City Tour of Pyongyang
City Tour of Pyongyang
and an overabundance of blue-uniformed staff surveying the situation.
The stations were like those in Moscow, made of something that looked
like marble and nicely decorated. In contrast, the subway cars were
rickety, noisy, poorly lit and only decorated by - what else? - a
portrait of the Great Leader. We were then driven to the main Great
Leader statue
where our guide conned us into buying a flower to lay before Him
for an outrageous US$7.
At the birthplace and childhood home of the Great Leader, just outside
Pyongyang, I managed to upset our local guide by asking her if it was
true that the Dear Leader (Great Leader's son) was actually born in the
Soviet Union (as I'd read in the West), and not on top of a holy Korean
mountain, as they prefer to believe. Vicious lies, she assured me.
Back in Pyongyang, next to the Arch of Triumph
(3m higher than the one
in Paris) we saw and photographed a large group of schoolchildren
doing
synchronized gymnastics. Our guides told us it was for a coming
festival, but it seemed strange that we saw this nearly everywhere we
went, and at all times of the day. Surely the energy crisis isn't that
severe?
On our way to the May Day stadium,
with seating for 200,000 and a
titanium roof, we saw some road construction going on with people in
suits and ties moving rocks by hand. Our guides explained that the Dear
Leader had commanded that this project - the construction of a bridge
and overpass in the center of Pyongyang - must be finished within a
year, so people were spontaneously turning up to help in any way they
could; one of our guides had even worked on it himself!
The best was kept for last as we afterwards visited the People's Army
Circus, which is housed in a large, circular, immaculate marble-ish
building. Upon entering, we were treated to the amusing spectacle of
the whole circus audience turning their heads as one to stare at the
foreigners. It made a great photo!
Eastern circuses have a high level
of acrobatics, which is always great to watch, but they also had the
inevitable animal acts - horses, boxing bears and even dogs doing
tricks. The clowns came on dressed as clumsy South Korean soldiers, but
the subsequent clownesque portrayal of an American soldier
(complete with blond hair, sunglasses, big nose and swaggering walk)
shall remain with me forever.
North Korean propaganda portrays South Korea as a brother country under the yoke of Yankee imperialism. Our guides (rhetorically) asked us more than once what business the Americans had down there, preventing Korea from reuniting as one happy nation. Reunification is a hot issue in North Korea, where the Dear Leader has repeatedly said that it shall happen before the end of this decade. Many in the West would agree with him, but maybe not in the way that he envisions it.
Next Page - Good Fences Make Good Neighbors