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From our archive -
Aug 4, 2001
I made pizza
for Kim Jong-il
Part 1: Welcome to
megalopolis
By
Ermanno Furlanis
 One evening in July we
were working late at the Pizza Institute in northern
Italy where we carry out research on new ingredients for
our courses. As usual, we had shown little restraint in
tasting new toppings, our excuse being that it would not
be ethical to propose innovative combinations without
first trying them out on ourselves, and therefore it was
all in the line of duty to volunteer as guinea pigs.
One of the last pizzas we tested was an
"Oriental" style pizza topped with a filet of smoked
goose, shrimp, bamboo shoots and bean sprouts. Needless
to say, all of this was copiously washed down with
choice libations.
That night in bed I had the
distinct sensation the bean sprouts had begun growing in
my intestinal tract, the effects of which were
periodically interrupting my attempts to fall asleep,
when suddenly, and rather rudely at that, my mobile
phone rang. The voice on the other end dispensed with
the usual preliminaries, and immediately inquired
whether I would be available to do a training course in
a "distant land". I attempted to stall for time in order
to figure out what this was all about, or at least
obtain a few more details, but the best I could do was
to agree on an appointment for the following day.
It turned out that my caller was a high-ranking
cook in one of Northern Italy's swankiest hotels - a
Chef with a capital C. He informed me that he had been
approached by a group of foreign diplomats who were
interested in organizing culinary demonstrations of
Italian regional cooking - they were particularly
interested in pizza. At first he refused to reveal just
where this country was, but he did let on that we would
be hired to demonstrate Italian cooking, which is famous
for being cheap, nutritious and easy to prepare, in a
land which was currently in deep trouble.
This
news set my fantasy roaming. In that country, I thought,
people would have to learn to cook Italian style because
they were in the grip of famine or because they were
opening up their economy to the free market. I had no
idea where such a place could be and my interlocutor
laughed to see my confusion. Finally he provided a hint:
"It's a communist country in the Far East".
"Vietnam?" I asked. "North Korea," he shot back.
He explained what preparations I would be expected to
make for a meeting with the North Korean delegation
which was take place in a few days time. He warned me to
be ready for a real grilling in the third degree, "They
can't afford to make another mistake."
I showed
up for the interview in a state of some agitation, but
also more than a little amused. After all, I really had
nothing to lose, at the very worst I would be out on a
trip. I entered the reception room on the fourth floor
of an old shipping house in the historical center of
town. There was something surreal about all this. First
the Chef introduced me to a personage I will refer to as
the Young Man, a Korean who spoke Italian reasonably
well and made strenuous efforts to smile the whole time
in order to put me at ease. In typical Oriental fashion,
his manner revealed measured doses of trepidation or
worry, as the need arose. We were waiting in this
austere old reception hall for the Old Man to arrive,
and when a figure made an appearance the already
strained atmosphere became even more somber. Even the
Young Man's smile seemed to fade.
The Old Man
did not speak our superfluous language nor did he bother
with pointless smiling, but he did scrutinize me up and
down with the razor slits he had in the place of eyes
and then ensconced himself at one end of the regulation
conference table. On his right was the Young Man whose
job it was to interpret, on his left the Chef and
myself. I felt my amusement rapidly ebbing and my
agitation rising.
The interrogation was probing
and systematic: Why had I chosen this line of work, for
how long had I been doing this job, in what capacity,
where had I worked, did I have any references, where
could they test my products.
No matter how many
honors I pulled out of my hat, diplomats, activities in
Spain, Portugal, courses in Switzerland and Slovakia,
regional courses, the Old Man's stony visage failed to
betray the least sign of interest. He and the Young Man
twittered to each other in their language through which
I could detect a good deal of nervousness intermingled
with unrelenting skepticism of me.
I decided to
take the bull by the horns, and after a particularly
heated exchange in which the Chef took my part and
attempted to win over the Old Man via the rather more
malleable Young Man, I exclaimed. "If it's any help, I
can speak Russian." A sudden hush fell over the room.
The Old Man lost in thought stared at the Young Man, who
in turn looked searchingly at the Chef. Then a faint
crack appeared in the plaster cast of the Old Man's
features: a kind of grimace which one might have taken
for a smile. His voice seemed calmer now. He said
something to the Young Man who translated in a manner
that finally seemed at last friendly, confidential and,
surprisingly, almost intimate, "I think we might be able
to reach an agreement."
And so I found myself
"drafted". I suppose I should have been happy about this
prospect, but I was even more worried than before.
A few days later I was called in for my
confirmation. This second meeting was over quickly. We
were told that we would be leaving in 15 days. We asked
what we were supposed to do for the ingredients and
utensils which we would need to prepare our dishes and
which we could not substitute with ingredients in Korea.
They just told us to write out an order for a wholesaler
and to have the merchandise together with the bill sent
to them.
They especially stressed that we should
spare no expense. At the end of this we were handed
envelopes with our compensation - all cash and in
advance. This led me to believe that we were dealing
with a government, even though they were at pains to
refer to a hypothetical "company". In all of my previous
experience in any part of the world, payment was always
the last business to be taken care of, and then never
without either greater or lesser degrees of tension: it
just happens to be one of the thorns in the rose of
capitalism, known as "negotiation". Fifteen days later,
the Chef and I and our wives were waiting to change
planes in Berlin en route from Malpensa to Pyongyang.
Arrival and sequester
The fact that I
had read George Orwell's book 1984, with its
descriptions of Big Brother's enormous face posted
everywhere was certainly not a fortunate coincidence.
Already upon landing we could see huge pictures of North
Korea's ex-president-cum-sovereign welcoming us from the
inside of the airport. Check-in was a laborious affair
presided over by a little man in an impeccable white
uniform wearing a police cap which seemed many sizes too
big for him. He scrutinized our visas with great care,
turning them over and over again in his hands.
One of our suitcases was missing, our weariness
and confusion indescribable, when the tension suddenly
lifted with the appearance our "savior", our guardian
angel and protector, a man who would never let us out of
his sight for the entire duration of our stay - our joy
and our despair: the imperturbable Mr Om. He was a
typical Oriental, of slight but sturdy build and around
40 years old, seemingly defenseless but armed with the
same well-trained smile I had seen before on the Young
Man.
He greeted us cordially and immediately
made us feel comfortable. But while he was busy doing
this he also deftly appropriated our passports and visas
which somehow disappeared and which we would not see
again until we were ready to leave. It was clear that Mr
Om was a man of considerable experience and culture. He
was thoroughly familiar with the Western ways and his
English was flawless: He used a variety of refined
expressions I had trouble understanding. Actually, we
had been told we would be meeting a certain Mr Pak, who
was evidently someone much higher up.
We were
very much impressed by Mr Om's attractive grey-blue
linen suit which reminded us of the get-up Mao Zedong
used to wear on official occasions. Given how hot it was
we asked whether he could procure one for us since we
were literally bathed in perspiration. Then a black
Mercedes arrived, with darkened windows and the standard
six doors. Once inside, our baggage stowed away and
under the cool flow of the air conditioning, we were
finally able to relax.
I took an instant liking
to Mr Om and had the feeling I had known him for a long
time. We started to pester him with questions. We
especially wanted a Korean-English dictionary. It was no
doubt this request which must have led him to classify
me as a troublemaker because he replied with an
embarrassed grin and shortly thereafter bestowed on me
the epithet "Ermanno, eh,eh, my best friend." On the
highway leading to Pyongyang I was engaged in taking in
the view, and this didn't seem to be very interesting at
all. A more or less desolate countryside with vegetation
resembling our own, acacias and broad leafed deciduous
trees - irritatingly familiar after all the distance we
had come.
But there were also the crowds of
people walking along the sides of the street or just
waiting around whose faces and complexions were so
different, the cyclists in their cone-shaped hats, all
of which made me feel I was staring at a page out of my
old geography book. The city itself emerged abruptly
after about half an hour, enormous and monumental. I was
looking forward to getting to the hotel and having a
nice shower, making a phone call home and then slipping
out and exploring this grey cement jungle covered with
huge signs in red letters which I would be able to
decipher thanks to the dictionary Mr Om had promised me.
But such was not to be. We were not heading for
the Hotel Koryo - and this was the first of a long
series of surprises. As we drove along a tree-lined
avenue we began to notice some rather peculiar sights.
At first we didn't think anything of them, but as the
days passed these sights became increasingly frequent
and increasingly odd: groups of scantily clad people
standing around the ditches lining the river apparently
engaged in washing their clothes. It must be the heat, I
thought.
Presently we came to an enormous gate
at the end of an avenue with a guard inside a building.
A green light flashed on the hood of the car and the
gate rose. The guard made a kind of queer waving gesture
at us as we passed and suddenly we found ourselves
inside a magnificent park with trees and flowerbeds and
fountains and manicured lawns surrounding a strange
building made up of two square shaped wings each about
150 meters long, one of the wings was four floors high,
the other was lower and had no windows at all; the two
wings were connected by narrow lower structure. There
were no signs in this hotel, no reception counter, no
room keys. A boy in white appeared to take our bags. By
now it had dawned on us that we were not in fact at the
Hotel Koryo. I demanded an explanation and Mr Om replied
in his affable way with a smile, "Ermanno, don't worry,
we have time."
Well, I was too tired to pursue
my questions so I decided to take events as they came.
The building which we entered was positively splendid,
inlaid with white marble and lined with a few very
beautiful plants. No pictures here, no furnishings
anywhere and most of all a total, spectral silence.
There was not a soul to be seen. Even without the air
conditioning there was something vaguely cold and
inscrutable about the place. To our right, a big salon
stretched before us with armchairs and tables and false
ceilings and wood paneling. Mr Om deposited us here and
then vanished.
A short while later an elderly
lady materialized, scrupulously silent, with drinks. She
kept smiling all the time and backed away to the door
bowing. After a few minutes we were shown to our rooms
by yet another young man in white as silent as a mouse.
Finally we would be able to make ourselves at home and
relax. The rooms were magnificent. Real suites each with
a big sitting room, an immense bedroom, bath and various
halls. The sitting room came with a desk and a
well-stocked library.
The phone rang. It was the
Chef from his apartment and telling me to turn on the
television. I did this while pouring myself a drink from
the beverages I found in the refrigerator. Incredible:
it was like going back in time. They were showing war
scenes with epic hymns playing in the background and
subtitles. It was somehow reminiscent of karaoke.
Military parades accompanied by threats. I clicked to
the other channel: This was intended to be some kind of
comedy with all the actors wearing uniforms. For the
whole time we stayed in the capital this was the only
fare they offered - apart from very brief news bulletins
which dealt exclusively with domestic events.
The phone rang again. It was Mr Om and he was
expecting us for lunch. I told him not to bother because
we had all eaten more than enough in the plane, but this
did not phase him. He explained graciously but firmly
that the "program" was something sacred and that it
could not be altered in any way. Later we figured out
that it was other people who decided on the program and
Mr Om had no choice but to give heed.
As an
ex-army officer myself I deduced that it was a form of
military behavior, and then in a flash everything became
clear: that was why he had laughed when we asked for the
linen suit - because it was a uniform, and the funny
wave by the guard at the gate was really a salute. I
looked out of the window: the North Korean flag was
fluttering from a pole in the middle of the lawn just in
front of a little rise leading to a driveway, a driveway
which Mr Om had especially warned us not to take.
It all had the look of a military base. But
where did the driveway lead? I remembered that when we
were on the road just before turning off I had seen a
gate with soldiers. So this was apparently the main
entrance to the barracks. I stared at a gorgeous
fountain in the beautiful setting of the park, then
turned back inside the room. Here we had every modern
convenience at our disposal and yet I had a sudden sense
that we were trapped. None of the telephone lines led to
the outside world and we were surrounded by a staff of
utterly speechless servants. I remembered how our
passports had been confiscated: so this was a cage we
were in, a gilded cage to be sure, but nonetheless a
prison. For the first time I savored the idea of what it
meant to be free.
The solemn moment had arrived
for "the program" to be announced. According to the
plan, our wives were supposed to spend the afternoon in
the rooms while we were to go somewhere with Mr Om. The
destination was yet another a surprise. They drove us to
the other side of town to a big medical clinic. Apart
from the staff the place looked to be totally deserted.
It was equipped with every type of the most modern
looking apparatus. Mr Om explained that we would have to
undergo a series of tests, the ostensible purpose of
which was to make sure "there wouldn't be any problems".
We felt that there was really another reason. They gave
us a complete check-up: X-rays, electrocardiogram, brain
scan, magnetic resonance imaging, urine samples, and
after a good deal of beating around the bush they also
managed, tactfully but insistently, to extract a
sizeable blood sample from us. I was by now worried out
of my mind. Here was proof that we were completely in
their power, and they could do with us as they pleased.
At dinner that evening, with my usual bluntness
I asked Mr Om what kind of game they were up to, naively
adding that I wanted to get in touch with our
ambassador. He smiled good humoredly and invited me to
"be quiet and enjoy myself". There was no point in my
telling him that I wasn't here for a vacation and,
anyway, I could see that he probably had a point. So I
decided to take his advice. During the next three days
they treated us, to all intents and purposes, like real
tourists bending over backward to make our stay in this
gilded cage a pleasant one, preparing a packed
sightseeing schedule for us to visit the immense city.
That night I wasn't able to get to sleep and I
ransacked the tomes on the bookshelves. The many books I
found there were in various languages, English, Spanish,
French, Japanese. Most were horridly boring tracts
written by the President-God Kim Il-sung or his son Kim
Jong-il. They went to great lengths to expound the not
very controversial idea of the self-determination of
people, which is after all a pretty simple concept to
grasp, and which has become increasing popular around
the world - though these two authors can hardly take
credit for having invented it.
Their guiding
principle or philosophy is known as juche which
is more like a kind of secular religion than an ideology
and whose main tenets are the unqualified adoration of
the Founder and his Successor. Apart from other texts in
this vein, I also found a book in English which provided
a good explanation of customs, food and other
characteristics of the country. I was particularly
struck by the fact that the book kept referring to Korea
as a single nation and that the current division was
only a temporary state of affairs. This impression was
later confirmed whenever I was able to broach the topic
with the few Koreans I met when I was out of sight of Mr
Om.
A village in the shape of a megalopolis
The next day we began an enthralling albeit
officially supervised tour of the city. My first
impressions were confirmed: this was an absolutely
immense megalopolis adorned with gigantic buildings and
monuments of unimaginable proportions in perfect
Oriental opulence. Mr Om explained that the entire city
had been razed to the ground during the Korean War and
only a few dozen structures date before that time, a
couple of beautiful old gates with the characteristic
pagoda-style roof, a building here and there with a
patio along the riverside: Mr Om said that seven bombs
per square meter had fallen on Pyongyang, which is some
kind of world record.
After the war, an immense
effort of reconstruction was undertaken, it seems,
mostly for the purposes of show. One must try and
picture wide, endless avenues which had been planned for
a future city traffic which never materialized, flanked
by futuristic skyscrapers reminiscent of San Paolo in
Brazil, all of which are regularly interspersed with
monuments three, four or even 10 times the size of our
Victor Emmanuel monument in Rome, and just about as
tasteless. From behind every corner murals leap out at
you depicting legendary scenes from the life of the
Leader-Hero and his family.
The captions
everywhere, written in huge red letters, provide an
element of unity in what would be otherwise a
hodge-podge of imperial and capitalist styles. By now I
was able to decipher a few of them myself: the one which
recurred most frequently was: "Kim Il-sung Tongji Manse"
which translated means "Long live [or long life and
glory to] comrade Kim Il-sung". We were able to get an
idea of just how grandiose this city was when we went to
the top of the Tower of the Idea of juche: a
swift elevator ferried us up 80 meters of reinforced
concrete which overlooked a complex of gardens and
fountains along the river and an enormous glittering
bronze monument bearing the symbol of Korean communism:
a sickle, a hammer and a brush (the implement
traditionally used for writing) and which represents the
intellectual class. The place was astounding. Rarely
have I ever seen monuments of such dubious taste
displayed so harmoniously and to such theatrical effect.
The heat and humidity were unbearable and a
heavy grey pall hung over this imposing exhibit of
power. There was also a kind of bleakness in the air
which you could see in the faces and gestures of the
inhabitants. The only note of color was in the children
perfectly arrayed in their uniforms of white shirts,
blue skirts or trousers and red handkerchief. There were
entire squadrons of them parading the streets by the
hundreds. They were especially noticeable whenever you
came to a bridge where they formed up in a long line.
Particularly charming were the fleets of little boats
bearing young couples or groups of friends along the
canals and water courses and the men playing the game
"go" in the parks.
We also saw a number of
painters at work; art is held in very high esteem and
practiced as much as possible. But as soon as you looked
behind the facades what you saw was a ubiquitous,
unremitting grey. At the foot of these space-age
buildings, tied to a tree you sometimes could catch
sight of a goat waiting to be milked or chicken and a
great many ducks for eggs. In denial of appearances the
city was eking out a bare subsistence.
A closer
examination of the walls and door frames of public
buildings (but not the monuments which were always
perfectly maintained) revealed that they were more or
less falling apart. Often the windows were without
panes, and indoors at twilight the lighting was so poor
it reminded me of candle racks for the dead in an
Italian church. If you added to this the rarefied
traffic - the odd Trabant or high-powered luxury cars
with darkened windows - the overall effect was
distinctly lugubrious, especially in the evening.
A visit to the underground only confirmed these
feelings. The tunnels looped down almost a hundred
meters beneath the surface and riding the escalator felt
like a descent into Hades. Strange shrieks like laments
emanated from the loudspeakers on the wall singing the
glory and magnificence of Him. At the bottom you could
see thick anti-radiation shutters fixed into the side
walls which, if ever the need arose, could turn these
tunnels into nuclear shelters. This explained their
great depth: their primary purpose was to serve in case
of a war. The North Koreans, as Mr Om explained, are a
people living in a state of siege, constantly expecting
an attack. When a train finally pulled in we were swept
off our feet by a human tide: the crowd one invariably
encounters in the Orient where the individual counts for
little and only the Leader is important.
It was
at this point that I became aware of an unusual detail
which had been straining for some time to surface to my
consciousness: everybody here, without exception, male
and female, young and old alike, ugly or beautiful,
those toiling or resting, absolutely EVERYONE in North
Korea was wearing a little pin on the left side of their
chest above the heart with a portrait of the Leader,
what they called "the Badge". The coming days only
served to confirm this observation. Only a very few
individuals didn't wear the badge and this was a highly
significant fact. We were propelled along by the crowd
up and out of the catacombs.
I still had a lot
of unanswered questions about the inhabitants. In the
downtown area near the big hotels and well-stocked
department stores the people you saw were elegantly
dressed, probably soldiers or diplomats and their
families or foreigners, a great many Chinese, dwindling
numbers of Russians. But as soon as you got out of the
center of town whichever way you turned you caught sight
of people squatting on their heels, their legs folded
under them as if doing knee bends. They appeared to be
waiting around for something - though it was impossible
to tell what this might be, or how long they had been
waiting for it, or how long they intended to go on
waiting. Some gave the impression they were hanging
around waiting for their clothes to dry, others were
grouped around old lorries without wheels raised up on
cinder blocks. Maybe they were waiting for their friends
to come back who had gone off hours ago to repair the
wheels, others I found out later were engaged in the
business of cutting grass.
Outside our enchanted
garden where the grass was impeccably mown I noticed
that most of the lawns had a scruffy look and I could
find no explanation for this. Well, the explanation was
that the job of cutting grass was assigned to work
details of hundreds of laborers scattered all over the
lawns. These people were armed with tiny scissors and
they cut the grass leaf by leaf stuffing the proceeds
into special bags. What an imaginative way to achieve
"full employment" I thought. I made several attempts to
photograph these scenes from the middle ages, but every
time I lifted my camera lens the grass-cutters would all
stampede away in panic.
Once I did manage to get
a shot of their backs as they fled, and it was only Mr
Om's generous intervention which prevented an irate
foreman from seizing my camera. As for all those others
I saw out in the country, people asleep at night in the
middle of the roads, forcing our car to weave around
them in dangerous evasive manoeuvres, people standing
immobile in thick woods, or inside a cold tunnels, old
men embracing their grandchildren, stock still out in
the middle of deserted fields, far away from anything or
anyone, for all those other unforgettable images of
people indelibly stamped on my memory, I have no idea
what they were doing, nor did Mr Om or any of his
colleagues, no matter how much we prodded them, ever
provide us with a plausible explanation. But the facts
would emerge only after some time. For these first few
days the bluff held. Our hosts still had a good many
tricks up their sleeve.
(© Heartland. Translated by Jiang Yajun. This version has been edited by Asia Times Online. To subscribe to Heartland, please email cassanpress@sina.com)
Tomorrow: We finally see action
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