My Holiday in North Korea

by Wendy E. Simmons

  There were also the wrong holiday lights of course, this time shaped like a Christmas tree I think, and pink balloons to match the pink-and-blue napkins, and gold-beige-covered chairs. There were pink-and-purple, cone-shaped, tulle-draped flower stands with giant bows around their skinny necks and snowman-size rose bouquets for heads. There was a large flat-screen TV—for entertainment, I suppose—and twenty or so cases of beer stacked along the wall next to the bridal table. The table was covered by an elaborate floral arrangement with a heart at its center, in which sat stuffed teddy bears (man and wife—guessing newlyweds) dressed like pilgrims. There was also a real, dead stuffed bird on the table next to the pilgrims. Which species of dead bird, I cannot guess.

  But the thing that really caught my eye was the individually wrapped towelette packets included at every place setting. Aside from the fact they were even using individually wrapped towelette packets as part of the place settings at a wedding (although the etiquette rules on this may be more lax for weekday daytime weddings), they seem to have been taken from China Air, or so the labeling led me to believe. Perhaps tourists who failed to use theirs on their flights casually gave them to their handlers, who amassed them over time, and they found themselves at a wedding.

  We’d long ago finished lunch and had been sitting there for a while. The reception was delayed. My handlers were bored to pieces, yet I’m still riveted by the simple machinations of table setting and party preparation going on.

  By now my handlers are slacking off a bit—a combination of being tired from a very busy morning, boredom at sitting waiting, and a shared Large Beer at lunch. Their lack of attention emboldens me to take more photos of more things without worrying about getting caught.

  The photo I sneak of a waitress standing casually in the kitchen, with her left leg bent just a touch, waiting for something at the counter, is the photo that breaks the camel’s back. First I get into trouble…no more photos (now I’m bored), then the waitress does (unfair rebuke…I’m the one with the camera, after all).

  Several people enter the restaurant and DISCUSSIONS take place. It prompts me to wonder if and how many DISCUSSIONS must have taken place for me to be sitting there bored in the first place.

  Older Handler keeps me updated: bride and groom delayed, bride and groom arriving. Then she tells me to stay standing at the back of the room.

  The guests begin arriving, both men and women (Older Handler explains that some wedding receptions are male- or female-only), and they are all dressed in their regular NoKo attire. That is, whatever they would have been wearing five minutes ago if they were not going to a wedding was what they were all wearing now. Men dressed in military uniforms? Check! Men dressed in short-sleeve work shirts and pants? Check! Ladies in their Mad Men costumes? Check! Children in school uniforms? Check! The only thing missing was semiformal, formal, or cocktail attire. Unfortunately Older Handler has also informed me that I’m not allowed to take any photos of the guests.

  So I’m hanging back, trying to look casual and be as unobtrusive as an American Imperialist can be while crashing a wedding in North Korea.Older Handler tells me to get ready, that the bride and groom are on their way! I feel like a paparazzo waiting for the money shot. But I’m a little confused about how I’m supposed to take a photo from the back of the room.

  When the bride and groom cross the threshold, the logistics are made clear: Older Handler drag-pushes me straight through the middle of the crowded room, (conveniently) making it impossible for me to take photos of any guests, before depositing me directly in front of the bride and groom, who are standing behind the bridal table.

  I may be struggling to find true north in this land of uncertainty, ambiguity, and doubt, but the bride’s unmistakable glare upon seeing me—a clearly unwelcome and uninvited American Imperialist with a camera in her hands—proudly earned the first spot on my “Shit I Think Might Be Real” list. Followed second by the wedding reception…I think.

  I am allowed perhaps five seconds to snap this photo of the happy couple before being ushered out of the fakarant faster than a president is pushed out of harm’s way during an assassination attempt.

  Alice laughed. There’s no use trying, she said: one CAN’T believe impossible things. I daresay you haven’t had much practice, said the Queen.

  —Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass

  Chapter 6

  And then There Were Two

  We pull up to the front gate of the Paeksong Food Factory in Pyongsong for my scheduled tour. When no one meets our car, Driver begins to honk with ever-increasing urgency and yells furiously until the military chick meant to be guarding the entrance stumbles out of her booth, disheveled and abashed.

  It quickly becomes clear she is both out of uniform and has been sleeping. I am beyond entertained as I watch her hurriedly try to pull herself together (hat on, shirt buttoned up and tucked in, halter/belt thing on, etc.) while she frantically runs back and forth from the gate to the factory. I’m no expert on the NoKo system of rule, but I’m pretty certain that being out of uniform is bad, and being asleep even worse, but both? Ouch. Her cartoonlike scrambling is amazing and immediately makes my “Shit I Think Might Be Real” list.

  After three or four sprints to the inside of the factory and back, she enters and exits her booth one last time, then lifts the gate and motions us inside. As we step out of our car to an empty parking lot, we are met by the local guides and the factory manager. It’s then that Older Handler tells me the shocking news: A mere five minutes earlier, the factory unexpectedly lost power, forcing it to close and send all 5,000 employees home. We will still be allowed inside, but there will be no people to see and nothing working.

  A group of Brits who happen to be visiting the factory at the same time seem to enjoy peppering their handlers with questions they must know will result in inane answers:

  BRIT: So, all 5,000 people have just left the building five minutes ago and gone home then, or are they all waiting in the lunchroom for the power to come back on?

  LOCAL GUIDE: Yes.

  Having spent some time in factories (and not being a complete idiot), I, too, can smell a ruse. All the surfaces, machines, and equipment are pristine. It seems unlikely—nay, impossible—to manufacture the purported plethora of products on the same two lines with just a few different machines. And all 5,000 people left mere minutes ago, and there isn’t a single shred of physical evidence that even one human has ever worked here? Except for, of course, the napping guard.

  But more importantly, I’m pretty sure if the factory she is single-handedly tasked with guarding did just lose power one- to four-and-a-half minutes ago, causing it to unexpectedly close down and send 5,000 workers home (or be held in the lunchroom), she would be fully clothed, or at least awake, if not both.

  Lest you think I doubt the veracity of Older Handler’s claim based on the actions of one unkempt, napping guard and solid housekeeping, on our approach to the factory on the only road in, we hadn’t seen a single person coming the other way. Certainly there had to be a straggler or two. Someone with a limp?

  My bewilderment grows once our tour of the factory begins. I am so stupefied by the factory’s “control room” that I forget to take a photo of it. First, there are no electronic displays or control panels of any kind anywhere in the room. Second, there are no electronic displays or control panels of any kind anywhere in the room. There are: two barren desks; four chairs; and three dormant “monitors” affixed to the wall that I would swear aren’t real but rather are those fake molded plastic-prop flat-screen monitors used by home stagers, realtors, and furniture stores. That’s it. There aren’t even pencils in the room. I don’t believe anyone’s ever been in this room, let alone controlled factory operations from it only minutes ago.

  Next comes the Showcase of Products Room, which begged the question I kept finding myself asking of NoKo: If you’re going to go to all the effort to put your “best foot forward,” why not try a little harder to m
ake it look better? Which is not to say the white-lacquer bookshelf-cabinet all-in-ones lined up next to each other along the wall and the bevy of beverages in clashing packaging didn’t look pleasing; it just could’ve looked better.

  Unexpectedly we come upon two workers who have, for some reason, stayed behind to finish making the biscuits after their 4,998 coworkers so quickly departed. The local guide or factory manager (I can’t remember who) declares these workers “heroes.”

  We watch them—their heads down, doing nothing—for a few minutes, and then my group moves on. As usual, I stay behind watching, wondering what it all means. And as usual, Fresh Handler, always patient during my extended reveries—stays with me. Eventually one of the workers looks up and stares right back at me, and then she gives me the stink eye—my second stink eye in as many days. But it’s also one of the few genuine things I’ve encountered. So I snap her photo, adding it to my “Shit I Think Might Be Real” list. And to Fresh Handler’s great pleasure, we move along.

  Come, we shall have some fun now! thought Alice.

  —Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

  Chapter 7

  The Simulation Cinema

  There was a change to our schedule, so we had an hour to kill before lunch and our afternoon drive to Kaesong.

  “Waterpark?” Older Handler suggested.

  “I don’t have a bathing suit,” I said. Never in a million years had it crossed my mind to bring one with me to North Korea.

  “You rent one,” Older Handler shrugged.

  Ewwww. “No!” I shot back, perhaps too quickly. But the thought of sharing a rental bathing suit in a country that lacked running water held little appeal.

  I abruptly changed tack, attempting to maintain our precarious détente, “That sounds fun, but I don’t know how to swim,” I lied.

  “3-D movie?”

  That sounded easy. All I’d have to do was sit and keep my clothes on.

  “Great!” I replied enthusiastically.

  A short ride later we pulled into the empty parking lot of the Runga Funfair, “A Wonderland for the People!” next to the Taedong River.

  It was closed, I guess for the day, but it looked more like it had been abandoned forever. I could practically see the tumbleweeds rolling by. As I stood taking photos of nothing, my handlers entered into intense negotiations—DISCUSSIONS—with the employees sitting inside the glass booth at the entrance. Eventually Older Handler tells me to pay a euro, and we’re allowed in.

  As we walk through the deserted amusement park toward the Simulation Cinema, Older Handler keeps insisting the Funfair is normally open seven days a week and is always very busy.

  I don’t know what to say.

  “Then why is it closed now?” I ask.

  OLDER HANDLER: They didn’t know we were coming.

  ME: What did you just say?

  OLDER HANDLER: The people, they come later.

  ME: What time does it open?

  OLDER HANDLER: Yes.

  Good chat.

  When we arrive at the theater we are, as is often inexplicably and arbitrarily the case in NoKo, required to cover our shoes with oversize, opaque, blue, protective caplike things like the ones doctors in operating rooms are required to wear on their heads to cover their hair. The trouble is, in NoKo these things are themselves dirty, having never been washed, and you put them on over your shoes while still standing outside, then walk from the outside in, thereby eliminating all chance of keeping the outside out.

  And there I am—standing in the lobby of an empty movie theater in an abandoned amusement park in North Korea, surrounded by handlers, wearing blue protective personal equipment over my feet to prevent contamination.

  We walk over to the ticket counter, which looks more like a desk, and I’m instructed to pay. It costs four euros, but I only have a five-euro bill. What happens next is a bona fide shit show. No one is prepared to make change! No one told them I was coming! Making change is not on the schedule! You can’t just get change for a five-euro bill any old place! This is North Korea!

  An urgent and unpleasant-sounding exchange takes place as I stand there impotently, confused by who exactly is in trouble for not having the correct change: me, my handlers, or the cashier.

  Abruptly, Older Handler turns to me and barks, “You get change after movie.” That answers that. I’m the one in trouble.

  We walk through the lobby and into the tiny theater.

  There’s a small rack off to the side where I’m told to put my day bag. Since all of my money plus my camera and cell phone are in my bag, there’s no way I’m leaving it unattended off to the side in a darkened room. “That’s okay. I’ll hold it,” I say.

  “But the movie is very dangerous,” Older Handler replies.

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” I think but I’m pretty sure don’t say out loud.

  Sensing my uncertainty, she clarifies, “The movie…it moves.”

  Ah, I get it. It’s one of those 3-D immersion movies where the seats move in tandem with the film.

  “That’s okay. I’ll hold it on my lap.”

  Undeterred, she stands staring with her trademark tight smile, waiting for me to capitulate.

  In that moment I have the profound realization that Older Handler is actually as annoyed with me as I am with her. Still, there’s no way I’m leaving my bag.

  There are two elevated rows, five seats across, and I’m astonished to see people sitting in each. If my handlers are likewise surprised, they aren’t showing it, but Older Handler moves quickly to reorganize the seating chart, and three comfortably seated moviegoers are jettisoned from the theater.

  Sorry about that.

  As we take their seats and fasten our seatbelts (!), the man sitting next to me asks where I’m from. I smile and tell him America. Then he asks if it’s my first time visiting Korea. “It is,” I answer cheerfully. “Do you like Korea?” he continues. “I do (not)!” I respond, incredulous that we’re allowed to speak freely. I wonder how many rules he’s breaking, and I start fearing for his safety.

  Older Handler stands up and walks out, ostensibly to fetch our 3-D glasses, but moments later she returns with a man who says a few words, and then the entire audience of North Koreans stands up and leaves.

  “Why did everyone leave?” I ask, already knowing the answer.

  “Wrong movie,” she replies.

  Thirty-five minutes of logistics behind us, we put on our plastic yellow 3-D glasses, and the movie, a race-car-themed film called Winner, begins. Our seats vigorously shake and pitch forward and backward, as we narrowly avoid crashes and fly off cliffs.

  Fresh Handler squeaks and squeals, “Ooohh!” She’s legitimately enjoying herself (“Shit I Think Might Be Real” list). And I’ve got to admit that Older Handler was right; hanging onto my bag with all of the jostling and lurching is not at all easy.

  The movie lasts maybe four minutes.

  The lights come up, and I smile at Fresh Handler, who’s so cute and sweet wearing the clunky, ill-fitting, yellow-plastic 3-D glasses. “Did you like the movie?” I ask. “Oh, yes!” she answers enthusiastically. I love her.

  I turn to Older Handler and ask her the same thing. “I feel sick,” she says and stands up to leave.

  We walk back through the lobby and out the front door, where we pause in front of the theater to remove the anti-outdoor-indoor-contamination shower caps from our shoes.

  We make it a few more feet when a voice beckons us to stop. It’s the cashier from inside with my one euro in change.

  Well, now that we HAVE seen each other, said the Unicorn, if you’ll believe in me, I’ll believe in you.

  —Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass

  Chapter 8

  Next Stop: Normal People

  I was sitting on the Pyongyang Metro interrogating Older Handler. As usual, I was trying to get to the bottom of things.

  ME: Who are these people on the subway?

 
OLDER HANDLER: To be honest, normal people.

  This was how it would go. She would reply to my question with such absurd nonsense that I would either have to just suck it up and stop asking questions or prepare to dig in, and let the baby-talk roll. But getting past her rehearsed lies—no matter how reductive my questioning—was impossible. And this exchange was no different.

  And from what I’ve been told, “normal people” must work Monday through Saturday (Sunday is their day of rest, but they must do volunteer work then for the Party). It’s midafternoon on a Thursday, and this place is packed. And since there are no dry cleaners, or shops, or banks, or other errand-type places, and the only let’s-do-lunch crowd in town is me, I’m hard pressed to understand exactly who all these “normal” people are.

  ME: Why aren’t they at work?

  OLDER HANDLER: They are.

  ME: Then why can I see them?

  OLDER HANDLER: Yes.

  Unfortunately, Q&As in North Korea are a zero-sum game.

  Some people probably find digging for answers fun. But I find the painfully slow extraction of information from an unwilling and therefore purposely obtuse source to be aggravating as all fuck—especially when that someone, in this case Older Handler, had an unbelievably ironic vocal tic of starting half of her responses with, “To be honest…”

  I am on an “Extended Ride on the Pyongyang Metro,” which meant I was allowed to visit four (no longer surprisingly) dimly lit stations—this, despite the large number of elaborate chandeliers and light fixtures housed in each. And like everywhere else in North Korea, each station had that familiar mix of rousing, communist-era music and urgent-sounding talk radio blasting out of loudspeakers. Each was adorned with heavy-handed propaganda (murals, mosaics, carvings, and statues) extolling the virtues of NoKo’s values and Great Leader love.