North Koreans exposed to foreign
masses By Andrei Lankov
It was a fine night in Pyongyang in
mid-October as I walked a deserted street under
the unusually bright stars of the North Korean sky
(no industry means no pollution), accompanied by a
knowledgeable expert on North Korea.
"Well, I do not understand what the hell
they are doing," said the expert, a former student
of mine. "You should not be here, frankly. And
those South Koreans, they are even more dangerous.
The commander-in-chief is making a mistake, but it
will take months
before
they realize how destructive the impact of the
Arirang Festival is for their regime."
The
North Korean capital from August to late October
hosted the Arirang Mass Games, a pompous and
kitschy Stalinist festival for which 50,000
participants (largely students) were trained for
months. The festival was attended by an
unprecedented number of foreigners and South
Koreans.
Pyongyang's international hotels,
usually half-empty, were completely booked, and
five or six flights left the city's international
airport every day. This might not appear a
particularly large number, but in more ordinary
times the airport, by far the least busy capital
airport in East Asia, serves merely four to five
flights a week.
There were many
Westerners. But most unusual and striking,
perhaps, was the powerful presence of South
Koreans. For the first time since the division of
the country in 1953, pretty much every South
Korean who wished to do so could travel to
Pyongyang for a short stay.
Seoul tourist
companies widely advertised a two-day trip to
Pyongyang for the equivalent of US$1,000. This is
expensive for a two-day, one-night package. But in
Seoul where the average monthly salary is about
$2,500, it is certainly feasible. Hence, between
500 and 800 South Koreans flew to Pyongyang daily.
In mid-November the South Korean unification
minister proudly stated that "about 100,000" South
Koreans visited the North this year, and it seems
a large number consisted of short-time visitors to
the Arirang festival.
North Korean leader
Kim Jong-il personally approved admission of the
unprecedented numbers of foreigners. Nothing like
this has been seen since the World Youth Festival
of 1989, and even then no South Koreans (and only
a few citizens of developed Western countries)
were allowed in.
The reason for this
openness is clear: tourists bring money.
Obviously, earnings from the Arirang festival were
very good, and Kim decided to use the opportunity
to fill state coffers. The foreigners were allowed
in without too many questions being asked, and the
show was extended for a few additional weeks. It
looked like easy money; the grandiose show would
have taken place with or without fee-paying
foreigners.
It is possible that Kim
Jong-il was persuaded to open the doors so wide by
officials who might have had hidden vested
interest in the matter: the days of religious
devotion to the official ideology are long gone,
and bureaucrats are learning fast how to make
their jobs profitable.
It seems, however,
that in the long run opening the door will have
serious political consequences. For me, on my
first visit to Pyongyang in 20 years, it was quite
clear that life in North Korea has changed, even
if on the surface everything appeared almost the
same as in 1985.
My first impression was
that Pyongyang was frozen in time, remaining
unchanged from the mid-1980s. Very few new
buildings, all very moderate in size and design,
have appeared over those two decades. Pyongyang
still reminds me of a relatively poor Soviet
provincial city of the 1970s and presents a
striking contrast with booming Beijing, let alone
Seoul.
Even the street crowd has not
changed that much. Many people are still dressed
in Mao jackets or worn military outfits, and there
seems to be even less traffic than in 1985. The
veteran expats say nowadays there are far more
vehicles than in the late 1990s when the famine
reached its height, but for me the reference point
is 1985, not 1999. All visible changes were minor,
such as the introduction of bikes, which until the
1990s were banned from the "revolutionary
capital".
The much-discussed private
business was nowhere to be seen, since municipal
authorities "cleaned" the city on the eve of the
festival, driving away all private vendors along
with their stalls and canteens. This was a part of
the new political line of re-imposing state
controls and cracking down on the non-official
economy, but it also destroyed what might be the
only serious visual difference between Pyongyang
of 1985 and today. Markets continued their
activity, but behind high walls and strictly off
limits to foreign visitors (but not for expats).
At the same time, Pyongyang does not look
destitute. It is a poor city, but not more so than
many towns in the less-successful Chinese
provinces. This confirms what defectors from North
Korea often say. However, the defectors see this
"moderate poverty" in an altogether different
light, as "great prosperity". As one recently
said, "Pyongyang people are rich, this city lives
very well, almost as good as some cities in
[Chinese] Manchuria."
The gap between
privileged Pyongyang and countryside is wide. This
was clear from a short countryside trip even
though our destination was the city of Kaesong, a
semi-privileged location. We traveled about a 100
kilometers on a relatively good highway that
connects the two major cities, but encountered no
more than two dozen vehicles. A couple of decades
ago one could see mechanization in the fields, but
now all work is done manually.
However,
the impression that Pyongyang is "unchanged and
unchangeable" is completely wrong. The material
environment has not changed much, but the spirit
is very different from what it was in 1985.
The most remarkable aspect was the
relative freedom with which North Koreans talked
to foreigners, particularly about their great
interest in everything that happens outside the
state borders. This does not necessarily mean that
my North Korean interlocutors rushed to say
something critical about the authorities - on the
contrary, from time to time most of them murmured
the ritual phrases about superhuman wisdom and
omniscience of the commander-in-chief.
However, back in the 1980s no North Korean
dared talk to a foreigner for more than a few
minutes, and under no circumstances could the
topics stray from the weather and, sometimes, the
greatness of the leader. My impression of North
Korea in 1984-85 when I lived there was that of a
country where not everybody supported the
government, but where everyone was scared to death
to say otherwise. It would be an overstatement to
say that nowadays the fear has gone, but it has
certainly waned.
It was important that my
interlocutors were ready to ask thorny questions
about life in other countries and in particular
about South Korea. They asked about salaries in
Seoul, about changes in the former Soviet Union
after the collapse of communism ("Are people
better off or not?"), about the fate of East
German bureaucrats after the German unification
("They went to prison, did they?"), and about the
reasons for Chinese success.
Sometimes it
seemed some of my interlocutors suspected that the
South was well ahead of the North in terms of
living standards. This suspicion is dangerous to
the regime whose claims of legitimacy are based on
its alleged ability to deliver better standards of
living. The actual gap between the two Koreas is
huge. Still, North Koreans are told they are lucky
to live in the North, in the prosperous state of
juche (self-reliance), and not in the
South, which is a destitute colony of the US
imperialists.
Since the 1980s, an
increasing number of better-informed North Koreans
are uncertain about these official claims.
However, in the past it would have been
unthinkable to ask a stranger such dangerous
questions after just a few minutes of
conversation. It was also risky to demonstrate
interest in the outside world, but this seems not
to be the case any more.
One of the most
unexpected and important encounters occurred when
I was visiting the Chinese embassy. A small crowd
attracted my attention. People were carefully
studying something inside a large window on the
wall; some finished and went away, only to be
replaced by others. Of course, I went closer, only
to discover that the people's attention was
attracted by pictures hanging in the embassy's
"information window". The pictures were large and
colorful, but otherwise absolutely unremarkable.
The photos and captions were no different from the
stuff cultural attaches across the globe put on
the walls of their embassies - the usual boring
fare about growth of shrimp production, new
computer classes and state-of-the-art chicken
farms. However, in North Korea of 2005 such
mundane matters attract a crowd. Those pictures
gave a glimpse of outside life.
This small
episode was a sign of what now is in the air in
North Korea: people are eager to learn more about
the outside world. They are less afraid to show
their interest in what once was forbidden
knowledge, and they are increasingly uncertain
about the future.
It seems the arrival of
the foreigners has provided North Koreans with far
more food for thought. Among the visitors there
were younger South Koreans influenced by the
left-wing nationalism, which has become
increasingly popular in Seoul. These visitors were
sometimes willing to cheer the anti-US slogans,
and this was discussed in the right-wing South
Korean media as yet another sign of North Korea's
ideological penetration. However, it seems that
the actual influence is going the other way.
Obviously, the decision to open the doors
wide was made suddenly, so North Korean police and
security were caught unprepared by the sudden
influx of South Koreans. I witnessed the arrival
of a new South Korean group to the Yanggak Hotel,
and could not help but be impressed by the scene.
Remarkable was the lack of the usual North Korean
regimentation and the absence of segregation,
which is the basic principle in handing all
foreigners, especially South Koreans. The unruly
and noisy South Korean tourists, fresh from the
airport, virtually stormed into the hotel where
many North Korean guests (obviously of high
social-standing) were staying as well. The chaos
created manifold opportunities for short-time
encounters. Such encounters likely took place with
the North Koreans learning a thing or two about
the South.
Most of the South Korean
tourists were in their 50s and 60s, obviously many
had some personal connection to the North.
(Between 1945 and 1953 about 10% of entire North
Korean population fled south, and a much smaller
but still significant number of leftist South
Koreans escaped to Kim Il-sung's would-be
socialist paradise, leaving family members back
home). Those of that era are most likely to look
for contacts, and also are far more realistic than
the young intellectuals who have been brainwashed
by the leftist-nationalist ideologues.
The
scale of the tourist mini-boom meant that for the
first time in their lives many thousand of North
Koreans could observe South Koreans closely, even
often getting the opportunity to talk to them.
This might have grave consequences to the regime.
In past it was possible to explain away the good
dress and fat complexion of the few South Korean
visitors by insisting that they came from the
elite. But now North Koreans saw the well-dressed,
well-fed, self-assured South Koreans coming to the
festival in droves, day after day, week after
week? This was what drivers, guides, sales clerks
and other North Koreans saw. It was what
participants in the Arirang festival saw as well
when they had a few minutes to look at the
audience.
North Koreans could not help but
conclude that the South has an unusually large
supply of rich capitalists. And their presence at
the Arirang games obviously means that South
Koreans cannot be badly off: after all, the
"running dogs of the US imperialism" are not
supposed to come to such events.
Of
course, most encounters were necessarily short,
but dress and looks speak volumes and sometimes a
few casual words are enough to change a North
Korean's world view dramatically. It is easy to
imagine a South Korean woman in her 50s, whose
husband is a skilled worker, complaining that her
family has been unable to change a car for more
than six years - and even easier to imagine the
impact such a matter-of-fact remark would have on
a North Korean to whom private cars are a symbol
of ultimate luxury, something akin to the role of
private jets in Americans.
Of course, the
people who interacted with the South Koreans and
foreigners overwhelmingly came from the elite.
Good examples were our three interpreters - the
granddaughter of the founding father of the
political police, the granddaughter of a prominent
negotiator who dealt with the Americans, and a
daughter of an ambassador.
However, the
arrival of so many South Koreans meant that a
large number of less-privileged North Koreans also
had access to the visitors, and at least overheard
them talk. By North Korean standards a bus driver
working for a tourist company holds a good job.
Such a man (women are never allowed to drive in
North Korea as it is believed to be dangerous for
the public) is by no means a member of the inner
circle of power, but he has friends and relatives
with whom he can share his experience.
So,
was my former student right? Was opening the door
so wide to foreigners a mistake by Dear Leader Kim
Jong-il, a master of survival who felt the allure
of easy money and forgot the number one rule of
his own policy - "stability is more important than
development"?
Or perhaps he was misled by
some officials who pocketed some of the revenues?
Only time will tell how dangerous the entire
affair was for the regime, which survives on
isolation and myth-making. It seems the first
conclusions are an indication: North Korea decided
in early November to close its borders to all
tours from mid-December until probably
mid-January.
One might assume that they
will use this break from tourists to reeducate
their tour drivers and explain to them that South
Koreans only look rich while really they are poor.
Will this work? I doubt it.
Dr
Andrei Lankov is a lecturer in the faculty of
Asian Studies, China and Korea Center, Australian
National University. He graduated from Leningrad
State University with a PhD in Far Eastern history
and China, with emphasis on Korea, and his thesis
focused on factionalism in the Yi Dynasty. He has
published books and articles on Korea and North
Asia. He is currently on leave, teaching at
Kookmin University, Seoul.
(Copyright
2005 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.
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