A Glimpse Into Daily Life In North Korea

[Formaldehyde]

There have been a number of references to North Korea in the forum lately.

Today, the St. Pete Times ran a number of photos taken recently by David Guttenfelder and Jean H Lee. They were even recently allowed to travel in the countryside accompanied by North Korean journalists with no government minders.

Glimpse into daily life in North Korea

ean H. Lee, The Associated Press bureau chief in Seoul, and David Guttenfelder, AP's chief Asia photographer, have made numerous reporting trips to North Korea in recent years. They were granted unprecedented access on their latest journey to Pyongyang and areas outside the nation's showcase capital.

By JEAN H. LEE
Associated Press

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — A little boy skips along grasping a classmate's hand, his cheeks flushed and a badge of the Great Leader's smiling face pinned to his Winnie the Pooh sweatshirt. Men in military green share a joke over beers at a German-style pub next door to the Juche tower. Schoolgirls wearing the red scarves of the Young Pioneers sway in unison as they sing a classic Korean tune I, too, learned as a child.

Everywhere I look, communist North Korea is a world both foreign and familiar to my Korean-American eyes, a place where the men wear Mao suits and children tote Mickey Mouse backpacks, where they call one another "comrade" and love their spicy kimchi.

Since becoming the Seoul bureau chief for The Associated Press in 2008, I have made five eye-opening visits to North Korea. Chief Asia photographer David Guttenfelder has traveled to the country numerous times over the past 12 years.

We're among the few Western journalists who've been allowed into North Korea during a period of heightened tensions that began three years ago with the shooting death of a South Korean tourist. A parade of provocations has followed: a long-range rocket launch, a nuclear test, the sinking of a South Korean warship and a deadly artillery attack on a front-line island.

North Korea has come under financial sanctions again for its nuclear defiance and has been condemned for alleged human rights abuses. It has also turned inward, as Pyongyang maps out a sensitive succession plan for the nation's next leader.

The wariness in Pyongyang means most foreign journalists are taken on a brief and orchestrated trip through the showcase capital, with cell phones confiscated at the airport and minders shadowing every move.

But this year, David and I have been granted unprecedented access as part of AP's efforts to expand its coverage of North Korea. We traveled into the countryside, accompanied by North Korean journalists, not government minders. We had a cell phone, Internet access and a van with a driver who took us to Kaesong to the south, Mount Myohyang to the north and Nampho to the west.

During our wanderings, we got a glimpse of daily life in one of the most hidden nations in the world and found a country on the cusp of change.

Some things are entirely foreign: the armed soldiers everywhere, their faces lean and tanned; the banners and posters painted with hammer, sickle and rifle exhorting people to help build the nation's economy; the sense of paranoia that comes with wondering who's watching or listening to you.

Others are familiar: the tang of cold "raengmyon" noodles, the nursery rhymes children sing on both sides of the Demilitarized Zone, the quick, warm wit that emerges after a few rounds of liquor.

More than 60 years of socialism haven't stamped out Korean tradition. Orchestras still play the folk tune "Arirang," along with "The General is our Father." And children learn about the filial piety of the fabled maiden Sim Chung, not just the feats of their late president.

The poverty isn't immediately visible in the modern metropolis of Pyongyang. We are led through gleaming hallways and cavernous, chandeliered lobbies by guides in sparkling gowns or neat military uniforms, speaking as though from a script. The hedges are trimmed, the begonias in bloom.

But in between the staged visits, candid moments put a human face on a society enigmatic to the West, more complex and textured than typically portrayed.

And, in an astonishing turn of events, we are invited to a briefing at the grand People's Cultural Palace, making us the first American reporters to cover a North Korean press conference, we're told. Journalists from the North Korean press corps snap open Compaq laptops and set up Sony video cameras, and portraits of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il serve as the backdrop.

Ten North Koreans repatriated after their fishing boat strayed into South Korean waters file into the room, the men in suits and the women in traditional Korean dresses. Tearful, emotional, they accuse the South Koreans of mistreatment.

A question-and-answer session follows: The Pyongyang Times wants to know what happened to the four North Koreans, including the boat's captain, who stayed behind in the South. A query from the state broadcaster prompts all 10 to rise to sing an ode to Kim Jong Il.

When we leave the concrete jungle of Pyongyang, we encounter a completely different scene. The rush-rush pace of the big city comes to halt, and we go from skyscrapers and granite monuments to hills denuded of the pine trees that once blanketed the region. Now I understand why the wind in North Korea is so fierce; with no trees to stop it, it whips straight across the peninsula and slams the window in my hotel room in Pyongyang shut with a bang.

Mountains frame the landscape; in between, every bit of land is furrowed and farmed. We see more oxen than tractors, more manual labor than machinery. Without running water in some parts, women crouch by a riverbed to wash clothes and draw water from a village well.

The land turns lush as we near Mount Myohyang, where we climb a hiking trail said to be one of Kim Jong Il's favorites. The rugged landscape is largely untouched, aside from the massive odes to the two Kims carved into the side of the rock.

Two years ago, I flew into Pyongyang from China on a spotless but ancient Russian jet, a bumpy Air Koryo flight that had me gripping the armrests. Our flight's arrival was displayed at the airport on a "flipper" board straight out of an 18th-century railway station.

Now, the airliners are modern, with TV screens that drop down to show cartoons, musical concerts and North Korean films. And the old arrivals board is shuttered; instead, our flight appeared on a widescreen electronic display rigged up beneath it.
Electronic goods are hugely popular, and we could barely get past all the boxes of South Korean-made Samsung TVs that North Koreans were lugging back from their travels. Cell phones jangled everywhere. David had to relinquish his iPhone upon arrival, standard practice for foreign visitors, but we later requested — and received — a Chinese-made Huawei cell phone.

More than 535,000 people in North Korea now use cell phones, a huge jump from 70,000 in 2009, according to Orascom Telecom, the Cairo-based firm that launched North Korea's 3G network in December 2008. Most can only make domestic calls.

Buildings across Pyongyang are getting a facelift. Theaters are being refurbished, and apartment complexes repainted in pastel pinks and greens. There's more to come: restaurants, a park and "deluxe" twin tower apartments, according to the state-run Korean Central News Agency. On one corner, men with mallets were knocking down the walls of a building to the rousing blare of a military band parked on the sidewalk.

The amusement park near the Arch of Triumph got an overhaul last year, with brand-new rides from Italy and a hall filled with Japanese arcade games. Children race around. Grandmothers watch from the sidelines, tending to the babies. Two girls in Minnie Mouse shirts step gingerly onto rocks in a pond to pose for a photo, and then shriek as they nearly lose their balance.

Officially, North Koreans detest us Yankees. Tour guides, officials and soldiers state as fact that the South Koreans and the "miguk nom" — American bastards — started the Korean War in 1950.

But once you get away from the rhetoric, North Koreans love Americana, whether they realize the source or not. You see Mickey Mouse everywhere, on backpacks, shirts, bags. They know "The Lion King" and "Terminator." One orchestra played "Camptown Races," perhaps as a welcome to the Americans in the audience.

I never thought I'd see an Oompah band in North Korea, but there was an all-female troupe of tuba and trombone players in white suits and brass buttons led by majorettes twirling batons. John Philip Sousa, famous for composing patriotic American odes, would roll over in his grave.

Pyongyang's foreign community is a small and select group of diplomats, aid workers, entrepreneurs and English teachers. But our hotel was full of foreign visitors: Russian dancers and Italian singers in town for an arts festival, a French parliamentarian traveling with his son, Chinese tourists in sunglasses and sweatpants, American doctors in scrubs on a medical mission.

The common thinking is that North Koreans are shut off from the rest of the world. But Robert Carlin, a former U.S. State Department official who has made dozens of trips to the country, once said it's the opposite: We know less about North Korea than they know about us.

Foreign fashion is also seeping into Pyongyang. While you still see women in traditional dress, they're also wearing pantsuits, platform shoes and polka-dotted wellies. They're getting perms and plastic surgery. Some wouldn't look a bit out of place in Beijing, Bangkok or Seoul, apart from the red Kim Il Sung badges pinned to their bright, belted jackets.

We could be anywhere from Paris to Peoria, and maybe that's the point. The government seems determined to convince its people they can have all the riches of the West even if they're not at peace with the West.

It's hard to tell whether they believe it. There's a self-restraint and self-censorship inevitable in a country so defined by rules and order. Criticism of North Korea's leadership is taboo, and questions that may seem innocent often are met with a beseeching look that begs: "Please don't ask me that." Trust is only earned after many rounds of Korean wine and beer.

Most people walk or cycle to get around, and you still see trucks packed with people in the back. But new buses and more sedans and SUVs are filling the roads, from locally made Pyonghwa "****oos" to imported Land Rovers and Toyotas.
Pyongyang now has traffic lights, though the iconic traffic ladies in turquoise blue remain ready to jump in, white gloves flashing, when the power cuts out.

One day, we got stuck in traffic along the Taedong River amid the rush of construction consuming downtown. Drivers leaped out of cars and buses to argue with two police officers trying to reroute traffic.

Tempers flared. The drivers shook their fists, shouted and slammed their car doors.
It was a sign that one of the endemic ills of modern life has reached North Korea: Road rage.

A United States flag and weapons sit inside a glass display case at the war museum in Pyongyang, North Korea, photographed on March 9, 2011.

Spoiler :

A girl plays the piano inside the Changgwang Elementary School in Pyongyang, North Korea, March 9.

Central Pyongyang, North Korea at dusk on April 12.

A woman looks at monkeys behind a glass enclosure at the central zoo in Pyongyang, North Korea, April 22:

People go about their daily routines south of Pyongyang along the highway leading to the southern city of Kaesong, North Korea, April 17.

Children look through a subway car window in Pyongyang, North Korea, on March 10, 2011.

Spoiler :

More photos:

The Atlantic: Inside North Korea

http://www.xydo.com/toolbar/2736349...orth_korea_photography_photography_lifelounge

http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/david-guttenfelder?before=1312599781

It appears that NK isn't actually the completely isolated country that many believe it to be, as it gradually opens its doors to Western journalists and others. That, like Cuba, many people from other countries do visit. And that at least some North Koreans are allowed to travel to other countries. That even though there is still great suspicion directed towards SK and the evil "miguk nom", many from other countries are starting to be allowed to travel there fairly unrestricted.

Does this glimpse change your perspective of NK at all? Or does it just confirm your own feelings about this country?

 

[emzie]

It's still a poor-as-hell country. The only difference being that it's a very clean poor country.

And that poverty has everything to do with the dictatorship in charge.

 

[amadeus]

They were even recently allowed to travel in the countryside accompanied by North Korean journalists with no government minders.

Then they were accompanied by government minders.

 

[Formaldehyde]

It's still a poor-as-hell country. The only difference being that it's a very clean poor country.

And that poverty has everything to do with the dictatorship in charge.

According to the article, the average income is $1800 per person per year. That would put them slightly ahead of Russia and Bulgaria in the #81 slot out of 171 countries:

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_gro_nat_inc_percap-gross-national-income-per-capita

It is also over 4 times the average in India.

 

[RedRalph]

I read once Celine Dion is massively popular there... for shame.

 

[IglooDame]

According to the article, the average income is $1800 per person per year. That would put them slightly ahead of Russia and Bulgaria in the #81 slot out of 171 countries:

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_gro_nat_inc_percap-gross-national-income-per-capita

And how much does a potato cost there? Really, I don't believe that average income amount for a second.

Didn't OT used to have a poster who had actually visited there? I'd love to talk to him about how North Korea is doing.

 

[Huayna Capac357]

Looks horribly depressing. Looks like a movie portrayal of a Stalinist-esque nation. Every cliché is there, from the everyone-wears-that-suit-Mao-used-to-wear to the apartment-buildings-are-all-square-and-depressing.

 

[amadeus]

And how much does a potato cost there? Really, I don't believe that average income amount for a second.

The $1,800 figure is purchasing power parity, so assume for that figure that a potato costs the same there as it does here. However, that $1,800 figure was reached by taking an old estimation from 1999 (by the late Angus Maddison) and extrapolating it and adjusting for inflation, and even then rounding it to the nearest $10 billion.

Simply put, it's a guess. It isn't a totally random guess (in that it's far more plausible for the number to be closer to $100 than $100,000) but it may as well be.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Well, I thought the West had little cultural influence on North Korea.

 

[Formaldehyde]

That was also one of the things that struck me the most. I wasn't really expecting kids to be wearing Disney paraphernalia or riding a roller coaster in an amusement park. Or women wearing fashionable Western clothing, and even getting plastic surgery to make themselves more attractive. I guess there is no escaping The Lion King and The Terminator.

 

[Dreadnought]

The biggest surprise was the Winnie-the-Pooh and Mickey Mouse things that are allowed in the country.

 

[SG-17]

North Korea would be a great place to film a post-apocalyptic movie.

 

[Cannae]

I think the main reason North Korea has become more western is because of China. I think the chinese maybe playing a bigger role in North Korea than we are.

 

[Ayn Rand]

Interesting aesthetic they've got, especially in Pyongyang. I read somewhere that the Koreans have the highest average IQ on the Planet, which might explain why the Country appears to be relatively organised and decent despite its poor situation.

From the communism-capitalism perspective, they have already started introducing market reforms so they are already on the road to Westernisation. I wouldn't mind going there and looking around while it still exists, it seems pretty interesting.

 

[Bestbank Tiger]

Amnesty International paints a much less favorable picture:

http://www.amnesty.org/en/region/north-korea

I guess they're just lapdogs of the imperialist capitalist West.

 

[Moonbat]

North Korea. Disgusting.

 

[Yui108]

This article does seem to paint a rather rosy picture.

 

[classical_hero]

That is just the sanitised official view that we got in that article, trying to paint The Democratic People's Republic of Korea in a positive light when things aren't as rosy as it seems.

 

[Ajidica]

Well, the DPRK does seem to be a very clean and presentable hellhole.

 

[negZero]

Then they were accompanied by government minders.

QFT

These guys have to be massive idiots to believe that they were able to wander around DPRK without the government watching them.