Student Trip to North Korea

Sunday, 22 August 2010

Between Tuesday 10th and Tuesday 17 August, I undertook my seventh trip into North Korea, or as it prefers to be known, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). As with all but one of my previous trips, I was accompanied by a group of students (21 this time) and we endeavoured to continue the initiative that I began in 2005 to build bridges of goodwill between

students in North Korea and those from the rest of the world. The ultimate goal is to pave the way for North Korean students to attend United World Colleges with scholarship support; an ambitious goal, but one which has already made some startling progress.

The students who undertake the trip are selected each year upon application for their skills of diplomacy, their interest in the Korean situation (and in more general issues of peace, conflict, socialism, the Cold War, and so on), as well as their willingness to make a substantial effort in reaching out to others, especially during the visit to the school and in relations with senior officials, whether they are from the DPRK government or NGOs such as UNICEF. This year, my group comprised 9 students from Hong Kong, 2 students from Italy, and one each from Australia, Bolivia, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway - and for the first time, one from the US. Given the large size of the group, my wife, Di, accompanied me this time (her first trip to the DPRK).

The itinerary for this year’s group was a little more ambitious than previous years, as it included a visit to Mount Paektu, regarded by Koreans from north and south as the sacred source of the

Korean nation. At the summit of Mount Paektu lies Lake Chon, a beautiful deep lake that lies in a volcanic crater, and which is famous for its cold, wet weather and fog-shrouded conditions. We considered ourselves extremely fortunate as we experienced two of Mount Paektu’s very rare clear, sunny days.

Mount Paektu has an almost mystical significance for Koreans, enhanced by the DPRK government’s claims that the Great Leader Kim Il Sung directed the anti-Japanese struggle from a secret camp on the slopes of the mountain, and the claim that his son, the Dear Leader Kim Jong Il, was born under Jong Il Peak in the secret camp in 1942. (Many western historians claim that Kim Jong Il was born in Khabarovsk, a city on the Russian side of the Russian-Chinese border).

During the trip, I was often asked by the students to identify the changes in the DPRK that I had noticed since since previous visits. There is a large amount of work underway to improve and refurbish

buildings and infrastructure (especially in the capital city, Pyongyang) in preparation for the 100th birthday celebrations of Kim Il Sung in 2012. The quality and quantity of food and other goods in the shops seem to improve each year that I return; standards of living seem notably better now than they were a few years ago, and this is despite the failed currency reform that was introduced in December 2009.

Another interesting change is the new awareness that everyone seems to have of the Young General. The western media has been speculating that next month’s People’s Congress in North

Korea will name Kim Jong Il’s youngest son (Kim Jong Un - the Young General) as his designated successor. We saw several references to CNC (computer controlled calculations), a reference to robotics that are said to be an initiative of the Young General. On many street corners, we saw school children playing music and singing songs glorifying the Young General. However, when I spoke with local people, they didn’t even know the name of the Young General; they simply knew that he was a son of Kim Jong Il. As several people said to me, “we don’t want to know any more about him yet because we don’t want our excitement to be diminished when the big announcement is made”.

One of the criticisms made by some travellers to North Korea is that you can only see and hear what the government wants. The trips that I organise trips try and overcome this by scheduling opportunities for

free conversation (such as during the school visits) and by actively looking for ways to engage with local people (such as in Moranbong Park at a time when many local people were there to celebrate Liberation Day), as well as in other off-the-beaten-path locations. In order to try and obtain a more formal balanced perspective on the situation in North Korea, I scheduled a post-breakfast meeting with Mr Bijaya Rajbhandari, the UNICEF representative in the DPRK. Our discussion with Mr Rajbhandari was informative, encouraging and frank, and provided us with very important background information to understand the situation in North Korea, especially with respect to children’s and women’s health issues, diet and nutrition, as well as quality of life and environmental issues.

Among many highlights of the visit, several stand out. One was attending a performance of the ‘Arirang’ mass gymnastics and artistic performance in May Day Stadium. A total of 100,000 performers took part in the show, which involved 20,000 school children providing the rapidly changing backdrop, plus 80,000 dancers, gymnasts, musicians, soldiers and singers whose efforts combined to tell the story of modern Korea, from Japanese colonisation, through liberation and reconstruction and on to the future hope for reunification and peace. It was a stunning experience that I doubt any of us will ever forget!

As with previous groups of students I have taken to North Korea, our visit to June 9th Secondary School was a highlight of our time in the DPRK. The school after the date on which Kim Il Sung visited during the 1970s. Unfortunately, some communication problems meant that our visit had to be split into two parts on separate days, a somewhat inconvenient gesture that nonetheless represented remarkable hospitality on the part of the school’s teachers and students who

came in during their summer holidays especially to welcome us. The visit(s) included participating in a class with a one-on-one buddy allocated to each of our students, the opportunity for all-too-brief free conversations, and reciprocal musical, dance and cultural performances.

We spent our last full day in North Korea by going to Panmunjom, the negotiating point in the centre of the DMZ that divides North and South Korea. This must be one of the most

extraordinary places in the world today, an active and visible reminder of the Cold War that divided the globe just a couple of decades ago. Although we visited several specific important places, such as the location of the armistice signing in 1953 and the negotiating huts that straddle the border, it was the simple experience of the tension and atmosphere of this front-line location that made the experience significant.

During our return trip to Pyongyang from Panmunjom, we took a diversion to visit Sinchon, the site of an alleged but well documented massacre of 35,380 local people by US and allied troops during a 52 day period in late 1950. A museum has been built to honour those who were tortured and killed, known as the Sinchon

Museum

of US War Atrocities. Very few foreigners visit the museum (although all DPRK students do so) on the grounds that it is considered far too explicit for general foreign tastes.

It is certainly explicit, and the message is unambiguous to say the least! In my view, however, our visit to Sinchon highlighted the immense and practical importance of our College’s mission statement (to make education a force to unite people, nations and cultures for peace and a sustainable future). Sinchon was an example (and sadly not a unique one) the all-too-real evils of war and their terrible impact on innocent people.

Speaking personally, the most moving part of the experience at Sinchon was listening to the quiet words (in Korean, but translated) of Mr Kim Myong Gum. Now an old man, Mr Kim was one of only

three children who survived an incident in Wonam-ri, a small hamlet on the outskirts of Sinchon, in which just over a hundred children were herded into a brick storeroom by US troops, sprayed with petrol and set aflame. To hear the words of the first-hand testimony of a survivor of the massacre left all of us stunned, humbled and speechless. It was indeed a very quiet bus ride from Sinchon back to Pyongyang as we all tried to process what we had seen and heard.

As in previous years, this year’s goodwill trip to North Korea was made possible through the generous sponsorship of the Kowloon North Rotary Club, and on behalf of the students who benefitted from the support, I wish to express my profound thanks. Our North Korean initiative has the potential to change the political face of East Asia, and the far-sighted vision of the Kowloon North Rotary Club is deeply appreciated.

I am also grateful to the 21 students who were such brilliant ambassadors for their respective countries and for the United World Colleges movement in general. Each student made a brilliant contribution to the trip as well as making my job as leader easy by not losing passports, not vomiting, not claiming that Kim Jong Il was born in Russia, or any of the thousands of other things that could have caused us problems. They were superb in every way, and they have contributed an important chapter to building better relations between the DPRK and the rest of the world.

I have uploaded 12 galleries of 735 photos of the trip on this website. They can be accessed through the following links:

•Day 1 Images - Arrival in Pyongyang (9 photos)
•Day 2 Images - Flight to Mount Paektu, Lake Chon, Secret Camp (57 photos)
•Day 3 Images - Samjiyon Grand Monument, Museum, Mangyongdae Children’s Palace (57 photos)
•Day 4 Images - UNICEF meeting, Pyongyang, Mount Myohyang (96 photos)
•Day 5 Images - International Friendship Exhibition, Pohyon Monastery, War Museum (42 photos)
•Day 5 Mass Games - Part 1 Mass Games (75 photos)
•Day 5 Mass Games - Part 2 Mass Games (78 photos)
•Day 6 Part 1 - Mausoleum, Martyrs’ Cemetery, Mangyongdae, Metro, Pueblo (75 photos)
•Day 6 Part 2 - Moranbong Park, Tower of the Juche Idea (54 photos)
•Day 7 Images - DMZ at Panmunjom, Sinchon Museum of US War Atrocities (105 photos)
•School Visits - Two visits to June 9th Secondary School, Pyongyang (81 photos)
•Day 8 Images - Leaving the DPRK (6 photos)
•Front page link to all photos (735 photos)

Looking across the Taedong River in Pyongyang, in the shade of the Worker-Peasant-Intellectual bronze statue at the foot of the Tower of the Juche Idea.

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