Life in the Hermit Kingdom
PYONGYANG, NORTH KOREA--As seen at night from satellites, North Korea is a black hole: darkness surrounded by the bright lights in neighboring China and South Korea. But even on the ground, the occasional western visitor struggles to glimpse the reality of life inside one of the world's most closed nations. I'm put up in the Moranbong Hotel, which provides a spotless room equipped with a television displaying reassuring images: talented children, dressed like living dolls, playing the flute and zither, and "Dear Leader" Kim Jong Il, inspecting troops. I'm not allowed outside without my minders, Mrs. Kim and Mr. Toh, kind but inflexible workers from the Ministry of Information.
North Korea's capital looks like a '50s futuristic city, with wide tree-lined avenues, immaculate squares and parks, and geometric concrete buildings. A 150-foot statue honors North Korea's founder, "Great Leader" Kim Il Sung, who died in 1994 but has been declared President for Eternity. In an imposing Exhibition Centre, there is an odd collection of flower arrangements that feature only two hybrids: Kimilsungia, a lilac orchid named after the Great Leader by the Indonesian President Sukarno in 1965, and Kimjongilia, a red begonia created by a Japanese horticulturist on the occasion of Dear Leader's 46th birthday. There are a few cars. At intersections, policewomen in tidy uniforms direct--with robotic motions--mainly bicycles and pedestrians. Toh asserts that the number of cars is increasing, in particular the Whistle sedan made with Fiat parts from South Korea (price: $9,600, an enormous sum compared with the average monthly wage of $25).
Town and country. In the morning, loudspeakers on lampposts and houses emit patriotic anthems. People set off for work or school by foot, often covering several miles, or silently line up awaiting the occasional ancient bus, former East German trams, or subway trains in underground stations decorated with celebratory mosaics. In the afternoon, open spaces fill with young people training for the next Arirang Mass Games, the synchronized exhibitions involving up to 100,000 performers. At nightfall, lights flicker only by monuments and government buildings, houses in the diplomatic zone, and tourist hotels. In the basement casino at the 47-story Yongakto Hotel, the few foreigners at the roulette tables blunt the boredom with imported whiskey and Chinese hostesses.
Outside Pyongyang, we travel through a pre-industrial-era countryside, past observation towers, antiaircraft emplacements, and bunkers dug into mountain slopes. Many areas are closed military zones, housing prisons and re-education camps. Only 21 percent of the land is good for agriculture, and severe food shortages have obliged the regime to accept food aid for roughly a quarter of the population of 23 million. Still, according to UNICEF, malnutrition affects some 40 percent of the population. My guides highlight North Korea's claimed social accomplishments--free housing and medical care, 99 percent literacy, no taxes, and, by government reckoning, no crime or HIV/AIDS--and dutifully recite what they are told is the cause of the nation's hardships: "The reasons of our sufferings are the present U.S. sanctions and the imperialistic politics in Washington."
This story appears in the August 8, 2005 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.
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