Patriotic songs played over loudspeakers on work-day mornings make it tough to oversleep in North Korea. Morning rush-hour in downtown Pyongyang sees workers hurry along litter-free streets, with few people on bicycles, and even fewer behind the wheels of vehicles.
Cars are not for sale in North Korea, our guide told us. “The government allocates them to those who deserve them, as well as to ministries. But they are not all allowed to use them on the same day, as there would be too much traffic.”
Indeed, the only traffic jam I saw during my recent week-long visit to North Korea was after an international football match, when generals, politicians and other officials were trying to leave the capital’s Yanggadon stadium. Analysts have suggested there is one car to every 1,000 North Koreans.
There was, on the surface at least, a certain appeal to North Korea’s austere brand of socialism. Aside from the welcome lack of kilometre-long tailbacks and choking exhaust fumes, the streets of Pyongyang and other cities are remarkably – spookily even – clean. Children run around happily without parental guidance and there seems to be no street crime to speak of.
Wandering around downtown Pyongyang in the evenings felt much safer than, say, a stroll around central London on a Friday night.
Still, it was an attraction that quickly wore off and while I never found myself pining for the noise and dirt of the modern world, there was an eerie unreality to all this unfamiliar order.
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North Koreans work six days a week, with only Sundays off, and the average monthly salary of 3,000 won is sufficient to buy a little more than a kilogram of rice. A kilo of cabbage was around the same price. In order to survive, North Koreans rely on privately grown produce and illegal – yet largely tolerated – private markets. There is also a system of ration vouchers, but as a North Korean defector said recently, “there are simply not enough of these to go around.”
We also witnessed – on two separate occasions – examples of illegal, private street commerce. The first was outside Yanggadon stadium, where an old woman appeared to be selling cigarettes. The second was not far from central Pyongyang’s main train station; two women collected their bags of fruit and hurried away when they saw us approaching.
Officials admitted just before our visit that a poor harvest caused by bad weather had left parts of the country close to famine. The North Korean government has asked for international food aid, but so far the U.S. and South Korea have yet to respond. Some analysts suggest the crisis is not as bad as the North has made out, and that Pyongyang is simply looking to stock up supplies for 2012, when massive celebrations to mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of Eternal President Kim il-Sung are due.
But U.S.-based aid groups have accused Washington of playing politics with people’s lives. The United Nations said in March that more than 6 million North Koreans urgently need food aid.
On drives out of Pyongyang, the harvest – to my untrained eye – looked pretty successful. Especially as all the work was being carried out by hand. I saw two tractors during some six hours of driving around the countryside. There were plenty of revolutionary songs and patriotic placards to be had, though.
But driving past parks and spots of open land, it was not unusual to see people gathering grass into sacks. North Koreans who have fled the country have spoken of people subsidizing their diets with grass, leaves and other such things. “They use it for herbal medicine,” our guide told me, when I asked.
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In many ways, a trip to North Korea is like a journey back in time. To the Stalin-era Soviet Union, perhaps. Or Mao’s revolutionary China. Propaganda billboards, signs and posters declaring the glory of Eternal President Kim il-Sung, current Dear Leader Kim Jong-il and the ruling Labor Party fill the streets. State TV consists mainly of films about factory workers, war heroes and Kim Jong-il, Our translator, Soe, told us that Soviet films were also broadcast on a fairly regular basis.
I asked Soe what literature was popular in Pyongyang these days.
“Maxim Gorky, Victor Hugo and Gone with the Wind,” she told me. A Russian communist, a French republican and a novel set among the slavery of the U.S. south. And not one of them published after the second half of the 20th century.
“All contemporary Western and Russian literature is just about love,” she said, somewhat contemptuously. “Well,” I countered, “hardly all of it.” Soe nodded. “The vast majority, then.”
Along with modern literature, North Korea has also chosen to forbid the Internet.
“We are the world’s only true socialist country,” our guide said. “And also the only one publically fighting against U.S. imperialism. We have many enemies and they would use the Internet to spread propaganda. We have to be careful.” He also said the Internet ban was designed to “protect our children from the harmful influence of pornography.”
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As with many things in North Korea, it’s extremely difficult to find out exactly what is going on.
“The North Koreans don’t like it when foreigners stick their noses into their business,” a longtime foreign resident told me. She wasn’t exaggerating. Information was extremely hard to come by, with even a request to talk to a sports journalist turned down with no explanation.
For a journalist, a visit to North Korea is – in equal measure – both fascinating and frustrating. Even though we were, at times, allowed to walk around on our own, there was no chance of real contact with ordinary people, aside from guides and other officials. In many respects, journalists are treated just like tourists, and shepherded around from monument to monument, from historical site to historical site.
One evening, we went for a walk to downtown Pyongyang’s central train station. But our guide wouldn’t let us inside, shaking his head slowly to indicate it was “forbidden.” It was, I guessed, too messy and unpredictable.
Just like real life.
