North Korea Journal Page 3

  The platforms are contained within a highly ornate, floral-themed chamber reminiscent of the Moscow subway, dressed with marble columns designed like plant stems and hung with glass and metal chandeliers fashioned into intricate leaf patterns.

  Music plays, as it seems to do everywhere – stirring but not aggressively rousing, the soundtrack of North Korea. Peppermint-green and aubergine coloured trains roll in and out frequently, and I travel a few stops as far as Reunification station. No floral theme here but a more sober reminder of their recent history: a series of bronze relief panels depicting heroic workers, some alongside a tractor, others with drills, and in one a sad-looking group of Koreans beside a barbed-wire fence on which hangs a sign ‘US Army. Keep Out’.

  It’s an increasingly warm walk from the station up many long, wide steps to the Grand Monument on Mansu Hill. This is dominated by two seventy-two-foot-tall bronze statues. One is of the Great Leader, Kim Il Sung, coat open, arm raised over the city, and alongside him his son, General Kim Jong Il, known as the Dear Leader, wearing an unzipped parka. (This was recently re-sculpted to replace a rather more suave three-quarter-length coat. More man of the people?)

  These two guided the destiny of the DPRK for over sixty years, from its inception in 1948 to Kim Jong Il’s death in 2011. I’ve already noticed that there are no likenesses of the present leader, Kim Jong Un, to be seen. I’m told that’s because ‘he is still learning’. Maybe it’s just that he can’t be immortalised if he’s still alive.

  Behind the Leaders is a mural of Mount Paektu, and on either side of them two intricately carved processions of soldiers and workers: men, women and children marching heroically forward with the red flag of the revolution waving above them. It’s a superbly executed piece of perspective and full of idiosyncratic detail. In amongst the teachers and engineers, I find two women looking heavenwards, one of them carrying a chicken, the other a television.

  But it’s the monuments of the Great Leaders which have brought us here today, along with a succession of jolly, smiling wedding groups queuing up to be photographed in front of them.

  I learn a number of lessons in the next couple of hours. One is that the Great Leaders must only be photographed in their entirety. It is forbidden to show them in part or in close-up. Another is the importance of getting their titles right, either referring to them as Great Leaders or Great Generals or specifically Generalissimo or President for Kim Il Sung and General for Kim Jong Il.

  It’s also essential, at all times, to maintain respectful behaviour in their presence. When I sat on one of the steps I was told to get up again and there were palpable cries of horror when our director was seen running to fetch a piece of camera equipment. After my first, quite complicated piece to camera, there was much head-shaking amongst the minders and I was asked to do it again. Not for any political or ideological reasons, but because I had a hand in my pocket.

  It’s in this far-from-relaxed atmosphere that I embark on my first interview with So Hyang. She speaks English well, and is clearly trying to be as obliging as possible, but from the start she is defensive. Not surprisingly, as our five minders are lined up behind the camera, watching every move. I begin by asking So Hyang about the badges with the faces of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il that everybody has pinned on their left breast. Are they compulsory? She shakes her head, dismissing my question. Why should they be? Any of the masses (and she uses the word ‘masses’ quite unselfconsciously) would want to wear the badges because the Great Leaders are always alive in their hearts.

  As I press her to enlarge on her feelings towards the Leaders, I sense increasing discomfort. There can be no speculation or elaboration of the role of the Leaders. That would be to question the ‘single-hearted unity’ of the country. I try another tack. The Leaders are dressed very ordinarily. Is this deliberate?

  She shrugs off the implication.

  ‘They don’t want to look special. They are humble and simple.’

  And seventy-two feet tall.

  The Great Leaders are the heads of the family, she explains. All the love of the people and the love of the country are embodied in them.

  I suggest that even the best families have their disagreements. Might there not be things which the leaders do which other members of the family disagree with? I realise almost immediately that I have gone too far. Quite a long way too far. So Hyang shakes her head and looks away in embarrassment. The interview is terminated. There is no direct confrontation over my impertinent question. No one must lose face. Instead our tour company minders call the director across and they go into a huddled discussion.

  The interview is not resumed. So Hyang looks shy and apologetic and I’m apologetic too. I just didn’t expect the curtain to come down so definitively and so early in the process.

  It’s hot now, there’s no shade or shelter, and I’m beginning to find this triumphal arena oppressive. I feel frustrated, and regret having unwittingly put my guide into such an uncomfortable position. I hope that the frowns and headshakes from her bosses will not spell problems ahead.

  In the afternoon we visit another of the city’s landmarks, the Juche Tower. Like everything else of significance here, it embodies the devotion of the people to their leaders by identifying with them in some almost mystical way. In this case, the tower is built with the same number of stone blocks as the number of days Kim Il Sung had then spent on earth. Built in 1982, it rises 500 feet above the city and at its summit is a huge red moulded flame representing the burning torch of the revolution.

  The tower dominates the east bank of the Taedong, the river that divides Pyongyang, and lines up with the vast spread of Kim Il Sung Square on the opposite bank. On the local map it is described as the Tower of the Juche Idea. Juche (pronounced Ju Chay) is the name for the philosophy on which Kim Il Sung founded the DPRK; put simply it means self-reliance, the need not to need anybody else.

  And here we get into Life of Brian territory. It is only through submitting him- or herself to the revolutionary struggle that an individual can fully realise his or her own self-worth. (‘We’re all individuals! Yes! We’re all individuals!’) And this revolutionary struggle must be guided by the Leader, who is the embodiment of the interests of the masses. It may sound contradictory to our ears but understanding Juche is fundamental to understanding North Korea. In a secular country which confiscates Bibles at the border it is the nearest thing to a faith.

  A lift carries us up to the top of the tower. It takes a while and on the way I try out my few words of Korean on the lift operator, bedecked in national dress. It’s not an easy language. ‘Hello’ is almost a sentence long. ‘Annyonghasimnikka,’ I try, but it comes out most unconvincingly. She doesn’t give me a response until my fifteenth attempt when I am rewarded with a big smile and ‘Yes. Very good’ in perfect English. At the top we step out onto a narrow observation platform beneath the flame. It’s the perfect place to be on our first day. The whole city of Pyongyang lies spread out beneath us. Unlike in Beijing, the pollution is minimal and you can see for miles.

  I’m struck by how small and compact a capital it is. And not as drab as it looked from my window this morning. Many of the housing blocks have been painted in one of various washes – green, pink, rose red, pale blue. There’s a scattering of futuristic architecture – the sinisterly empty Ryugyong Hotel, for instance, and the low-arched bulk of the Rungrado May Day stadium, which reportedly seats 150,000 people, and is claimed to be the biggest in the world.

  Out on the viewing platform another motherly figure in national costume greets me and embarks on a well-polished tour-guide routine. Unfortunately her outfit is of light and fluffy material and the wide bow on the outside is no match for the wind that scours the tower. As she talks the ribbon gradually unravels. She bravely tries to re-tie it whilst explaining the Juche philosophy to me in impeccable, doggedly dogmatic English, a process that feels like some mad game-show challenge
. The most palely critical of my questions are batted away with unequivocal assurances. There is no one, no one in the entire country, who does not adhere to the Juche ideology. As with the more defensively adamant attitude with which So Hyang dealt with my questions this morning, this lady feels there is nothing to discuss. Everything is simple. Everyone smiles. There is no room for doubt. In fact there is no room for anything much on the top of the Juche Tower, and when the next lift disgorges a tightly packed group of tourists, I fear for the security of the balcony. Everyone squeezes in around us, among them some loud, brashly confident Chinese from Shanghai and a nice man from Brighouse in Yorkshire.

  After a day of landmarks and ideology, it’s a relief to accompany So Hyang and Hyon Chol on an early evening walk through a small park and recreation area beside the river. It provides a cluster of high-rise residential blocks with space to exercise, and people have come here after work to stroll about and watch or play games. Volleyball is the most popular participation sport in North Korea, and So Hyang tells me she plays regularly with a group of friends. I notice that smoking is far more common here than it is back home. I ask So Hyang if she smokes. She shakes her head. ‘Smoking is not culturally acceptable for women’, she replies, rather primly. Nor, apparently is any overt display of bare skin. This she talks about quite comfortably. She’s a modern woman, she dresses to look good, but she also accepts the prevailing view that the West is far too obsessed with bare flesh.

  I’m glad that we have this down time together. I have the feeling that So Hyang and Hyon Chol have a different approach to us from that of our minders. Their job is to be as friendly and welcoming as possible, whereas the minders, who are also their employers, must be as suspicious as possible. So Hyang and Hyon Chol are not, I sense, comfortable with the dogmatic way propaganda was served up by the ladies on the Juche Tower. They want to be more relaxed with us but they have to get to know us better first. We end up at a shooting gallery, where they enjoy my limited competence. So Hyang’s even worse than I am, and very happy to laugh about it. After a day of carefully crafted propaganda it’s a tacit admission that not everything has to be perfect in the DPRK.

  Just before I go to bed I take a long look at the night-time skyline. Beneath a full moon, the red flame atop the Juche Tower, cleverly lit from within, flickers away, high above the city, reassuring the inhabitants that the revolution is safe, and they are safe too.

  SIX A.M. A LOW VIBRATING HUM SEEPS INTO MY subconscious, which slowly becomes my conscious. I walk like a zombie to the window, and still can’t pin down what the sound is, where it’s coming from. I return to bed. Weird dreams that I’m in North Korea.

  Later. I am in North Korea, and making the long trip to the breakfast hall. Nick is already there, tucking into an omelette. The mystery of the morning music is explained. He tells me the sound that wakes us is a patriotic anthem called ‘Where Are You, Dear General?’ which evokes the Great Leader Kim Il Sung.

  Music is regarded as a very important element in party unity, broadcast from speakers across the city to motivate the masses, which is why it starts so early, and resounds across the city every hour on the hour until people are at work.

  After breakfast, we climb aboard our unit bus accompanied by our two official guides. Old age is revered here. With retirement age in the DPRK at sixty for men and fifty-five for women, anyone still alive in their mid-seventies is treated with respect bordering on the devotional. So Hyang takes my arm and helps me up the steps into the bus. ‘Are you tired?’ she asks, with concern. As it’s only 9.15 in the morning, my response is a little on the brusque side. She nods sympathetically.

  ‘I will be like your daughter,’ she says.

  After a short journey on traffic-free roads our little convoy pulls into the forecourt of a large school, beside an AstroTurfed sports pitch. At the main entrance a van is delivering soy milk for the school break. Above the door is another of the framed twin portraits of the Great Leaders, and once inside there they are again, this time in a mural, standing amongst tidily uniformed schoolchildren, surrounded by chunky twentieth-century computers. No flat-screens here. Not yet.

  The middle-school pupils I’m here to meet are all in their mid-teens, and clearly primed for a visit. As I’m introduced by their teacher they sit upright at their desks, all in Persil-clean white shirts and all bearing the red badges of the Children’s Union. They greet me in English, which, I learn to my surprise, is a compulsory subject for them. They’re well drilled, and spirited. I produce a blow-up globe like the one I’ve taken on many of my round-the-world travels, and as I puff it up with exaggerated effort, they urge me on with each breath. ‘One! Two! Three! Four! Five!’ until at ‘Ten!’ the world is inflated.

  The globe had been a source of contention earlier as Mrs Kim, having asked to see it first, noticed that it showed Korea as a divided country. The official line here is that, as there has been no officially agreed conclusion to the civil war of the 1950s, South Korea should not be seen as a separate, sovereign country. The problem was eventually solved by inking in the whole of the Korean Peninsula with a Sharpie.

  We end up bouncing the world around the class, as each one who catches it calls out the name of a country, and throws it on. It gets quite fast, veering on the out of hand, but there’s enough humour in their responses to give me hope that they’re not simply programmed to please. Q and A, however, meets with mixed success. ‘What other countries would you like to visit?’ is on the borderline of controversial and I sense eyes flicking to the teacher before any response. No one says Great Britain, and when I ask if anyone has heard of the Queen every head shakes emphatically.

  I ask some of them what they want to be when they leave school. They opt for mostly safe choices – engineers, scientists, soldiers, teachers – but one girl declares that she wants to be ‘a famous writer’. I ask what she’s written and she stands up and recites a poem. I can’t understand exactly what it’s about, but the passion and intensity of her delivery are very powerful and there are tears in her eyes and mine as she finishes.

  I’m a touch disappointed to be told later this impressive outpouring of emotion was ideologically driven, the poem being a paean to the founder of the republic, Kim Il Sung, and to Paektu, the sacred mountain, where he’s said to have taken refuge to organise resistance to the Japanese, who occupied Korea from 1910 to the end of the Second World War in 1945.

  From emotional high pressure to physical high pressure in the sports hall, where I witness thrilling table-tennis skills. Some twenty tables in action, and no time for ambling amateurism. Table tennis here means never having to say you’re sorry. The players, in their early teens, move with springy athleticism. The air is full of squeaking soles, and shrieks of concentration as the balls fly like bullets.

  Is this a show school? Undoubtedly. But I don’t feel that once we’ve gone the tables will be taken away and the all-weather sports pitch will become a police car park. Even if just one school in Pyongyang is equipped like this, it’s impressive.

  Our hosts and supervisors have laid on a lunch for us in a mock yurt, decorated with plastic flowers, shiny ornaments, PVC strip-curtains covering the doorway and lots of soft toys lying around. Yesterday on Mansu Hill So Hyang made the analogy of the country as a family, with the Great Leaders as father figures, and I sense that the masses are treated almost as children. That, at least, might explain the design aesthetic of primary colours and playground shapes that seem such a feature of the interiors of public places.

  The creative hub of Pyongyang is the Mansudae Art Studio. Its status is underlined by a Hollywood-style arched entrance with decorated iron gates. Beyond it, a service road leads off into the distance, flanked by workshops, offices and production buildings. This is a massive state enterprise, employing a thousand artists who produce everything from paintings, carvings, prints and propaganda posters to the many statues dotted around the city. The Grand Monument t
o the Great Leaders was designed and constructed here. As there is no commercial advertising in North Korea, all creative energy is directed towards the glorification of the regime. There is no sense of embarrassment about propaganda. It’s seen as a perfectly legitimate way of publicising the achievements of the party and the revolution, and it brings all art forms under its umbrella.

  In one studio an ex-railwayman, who apparently came late to painting, has almost completed a socialist realist canvas of fishermen at work, bringing in the catch. It’s carefully detailed, technically very skilful and has an energy which fulfils what I assume is its purpose – to inspire and celebrate the fishing industry of the DPRK.

  In a nearby studio an equally accomplished artist, this time a sculptor, is at work. He’s a fit, grey-haired, rather distinguished-looking eighty-year-old who worked on the gigantic Great Leaders’ statues.

  Further down the corridor, a slight, studiously bespectacled man of late middle age works away in his studio, crouched on a small stool. He’s delicately applying the finishing touches to a poster on which hands from North and South Korea are clasped together, below the words ‘Our Nation’. Two microphones on either side of the painting represent the power of dialogue. He tells me it’s not prompted by the recent handshake between Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in but by Kim Jong Un’s New Year message, which set off the current round of rapprochement.