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From our archive - Aug 18,
2001
I MADE PIZZA FOR KIM JONG-IL
Part
3: The great man eats
By Ermanno
Furlanis
(Part
1: Welcome to
megalopolis)
(Part
2: Hot ovens at the seaside)
 Too much salt at the sea
Mr
Om told me to get ready because the next day we would be
cooking at the seaside on a boat. When I expressed my
doubts about this he cut me short with his usual smile
and a urged me "not to worry". The next morning a cabin
cruiser topped with a salon and kitchen was sent to pick
us up like a private water taxi. The writing on her
stern read: "Capri Miami-Florida". Ah, the mysteries of
international politics!
We sped along for about
half an hour to the languid notes of Korean music past
the islands and islets that form an archipelago in front
of the base. At last a kind of a semi-mobile, floating
amusement park appeared before us which was able to
anchor in different places every day. It was made up of
two waterslides which dropped down into a swimming pool.
On the other side of the pool there was a two-storey
building with an observation deck on the roof. I doubt
if even Federico Fellini could have concocted something
of this magnitude. We did not draw near this floating
fun fair, and our guides even tried to prevent us from
gawking at it. They went so far as to physically, though
partly in jest, turn our heads aside with their hands.
About half a mile further on we came to a big ship which
lay anchored in sea. The heart of this ocean liner was,
needless to say, a fully equipped kitchen fitted with
huge windows overlooking the sea and where it would be
our pleasure to work.
Tied to the side the ship
was a pontoon raft upon which I beheld a most miraculous
sight. In truth, I could hardly believe my eyes. They
had brought out my entire pizzeria and all its
accessories in one piece. All that was left was for me
to do was to start cooking. Shortly before the great
luncheon banquet the air suddenly came alive with a
stir. I had just finished preparing my pizzas when I
noticed that everybody in the kitchen seemed to be
caught up in an inexplicable flurry of agitation. They
almost used force to drag me away from the kitchen
windows into in a comfortable salon for a beer.
I had absolutely no idea what was going on, but
the Chef, who was performing a very delicate operation
at the time, was less amenable to being distracted from
his task. He had to lose his temper with his pupils to
keep them from pulling him away. But by then his
suspicions were aroused and he insisted on staying where
he was at all costs. His instincts had been right.
On the other side of the darkened window of the
kitchen, crossing the gangway which led from the cruiser
to a luxurious suite overhead was the Man in the murals,
the successor of the Creator of the idea of juche
(self-reliance), whose girth gave the measure of his
power, followed by his entourage. The Leader-hero was
immediately recognizable by the distinctive cut of his
hair, a style of his own, unique not only in Korea but
in the rest of the world. I am not in the position to
say whether it really was Him, but our Chef, who had no
reason to fib, was, for the space of several minutes,
utterly speechless. He came into the salon where I was
sitting looking quite beside himself. After listening to
the description of the vision he had been privileged to
witness I tried to calm him down him and offered a
maekchu, the sweet Korean beer. He said he felt
as if he had seen God, and I still envy him this
experience.
That evening we had a light dinner
back at the base: a pair of lobsters, salad and French
white wine. The phone rang. Mr Om put down his glass of
Remy Martin which we had been downing by the bucketful
and went to answer. It was always a stressful moment for
him: his daily progress report and communicating the
preparations for the next day. Suddenly the expression
on Mr Om's face darkened visibly as he listened in
silence to whom I think must have been Mr Pak on the
other end complaining that the food had not met with
approval.
After our wives had been sent
scuttling to bed, the Chef and I were led into an office
and subjected to a classic brainwashing session.
Actually, the problem hadn't been the pizza at all, but
the lamb. It had been allowed to marinate for two days.
This was followed by the immense labor of preparing the
garnish with little bundles of dried spaghetti which I
had tasted myself. It was really an exquisite dish,
visually stunning, but, alas, somebody had found it too
salty. So that night until one o'clock we were obliged
to stay up and revise the entire program, with Mr Om
removing anything which was deemed to be too salty.
My initial reaction was to flat-out refuse.
Cursing aloud, I wanted to return to my room and pack my
bags. After all, we were the specialists. What right did
they have to tell us how to do our job? The Chef was a
little more sanguine about it all. He advised me to stay
calm and count to 10. He was, he admitted, livid with
rage and felt he had been personally humiliated, but he
was able to keep his cool. It was better to swallow our
pride, he told me, than risk the consequences which
might result from a failure to cooperate. I resigned
myself and started rewriting the entire program,
striking out various dishes which contained anchovies
and capers. As if all this weren't enough, at two
o'clock in the morning Mr Om came in with couple of
beers attempting to soften the impact of the next
brilliant idea which he had just received over the
phone: we were to move out of our suites - right away.
Inside the enchanted village
It was
not easy to wake up our wives and convince them this
wasn't a practical joke. Mr Om was inflexible even when
I refused point blank. A few minutes later we found
ourselves in one of the little bungalows in the pine
grove two fences out from the main building. There was a
sentinel standing behind a tree trunk whose job was to
protect us, but all he did was increase our anxiety.
The rooms were, however, first rate, with a view
of the ocean and they came with television. Not the
boring state TV, but real TV: CNN and three Chinese
channels which were surprisingly modern and
entertaining, Japanese, Australian and Indian TV, a
Babel of foreign tongues; finally a whiff of air from
the outside world. Our move had been the brainchild of
Mr Pak who it seems did his best thinking after-hours.
At least that was how he explained the affair the next
day when he apologized to us. He said that since they
had been unable to obtain an interpreter for our wives
at least they could now watch TV in our new digs. There
was also a sauna and the seafront could be accessed
directly without climbing through rolls of barbed wire.
There was only one small condition attached to
these new privileges: we were never to leave the
precinct of the villa. Our wives had unwittingly
attempted to do just that in the morning and had made
the startled acquaintance of two screaming guards. We
were told that any attempt to leave the immediate area
around of the villa could prove to be very dangerous.
This was an even shinier gilded cage, but it was still a
jail.
Other "guests" were very shy and hard to
come by in this place. In our enormous compound there
were distinctly more servants than guests. I counted
about 50 of them including the kitchen staff,
chauffeurs, gardeners. In addition to these, every
morning a dozen of cleaning women turned up before the
main entrance waiting to get in. The garrison was made
up of about 70 soldiers, young boys who were beginning
their term of compulsory military service, which in
North Korea lasts about 20 years. These lads were
expected to do exhausting guard duty and subjected to
intense physical exercise sessions early every morning.
We used to hear these sessions come to an end at about
seven o'clock with a final warlike shout.
As for
the other guests, we could only detect their presence
indirectly and bumped into them on very rare occasions.
Athletes must enjoy a great many privileges in North
Korea. In our new building we were also able to infer -
from the slippers - the presence of a young lady guest,
a rather attractive woman whom we caught sight of only
on a couple of occasions from a distance - once riding
the cabin cruiser out to the floating island and another
time when she was returning by car after lunch. She
approached the building, but as soon as she saw us she
darted out of sight only to reappear a few minutes later
after we were safely in our rooms.
Another guest
was a certain Mr Chang whom I waved to while he was
pedaling around on a bicycle. He gave me five minutes of
his time and we chatted and watched the sunset from the
fence that marked the inviolable boundary of the
precinct. Mr Chang was another man with a Rolex and
without the badge. He didn't seem at all surprised when
I told him about our restrictions in movement, but then
he also didn't invite me to accompany him when he left.
In spite of this, his manner was very friendly and
relaxed and he complimented me on my pizza.
And
so as the days passed our apprehension melted away. We
had grown accustomed to the arsenal around us and our
guards would smile furtively at us whenever we greeted
them. They were just teenagers and could have hardly
been older than 16. I continued to pursue the movements
of my mobile pizzeria: mornings at the base and
afternoons, time permitting, on the ship to which I was
ferried by my own personal water taxi. While this was
going on the Chef was making superhuman efforts to get
dinner ready for one or another of the 30 or so
bungalows in the village. Our wives had an entire
half-deserted seaside resort to themselves presided over
by a numerous staff who raked and manicured the sand
until it shone and who kept them from venturing into
restricted areas by their unequivocal screaming.
Television made their confinement more bearable
before mealtimes. Due to a rather cruel coincidence, CNN
was broadcasting a continual series of reports
denouncing famine in North Korea brought on by a drought
and the death of thousands of children. In truth we had
never encountered anything like the scenes shown on TV.
While the countryside did have a Third World look about
it, we hadn't observed any extreme hardship. Probably we
had been kept away from stricken areas, or CNN had
exaggerated. When pressed on this point Mr Om admitted
that there were, in fact, difficulties. To this I
suggested that the higher-ups in the compound would do
well to concentrate less on stuffing themselves and more
on the people outside. Mr Om's reply to this and similar
questions was, "Man is the same all over the world." The
same regardless of the political system, I suppose.
The inhabitants of the desert island
In any case, our sense of imminent danger was
rapidly diminishing; it was clear how hard our hosts
were trying to put us at our ease and how concerned they
were that we should enjoy ourselves. They even rewarded
us with two days off: one a trip to the seaside and the
other an excursion to the mountains. One day the water
taxi brought us to one of the thousands of little
islands forming the archipelago. According to our hosts
these islands were uninhabited. The trip was rather
longish and it took at least an hour to get to our
destination. Once we were on shore we were treated to a
magnificent picnic of pulkogi, the famous Korean
barbecue of thin meat strips, reverently served up by a
couple of boy-waiters. After the meal and our usual
drinks of ginseng mixed with Remy Martin and orgiastic
dancing to music played over the cabin cruiser's stereo,
I wandered off to try and get sober. Mr Om had said that
these islands were totally uninhabited, but I had caught
a fleeting glimpse of some figures who fled as soon as
they became aware of me. When I asked who these people
were a look of concern came over Mr Om's face. He told
me that I must have been mistaken. I wasn't about to
give up on this. I may have been drunk but I wasn't
hallucinating. Following the bleating of a goat I came
upon a well-tended vegetable garden.
I ventured
ahead, soon realizing that the deserted island wasn't
deserted after all. I found a sweet tempered nanny goat
at the end of the garden and two kids which looked like
stuffed animals. To the left was a kind of ancestral
village. Some shanties lined one side of a rectangular
courtyard and on the longer side what looked to be
primitive shelters partly built out of wood and partly
dug out of the mountainside. Here there wasn't a living
soul to be seen. Excited by my discovery I called our
womenfolk to come over and see the goats. The entire
Italian contingent had assembled here.
After a
while one of Mr Om's lackeys arrived and tried to pull
us forcibly away. He made an effort to explain to me in
English that we had put ourselves in a potentially
dangerous situation. But by now the Chef and I were so
drunk we couldn't care less. Attracted by the racket we
were making the denizens of this colony gradually began
to emerge from their hiding places and draw near. They
were all boys between the ages of 16 and 18, their heads
shaven and bare-chested. They popped out of their
refuges and formed a crowd around us so that we were a
little afraid.
Then suddenly a football appeared
from nowhere and the magic spell of soccer descended on
a remote island in this North Korean archipelago. An
afternoon's excitement with these non-existent
islanders. We divided ourselves up into teams. Obviously
this was going to be a rematch between Italy and North
Korea - a chance for us to get even. But there were too
few of us so one of these tanned barefoot boys in army
pants joined our side which included our colleagues from
the kitchen. There was a dreamlike quality about the
whole situation. If you believed Mr Om's view it was
even dangerous. But what did we care? We had a football
to play with and an afternoon's enjoyment ahead. After a
few moments it felt like just any Sunday afternoon in
any Italian football stadium. We were having fun just
like little kids while the fans on the sidelines cheered
their teams on. Italy started off badly, and before long
we were three goals down. But with a header we managed
to score the equalizer and then went on to win. We had
redeemed our country's honor. Facchetti and his
teammates could rest in peace. Actually it occurred to
us that we might have a revolt on our hands but nothing
of the kind happened. Our opponents shook hands
cordially and walked with us back to the beach. We could
see that Mr Om was not amused, nor did he ever enlighten
us as to who these people on the island were, who
apparently lived off goat's milk and vegetables from the
garden and maybe fish. It was to remain just another one
of Korea's undecipherable mysteries.
Kun-gan-san, ahhh!
One morning
Mr Li was to be heard repeating some strange sounding
verses to himself. Kun-gan-san, ahhh! He leaned
backward and laughed. I finally figured out the reason
for this at lunch. Mr Om told us that it had been
decided we would be spending two days at the sacred
mountain of Kun-gan. Here we brought the usual picnic
with us and then went for a walk. The mountain itself
was very beautiful, but quite like the mountains back
home. The vegetation was much the same and so were the
rocks and the shape of the streams running down. There
were some really interesting engravings on the rock face
which you could see from a long way off. The picturesque
Korean graffiti lent an artistic touch to the whole
scene.
Many individuals had signed the common
surname Kim, but a few must have dated back centuries.
Here and there we met up with tourists from China and a
few souvenir stalls, the incipient stages of a market
economy. For five dollars a couple might rent a boat
from two enterprising boatmen and have themselves rowed
around a high altitude lake whose water was emerald
green. Once again, dinner was an interesting event. We
took our own provisions to a kind of restaurant where
all they did was supply the facilities and you could eat
your own food. What they provided was the cutlery and
glasses. The spot was lovely on the shore of a lake. Too
bad that at a certain point that lights went out and we
couldn't see anything anymore.
Back at the hotel
Mr Om, perhaps heartened by all the Remy Martin he had
been consuming, decided to forget the wife he had
waiting for him in Pyongyang and accompany our alpine
guide, a very sweet girl, back to her house. He must
have gotten lost that night because he didn't return to
the hotel!
The hotel was a grandiose
establishment there was a gigantic crystal chandelier
hanging at least five or six meters over an immense
staircase in the foyer. It was, however, too neglected
to merit praise. I found some little shops which were by
Korean standards well stocked with souvenirs and a bar
which exuded a slight air of decadence, a typical hotel
bar. There were some Koreans here smoking and munching
on dried squid - a real delicacy in that country. The
most revealing encounter we had was with a very engaging
young lady, one of the salesgirls. She was able to speak
a little English and agreed to answer some of my
questions.
She had never heard of Italy and when
I started talking about Rome I was happy to see her face
light up. "Yes, Romania!", she exclaimed. She went on to
explain that they don't study European history or
geography at school. On the other hand, they do a great
many scientific subjects. She said that life in Korea
was pretty good. They state provided everything for
free, as far as this was possible; the money she earned,
around US$300 at the official exchange rate, was more
than enough for her needs. Her family's house was small
but comfortable. But what troubled her most of all was a
longing to be reunited with her brothers from the South
who are cruelly prevented from joining them - though
every once in a while somebody manages to escape. One
day they will free their brothers from their chains. I
smiled ironically at this and asked her, "Are you really
sure?" "Of course, it must be so." Very moving.
Mission Accomplished
After over 20
days of "hard labor", our time there was supposed to be
over. And yet nobody had brought up the question of
leaving. Quite evidently our efforts were being
appreciated. A proof of this were the sizeable tips that
came my way - once a single 1,000 yen bill, and on
another occasion $120. One night at around one o'clock
in the morning there came a knocking at our door. It was
Mr Om who wanted me to me to come downstairs. Mr Pak was
also waiting outside. I had never seen him so serious.
He explained that what he was about to tell me might be
taken as an affront but that I should not be offended.
His "guests" had been so enthusiastic about my pizza
that they had taken up a collection for me which they
asked me to accept. Mr Pak held out a roll of American
dollars. It had been the day of the pizza al salamino
which, in the wake of its success in the United
States, is in the process of establishing itself as
nothing less than an international cult, a pizza without
borders, which is appreciated in every land no matter
the ideology or regime, a dish which could help
reconcile the most irreconcilable differences. The next
Israeli-Palestinian summit meeting should be held in a
pizzeria in the portici district of Naples!
Our
cook had to be back in Italy by a certain date and
raised the question of our return. In order to gain time
they allowed us each to send home a fax. Then, one day
at lunchtime we made the acquaintance of a new
colleague, a Pakistani chef just off the plane from
Karachi. Well, we thought, now it's his turn. Still
nobody was saying anything about going home. We finally
had definite news in the late afternoon. We would be
leaving that very night. It was Mr Pak's final touch, it
bore his unmistakable signature, a brilliant stroke.
This way he could bid us farewell without having to be
there in person. Very little time remained now for
sentimentality, but that didn't mean that all of us in
the kitchen were feeling lumps in the throat which still
haven't gone away. Our pupils, eyes brimming with tears
ran after the limousine as far as they could to present
us with little souvenirs: ginseng tea and pestilential
cigarettes. I occasionally smoke one of these cigarettes
out of nostalgia even though I hate smoking. In the
meantime, the chef from Pakistan was being
"re-educated": too spicy ... the cycle was starting
again.
In the secular temple
There
were still three days before we were to leave for
Beijing. The Chef managed to obtain visas for us for a
brief visit. So we had three days to wear all our
clothes which had stayed behind in Pyongyang. Korea
still had a few surprises in store for us, until the
very last minute. We spent two days in another tourist
spot, Maan-san. Here was another huge, thoroughly
dilapidated hotel. Our first day we spent visiting the
ancient Buddhist temples with the classical pagoda style
roofs. Very interesting, to be sure, but a little
monotonous. But there was another temple here which
would win our hearts and minds the very next day.
Nestled among a mountains of rare beauty was the
"Exhibition of International Friendship".
This
is difficult to describe. My impression was one of going
back in time to the days of King Cyrus the Great of
Persia. It was like visiting his legendary palace in
Persepolis. Just that kind of atmosphere. Four floors of
40,000 square meters each. The roofs were just like
those of the temples. All the exhibits were behind
protective coverings and the temperature and humidity
were constantly controlled. The objects housed here were
among the most splendid and precious things the human
mind can conceive. They were exposed with a kind of
religious fetishism alongside certified junk from around
the world. This was a place to strike envy in the hearts
of Pharaohs: marble, plants and chandeliers. Here were
gifts various heads of state (from around the world and
not just communist countries) had given to the Great
Leader Kim Il-sung. In his generosity he decided to
share them with the public rather than keeping it all
for himself.
There were precious jewels, Chinese
vases which we later saw in Beijing selling for
thousands of dollars, tables of engraved ivory,
bas-reliefs in ivory and oak, crystal vases, cups in
gold and silver. But thus as not all: beside the
precious objects you also had the uniforms and arms of
various revolutionary movements from around the world. I
trembled before a machine gun of the Sendero Luminoso
and found particularly memorable the saddle cloth used
in parades for Gadaffi's camel woven of gold and studded
with precious stones. One room contained a train car
with a luxurious salon which had been a gift of Stalin.
I shall not attempt to describe the amount of priceless
treasures we saw. In the four hours we spent there we
only saw the smallest portion.
The Italian
pavilion is, however, worth describing even though it
was rather austere compared to the others. Here they had
another thing which sent shivers up my spine: a silver
carnation (probably silver plated) given by Bettino
Craxi, and a crystal seagull which was a gift by Enrico
Berlinguer, an eight centimeter high model of Ghiberti's
Baptistery Door in pure gold which had been donated by a
Florentine lawyer who expressed the wish that the gates
of paradise would open for the Great Leader. Our guide,
clothed in dazzling traditional garb, scribbled down the
translation on his hand. Another exhibit literally
stunned my wife: a plaque bearing the name of her
hometown and the chamber of commerce from our region.
Absolutely everything found its way in there.
But the best was yet to come. Towards the latter
part of our tour of the pavilion Mr Om suddenly stopped
in front of a magnificently carved door. He turned to us
and said that we were about to enter one of the most
important places in the country and that we should
behave with due reverence. He opened wide the door. The
effect was reeling. An immense hall of about 10,000
square meters. The floors were wood parquetry and the
walls lined with marble. At the very back of this room,
lit by natural light, was a reconstruction of the
vegetation of the Great Leader's favorite mountain, the
sacred mountain of the Korean revolution, Mount Paektu.
In an enormous wall mural behind this we could see a
life size version of HIM. At first I thought he was
embalmed, fortunately it was a wax statue. Mr Om asked
us to bow before this. Naturally, an argument arose
involving the Chef's wife, who refused to do any such
thing. Strangely enough I was more tractable, I was too
enchanted by this cult and also caught in a kind of
historical fantasy. I imagined I was in a book by
Xenophon and was being asked to bow before a God-King,
to which I complied, thinking of Alexander the Great and
Augustus.
The Orient always remains the same.
The centuries pass and with the various regimes, but the
cult of the God-King continues to persist as if nothing
happened. The caste of pseudo-communist tyrants do
nothing more than adopt the forms of the great dynasties
of the past, but the substance of things and the social
context are unchanged. The ghost of Genghis Khan still
haunts this secular temple.
Farewell
As if the impressions we had
got so far had not been enough for us, our final evening
in Pyongyang proved to be completely overwhelming,
though in a way which again contradicted the fuzzy
picture we had been able to form of the country.
We had often seen a building with a sign which
said "Bowling" in English. We imagined this place to be
the usual run-down Korean dive and we dared Mr Om to
take us there. After we had nagged him for a while he
finally agreed with a sly grin. Once again it was our
turn to be embarrassed. We entered the largest, most
modern bowling alley I have ever seen with 20 lanes,
lights and mirrors everywhere, all of it brand new and
in impeccable condition. Our first thought was that this
was a place for tourists, but we were mistaken. The
patrons here were Koreans and better bowlers than we, in
spite of the famine. There were also a lot of
foreigners. We met a banker from Great Britain whose
bank was starting to sow the first tiny seeds in this
country in the hope that the market will one day open
up.
That evening we attended our final lavish
banquet with mixed feelings, but happy to be getting out
at last. But not even the cognac and ginseng were able
to produce the usual effects. The speech Mr Om gave that
night was flawless. Although he was visibly exhausted he
could not hide the fact that he was moved, especially
after I bestowed on him an honorary diploma from the
Pizza Institute.
The next morning our passports
magically reappeared in the limousine from where they
had vanished. We weren't required to bother with such
trivialities as customs or check-in, and together with a
squad of mega-generals plastered in medals we waited for
our shuttle bus in an exclusive lounge.
By now
Mr Om had become silent and oddly distant. His mission
had been accomplished and evidently his heart and mind
were already on other things. Not even our chorus of
cheers from the bus window appeared to affect him. Amid
all the bustle we kept on singing at the top of our
lungs, but he just stood impassively off to the side
indifferent to us. And our thoughts too were moving
elsewhere, to the luminous, refined city of Beijing. But
that is another story.
... the next day I awoke
feeling queasy. My stomach was acting up again; it was
bean sprouts. Then and there I decided to cancel
Oriental Pizza from our repertoire.
(© Heartland.
Translated by Jiang Yajun. This version has been edited
by Asia Times Online. To subscribe to Heartland, please
email cassanpress@sina.com)
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