My Holiday in North Korea (3 page)

There were three booths for immigration: two for “regular” people and a third for diplomats and other government officials. As if it was inconceivable that a foreign woman would travel alone to North Korea and
not
be a diplomat, my fellow passengers kept urging me to join the diplomatic line. I stayed put. I didn’t want to risk deportation trying to impersonate a diplomat when I hadn’t even been
im
ported yet.

When it was my turn, I walked up to the counter, laid my papers and passport down, smiled, and chirped, “Hello!”

The agent grunted back without making eye contact.

He took one paper from me, stamped another, and handed it back with my passport, and I was in.

I was euphoric. The most exciting moments in my life, when I feel most alive, happen when I’m touching down anywhere in the world I’ve never been. I am reborn into a new world, where everything is a curiosity to wonder at, and even the smallest accomplishment is a victory. There was nothing but discovery and learning ahead of me. And I was in North Korea—the most reclusive country on Earth. This was going to be amazing.

Even though I’d done research to make sure the size and type of camera and lens I’d brought would be acceptable, cleared my iPhone of any applications I thought might be questionable, and had declared all of my other electronic devices and cash on my immigration forms, I still felt trepidation as I approached security.

“Cell phone!” demanded a guard.

I’d read online that North Korean officials take your cell phone and examine it but give it back nowadays, so I handed it over without argument. I put my bags on the baggage scanner, which looked about a hundred years old, and walked through the also-ancient metal detector.

After being patted down, I stood watching as a gaggle of guards (soldiers?) huddled in a semicircle around my phone. I couldn’t imagine what they were doing with it, since it was locked. Installing a listening or recording device? They were probably just trying to unlock it.

After a few minutes, a guard returned my phone and pointed to a set of doors, indicating I was free to go. But my luggage was still inside the baggage-screening machine. I pointed to the machine and politely said, “Bags?” hoping my luggage was merely trapped in the scanner’s inner sanctum, not confiscated. When the guard realized what I was saying, he began shouting at the other guards, who in turn began shouting at one another as another guard worked to dislodge my bags. To slake the mounting chaos, I smiled and jokingly said, “Don’t worry! Happens all the time!” I was summarily ignored.

Reunited with my bags a few minutes later, I emerged from security and was greeted by my two smiling, seemingly blissful North Korean handlers—the people who would be my near constant companions until I returned to the airport ten days later.

Older Handler stepped forward and introduced herself first. She was prim, wearing decades-old clothes that looked part
Star Trek
, part 1960s air-hostess uniform, only not stylish and in ugly colors. If we were the cast of a TV show, Older Handler would be the neighbor lady who always tries so hard to look put together
just
so but can’t quite pull it off.

Older Handler then introduced me to her subordinate, Fresh Handler. Older Hander told me she was “fresh” at her job—that is, she’d only been a guide a short time. Fresh Handler was young and diffident, and something about her shaggy-punk haircut and sweet demeanor told me I’d like her best.

As Fresh Handler said hello, Older Handler unabashedly looked me up and down, sizing up—as I would be called throughout my trip—the American Imperialist. Then, without taking a breath, in a tone slightly less than suspicious:

You first time come Korea? You been South Korea? You been Japan? You speak Korean?

ME: Yes. Yes. Yes. No.

North Koreans’ antipathy for Americans cannot be overstated. They are taught aggressively from birth that the United States is their number-one enemy, that Americans are imperialist pigs hell-bent on occupying North Korea, and that we may attack North Korea at any time. The Party espouses this rhetoric to maintain its absolute power over the North Korean people. If there is an enemy from which the people need protecting, the Party can be their protector.

We exited the airport, and I was introduced to Driver, who had spiky hair and was standing next to our car smoking. He half grinned, revealing several gold teeth, then took my bag and loaded it into the boot.

Older Handler directed me to sit in the backseat next to Fresh Handler and took the senior position in the front.

My “North Korea Is Great! America Is Not!” indoctrination began immediately. The car doors had barely closed when Older Handler uttered “our Dear Great Leader” and “American Imperialist” for the first time.

As we drove from the airport to our first tourist attraction, the Arch of Triumph, Older Handler turned to me with a smile plastered across her face and said, “Do you know what today is?”

ME: Umm, Wednesday?

(Which was true.)

OLDER HANDLER: It’s June Twenty-Fifth, the day the American Imperialists invaded our country.

(Which was not true.)

On June 25, 1950, nearly the opposite happened. North Korea invaded South Korea.

Unsure what etiquette dictated in such a situation, I awkwardly said nothing, hoping the conversation would end. She asked me the question again, perhaps thinking I hadn’t heard her the first time. I offered the same answer.

Unsatisfied with my response, Older Handler responded, her smile unperturbed, “It’s the day your country invaded our country.”

ME: Oh, that’s a coincidence then that I arrived today.

I quickly glanced at Fresh Handler with a look that said, “Ack. How did I screw this up already?” And like the new best friend I knew she would be, she giggle-smiled back at me the equivalent of “Don’t worry!”

I looked back at Older Handler, whose smile was now gone. Like a one-two-knockout punch, Older Handler said something to Fresh Handler and Driver, then Driver pulled the car over, and Older Handler and Fresh Handler switched seats.

Older Handler looked at me and said, “Now I watch you more.”

Welcome to North Korea.

Rule Forty-two. All persons more than a mile high to leave the court.
—Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

CHAPTER 2

CURIOUSER AND CURIOUSER

L
ike Alice, I’ve fallen through a rabbit hole into a world full of strange and nonsensical events, where normal is surreal, lying is widespread, and the ruler has a penchant for demanding, “Off with her head!”

It’s a world where what you don’t know 
can
 hurt you, and ignorance is 
not
 bliss, where you must forgo all established logic to acclimate, and “Jabberwocky” makes sense.

But it’s North Korea, not Wonderland, where I went to explore, with no Cheshire Cat to lay out the score. So I wrote this brief guide for readers and tourists, so my journey into madness won’t seem quite as curious: 

1. You are an American Imperialist, and North Koreans will call you this right to your face. They will also tell you that they “hate your country, and your leader…but not you,” and that your country is responsible for all of their problems. Don’t take it personally; they believe
every
word of it.

2. Everyone in North Korea calls North Korea “Korea” or “the DPRK,” and North Koreans “Koreans.” This is because North Koreans believe North Korea and South Korea are still one country and one people, and reunification would be imminent were it not for the American Imperialists’ occupation of the South. Calling North Korea “North Korea” or North Koreans anything other than “Koreans” just reminds everyone you’re an American Imperialist, responsible for ruining all chances for the reunification of their country.

3. Visitors quickly learn that three Kims, not one, govern NoKo:

Kim Il-sung (dead); his son, Kim Jong-Il (also dead); and his grandson, Kim Jong-un (the new fat one). You’ll also learn you should never say
leader
without the qualifiers
dear, great
and/or
supreme
preceding it. Koreans seem to believe that these three terms are actually part of the word
leader
—like a hyphenated word—so if you just say
leader
, no one knows whom you are talking about.

4. Don’t ask how old the new fat leader is or what year he was born, as it’s considered impolite:

ME: What year was your current Dear Great Leader born?

OLDER HANDLER: To be honest, this question is considered impolite. (
Followed by tight-lipped smile that I quickly learned meant the conversation was over
.)

5. For that matter, don’t ask or talk about the new fat one at all. No one seems to acknowledge his presence or give a shit about him, and there are only so many hours in a day (even if it feels like 2,000), so focus on the two great dead ones.

6. Koreans love both of their Dear dead Great Leaders…
a lot
. They love their dead Great Leaders as much as I loved my cutest, most adorable, best doggies in the whole wide world (coincidentally also dead, and running North Korea). Vibrantly painted murals (
read
: flat, desaturated, Technicolor-looking pastels) of the Dear Leaders commanding troops, running movie studios, and beauty-pageant waving while standing on the edge of active volcanoes punctuate NoKo’s otherwise overwhelmingly drab, gray, washed-out world. Larger-than-life statues of one or both Great Leaders riding horses, dressed as farmers, or simply being big tower over cities and towns and are there to greet you everywhere you go. It is the cult of Kim, and fierce, absolute, unalloyed love and loyalty are demanded (and shown), or stiff penalties must be paid. Whether you encounter larger-than-life Kim(s) in the library or in a forest, before doing anything else you must first reverently and respectfully bow before the statue (hands to your sides, sunglasses off, no photos or talking until bowing complete) until your guide cues you that the time for idol worship is over.