Meeting the Imperialist Aggressors
A few years ago, while visiting Korea en route to Taiwan, I had the chance to take one of the DMZ tours on the South Korean side. From the South, you’re fed a lot about how dangerous the border is: the North Koreans could attack at any moment, the North Koreans are evaluating your every move. The Americans operating the Joint Security Area (JSA) present the danger to tourists as something quite serious. They don’t want you to make any gestures or sudden movements & at many points pictures are out of the question.
While one might assume that the southern border would be the more relaxed of the two sides, I found the opposite to be the case. Once we arrived at the northern side of JSA itself, our minders were fairly relaxed. Our guides smiled & took pictures with us facing the American side, & while our military custodians declined smiles on camera, they were happy to be in the pose with us. This, compared with the Southern side, where you’re mostly barked at for the duration of your time & smiles are strongly discouraged.
More striking than the differences were the similarities, though. On the southern tour, you’re told about how the ROK erected a massive flagpole, so the DPRK built & even bigger one. Approaching from the South you pass farmlands where residents are given generous subsidies in order to show the wealth of the South Korean farmer. At the border itself, you’re told about the North’s ‘Propaganda Village’ where North Koreans are paid to appear as though they live in their own bordering bucolic little town. In the JSA, one learns that the North Koreans only choose to display their best (& tallest troops); the South’s soldiers are labelled as ‘elite’. All of this is presented unironically.
Reunification is also a heavily weighted topic on both sides. The North & South both claim that their states are teleologically compelled to reunify. I’m not sure which side wants this less. Like a cat stalking itself in the mirror, any significant gestures towards reunification are met equally with increased trepidation & eagerness to retreat.
There was one more area where the northern & southern perspectives seemed to line up, though. From the South, we were told about how it is suspected that the columns lining the roads leading to the northern section of the JSA were rigged to explode in order to create road blocks in the case of an invasion. From the North, we were told that in the case of an invasion, the pillars lining the roads leading to the JSA were rigged to explode in order to create road blocks in the case of an invasion.
Both sides fear the consequences of war.
EN ROUTE TO THE MOST HEAVILY PROPAGANDIZED BORDER ON THE PLANET
Our first morning in Pyongyang was early. After a spare breakfast of eggs, toast and slices of needlessly garlicky sausage, we set out on the icey roads through Pyongyang and towards Panmunjom. By 7:30 in Pyongyang, soldiers were out for drill practice, workers were crowding into and out of public transit, and the sidewalks were full of people walking to work. Exiting the city, we once again saw the locomotion of those outside the range of Pyongyang’s network of worn-out light rail, busses and subways. People teetered along on the ice and snow on bicycles and on foot, the latter occasionally attempting to flag down our bus only to realize that ours was loosely packed with foreigners, and would not be stopping to offer a ride.
On the highway, we made two brief stops. The first was at the Arch of Reunification - a massive structure spanning the width of the highway that depicts two women joining hands under an image of a united Korean peninsula. We stopped for photos, but didn’t approach the structure. Likely, there were a few reasons for why we didn’t get a close-up look. For one, it was fiercely cold; any time spent outdoors was preferably spent in motion. It was also a nicer view from a bit of a distance. But another, possibly more nefarious reason was so that we wouldn’t see or interact with the team of workers clearing the ice and snow by hand at the foot of the monument. Though we did interact with a fair number of locals in our time in the country, it was always in Pyongyang or at a tourist destination. We never did get to see rural or labour workers in any detail. Our tour rendered them as scenery.
In any case, we were on our way to see the DMZ, so we didn’t linger. Our next stop, about halfway between Pyongyang and our destination, was a rest stop stocked with overpriced instant coffee, which we happily purchased. Keeping with the almost entire lack of cars on the road, the rest stop was also empty. As was the case with many places we would visit, the facility was opened up for us by a squad of women emerging from some obscure corner. There were pool tables, but no cues or balls. There was no heat.
Our view of the frozen countryside continued all the way up to the gates of the border town. The only change being the size of the groups clearing the roads of ice by hand. They would be finished their sisyphean task by noon: all for the sake of a smattering of cars, and a bus 1/3rd full of tourists.
PUBLIC RELATIONS
Were the North Koreans really crying when Dear Leader died? Are they faking it? They don’t know the truth — they’ve been brainwashed. This kind of questioning (and conclusion-drawing) reveals more about our own lack of imagination than how North Koreans think about themselves and their belief systems in the DPRK.
Firstly, let’s get one thing out of the way: North Korea is not super crazy because it’s a Confucian state. For writers who make this claim, I think the enthymeme goes something like this:
P1: North Korea has a Confucianist tradition.
P2: I don’t understand Confucianism.
C: North Korea must be all nutters because of Confucianism.
It’s not that there aren’t elements of confucianism at work in North (and South) Korean society, it’s just that those elements aren’t most relevant when it comes to their maniacal image. What’s probably more relevant is the way in which the DPRK’s rhetoric functions internally and externally.
For one, the linguistic and visual discourse we often see and associate with North Korea isn’t necessarily what North Koreans encounter on a daily basis. I’m going to guess that the messages the regime wants to communicate to its own citizens are not the same messages it wants to communicate to the outside world. As a superficial example, images of imperialist, hook-nosed foreigners victimizing innocent Koreans, or being crushed by North Korean mettle aren’t ubiquitous. That is to say, I didn’t see them outside of the tourist shops where you could buy postcards featuring these images.
Internally, symbols of national self-confidence are more common. In the center of Pyongyang there are large monuments to the leaders: the hammer, sickle, and paintbrush; and the Juche flame. North Koreans are much more preoccupied with communicating their greatness to themselves. Alongside these larger installations, there are the more commonplace billboards with images of recent accomplishments (the rocket), idealized forms of North Korean citizens (soldiers, scientists, farmers) or links to heroic mythologies (Chollima). This is the story of North Korea for North Koreans.
The contexts in which we do see images of Americans being squashed are calculated. Parades involving masses of troops and displays of military hardware are meant to scare us capitalists. At points like these, the message of ferocity is both internally & externally directed:
1) Don’t mess with us, foreigners - we’re powerful!
2) Look how powerful we are - foreigners don’t mess with us!
It’s important to note that this combative stance likely isn’t the North Korean’s default mode of being. Assuming this is akin to making judgements about the American character based on the Santa Claus Parade. Also important is recognizing that this truculent posture has largely paid off. Nobody seems to know how to deal with this strange little country & so the regime has been able to survive.
On the level of linguistic discourse, there is another dynamic at play. Much like late Soviet discourse, authoritative language in the DPRK has taken on a stilted character that we identify as archaic and out of touch. It is these things, but there’s a reason for it. In a tightly controlled ideological system, terms become referential and meanings fixed. Accordingly, official speech and writing that follows then becomes formulaic, as it refers to already expressed ideological positions. This explains the awkward and repetitive phrasing (imperialist aggressors, sea of fire, etc). North Koreans aren’t so much stuck in the past, as their political discourse is. The evidence is trickling out, but I think it’s a mistake to assume that lives inside of the country are as stultified as their rhetoric.
What we really don’t know about is how everyday North Koreans experience themselves in such a context. Sure, defectors tell their stories, but they’re almost always mediated by politically interested parties. Meaning and identity are tricky. After 60 years of it, North Koreans probably see the official rhetoric around them as background noise. But then, what meanings do they draw from these national symbols and how do they construct identities within the context they find themselves? They can’t all be fanatics or dissidents.
There’s an old joke from Soviet Russia:
A big crowd of people is quietly standing in a lake of sewage coming up to their chins. Suddenly a dissident falls in and starts shouting and waving his hands in disgust: “Yuk! I cannot stand this! How can you people accept these horrible conditions?!” To which the people reply with a quiet indignation: “Shut up! You are making waves!”
PYONGYANG
The city is cold and concrete and paved in ice.
Upon clearing customs, our group sat waiting in the arrival area of the single-room, unheated terminal. Our group, arriving in two parts (one by train & one by airplane), was assured that we wouldn’t be left in the lurch, that our guides would be punctual for certain at this point. Strangely, they weren’t. For all that’s written about how orchestrated and tightly bound these tours are, we quickly found out there were gaps in the paid programming, small spaces where unsupervised interaction could take place & unobserved observations could be made.
I was anxious & excited. I had to step out into the country, so I went out for a smoke. Lacking a lighter (I’d just come through customs), I asked a man in my broken Korean for a light. He provided a flame, not appearing surprised by a foreigner hanging around unsupervised, or having any Korean language ability. I suppose I could’ve made an escape at this point - but to where? The majority of people milling about were uniformed and it was the dead of winter. If there’s nowhere to go, you don’t need to guard people from going there.
A few moments later, a well-dressed, taller-than-average man came up to me and asked if I was part of the group he’d been assigned to. The omniscient state is allowed to ask questions after all. I stubbed out my cigarette and led him inside to the rest of our party. Within minutes our party was collected & put on a bus headed towards the city to meet the other half at the train station.
First impressions are important. As we sped towards the city, teams of workers were once again hard at work clearing ice from the roads (don’t worry, our driver hadn’t had an accident in 20 years). The road from the airport to the city was sparsely populated with luxury sedans from various eras. Barring that, everyone else was either walking - often with large loads strapped to themselves - or those who were brave enough were trying their luck on the ice with a bicycle. Don’t they fall? (We were all curious.) A man riding by the side of the road plunked down without spilling his cargo. Yes, they fall.
Coming into the city we started to get a better sense of how people get around. On the outskirts I’d seen what appeared to be a sort of public transportation graveyard: electrified busses rusting away into the snowdrifts, the accordion sections rotting to reveal antiquated interiors. Further in, we started to see them in operation. I’ll have another post on public transit later, but for now I’ll just say that much of what was in operation didn’t look too much better than what wasn’t.
We arrived at the station during what appeared to be rush hour. Not that there was any traffic: the wide boulevards flowed freely & without congestion. No, the rush hour was made of people - people walking and crowding on to public transportation. & there was an elegance to this. Against the austere backdrop of the plain concrete buildings, the people themselves activated the aesthetics. What would otherwise appear cold and lifeless, only served to enhance the humanity of the people. The lack of ads (and visual noise in general) resets the context for how we view people. It’s a remarkable tension, really: tired faces against the stock concrete instead of glittering post-human bodies on billboards.
We disembarked from the bus and pushed our way through the crowd to the platform - literally rubbing shoulders with North Koreans. Another chance to escape or pass along some contraband. Not that we had any, but we could’ve snuck something in. Or maybe I could’ve written a note: ‘It’s all a lie, you know.’ But of course they know. They know in the same way that we know a 노래방 isn’t real life. & our reaction to being handed the same note in either situation would likely not be dissimilar.
GET IN
Since first travelling to South Korea in the summer of 2008, I’ve been fascinated by its northern counterpart. The Republic of Korea - famous for its Internet connectivity, obsession with new technology, advanced consumerism and plastic surgery - has a hazy mirror: a living ‘what if’ that in most national consciousness’s can only be realized in the imaginative arts.
In the middle of January 2013, I flew to from Beijing to Pyongyang, North Korea.
Our group consisted of a handful of tourists from an assortment of countries. Since there was a slight majority formed by those from the UK, we listed ourselves as a UK delegation (in the few news reports we’re listed as a ‘group of British tourists’). It’s not much to say that very few tourists make it to the DPRK. South Korea itself is still mostly ignored by backpackers and those who travel to China are usually there for the sake of the lumbering giant itself. And then there’s the problem of getting in. Until recently Americans were barred outright. Even now, South Korean passport holders are not allowed in, along with any other nationals currently based in the South.
Surprisingly, though, the visa process was fluid and free from many of the obscurities that plague getting a visa for any country. They don’t stamp your passport (thank gods). Instead, you get a fetching ‘tourist card’ with your photo and information on the inside, which is once again collected at the end of your trip.
So I got in. The above photo is of one of the handful of aircraft in operation at Air Koryo (taken while in Beijing). Not knowing very much about aviation, my best guess is that the jet was a refurbished Soviet machine. The interior was vaguely up-to-date with drop-down video screens & other more modern airline appliances though, you could see they were of a lower quality. The plastic fittings seemed cruder, less finely machined & any movements were accompanied by the sound of these fixtures creaking into place.
What’s more, you could see where international service norms weren’t quite understood. The movements of the flight attendants were often cumbersome and inefficient as they struggled to load the plane with the passengers and their carry-on materials. Later on, the in-flight meal was served lukewarm.
More importantly, the flight was also my first glimpse of a few things that would later emerge as themes. In the airport, an unusual amount of people were loading flat screen TVs as their checked baggage.
The stuff is getting into the country.
At the airport, squatting in groups sat a handful of North Korean men. Shorter and harder looking, they looked like they were from another era. A typical get-up included an East German-looking leather jacket over top of a modest Cosby sweater. Ironically, the same look can be found easily enough in Seoul - though from the more ironically minded set.
Bizarre aesthetic synchronicities.
Finally, arriving at Sunan Airport in Pyongyang was also revealing. The hub consisted of a single landing strip that was cleared by hand. Teams of workers used flat pieces of wood, rocks, hunks of metal or whatever they could find to scrape the ice from the tarmac.
People power.
The control tower looked like a post-war, forgotten government housing tower (which is kind of my architectural sweet spot). I didn’t get a photo of it, so included is a drawing instead. The terminal itself was large and tidy, but unheated. However, the austere cleanliness of the design and interiors served to highlight the brilliance of the uniforms and portraits of the leaders.
It’s a different kind of splendour.
More to follow.
