My Holiday in North Korea (23 page)

“I wish!” she giggled into her hand so Older Handler couldn’t hear or see.

I fucking knew it!

“Me, too,” I said solemnly in return.

That I would never be allowed to see or speak to Fresh Handler ever again, in any manner, was a strange and sad reality.

The next morning we’re all gathered in the lobby, ready to go.

I exit the Koryo Hotel for one last time. I get into my car with my handlers, and Dr. Irish gets into his car with his, and we both depart for the airport.

As I sit in the back seat one last time, staring out the window at a city I can’t wait to leave, quietly contemplating what it all meant, the car carrying Dr. Irish, pediatric surgeon, speeds by us.

“Ah!” Older Handler excitedly peeps, as she points. “Do you know whose car that was?”

“No, whose?” I ask rhetorically.

“The gynecologist’s!” she says excitedly.

And for a moment, I really do love Older Handler.

Driver pulls our car into the parking lot of the tiny, old, operating airport (which, NoKo-style, sits maybe a yard from a large, brand-new, closed airport), turns off the car, and gets out. He’s been uncharacteristically quiet during the drive there. He fetched my bag from the boot of the car and without looking me in the eyes, put it down by my side. I handed him his tip and motioned for a hug or something to say a proper farewell, but he turned away and got back in the car without saying one word—not thank you; not even good-bye.

And that was that.

Older Handler and Fresh Handler escorted me inside the terminal building. My eyes started welling up with tears. I always tear up in airports—I’m not great at transitions—but also I’m sad-ish at saying goodbye, and Driver’s surprising behavior had upset me, leaving me feeling even more discombobulated over how our goodbye was about to go down.

Turned out the same as it had with Driver, only they thanked me for their tips.

Maybe affectionate farewells aren’t allowed in North Korea, particularly those involving foreigners? Or maybe their snubs were coping mechanisms—the only way to keep their emotions in check to avoid trouble? Or maybe I’d read everything wrong, and none of them had ever liked me, believing all along I was nothing more than a vile American Imperialist?

I’ll never know.

I shouldn’t know you again if we DID meet, Humpty Dumpty replied in a discontented tone, giving her one of his fingers to shake; you’re so exactly like other people.
—Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass

CHAPTER 23

THEY’RE ONLY HUMAN

W
e were driving someplace outside of Pyongyang. I don’t remember where, but we’d been in the car a while when we came upon a massive, sprawling construction site with half-built, deconstructed apartment buildings stretching for blocks in every direction. There were thousands and thousands of men laboring away in the hot sun using manual tools and dressed in their normal, ragged street clothes or military uniforms. It was shocking to see a construction site of that scale, with men perilously clinging to the sides of the buildings and dangling from windows with no safety gear on, hauling wheelbarrows piled high with construction debris, and doing the work machines usually do. Their movements looked frenzied and chaotic, like panicked ants zigzagging in every direction.

I sat transfixed, staring out the window, trying to understand what I was seeing. Normally Older Handler would have been incessantly talking, forcing me to look at her instead of out the window, her normal tactic to prevent me from seeing anything she didn’t want me to see. But she was silent. I glanced at her to see why. She was staring out the window, too.

“It’s so awful. They look like slaves,” I said softly, still looking at her.

She shifted her gaze back to me, and her eyes said what she could not. Then she sighed and looked away.

North Korean citizens are brainwashed from birth to believe that North Korea is superior to every other country in every single way; that their Great Leaders are omnipotent beings who must be revered; and that America, Japan, and South Korea are their mortal enemies, poised to attack their country at any moment.

To ensure compliance with these beliefs, the North Korean people are systemically and systematically enslaved in thought and action. The Cult of Kim permeates every aspect of their lives. Their schools, jobs, and social activities are all part of the indoctrination process. They are denied all access to outside information of any kind. The only knowledge imparted to them is what the Party wants them to know, all of which is reinforced through social molding. Self-expression, freedom of thought, social discourse to effect change, and personal beliefs of any kind are relegated to private thoughts. They are told how to live, where to live, what to do, what to study, what job to do, if they can drive, if they can travel, where they can go, with whom they can speak. Denied any opportunity to shape their own lives, they are robbed of all autonomy, and live in fear of the Regime and one another knowing that any sign of doubt, dissent, or disagreement is intolerable, and that there is a very steep price to pay should they dare step out of line.

By instilling profound fear, hatred of their enemies and unshakable loyalty and commitment to their Dear Great Leader, the Regime has managed to maintain absolute control.

But for people like Older Handler, Fresh Handler, and Driver—who regularly interact with foreigners like me, who are eager to share information, foster understanding, and build relationships—the realization that so much of what they’ve been told their entire lives is a lie has to invoke a certain cognitive dissonance. I’d read somewhere that the prisoners on Alcatraz could hear the sounds of San Francisco—music and conversation—emanating from the city, and that these sounds of freedom so close, not their incarceration, were what tortured them most. I spent a lot of time wondering and worrying if my handlers weren’t suffering the same fate.

I think Older Handler knew down deep inside that North Korea was absurd and that all the Great Dear Leader stuff was nonsense. But her lifelong indoctrination and absolute entrenchment in North Korean society made it impossible for her to dismiss her beliefs and reject her life.

Or maybe not. Maybe she really did believe everything she told me.

I had these moments with Older Handler when a glimmer of recognition would cross her face, or she would gesture to indicate tacit agreement, or she would say something that sounded sincere, and I would feel a real connection to her, something approximating friendship. Older Handler would cease being “Older Handler, Blind Enforcer of Insane Rules” and instead become “Older Handler, Real Person Capable of Complex Thought.” But then the moment would evaporate, as if she’d shaken herself out of a reverie and back into the reality of NoKo, where her job was to make me believe North Korea was the greatest place on Earth, and she couldn’t be happier there.

As a result, I was always second-guessing myself with her. I one-hundred-percent believed she didn’t believe anything she was saying and was just biding her time, and I also believed I was completely wrong.

We were stopped at a light in the car one afternoon when a group of people passed by us all wearing the same wide-brim hats. When I asked Older Handler why, she said something about how they’d all just returned from their two-week service, working the rice fields. She then explained that every citizen, including her, must work in the rice fields for two weeks each year, and that she had just served her time in the fields a few weeks ago. I was so shocked by her admission that I asked whether it was hard work and sad, being away from her family and job. By reflex she gave me a look that said something along the lines of, “Of course it’s hard working the rice fields, you moron,” but caught herself almost instantly, smiled and said, “It’s my honor.”

Or one afternoon at the “book and stamp shop” in Pyongyang (which sold nothing but books written by or about the Great Leaders and other propaganda), Older Handler kept insisting I buy a DVD compilation of rabble-rousing speeches and military parades. I politely declined, but she was relentless. Finally, to put an end to the conversation, I informed her, “No one really uses DVDs in my country anymore. In fact I don’t even have a DVD player, and most computers no longer have DVD drives.” She ceased speaking, and her face registered a bona fide mix of confusion and disbelief: if North Korea is the greatest and most advanced country in the world, and we use DVDs, then why doesn’t America? As I started to explain the concept of on-demand and streaming services, she cut me off, “You buy stamps.” Her beatific smile had returned.

It made me wonder yet again if all her bluster and grandiloquence was meant to convince herself that life in North Korea was great, as much as it was meant to convince me.

I suspected Fresh Handler had a better grip on reality than Older Handler did.

I’d seen her giggle at my sarcastic retorts about NoKo too many times to believe otherwise, and from what I’d gleaned from conversation, she’d been exposed to Western culture throughout her life and liked it.

During our visit to the Monument to the Foundation of the Workers’ Party, an enormous monument, Fresh Handler and I, as usual, had to use the bathroom. (Much of our bonding time was toilet related.)

The closest bathroom was in a building that also housed some type of art exhibit, which we stopped to visit before walking back to where Older Handler and Driver were waiting for us. As we walked around the gallery of bad art, our conversation turned from paintings to movies. Fresh Handler excitedly offered that she’d seen several American movies when she’d been at university. I told her I was surprised and asked her which ones. The names escape me now, but I remember several starred Hilary Duff or Amanda Bynes. She was so excited and animated describing the movies and so pleased when I told her I’d seen a few of them, too. When I asked her which movie was her favorite, she sheepishly answered that she’d loved them all and thought they were “so funny.”

One movie was set in New York City, so our conversation shifted again. I whispered to her how New York City was full of people from all over the world, and how you could hear every language imaginable just walking down the street. I told her how every morning I take a taxi to work and have drivers from far-flung places like Sudan or Pakistan. I told her there were thousands of restaurants and stores within miles of my apartment, and cineplexes capable of showing twenty movies at a time. She soaked it all in like a child listening to a favorite story. Then I told her I thought she would love New York City and that if she ever wanted to visit, or live there, she was welcome to stay with me anytime. She looked at me and wistfully said, “Oh, yes, I really want to!” And I managed to forget for a minute that would never happen.

Fresh Handler’s brother, father, and mother had gone to university, too, and were all professionals (doctor, teacher, and doctor, respectively). When I asked her to describe her home to me—if it was nice like the beautiful, modern apartment buildings in Pyongyang that no one seemed to live in, or not so nice, like most of the other buildings—she was honest, telling me she lived in a “so-so nice” building “with two rooms” that her whole family shared. When I posed the same question to Older Handler, she answered something along the lines of, “Yes of course! Very nice!”

One afternoon we were in Manpok Valley for a scheduled walk. Fresh Hander had gone in search of a bathroom so Older Handler and I opted to sit down near a river to wait. During our brief time alone I told Older Handler she could ask me anything she wanted to—whether about me or America—whether about me or America or another country, anything, and if I knew the answer I would tell her the absolute honest truth.

Without a moment’s hesitation, she asked me to explain the difference between hard currency and soft currency.

“What? That’s it?” That’s all you want to know? In the whole wide world?” I was incredulous.

She added, “And is the Chinese RMB hard currency?”