now hump capitalism like a pet bunny does its favorite plush toy…), they are simply trying to survive without getting into trouble themselves, probably being traumatized by decades of subjugation from psychotic despots! I’m sure it’s not all bad in North Korea, but it definitely isn’t as good as tourists are made believe when visiting Pyongyang…
It will take me a couple of months to write about my second trip, especially since this time I want to have the whole set written before I start publishing it. Like last time I have no political or financial agenda, and I will write about my vacation as I experienced it. I just wanted to give all of you a heads up that this time it won’t be as positive and naïve – it will be full of love for the coast and the mountains, for fearless toddlers and curious language students. But you will also read some completely messed-up stories about extreme poverty and regular power-outs, about electric fences along the coastline and despicable acts towards children, about denunciation, double standards and deception – and about how I will rather never go back to North Korea again than deliberately ignoring or even sugar-coating the things that I’ve experienced…
(Please *click here to get to Abandoned Kansai’s North Korea Special* and *here for a map about both tours at GoogleMaps*.
If you don’t want to miss the latest article you can *like Abandoned Kansai on Facebook* or subscribe to the *video channel on Youtube*…)
Border guards don’t like to be filmed, yet I managed to tape me walking from China into North Korea. (As far as I know we were the second Western tourist group ever to enter North Korea on foot from Tumen, China!)
At the end of the video you can hear a guideguard approaching me after he caught me taking this video, despite him announcing that it’s okay to take pictures from the bus just 5 minutes earlier…
One of the most beautiful hours I had in North Korea – sunrise at the beach of the homestay village while most of my fellow travelers were still sleeping.
Great post. Thank you for sharing your experience.
Thanks for reading it, Esther!
Thanks for the honest writing about your trip – I understand your reticence but by holding back – the lie is allowed to continue. Certainly an Orwellian universe in this country – but what can outsiders expect when the DPRK “news” stated that panda bears were crying after the death of Papa Kim…
And they have no clue about what’s going on! They don’t realize how ridiculous statements like your panda example are, they don’t realize how much they contradict themselves, they don’t realize how much behind the rest of the world they are, they don’t realize that most people in South Korea don’t want the reunification. They are living in a world of their own… like hardcore religious people, who suffer through crisis after crisis and thank some imaginary XYZ for being at their side in those times of suffering.
Good analogy. Thanks.
Very interesting. I’m really looking forward to reading more about your second visit.
Thanks a lot, Jennifer. I think this time there will be 8 to 10 articles, two per week, starting in January or February 2014.
I enjoyed your write-up. I don’t think I could handle all the singing and dancing in NK.
Some people actually love the singing and dancing, it’s just not my cup of tea… This time they actually brought me close to a breaking point when one of the guides tried to teach us a song in Korean. He put a lot of effort into it, handwriting the text for each group member the night before, but after an hour of singing on the bus while driving down a bumpy dirt road I was close to kill somebody!
This post brought me some memories from our communist era…like the picture with the “president” in each classroom, on each textbooks, the songs…very similar. It was good and bad in the same time being a kid in a communist country, it wasn’t so rough but I know for adults… they suffered a lot. Sadly enough!
Hey Dana,
NK still considers itself a communist state… but more of the Stalin / Lenin / Mao era. It’s mind-blowing how powerful the personality cult about the Kims is. More about that in the upcoming articles early next year. (The kids, poor in North Hamgyong or rich in Rason, actually seemed to be happy – the adults were impossible to read…)
I think this is a great blog post, chilling for all the things it only implies as well as what it said outright. I could not stop reading, and I could barely stand to read it, which is of course a sign of truth.
Thank you so much, Jo Ann! I wish I would have been able to go into details right away, but the article turned out to be quite long as it is. But don’t worry, I will pick up on the loose ends early next year – and I’ll introduce quite a few completely new aspects.
I just wanted to say that I have been so intrigued by your blog and fascinated by your journeys… and with this post with your candidness about the way a re-visit has moved you. Sometimes sitting on something and getting your thoughts in order an lead to surprising epiphanies. Looking forward to seeing it whenever it is ready!
Thanks a lot, schmoo – it’s so nice to get positive feedback like yours!
Thanks for sharing your experience and yes when you “loyalist” you got to start them young. Looking for the next part of the story.
Thanks, samokan! I already started writing it – the series is scheduled to start mid- or late January.
Thanks for taking the time to write this Florian. It was really interesting. I suppose what is left out – like in a photo – can be as much of a story as what is included/shown. Those sculptures outside the kindergartens look innocuous enough with the broadly smiling children – good that you noticed the artillery!
Thanks for your kind words, Angelina! The days in the DPRK are always very intense and sometimes things rush by quickly. I think everybody visiting the country takes days or weeks to process what they have seen, done and… not seen.
I can only imagine… Looking forward to your future updates on your experience in North Korea!
Thank you! Can’t wait to read more of your tale.
Six to eight more weeks for the second and final season to begin… 🙂
Go for it! I love these articles – and it ties in very nicely with my So much for Sunday quotation this week, so neither I nor Marcus Aurelius can be all that wrong… Can’t wait for the next instalment!
Thanks, ideflex! The North Korea articles are amongst my favorite to write, so I can’t wait to spend more time on them!
I think the term “Stockholm Syndrome” is an apt description of what people living under such political control must be experiencing. Having done my dissertation looking at SS (funny, the same scary acronym!), I am familiar with the incredible cognitive distortions people have to develop to retain a sense of sanity in an insane system. Also, how even the smallest gesture of kindness (even if it’s only perceived rather than “real”) raises people’s hopes that the brutal/violent/evil scenes they have witnessed are not real, but that the “kindness” is what’s real. So they try to figure out what they have to do to elicit that “kindness” again. And if they can’t, they blame themselves….
Very scary phenomenon….
Phew! I was a bit worried to use such a specific term rather carelessly, so I am happy to hear that I wasn’t off too much. The locations (and therefore the topics) I write about include such a wide variety that it’s close to impossible to always hit the mark, even though I do my best to do as much research as possible…
Hey I’m really looking forward to reading your articles Florian. Your notes will be refreshing memories that I am drawing on for my work, its strange to think we were thinking so much alike!
PS The Google Map you have created is really useful. This is such a great blog – Thanks!
Thanks a lot, Mark, that’s really kind of you to say!
Hey Mark,
Currently the Japanese urbex stuff is taking all my time, but soon I’ll start writing about North Korea again. If you want to check / talk about details ahead of time please drop me a line via e-mail!
I think on this tour there were basically three groups within the group – the curious / critical people, the indifferent people (or rather: person) and the fanboys. Lovely people, all of them, but the group that keeps my mind busy the most are the fanboys…
Well I only just got around to watching the Hunger Games tonight.
Wow, it is very much like North Korea, even in one of the opening scenes of the movie Katniss just dives through a electric fence. It looks like certain death, but the fence actually has no power running in it – but of course only only fools or the brave (desperate?) will take the risk that it isn’t powered and climb over it. I expect most of the electric fences we saw in Nth Korea were also un-powered, but the population is so controled and compliant that few test the fence and break through the fence. I am just in the last hour or so of reading John Sweeney’s new book “North Korea Undercover”. Ignore the less the complementry reviews on Amazon, it an interesting read – you will enjoy it Florian.
Hey Mark,
I really disliked Sweeney’s BBC “documentary” when I saw it before my first trip in spring. Well, the interviews were interesting, but the grainy, shaky videos he took, accompanied by dramatic or tear-jerking music, were just horrible IMHO. But he’s a journalist, so his book is probably better. I’ll give it a try – thanks for the recommendation!