We organized the trip through a British company based in Beijing named Koryo. They were the most experienced at DPRK tours, and we weren’t about to try this trip on our own. DPRK stands for Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. We call it North Korea for good reason: it is not a Republic, and there is nothing Democratic about it. As for “the People”, they are just poorly treated sources of near-free labor. Put more bluntly: it is a brutal dictatorship based on the myth that the Kim family has a spiritual roots and powers.
In advance of our pre-departure meeting in Beijing, Koryo sent us nineteen pages of instructions outlining expected behaviors and protocols. Bring a tie and white shirt. No jeans for certain events. Don’t bring a bible or other religious materials. (A tourist a few months earlier had been jailed for supposedly trying to preach Christianity to the locals.)
When we landed in Beijing, the pollution was so bad we could not see anything, including the runway, until we touched down. After the plane slowed enough to turn onto a taxiway, we looked down the remaining runway. We could not see the remaining runway. The smog improved on our subsequent touring days in Beijing, thankfully. We waited in line for hours to see dead-Mao. He looked peaceful. I will leave the remaining details of that adventure for another occasion.
The night before our departure for the DPRK, we met at Koryo headquarters. Ours was a group tour involving 15 people from Europe, the United States and Australia. Age range: many folks in their twenties; the oldest was a British couple seemingly in a constant state of confusion. I will call them Nigel and Edna Turley.
Our guides—two Koryo employees who were going with us—reviewed our travel documents and reviewed the plans and rules for our trip. They also reminded us of what NOT to bring into North Korea, including the nineteen pages of instructions titled What Not to Bring to North Korea. We were also taught the correct way to bow before any Kim statue and at the dead-Kims’ mausoleum. If we messed up, it would, at minimum, affect Koryo’s future relationship with the government and jeopardize their business. At worst, a screw-up could get us on CNN, pronto.
Our flight to the capital city of Pyongyang was with North Korean-run Koryo Airlines. Koryo is a common Korean word; the plane did not belong to the Koryo Tour Company. The aircraft had a “scruffy modern” motif, but it was comfortable enough. The female flight attendants were gorgeous.
We were served a tepid cup of a sugary liquid. We were also handed a round, wrapped sandwich, McDonalds style. However, it was NOT a burger, although we “think” it was meat. I ate mine. I would like to say “it tasted like chicken”, but that would not be true. It was some kind of pulverized meat It is probably better that I don’t know more than that. Chris and many others passed on this culinary opportunity.
After landing in Pyongyang, we processed quickly through customs and baggage control because our visas were in order, and there were no baggage searches. That was a relief.
We were also comforted when we heard that the Ambassador to Sweden was on our plane and among the passengers being processed. Because the United States has no diplomatic relationship with the DPRK, this guy was the person who, on behalf of U.S., interfaced with the Kim regime. Put another way: we all wanted to be his friend or at least have his contact information. But sadly, he was whisked away by his staff before we could approach him.
Our group, including our two accompanying Koryo guides, were met by two North Korean nationals who served as our local guides and chaperones. They were courteous and friendly. However, it soon it became clear they were serious consumers of The Kim Dynasty Kool-Aid. That, and English language skills, were probably the reasons they got those jobs in the first place. As for our guides from Koryo-Beijing, they knew the drill and kept us on a tight leash, but we noticed an eye-roll now and then from them.
We were bussed into central Pyongyang to a hotel situated on an island in the Taedong River. Our inability to wander the town unescorted was not accidental. (A few days later, I wasn’t even allowed to wander unaccompanied at a small amusement park.) Our temporary, isolated home was the Yanggakdo International, the largest hotel in North Korea.
Before getting off the bus, our Koryo guide asked once more, “Nobody brought a bible with them, right?” It was a needless question, because the international news and thorough pre-trip instructions warned us to be heathens during the trip. Yet, after the question, the feeble Turleys raised their hands. The guide stabbed the air with her forefinger and scolded them like a third-grade teacher would a delinquent student. “YOU TWO STAY ON THE BUS. THE REST OF YOU FOLLOW ME!” The bibles disappeared. Maybe the Turleys were forced to eat them, or maybe they are still in some obscure compartment on the bus.
In the hotel lobby, we were handed our room keys. We were all on the third floor. Chris and I entered our room and checked the place out. We were confident the room was bugged, so we were complimentary about the facility, although it resembled an Easy-8 Motel in Cleveland. (No offense to Cleveland.) “Wow, look at this Chris. They have warm water coming out of this spout. These folks sure are clever.”
Our program was launched. It included trips to various plazas, monuments, exhibits, and propaganda sites. Check that: every destination involved a propaganda site.
The biggest plaza was the venue for the massive military marches shown on television. That reminded us of our smallness. We also bowed to a lot of huge Kim statues. Those reminded us they were in charge, and we were not.
We had to wear our white shirts, ties, and dress trousers to the that housed the preserved bodies of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il…the current dictator’s deceased grandfather and father, respectively. The elder Kim—”Kim 1”—was considered to be a god and the founder of post-WWII North Korea. It is said that he was a fierce fighter and a charismatic leader.
His son, “Kim 2”, not so much. His passion was filmmaking; most often he directed propaganda films to solidify support for the leaders. We had a private showing of one of those films (Something like Let’s have a song contest at the shipyard; ”Gone With The Wind” it wasn’t). However, that event enabled us to meet the gracious, still-pretty, and famous actress who starred in the film.
At the Kumsusan and in our best clothes, we entered wind chambers and walked on shoe scrubbers to remove dust from our bodies. Then we were led into Kim 1’s hall of foreign awards and citations. Hmm, there was nothing from North America or Western Europe, but there were lots of gifts from other dictatorships and banana republics.
We entered the chamber with Kim 1’s body. He looked more like a dead Korean guy than a god. Per instructions, we each bowed at the four sides of his corpse, being careful to look appropriately somber. In the next room was the less-impressive collection of foreign awards to Kim 2. When summoned, we repeated the viewing process at Kim 2’s body. The pace of our movement and the bowing sped up. Sorry dude; we take so-called gods like your dad a bit more seriously.
Sidebar: Seeing the dead Kims completed my “Dead-Dictator Hat Trick”: The Kims, Mao, and earlier in Moscow, Lenin. It’s a shame that Fidel Castro is not on public display. I could boast “The Quad”.
The next room was also creepy but in a different way. It was huge and empty, except for a sixty-foot by sixty-foot oriental rug. It was the biggest carpet I’d ever seen. While we stood on the wood floor, not the carpet, our guide translated for a woman who was stationed in this room.
The carpet guard’s real job was to lead us in mourning for the fallen Kims. She spoke as though she was crying at the same time. She explained the tragic loss to “Korea” of Kim 1 and Kim 2 and how the Korean people would never recover. The bosses of the Kumsusan must have auditioned fifty women who could, simultaneously, talk, moan, and cry…all…day…long. It was so artificial, Chris and I had trouble maintaining a serious demeanor. To laugh, however, would have put us in big-time trouble.
Another outing took us to the “Heroes’ Cemetery”: it memorialized dozens of war dead who performed especially well in battle. Their pictures were on their respective monuments.
Christopher loves trains, so it was a treat that our tour also got to ride the Pyongyang underground. There is only one line, and the train cars were vintage, but the stations were nice. Of course, even the underground walls didn’t escape Kim propaganda.
By far, the most impressive facility we toured was the Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum. It was a Smithsonian-quality museum dedicated to the enormous victory by the DPRK in the Korean War.
However, let’s review: 1) the Korean War is technically not over. An “armistice”, not a treaty, was signed in 1953. An armistice is merely “a cessation of hostilities”. 2) After the war, the border between the Koreas remained at the 38th parallel (of latitude). The invading North Korean Army was pushed back to that point—the original Korean demarcation line—after they incited the war by invading the South.
In sum, the North Koreans and their allies accomplished ZERO during the war, but it cost the United States over 36,000 lives and 774 soldiers still missing in action. Other allied forces participated and died, but the United States provided 90% of the foreign combat troops representing the South. The North Korean losses are estimated at 406,000; their Chinese allies, 600,000. Pyongyang was bombed mercilessly. It was a very hot mess.
On our drive to the DMZ, the “major divided highway” was so chuckholed that our bus could only move at five miles per hour. Even at that speed, we each suspected we were beginning to leak spinal fluid.
Along the highway we saw scrawny workers with vacant faces tending the fields with oxen-power and nineteenth-century tools. The most curious and telling thing we saw was the cutting the median grass on the “great highway”. Four old women were in a line and on their knees. They were cutting the grass on the median…using household scissors…on a Sunday.
To this day, the “Demilitarized Zone” separating the countries remains a tense, three-mile-wide boundary that is heavily guarded by both sides. We visited the DMZ from the north during our Pyongyang trip. About a year later, Chris and I again visited the DMZ from the south side. We entered the same building from the opposite side and sat at the same conference table on the border. That table is where North-South talks are held. We may be among only, say, a thousand people to visit the DMZ and enter that building from both sides.
Back to the so-called Liberation War Museum. Our group was met by a uniformed soldier at the entrance to the spacious grounds. We walked to an outdoor exhibit of captured American tanks, vehicles, and helicopter carcasses. Pictures of dead American soldiers were displayed near the war prizes. It was a disgusting scene by a crude group of people
Inside the large museum buildings, various battles were depicted, and more artifacts were displayed. We were led to a thirty-foot Kim 1 statue inside a large hall. I wanted to vomit. Instead, as I bowed, I discreetly extended the middle finger of each hand as a small act of defiance.
The most impressive exhibit in the museum was a 360-degree to-scale diorama of the Battle of Taejon. The battlefield model was enhanced by dramatic lighting and the images of aircraft passing overhead. The actual battle lasted three days. The outmanned American forces eventually withdrew. In the model, specific moments in the battle were highlighted by narration and spotlights. Most notable and bothersome of these was the capture of American Major General William F. Dean, the commander of the 24th Infantry Division.
The USS Pueblo was moored at a dock near the museum complex. The Pueblo was a U.S. Navy ship captured in 1968 while, supposedly, it was patrolling in North Korea’s territorial waters. We boarded the ship and noted the bullet holes from the brief firefight that killed one crewman. Crew/prisoner photos and and actual crew military ID cards were posted around the ship. Eighty-eight Americans were held captive for eleven months due to “The Pueblo Incident”.
The museum visits were a sobering display of North Korea’s propaganda machine. Citizens are constantly told they are the luckiest people on Earth. It is a ghastly lie that is discussed in the book, Nothing to Envy. The title itself is a riddle.
The main streets of Pyongyang are wide and empty except for the occasional bus packed with weary workers and chauffeur-driven military vehicles with officers lounging in back. From our bus, we made eye contact with a few of the officers. A couple acknowledged us with a smile and a nod. Others ignored us. Now and then, we gave them a subtle one-finger wave.
Just a block or two off the broad avenues and away from the modern buildings (many are empty), people slogged through muddy streets wearing rags. They were living in squalor. Electricity was unreliable. Many “homes” had dirt floors. Outside the city, things were worse. Entire neighborhoods were shacks and mud. Most of them had no power. Nighttime satellite images of North Korea show, for the most part, a large dark landmass.
Compared to the average local, we visitors lived like royalty. We ate three (small) meals each day, though some of the ingredients remained unknown. I did knowingly eat whole dried fish, soup with chunks of dog meat, and I downed a few clams cooked in an open gasolene fire. The clam-eating process (they were considered appetizers) included a chaser-shot of straight vodka to avoid stomach problems. One of our group had eleven clams and eleven vodka shots. Thankfully, for his sake, we were eventually called to dinner.
Our hotel turned out to be comfortable but a bit mysterious. We noticed there was no floor number “4” displayed on the elevator button panel. Huh. That was weird.
Higher in the building was a bar that stayed open late. Very late. The young bucks, including Christopher, gathered there nightly to drink and play simple games. One of the nights, a group of them, primarily the fun-loving Aussies, took the stairs in search of the missing fourth floor. Turned out there was, indeed, a fourth floor, but it didn’t have any guest rooms. Instead, the halls were painted with grotesque anti-American images and slogans. And there was a LOT of surveillance equipment. Yep, our hosts were monitoring everything in the hotel.
The next night, the Aussies went back to the fourth floor to do more snooping on the snoops. They got caught. They were put in a room, and our local tour guides were awakened and summoned to explain this serious breach of security. Things got louder and more tense. To their credit, the otherwise-loyal North Korean guides convinced the captors to drop the matter with just a warning. The Aussies returned to their rooms to change their underwear
The tension level with our guides had increased, but fortunately we were set to depart North Korea. We experienced another Koryo Airlines flight, with mystery meat, back to Beijing. After clearing customs, we spotted a Kentucky Fried Chicken shop inside the airport. We had been underfed in the DPRK, and our bring-along snacks had run out. Though we were not KFC fans, Chris, myself, and one of the Australians wolfed down enough chicken nuggets to fill a Range Rover. Being back in a civilized country, albeit polluted China, was a pleasure.