My Holiday in North Korea (11 page)

“No cancer,” she says.

No cancer as in, “There’s no cancer in North Korea,” or perhaps, “No, cancer…” but then you decided to stop speaking? I’m feeling impatient but try to keep my mouth shut.

I can’t.

I decide to dumb things down a bit. After all, she’s an ob-gyn, not an oncologist, and I hate myself when I don’t play nice. “How many babies do you deliver per week?”

“Babies? No.” Dr. So-and-So blankly replies. I’m seriously going to fucking lose it. And now I have to go to the bathroom to boot.

“Yes. Babies. You know, the tiny little new people we just saw upstairs,” I say while making a gesture to indicate
small
, then
up.
“Did you not introduce yourself as an obstetrician/gynecologist? Obstetricians deliver babies, do they not? Therefore, how many babies do you deliver per week?”

“No,” the pretty one stubbornly repeats.

Okay…questioning over. I am choosing to remain my best self. And besides, it’s not her fault; the elevator time-machine probably erased her mind.

We’re back in the bright-white lobby—but I can’t remember how, because now I’m preoccupied by my newly shifting reality that Doctor Pretty is likely not a hot doctor at all but rather a well-played stratagem, and I her dewy-eyed fool.

I ask for the bathroom, figuring that at least there will be toilet paper and running water for a change, since we’re in a state-of-the-art hospital, after all. On the way to the bathroom, we pause in front of a staircase so Older Handler can quiz me as to whether I notice anything about it.

ME: Umm, it’s pretty?

That seemed a safe bet.

OLDER HANDLER: The center is green!

She’s right. It’s a marble staircase overlaid with green jade.

OLDER HANDLER,
proudly
: To be honest, green looks like waterfall flowing down because when our Dear Great Leader visited for on-the-spot guidance, he pointed and said, “The color green makes pregnant women feel all better! No more pain!”

So with that, the staircase in the brand-new hospital building was ripped out, and rebuilt with green jade. No expense spared.

ME: That’s awesome. May I please go to the bathroom now?

Older Handler took me to the VIP bathroom inside a presentation room where I would be forced to sit through a 400,000-hour-long presentation detailing everything about the same hospital I’d just toured during the past hour.

The bathroom, by the way, had lights but no running water or toilet paper. Progress!

Before leaving I was asked to write my impressions of the hospital in a guest book. I was tempted to write “Hot doctor, dimly lit” but decided this was probably funnier in my own head.

Instead I wrote “It was lovely. Thank you,” and signed a fake name, lest I do anything to personally contribute to Korea’s version of
One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest
. Then I turned and walked out of the hospital, my “sterile” lab coat and shoe covers still in place.

For she had read several nice little stories about children who had got burnt, and eaten up by wild beasts, and other unpleasant things, all because they would not remember the simple rules their friends had taught them…
—Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

CHAPTER 11

THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT

I
have been traumatized by a Children’s Palace.

Once I figured out that it is not the awesome, free, “Great Leader rocks” after-school program for arts and sports that welcomes any child who feels like going (“Because our Dear Leader loves us and says the children are our future.” No, Older Handler, Whitney Houston said that) but is instead a center for extracurricular excellence to be achieved through years of mandated and rigorous study—and is restricted to the country’s most talented children and those of the Party elite—I no longer know which way is up.

I gravitate to children when I travel. It may sound overly simple, but children have always struck me as the soul of a country. There’s usually no pretense with them. No matter what’s going on in a nation politically or socially, or how focused on putting on a show for tourists everyone else is, children will show you the truth. They are who they are, and who they are is a reflection of their country.

I therefore make a point of visiting schools, orphanages, and small communities wherever I travel in the world in order to interact with children. Whether I’m able to play with them, observe their schools, or just take photos and share, it’s an extraordinary way to break down boundaries and barriers, and helps foster communication and understanding at a young age.

So I was excited when we pulled into the parking lot of the Pyongyang School Children’s Palace, the first Children’s Palace we were to visit (I had loaded up heavily on children-oriented activities when planning my itinerary). Our local guide, an adorable, well-mannered little girl who spoke no English at all, guided us up a few flights of stairs, through a long corridor, and down a short hall.

Things went North Korea immediately.

Want to know what it feels like to be ushered into a room of three rows of five young girls, seated, skirts on, legs spread, most wearing protective shoe covers with bows, and each holding a giant accordion? And who, as you enter the room, bust out a tune as if you’ve caught them by surprise?

Well, it feels fucking strange.

After having the same, “Oh, you just caught us in the middle of practicing this song (or routine) perfectly” experience five or six more times, I’m starting to suspect the obvious: that they knew I was coming, that my visit’s been staged, that they’ve likely been practicing this routine for years. They’re all just waiting for tourists like me (and Party leaders) to arrive so they can perfectly perform their routines, and if there are any mistakes made, DISCUSSIONS will ensue.

When we visit a calligraphy class filled with (I was told) three- and four-year-olds whose work would put the Great Masters to shame, the gravity of the situation becomes clear.

These palaces aren’t large, splendid houses for leisurely learning; they’re extracurricular-activity jails.

Children are assigned their activity or skill in the same way they will be assigned a job later in life. He’ll be a singer, she’ll play the accordion, and they will practice every single day of their lives.

Are the children of the Palace complicit in the grand ruse, or are they just having fun? They may be slaves to arts and culture, but at least they’re saved from tilling fields. And how are their circumstances all that different from those of pageant children with their crazy moms, or budding young gymnasts who choose to forgo normal childhoods for Olympic dreams? Questions, as always…without answers, as usual.

I’m not enjoying the Children’s Palace as much as I expected.

After an interminable variety show and musical performance by the Children’s Palace’s best and brightest, I’m ready to go. North Korea is the greatest country on Earth, score one. Children are the truth of a country, score zero.

We drive to Pyongsong and spend the night in a hotel where I’m asked upon arrival to tell them what time I would like running water in my room. I think carefully before deciding, because I’m only given a half-hour window. At my appointed time, there is no water. I’m too tired to care.

The next morning, after we tour Pyongsong’s Central Square, some monuments, the Paeksong Revolutionary Site, and the Paeksong Food Factory, we drive to the Kim Jong-suk High School for an interaction I hope will resemble something closer to truth.

After we pull into the driveway and get out of the car, I spy a few young boys peeking out of various school windows at us—the brave ones, perhaps. When I wave hello and snap a photo, they all quickly jerk back inside before popping their heads out again. I am playing peekaboo, albeit with high school boys instead of toddlers. Apparently the behavior is universal. Even in North Korea.

The principal, a handsome and winsome man, was also acting as our local guide. He walked over to our car to greet us. There was something in the way he parted his hair, the blackness of his shoes, and the cut and shape of his uniform that made me keep thinking he would be better suited standing on the bow of a ship or the bridge of the
Starship Enterprise
.

He escorted us into the school, which was clean, and colorful in the North Korean chalky, muted way (imagine Pepto-Bismol pink as a paint color that was also available in blue, yellow, and green). But it was cheerful and encouraging, and thanks to the many windows, not terribly dark (there were no lights on anywhere), and Principal seemed genuinely proud as he showed us the school’s math wall of fame.

Next we were led upstairs to observe an English class, supposedly a normal class already in session.

I was ushered into the back of the classroom, along with quite a crew: Fresh Handler, Older Handler, and Driver; the same three British tourists from the factory, who happened to be teachers themselves; their Danish liaison/international guide, their two North Korean guides, and their driver; three to five other teachers (supervisors?); and the principal. The students were completely undisturbed by all the people and commotion. Guess they’d been part of this goat rodeo before.