A day in the bosom of the Dear Leader
By Sunny Lee
KAESONG, North Korea - "So you think you could get by with it?" asked a North
Korean customs official, who was glancing at the monitor as my backpack was
passing through the X-ray scanner at the North Korean border, near the
Demilitarized Zone (DMZ).
"What's in your bag?" he asked. "A digital camera," I answered, knowing that
that's an allowed item. "Are you playing dumb? You got a lot more in there. I
can see through them here. Open it," he said.
I immediately realized my mistake and became quite nervous. The Ministry of
Unification advises South Koreans touring North Korea not to carry a list of
"sensitive" items, including cell
phones, the Bible, newspapers, books critical of North Korea, cameras with a
telescopic zoom lens as well as various digital devices.
Among the items, cell phones are particularly sensitive as North Korean
security officials believe that a cell phone was responsible for detonating the
2004 explosion of a failed assassination attempt of Kim Jong-il on a railway
when he was coming back from China using his special train. The incident killed
170 North Koreans. Since then North Korea banned its citizens from using mobile
phones in the country.
I was in a hurry that morning to catch the chartered bus in Seoul that leaves
for the North's city Kaesong, and I had forgotten to clear my backpack in which
I usually carry a variety of laptop computer gadgets.
"What's this?" asked the official as he was pulling out from my backpack a
steel cable used to secure my notebook computer against theft. "It's to prevent
my computer from being stolen," I answered. That perked up his interest. "Oh,
is that right?" His eyes were glistening in glee, adding "So, in the South,
people often steal other people's computers?" His voice displayed so much
confidence that I didn't feel he was expecting my response.
The North Korean official, who said that he was a graduate of Kim Il-sung
University - the most elite school in North Korea - soon dug more booty from my
backpack: a small Sony digital voice recorder. "What is this about?" he said as
he inspected it. I was petrified at that moment, fearing that I might get
mistakenly perceived as a spy. Yet, the "all-knowing" official from North
Korea's most prestigious school again didn't need my explanation. He figured it
out himself: "Oh I see. This must be an MP3 player. Didn't see it before. Must
be a new model." With that verdict, he miraculously motioned me to move on.
That was how I passed the security check at the North Korean side of the DMZ. I
was officially inside the Dear Leader's land. And I was already full of sweat.
Speaking of the "Dear Leader", that is one of the two things South Koreans
visiting the North are strongly warned about. In fact, it's best not to use the
term as well as the Dear Leader's personal name: Kim Jong-il, South Korean
tourists were told.
"Please don't try to humor yourself by asking North Koreans such questions as
'How's the health of the Dear Leader?'," said Lee Jae-ho, the South Korean
coordinator for the trip. "That's not humorous at all to North Koreans. The
names such as 'Kim Il-sung' and 'Kim Jong-il' are the same as God here. Calling
their names amount to almost blasphemy."
The other thing Lee asked us to be careful about is not to utter a statement
that sounds condescending to North Koreans. For example, he reminded us not to
blurt to North Koreans: 'Do you have enough food to eat?' Or, we should refrain
from our impulse to make exclamations: 'Wow, North Korea resembles South Korea
in the 1960s!' Such expressions would hurt the feelings of North Koreans, Lee
explained. All the South Korean tourists nodded their heads.
One thing very special about this tour is that a North Korean tour guide rides
in the same bus with South Korea tourists and offers explanations throughout
the day, from 8 am to 5 pm. That is a rare chance for the people of the two
Koreas to interact all day long in close proximity.
In fact, there were three North Koreans accompanying each South Korean tour
bus. One person did the tour-talking, and another, who sat next to the speaker,
kept mum throughout the day. Someone in our group suspected this second
person's role is surveillance on the first, watching to make sure he did not
veer off the script. The third sat far back in the bus to make sure the
southern tourists are not take any pictures of "sensitive sites" while the bus
stays in the northern city. In fact, the tourists are strictly prohibited from
taking any pictures outside allowed areas.
And this is the daily routine. Even though the two Koreas face off across the
world's most heavily-armed zone and North Korea once in a while threatens the
South to sweep it off in a "sea of fire" when it's in bad temper, every day
some 500 South Koreans come to this North Korean city of Kaesong, carried by 13
buses by Hyundai Asan, the company that hammered out an exclusive deal with the
North.
As of mid-May this year, over 45,000 South Koreans had traveled to Kaesong
since the tour program began in December 2007. To join this tour, people have
to reserve a seat as early as one month ahead of time, a North Korean tour
guide proudly said. The company is confident that it will reach its goal of
100,000 tourists for the year.
North Korean guides in Kaesong, the historical capital of the ancient Koryo
Kingdom (918-1392), tend to have a good sense of humor. The guide on our
group's bus, Yoon Seong-kyun, volunteered to sing songs and cracked a joke
successfully a few times. Just like other guides, he is also very willing to be
photographed when requested.
The workers at South Korea-invested Kaesong Industrial Complex in the same city
are easily seen while the tour buses stay in the city for the day. But the
North Korean workers are "off limits". That means, you cannot talk to them. You
cannot take pictures of them either. In fact, they are well-segregated from the
tourists by the North Korean security personnel who monitor the two groups
constantly.
Kim, our guide, is a graduate of Kaesong Teachers' College. He was tall,
handsome and a smooth talker. He said he's thinking about marrying in a couple
of years. "The most important thing I look for in a girl is whether her
character is compatible to mine," he said. When I ask Kim whether he would care
for a girl from the South, he shook his head. "No, no. Girls from the South
have lost their purity."
I initially thought Kim meant that many South Korean girls lose their virginity
before marriage and he doesn't like it. I soon realized I was wrong when I
heard his next sentence. "Many girls marry foreigners." So, that's what he
meant by "purity".
Kim doesn't think South Korean girls are pretty, either. "Look at those women,"
he pointed at some South Korean female tourists, walking several steps ahead of
us, wearing knickers and tight T-shirts that subtly revealed their body
contours. "When they move, their breasts are bouncing up and down," he said
with a frown, adding "Do you think you'd ever be able to like that kind of
girl?"
Another guide in his 40s asked me about my experience in China. "Chinese people
are getting rich," I told him. "Making money is good. But it's also important
to keep your self-esteem," he said.
"Don't you think it's also possible to have both money and keep your
self-esteem?" I asked back. That triggered an unexpected uproar of laughter
from him and his co-worker, who had overheard our conversation all along, but
wasn't talking. It was not clear whether their laughter signaled agreement or
disagreement with my question.
"The North Korean tour guides are tough cookies, well trained in dealing with
South Korean tourists and their questions. They know what to talk and what not
to talk. They also seem to have mastered the art of tactfully avoiding topics
that are possibly sensitive," people in our bus chatted later in their informal
assessment of their northern brethren.
We actually had some foreigners in our tour as well, including Americans.
Unlike pervasive notions, Americans are allowed on the tour. And the process is
simple: a copy of one's passport and some US$200.
Joseph Myer, an American math instructor who teaches at an international school
in Bundang, south of Seoul, and was part of the tour, summed up the day: "I
felt that at times being in the town of Kaesong made me feel like being on a
movie set. The actions of people seemed to be almost rehearsed and they
obviously had been instructed to avoid us. It reminds me of things that I read
about how life was in the former Soviet Union."
When I asked Kim, the North Korean guide, about what he thinks about the
Americans who have joined the tour, he said with an emphatic voice: "We don't
have any problem with American tourists. What we have problem is the US
government."
Obviously, the North Koreans hope that Americans view them in a more positive
light as well. If so, Kim could have pointed out another "positive" aspect of
the tour: that tourists to North Korea are required to use only US dollars, to
showcase that the communist country has some problems with the US government,
but it can still afford to love its money.
Sunny Lee, a native of Seoul, worked for the United Nations and as a
journalist and writer. Lee is a graduate of Harvard University and Beijing
Foreign Studies University.
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