We woke to a beautifully clear morning, almost giving credence to the article we had read in “Korea Today” on the flight to Pyongyang that the skies over North Korea are always clear and bright compared with the smog-ridden air over the South.
Despite the great weather, most of our morning program was spent indoors. Our first stop was the Korean war Museum, or as it known in the DPRK, the Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum. Compared to its equivalent (and also huge) museum in Seoul, the museum in Pyongyang makes a strongly documented case for which side started the Korean War - the “US imperialist aggressors” (strange how “US” is always an adjective in North Korea, never a noun).
Copies of the documents captured from the US Embassy when DPRK forces liberated Seoul in 1950 were prominently displayed, giving credence to the claim that the US was determined to start the war in a way that the blame could be shifted to the Northern side. Having now read quite a bit about the Korean War, and having visited the relevant museums in Pyongyang, Seoul and Dandong, it seems fairly clear to me now that whichever side actually fired the first shot, both sides had made advanced preparations to do so.
The exhibitions in this museum are fairly strong in the areas of photographic and documentary evidence, although like every war museum in the world, they present a fairly one-sided good-vs-bad account. We saw a very impressive animated diorama showing the bravery of the North Korean truck drivers in the face of enemy air attacks, including one incident where a group of people used their own bodies to support a bridge damaged in an air raid so the trucks could cross, and another where an elderly driver deliberately turned on his lights while driving at night to divert enemy air attacks away from the main column of trucks. With the inspirational music playing in the background, it was emotionally quite stirring.
Other highlights of the museum included the basement area, which contained rows of captured American vehicles (tanks, trucks, jeeps), some with smashed windows or headlights from the fighting, and quite a number of US warplanes that had been shot down in various states of destruction.
Perhaps the pride and joy of the museum was the revolving diorama showing a decisive battle in which North Korean forces captured Taejon, a strategic South Korean city. This certainly an impressive display, housed under a huge overhead curtain adorned with a red star. I was told that soon after the display had been built it was visited by Kim Il Sung, who gave ‘on-the-spot guidance‘ that the seating area should revolve as many visitors may be elderly ex-servicemen who would find it uncomfortable standing to watch the display. And so it was done - visitors can sit on padded benches and in 15 minutes the entire diorama can be seen without moving from the seat.
After the museum, and a very quick three minute walk through the sculpture garden of war monuments nearby, we drove to another place that received the benefits of Kim Il Sung’s on-the-spot guidance, the Grand People’s Study House overlooking Kim Il Sung Square in central Pyongyang. This huge building in traditional Korean style serves the dual role of a central library and an adult education centre. It is claimed that there is space for about 30 million books, and the building has access to the national intranet (although not the internet).
One facility that particularly appealed to me was the ‘ask the expert facility’ - if anyone has any questions about what they are reading or studying, they can go to a special room and ask an expert “who knows everything” about the subject. On the day of our visit, the ‘expert’ seemed very lonely in his office; perhaps the national intranet is an effective information tool after all.
When Kim Il Sung visited, his on-the-spot guidance concerned the desks. He noted that flat-topped desks were inconvenient for readers of different heights, and he suggested that the angles of the tops of the desks should be adjustable, which they now are, by means of of a small wheels at the side of each desk.
Our third visit before lunch was the captured American spy-ship, the USS Pueblo. I still remember the Pueblo incident from watching the television news at the time - this was in 1968 and I was just 14 or 15 at the time. I remember the constantly changing stories conveyed by the US Government, and especially by the-then President Lyndon Johnson. In January 1968 the ship strayed into North Korean territorial waters off the east coast while undertaking espionage activities. The US Government first insisted that it was a civilian research vessel, but as the facts emerged bit by bit, it was finally admitted that the ship was indeed spying. After the first, and only, confession/apology ever given by the United States, the North Koreans freed the crew towards the end of that same year.
The confession is prominently displayed on board the Pueblo, which is now docked in the Taedong River in southern Pyongyang at the site where the Koreans repelled another American ship, the USS Sherman, in 1866 by setting fire to it and sinking it. And who led the attack on the USS Sherman to defend Korean sovereignty? Kim Il Sung’s great grandfather, of course. The Americans claimed that they just wrote the confession to get their military personnel home in time for Christmas; the North Koreans take the apology extremely seriously and display copies both on the USS Pueblo and in the Great Fatherland Liberation War Museum.
I suspect that if the US had not been involved in a larger conflict in Vietnam at the time, more might have been made of the Pueblo incident (including military action). I also suspect that the Americans had just hoped that memories of the Pueblo incident would just pass away over time, but as they say, history is written by the victors, and the North Koreans will not let people people forget the constant violations of their sovereignty by the US, and of course they have a highly visible trophy to reinforce their point.
As was pointed out to us, the US espionage continues, and on the river bank beside the Pueblo is a US remote control submarine that was captured in DPRK waters as recently as 2004. What was remarkable was that we shown through the USS Pueblo by a female military officer, who was able to repeat the phrase “US imperialist aggression” over and over again in such sweet, soft tones that it completely replaced any notion of hatred with a profound sense of sorrow and regret.
Lunch was a little late after this packed program of morning visits, but the wait was worth it as our venue was the revolving restaurant at the top (47th floor) of the Yanggakdo Hotel. With such clear conditions today, none of us objected that the revolving restaurant was not actually revolving; we were more than happy to walk around and take in the spectacular views across the Pyongyang skyline.
Following lunch, we checked out of the hotel and took the 53 kilometre drive to the port city of Nampo on Korea’s west coast. The width of the road seemed a tad excessive, and being a 10 lane highway the whole distance we experienced no traffic congestion (to say the least). Nonetheless, the leisurely drive took just on one hour, and we arrived at about 3:30 pm.
Our first visit in Nampo was at an orphanage for young children. Located close to the city’s centre, the orphanage catered for 130 children aged from 7 months to 4 years old. It soon became clear that this was no ordinary orphanage, as the conditions and decor were sensational. The care taken of the children was obviously superb, and we were all enchanted by the songs the tiny children sang to us. This was probably the first place we have visited in North Korea where politics was not an ‘in your face’ experience - maybe that comes in the orphanage for children aged 4 to 7 that we heard about.
Our main destination in Nampo was the West Sea Barrage. This is an impressive feat of engineering in which the estuary of the Taedong River was closed off to the sea in the 1980s by a series of sluice gates set in an 8 kilometre long sea wall. The aim was to create a freshwater estuary, free of salt water, that could be used for fishing and irrigation water. Ships can pass through one of three locks in the barrage, and the area of irrigated land created by the project does seem impressive.
Following the visit to the West Sea barrage, we took a beautiful one hour drive to our accommodation through winding rural back roads, passing through villages and fields of corn, rice and potatoes that were beautifully lit by the clear afternoon sunlight. Many visitors to the DPRK complain that they are kept away from rural areas; we certainly have no such complaint.
Our destination was a hot springs spa resort that until recently was restricted for use only by high ranking government officials. Run by the army as far as I can tell, the resort comprised separate huts, each of which had four large rooms equipped with an in-room spa to hold the hot salty waters.
Our students had to put in several hours of practices this evening to prepare for the performances at the school tomorrow. Fortunately the hotel had a large room that was perfect for the purpose, but it did mean that the spas had to be delayed until after 11 pm. Tomorrow’s wake up call is scheduled for 6:15 am, but hopefully the spa will help the students have a superb six hours or so of sleep.
It certainly worked for me.
