Category Archives: Korea - Pyongyang Diaries

Pyongyang Diaries: The People

(Kaesong city) The socialist market economy in action.

I was the last of the tour group to board the train to Pyongyang at Sinuiju, and all the cabins were full, except for a cabin of mostly middle-aged Chinese men. Across from my seat was my Chinese roommate for the tour, a college student from Anhui. As I sat down, my fellow passengers were pointing at one of the guides, the fair lady in a yellow hanbok who never smiled. 朝鲜美女 (trans. Joseon beauty), they laughed, come and join us. If she had heard them, she pretended not to.

Continued…

Posted in Korea - Pyongyang Diaries.

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By qui tacet – February 28, 2010
Pyongyang Diaries: The Guides

(Pyongyang subway) Everyone takes the subway, even KPA soldiers! Or maybe there really is an underground bunker there.

They were the first to greet us at Sinuiju. That is, after the KPA soldiers had inspected our documents, presented by the mainland tour guide. It was a printout of tour passengers, with our passport-size portrait photographs pasted on adjacent to our profiles. The border guard who came onto the Dandong-Sinuiju train cabin only asked for it after seeing my passport cover of a different shade of red, which after glancing through, was satisfied. I wondered if the reason for his increased vigilance was that mainland Chinese were considered less of a security risk, and that I would have normally required a more intensive background check.

Continued…

Posted in Korea - Pyongyang Diaries.

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By qui tacet – July 16, 2009
Pyongyang Diaries: Escape from Yanggakdo

(Pyongyang station) The train station has a curious architectural style… ionic columns and an eight-sided pagoda-like tower.

As the train rolled into the station, I looked out the window and saw the sign above the entrance: 평양 (Pyongyang). Finally – the capital of the hermit kingdom. KPA soldiers herded us out of the train onto the platform, and down through a dark tunnel underneath the tracks. There were no lights, and it was too dark to make out the red script on the walls, but I had some idea of what revolutionary things they said. Only a few hours earlier that day, I had been in a similar tunnel at Dandong station, except on the walls there were advertisements. I was disappointed, because I really wanted to see what advertising was like in the DPRK.

Continued…

Posted in Business, Korea - Pyongyang Diaries, TV Dramas.

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By qui tacet – June 20, 2009
Pyongyang Diaries: The Tourists

(Dandong station) The path to the Dandong train tracks was full of advertising (e.g. GOG sneakers). However, the equivalent in Pyongyang station had none.

I heard them chattering away even while getting through security screening at the Dandong station entrance. Thirty to forty (2 busloads worth) of middle-aged mainland Chinese people old enough to be my parents were clustered on hard plastic seats around the tour operator’s flag. I was the only ‘foreigner’, but thankfully I don’t look too different. Just younger. Hopefully if I kept my mouth shut, my crummy Mandarin and accent wouldn’t betray me.

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Posted in Business, Korea - Pyongyang Diaries, Politics.

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By qui tacet – March 26, 2009
Pyongyang Diaries: Getting There

(Beijing station) The Dandong express gets you halfway there.

It was a time-tested trail: Get to Dandong, join a tour group, and cross the border. Geoffrey had done the same, and before him, different groups of Singapore students at Beida. All I had to do was follow in their footsteps. A Korean friend who studied in Beijing had went up to Dandong but decided to stay on the Chinese side of Mt. Baekdu, peering across the border into the land of the morning calm. That was probably the closest she could get with an ROK passport, at least before the Hyundai Asan tours started.

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Posted in China Trip, Korea - Pyongyang Diaries, Politics.

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By qui tacet – February 7, 2009
Pyongyang Diaries: Why I went

(Arirang Mass Games, Pyongyang) I wonder what they thought seeing all these fat Chinese tourists.

I try to avoid telling my Korean friends in school that I went to the North, because they always look at me strangely and ask why I would ever want to go there. I don’t blame them – some have family histories and bad memories of the place. The immediate assumption is that I’m some kind of sick tourist that delights in seeing the suffering of others, or worse, that I perpetuate it. But that couldn’t be further from the truth.

Continued…

Posted in Development, Korea - Pyongyang Diaries, Politics.

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By qui tacet – January 1, 2009