Dear Leader (4 page)

With the decrease in the number of novelists, and an increase in demand for poetry and poets, a more stringent professional hierarchy was needed. Epic poets write long poems, lyric poets write shorter ones; and this generic distinction came to determine a poet’s rank, although the Workers’ Party alone could decree which genre a poet might adopt and which poets might be permitted the honour of praising Kim Jong-il through poetry. The epic genre of Kim Jong-il poetry in particular was restricted to just six poets, who were also the poets laureate of North Korea. At the age of twenty-eight, in 1999, I became the youngest of this tiny elite of court poets. Based on age and experience alone, I had accomplished the impossible. Unlike my fellow poets, however, I was also an employee of the United Front Department – a job that allowed me entry into a world completely unknown to most ordinary North Koreans, where I was given access not only to state secrets, but to a world that lay far beyond the remit of the Workers’ Party.

The United Front Department (UFD) is a key section in the Workers’ Party, responsible for inter-Korean espionage, policy-making and diplomacy. Since 1953, Korea has been divided by an armistice line known as the Korean Demilitarised Zone (DMZ), held in place by military force on each side. The division of the Korean peninsula is not based on a difference in language, religion or ethnicity, but on a difference in political ideology. The North Korean version of Socialism, founded as it is on the maintenance of absolute institutional unity, regards pluralism and individual determination as its greatest enemy. The Workers’ Party has therefore been active and diligent in psychological warfare operations aimed at Koreans in both the North and the South for over half a century.

Entrusted to this most sanctified mission, I worked in Section 5 (Literature), Division 19 (Poetry) of Office 101. In spite of the uncanny and unintended echo of Orwell’s Room 101, this office was, ironically, so named precisely in order to avoid any hint of the nature of our work. The institution had been established in 1970, and the ratification from Kim Il-sung had been issued on 10 October, hence Office ‘101’.

When it was first set up, my department specialised in conducting psychological warfare operations against and in relation to the South through cultural media such as the press, literary arts, music and film. After the 1970s, it strove particularly to amplify anti-American sentiment and foster pro-North tendencies among the South Korean population, exploiting the democratic resistance movements that had risen against the then military dictatorship.

Work produced here was circulated under the names of South Korean publishers, and even took on their distinctive literary style, preferred fonts, and quality and weight of paper. In music, too, the styles of instrumental and vocal arrangements were copied from South Korean recordings. Books and cassettes produced in this way were systematically distributed by our department through
pro-North organisations in Japan or through other South-East Asian nations, and passed on to democratic resistance movements in South Korea. My department in this way sowed the seeds of what might at first appear to be a political paradox: even today, sympathy towards the DPRK among South Koreans is almost entirely concentrated within the democratic, progressive and anti-authoritarian camp of the nation’s political divide.

Just as on a beach, wearing a swimsuit is more appropriate than a business suit, in the spirit of being faithful to the South Korean context, the institutional slogan of the UFD was ‘Localisation’, whereby we were required to absorb the character and identity of South Koreans. My first day at work in Office 101, and therefore my entry into its South Korean bubble, was 12 August 1998. I was twenty-seven. I was never more proud of myself than that day, as I stepped into the secret world of the UFD.

My office was in the built-up neighbourhood of Ryunghwa District in Pyongyang’s Central Area. The strikingly different world of Office 101 was evident as soon as I crossed the threshold of the compound. There was a large steel gate with high walls all around, representing the exclusivity of a world that ordinary people could not peer into. Employees used a small entrance that was part of the gate, and which allowed only one man at a time to squeeze through. A single soldier stood guard.

The presence of the soldier was also a mark that distinguished this institution from the rest of North Korean society, where employees usually took turns to serve as guard and surveillance for and against fellow employees. As if to confirm that guard duty was a separate duty from UFD duties in this institution, a male cadre of our department’s Party Committee had to be fetched to explain my presence to the guard, and to have my identification double-checked, before I was allowed to set foot in the compound for the first time.

Once I entered, in contrast to the small and unassuming entrance,
the yard was very large. Everything was paved with cement, without a trace of visible bare earth. The cadre who came to fetch me explained that the four-storey building opposite us was the headquarters of Office 101. The main building was flanked to the left by a library of South Korean literature and an assembly hall. Communications Office 813, to the right, was where counterfeit books were printed under the imprints of South Korean publishers. Pointing to the library, the cadre told me that the library building had been the only school for courtesans in Pyongyang at the time of the Japanese occupation. Adding that Wolhyang-dong in Moranbong Area, not far from here, was a famous courtesan area in the past, he smiled knowingly at me.

My office in Division 19 (Poetry) was on the second floor of the main building and in my time there were eight of us in the team: seven men and one woman. Opening the office door, I immediately saw long wooden desks on two sides of the room. Each desk sat four, and we would face the wall as we worked. As I set foot on the marble floor of the office, I almost turned back to leave: it was as if I had just blundered onto the scene of North Korea’s most terrifying crime – treason – the extent of which no one else in the country could begin to imagine or exaggerate. The forbidden materials so casually littering every surface in the room would have brought a death sentence in any other room in all of North Korea and, anywhere else in the country, the shocking slogan framed in pride of place on the wall would have been far beyond the pale in its daring contradiction of half a century’s demonising of the South. The enemy newspapers and books strewn carelessly about the office were only slightly less astonishing to my eyes than the mandate for Office 101 from Kim Jong-il, respectfully framed and displayed prominently on the otherwise bare white wall: ‘Inhabit Seoul, although you are in Pyongyang.’ An act of abominable treason outside these walls was not only permitted within them, but actively encouraged by Kim Jong-il
himself! The leader required us to inhabit South Korea’s collective psyche so as to undermine and triumph over it. Every day I worked in the UFD I never lost my sense of wonder at our world’s stark and secret contrast with the closed society outside our compound.

With our Workers’ Party passes in our shirt pockets, we arrived at Office 101 every day at 8 a.m. and began our working day by reading the South Korean newspapers. Although North Korea’s official name is the Democratic People’s Republic of Chosun, it refers to itself as Chosun and South Korea as southern Chosun, and defines the borders of Korea from the DPRK point of view. However, in the course of our work in Office 101, we saw the term ‘South Korea’ everywhere in the papers and it became second nature to us. In North Korea, the southern administration was portrayed as a treasonous regime led by a sycophantic leader, who continued to betray the Korean people and their land in order to make them puppets of the United States; but through the media that filled the room, we came to know their leader as the South Korean President.

As no one within our office was allowed to talk about their job, or to know anything about a colleague’s, there were no items on anyone’s desk that were not strictly necessary to the task at hand – apart from a calendar. The only item that stood out in the room was a small mirror on the table of our female colleague, fiercely marking her territory as a woman. If it weren’t for the different locks on each of our desk drawers, the rest of us might forget which desk was our own.

Just as our drawers were always locked, members of my team rarely talked about their personal lives, although there were only the eight of us. Once, I cautiously asked the reason for this on my way home with a senior acquaintance at the UFD. His answer was unexpected. He said the reason why everyone kept to themselves inside the office compound was not so much because of security constraints, but because of the nature of our work. Outside, we were Pyongyang residents and North Koreans. Inside, however, we were South Korean
citizens, each one of us. As there was not much to talk about while in these foreign shoes, the lack of conversation on personal topics had become an institutional habit. After this explanation, I understood better how the essence of ‘Localisation’ was our chameleon-like duality.

Nevertheless, this privileged ‘Localisation’ was strictly controlled. South Korean newspapers were only loaned out for a day at a time, and we had to return them to the library before leaving work. In the case of South Korean novels or poems, we could borrow them for several days, but we had to keep them in our locked drawers when leaving the UFD premises. Taking any South Korean materials out of this area was forbidden, and the librarian sometimes visited the office unannounced to check that our reading materials were kept securely.

Our main task, from the moment we arrived at work to the moment we left, was to transform ourselves into South Korean poets and write South Korean poetry. To be more precise, we were to be South Korean poets who were supporters of Kim Jong-il. My South Korean pseudonym was Kim Kyong-min. Our names and surnames had to be different from our real names, and when asked to choose a pseudonym I had used the name of the first relative who came to mind. Supervisor Park Chul deliberated for over three hours on whether the name sounded plausible as that of a South Korean poet before he granted permission for me to assume it.

In return for our specialist work, and on top of our standard rations, we received additional rations of imported food every Saturday. Because of our identity as inhabitants of the outside world, the resources we received – different each time – came from the outside world. They were taken from humanitarian materials donated by the United Nations and the rest of the international community, as well as from South Korean NGOs and religious organisations. In the five-kilo packages that we received, there would be rice from the US, cheese, butter, olive oil, mayonnaise and even underwear and socks.
Sometimes, there were cookies and sweets, or milk powder intended for babies. Because we were given so much, it was a chore to collect our regular rations from the public distribution system, on which the rest of North Korea depended on for survival.

The foreign packages always came to us with their labels intact. The existence of such international aid was viewed as a shameful secret that the regime could not afford to reveal to its ordinary citizens at a time of widespread famine, as it would undermine the state’s ideology of ‘self-reliance’. But as our department’s role was to live and work as outsiders, it seemed logical that we should receive outside goods. We had been handpicked for this work and were trusted not to be tarnished by association with these outside voices and supplies. It felt like a blessing to be allowed to inhabit such a privileged world.

Consuming outside products was easy, but thinking like an outsider was not. One day, feeling it was too difficult to write successfully like a South Korean, I consulted Supervisor Park Chul. He was a man who struck me as imposing, despite his balding head. He had double eyelids and thick eyebrows that bristled with charisma.

‘I don’t really know much about southern Chosun,’ I said. ‘And I just don’t have the knowledge or experience to make literature out of southern Chosun life. So exactly what kind of writing should I do here?’

Supervisor Park Chul laughed so hard that his comb-over flopped down over his eyebrows. He patted it back into place. ‘Neither you nor I have been to Seoul!’ he said. ‘Although we’re all countrymen, Northerners and Southerners, our cultures are different now. But it doesn’t make much difference, because we’re actually working with the Northern audience in mind, not the people of southern Chosun.’

He paused to crumble some cooked egg yolk into a fish tank containing three bright red fish. After tipping the rest of the egg yolk
into his mouth, he wiped his hands and continued, ‘To succeed here, you have to give up on anything like your own name or renown as a writer. You know, when I used to work for the Writers’ Union, I was a star on the rise. You’ve probably read my poems. Take, for example, “Longing for my Townsfolk”.’

‘Yes,’ I replied, though the title didn’t ring any bells.

He continued, ‘If I’d stuck to being a poet, I’d probably be a household name by now. But since I’ve spent my life as a UFD operative, no Koreans here or in the South will ever recognise my work. Still, at least we have an easy life, working here.’

Hearing him sigh, I thought of him as a lonely, ageing man who had to keep his secret life to himself and his colleagues. Just as he’d said, working at the UFD meant not only hiding our work from our countrymen in the South, but also from those in the North. With the increasing economic discrepancy between the North and South, the ideological warfare against the South was perceived as futile by the 1990s, and the propaganda campaigns against the South had run out of steam.

By my time, the UFD was using the experience and techniques previously employed against South Korea’s citizens to conduct psychological offensives against our own people. The experience and techniques that had been learned were replicated in psychological operations aimed at North Koreans though, in other ways, we were still fighting a cultural war on two fronts.