Today was a national holiday in the DPRK, celebrating the 64th anniversary of the defeat of the Japanese in World War II, and therefore the liberation of Korea from colonial rule. The streets of Pyongyang were decorated with DPRK flags that were put into place yesterday while we were in Panmunjom, and the festive appearance in the streets was certainly impressive.
The day began somewhat unusually, with a breakfast meeting with Mr Gopalan Balagopal, the UNICEF representative in North Korea and effectively the head of the United Nations delegation in the DPRK. This visit was arranged by one of the students, Chris Hui, who was a UNICEF Young Ambassador in Hong Kong. Mr Balagopal has been stationed in Pyongyang for the past two years, and was able to offer some excellent insights into the situation in North Korea. I hope that we can establish an ongoing relationship with UNICEF in North Korea as it may given our students meaningful opportunities to make contributions. Perhaps even more significantly for the UWC initiative in North Korea, he agreed to convey the letter I had written to the relevant senior officials in the Ministry of Education.
Our one hour with Mr Balagopal passed far too quickly and we would have loved to spend much more time gleaning his valuable insights. However, we had to stick to our program, and at 9 am we left for our first stop for the day, Mangyongdae, which is the birth place of Kim Il Sung. The traditional style family home in which he was born has been immaculately restored and now stands alone in a
beautifully landscaped park, the dense complex of identical houses around it having been demolished long ago. We were able to see the antiquated tools that his grandparents used, and the famous mis-shapen clay jar that his grandmother bought because she could not afford a properly formed one. We had time for a short walk through the hills and nearby parklands, enabling us to see the spot where Kim Il Sung decided at the age of 14 to leave home and not return until his country had been liberated from Japanese oppression, and the small monument where Kim Il Sung (in his youth) fought a Japanese bully, and won.
A short walk took us to the Mangyongdae fun fair, which was an amusement park with an interesting assortment of rides, games and shooting galleries. The roller coaster seemed to appeal to our students more than any of the other attractions, despite a very obvious need for a good paint job and some maintenance. It was interesting seeing children enjoying their day off in the amusement park, often in the company of their very proud grandparents.
Our next stop was a ride on the Pyongyang metro (underground railway). I had been on the metro on every one of my previous visits to North Korea, always between the same two adjoining stations, Renaissance and Glory. We had been promised that this time we could see six stations. Upon arrival in Pyongyang we were told that although we could ride between six stations, we could only get out and see “4 or 3, probably 3”. Later we were told that the government had not given permission for the extended trip, and we would see just two stations - predictably they would be Renaissance and Glory.
Despite the abbreviated trip, it was still a great experience. The Pyongyang Metro has two lines with 37 stations, but there are plans to extend the system further out into the suburbs. It costs just 5 won for a ride (the official rate of exchange is 190 won to 1 Euro). It is said to carry between 40,000 and 50,000 passengers each day (a surprisingly small figure, I thought). The metro is the deepest underground railway I have ever seen, being about 100 metres deep to double as a bomb shelter if needed. The great appeal of the Metro is the elaborate decorations that follow a different theme in each station. At Renaissance Station, the theme is national reconstruction, and is illustrated by beautiful mosaics of farming and industrial activities, all overseen by a huge end mosaic of Kim Il Sung. At Glory station, the theme is celebration. Under a spectacular overhead display of lights that resemble fireworks, one side of the station has mosaics showing Pyongyang’s buildings on the eastern side of the Taedong River, while the opposite platform shows the western side.
The carriages in the metro were purchased from the former East Berlin metro shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and they are a solid step into Cold War nostalgia. Even the windows still carry some scratched graffiti from the days of the German Democratic Republic - naturally, North Koreans do not engage in subversive activities like defacing public property with graffiti. The trains do feature some changes since their importation into the DPRK, however, notably the twin portraits of the Great Leader (Kim Il Sung) and the Dear Leader (Kim Jong Il) at the end of every carriage. These twin portraits are ubiquitous in North Korea - every room of every house (except the toilet) has them, and they are lovingly dusted and cleaned on a daily basis with a special feather duster used only for that purpose.
Our next stop was the Arch of Triumph, a huge arch resembling the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, but larger (of course) and with a Korean style roof. It was built on the spot where Kim Il Sung returned to Pyongyang in triumph in 1945 having defeated the Japanese (with no mention being made of the role of the US atomic bombs on Japan, of course). Across the road from the Arch was one of the largest mosaics in Pyongyang, showing a slightly sanitised view of the rapturous welcome Kim Il Sung received from the masses when he returned to that spot in 1945.
Our Pyongyang sightseeing continued after lunch, starting at Kim Il Sung Square. Kim Il Sung Square is a large paved area that marks the centre of Pyongyang. Lined with government ministries to the north and south, the Grand People’s Study House to the west and the Taedong River to the east, it is certainly an impressive if somewhat sterile area that is used for military parades, torch-light ceremonies and mass dancing events on major festivals. On the day we visited, the Square was almost deserted, although a bride and groom’s arrival for photographs with the river and the Tower of the Juche Idea as a backdrop provided a nice opportunity for some friendly interaction.
Our next stop was Moranbong Park. The name means “Peony Flower Park”, and the park is beautiful area of shady walks and small creeks that is very popular on holidays (such as this) for picnic gatherings. Korean families tend to spend holidays together with their families, and Moranbong Park is a popular venue for such gatherings. In the communal spirit of the DPRK, many families come to the park, and then combine with other families they have never known to start collective singing or dancing. The families we met were extraordinarily welcoming and hospitable, and quickly brought my students into the event, dancing and laughing together despite the total language barrier.
After enjoying the communal activities of the park, we drove to the Tower of the Juche Idea. ‘Juche’ (also known as ‘Kimilsungism’) is the guiding philosophy of North Korea, and the tower was built for Kim Il Sung’s 70th birthday to honour the philosophy. ‘Juche’ is usually translated as ‘self reliance’ but literally means master (ju) body (che), or controlling oneself, or “humans are their own masters”. The Tower is 170 metres high (one metre higher than the Washington Monument) and comprises 25,550 stones (one for each day of Kim Il Sung’s 70 years - I guess they forget about leap years). The Tower is topped by a huge glass flame that is lit by electricity at night and can can be seen from many parts of Pyongyang.
At the foundation of the Tower are many commemorative stones donated by various friendly organisations from around the world, and my students had great fun finding stones from their own countries. At the front of the Tower, looking across the Taedong River towards Kim Il Sung Square and the Grand People’s Study House is a huge bronze statue of a worker, a farmer and an intellectual, each holding high their respective symbols (hammer, sickle and writing brush) in a way that combined to form the logo of the Korean Workers’ Party.
We took the elevator to the top of the Tower for a spectacular if somewhat hazy view across the Pyongyang skyline. From the top of the Tower (and elsewhere of course), Pyongyang presents as a very beautiful city, with wide (and under-used) boulevards, modern buildings in the socialist style and many trees and gardens. It was interesting to see that work has re-commenced on the 105-story high pyramid-shaped Hotel Ryugyong, which was commenced in 1987 but put on hold in the early 1990s. Apparently an Egyptian telecommunications company is investing in the project, which it hopes to complete by Juche 100 (2012), which is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Kim Il Sung.
One of the sides of the hotel is now covered in mirror-glass, which made quite a contrast to my view of the same building last year. Of course, the bigger question of why Pyongyang of all places needs the world’s tallest hotel when its existing hotels are largely empty for most of the year is a question that does not get asked in the DPRK.
Our final stop for the afternoon was the Monument to the Founding of the Korean Workers’ Party. This monument was one of the last grand monuments built in Pyongyang, having been completed in 1995. It comprised a large circle with relief sculptures in the socialist realist style, crowned with three huge stone hands, one holding high a hammer, another a sickle and another a writing brush.
We then had a hotpot dinner in a local restaurant before proceeding to May 1st Stadium for one of the highlights of the trip, a performance of mass gymnastics. There is nothing in the world like North Korea’s mass gymnastics (sometimes also called mass games). Developed from public displays of synchronised gymnastics pioneered by Czechoslovakia during the 1950s, and adding the huge changing backdrops of pictures made up of thousands of school children holding coloured books aloft that was pioneered by the Chinese, our performance comprised 100,000 performers (20,000 school children producing the backdrop, plus 80,000 performers in the main area of the stadium).
The particular performance we saw was ‘Arirang’, an artistic gymnastic performance based on a well-loved Korean folk tale about a boy and a girl who love each other but become separated. Arirang has been performed in Pyongyang for several years now, and each year some improvements and changes are made. This year, there was a significant addition of a scene representing the birth of Kim Jong Il in the log cabin in the secret camp on Korea’s sacred Mount Paektu, illuminated with golden light and surrounded by dancing snow-covered trees. Or, to express it in the words of the ‘Pyongyang Times’ newspaper (15th August Juche 98 [2009]) “Out of a resolve to add brilliance to this year of bringing about a radical turn in the building of a thriving nation, the creative artists and performers have newly created Scene 1 of Act 3 and reproduced the scenes featuring the indomitable strength and resourcefulness of the Korean people and the ever- changing looks of the country in a short time”. It is not widely known in North Korea (to say the least) that it is generally believed (outside the DPRK) that Kim Jong Il was born in Khabarovsk, Russia.
‘Arirang’ began with an impression of Korea under Japanese colonial rule. It then traced the history of Korea with the rise of the new flaming star over Mount Paektu (Kim Il Sung), the path to liberation, the story of socialist reconstruction and the yearning for reunification free from foreign influence. Or, to quote the ‘Pyongyang Times’ once again, “The performers exhibited in an epic way the high profile of the DPRK that has become a dignified, independent strong country after putting an end to the distress-torn history of the nation and the unshakeable faith and will of the Korean army and people to build a thriving socialist nation that guarantees national prosperity under the Songun (army-led) leadership of Kim Jong Il”.
Neither words nor pictures can adequately describe a Korean mass games performance. No picture can do justice to the massive scale, the vibrant colour, the lively music, the brilliant feats of gymnastic prowess, the powerful political messages and the rapid synchronised movement of the spectacle. ‘Arirang’ ended with an ecstatic display of the joy that reunification of Korea would bring, accompanied by fireworks overhead and a grand finale that was simultaneously breath-taking and awe-inspiring. My students were speechless after the performance (which is a very powerful statement when describing UWC students!); they had clearly experienced something deeply moving that they would never forget.
