Lee Thompson, one of our own Probus members and a retired professor of physics, travelled widely during his career. Well versed in public speaking, he gave us a fascinating insight into North Korea, after a visit there in 2009. Michael Palin’s TV series supplements and beautifully illustrates Lee’s superb talk and is highly recommended https://www.channel5.com/show/michael-palin-in-north-korea/
As a scientist and physicist, Lee had carefully checked that Koryo Tours hadn’t had any previous abductions from their tour groups, so he felt reasonably comfortable about satisfying his insatiable curiosity about the unknown. If any Probus member also fancies going there, Koryo Tours are very reputable, with their base in Beijing. What better recommendation than Michael Palin using the same agency?
Going one better than Palin, Lee started in Shanghai to see a solar eclipse – a long way to go when it’s cloudy. But the bonus was to get on The Shanghai Maglev, a commercial magnetic levitation (maglev) line to Beijing at up to 430 km/h, then on to Pyongyang by air and to the Yanggakdo International Hotel. In those pre-internet times, his group of 36 mainly Europeans was issued with free copies of the Pyongyang Times, containing field guidance by Kim Jong-il about not insulting the Leader nor to line the hotel’s waste-paper bin after reading. Taking up a subscription further might have risked being part of an MI5 watch list?
Passports and phones were retained at passport control and returned on departure. The N Korean passport stamp was on a separate bit of paper, in case you needed to go to the States afterwards. But who’d want to do that this week? The hotel had a good restaurant on the top floor and a massage club, which Lee was bemused (disappointed?) to find was for the Chinese only. The N Korean guides are always carefully selected and to be one is a very privileged position in the national hierarchy. Their biggest message was not to wander off. The risk was not to any of the group, nor to the N Korean guides responsible for the group, but to their families whose privileges would have been instantly withdrawn with banishment, hence a sophisticated means of government control. Interestingly, cameras were allowed, and these weren’t checked on entry or exit. Otto Warmbier, on US tour apparently attempted to steal a propaganda poster from his hotel and was given 15 years’ hard labour. He was eventually sent back to USA in a coma and died with bolutulism. Not to put you off going of course.
Lee’s itinerary won’t be described in any detail, other than to list the places he saw in Pyongyang. A fully illustrated account can be seen on Michael Palin’s TV series. So, I’ll simply list most of them:
- Kimsusan Palace of the Sun, now a mausoleum
- need to be “clean”, so into an airlock (fumigation?) and brushes to shoes. Three in at a time. Had to bow. Tie required. No photos
- Pyongyang metro
- 110 m deep, beautifully decorated a bit like the Moscow underground
- Tourists only allowed two successive stations to be travelled. There was a conspiracy story at the time that only two stations ever existed and the folk getting off the train were actors.
- Monument to the Foundation of the Workers’ Party
- 50m tall with three hands holding a hammer, sickle and brush representing workers, farmers and, wait for it, intellectuals
- Mansu Hill Grand Monument
- Illustrating the revolutionary struggle of the people, surprise, surprise
- Juche Tower
- Its roots in Marx, Maoism and ancient Korean Philosophy, all idolising independence
- Kim-II Sung Square
- A place for propaganda with big parades here showing off military might
- Victorious Fatherland War Museum
- Lee found this a bit disappointing, in contrast to its Chinese equivalent
- Ten-pin bowling
- One sensed that Lee was a trifle taken with the ten-pin bowling alley. In the next lane was a N Korean group of teenagers. Just a bit of communication to satisfy Lee’s insatiable curiosity and without having to be seen speaking to them e.g. thumbs up signs, after a full strike, the teenagers were halfway into their game but, with more thumbs up, suddenly disappeared, to be seen again in the distance having a real dressing-down from the security guards, presumably for fraternising with the “enemy”. Lee’s group were left totally undisturbed. What a relief.
- A trip to the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) was a bit of theatre with contrasting N and S Korean guards at each end of the DMZ huts and no physical barrier nor conversation between them (again see Palin’s series to get a real feel for this), and yet you’re free to wander from one side to the other as a mere tourist!
Lee and three others went back north to China afterwards to get another perspective on N Korea. Chinese guides claimed the N Koreans hadn’t been doing well until their Chinese brothers came to help them. In Dandong, the largest border city and able to mix with ordinary Chinese, Lee’s impression was that they seemed to think the N Koreans were all simple country bumpkins, and no wonder, because from the Chinese side, all you can see are oxen pulling ploughs. Poverty outside Pyongyang is everywhere because most of their GDP is spent on arms and missiles.