I love exploring the world. It’s my absolute greatest passion, and I’ve been traveling my entire life. I made my first international solo trip to Mexico when I was twelve years old. Who I am as a person is fundamentally and inextricably linked to the people I’ve met and what I’ve seen and experienced as I’ve crisscrossed the world. I am a better version of myself when I travel, and each place I visit helps me improve. Travel fosters gratitude, appreciation, independence, curiosity, creativity, knowledge, wisdom, confidence, empathy, joy, and love. It kills fear, ignorance, assumptions, prejudice, preconceived ideas and beliefs, taking things for granted, and uncompromising morals.
Travel makes the world smaller. It’s easy to find differences among us. Politics and religion may force us to separate, and the specific routines of daily life may be so different they’re unrecognizable; but as sentient beings, we’re the same. And the more you travel, the more you viscerally understand just how similar we all are. Even those we find so easy to demonize have their hearts broken. Because travel humanizes those who surround us, “the Chinese,” “Russia today said…,” and “Japan suffered another…” are no longer dehumanized banter on the news; they are places you’ve spent time in, people you’ve met and now care about.
When I travel, I am a cultural ambassador for my country, and for women, and for single women, and for Jewish people—and I never forget this. I remain aware that I am the closest many people I meet will ever come to interacting with another country. I am the first white person, the first Jew, the first American many people have ever seen. I travel with an open heart, and an open mind, with the intention of learning and sharing, and then sharing what I’ve learned with people back home.
Travel is truly a love affair. But, just like love, it’s a two-way street.
And North Korea deprives you of all this. They want you to fall in love with the singular vision of the country they’re willing to show you and nothing more.
Everything you do and see is staged and managed. Everyone with whom you are allowed to speak knows what he or she can and cannot say. When there are real people doing ordinary things, you’re not allowed to engage. When there are sights deemed too unsightly, the guides pretend they aren’t there. When questions are asked that they don’t want to answer, or criticisms levied they don’t want to hear, they are masterful at staying on point and controlling the message, whether through distraction, redirection, preemptive strike, or when all else fails, just plain old ignoring. There’s no sharing, empathizing, or finding common ground; there’s only the propaganda tour.
Older Handler was no more interested in what I had to say about the complexities of American politics, and why some people like our president while others may not, than she was in sharing if it was hard to be away from her daughter during the weeks she spent with tourists like me.
Whether I was asking how people in her country are assigned jobs or apartments, or who exactly was allowed to join the Young Pioneers, or why all the hair salons in Pyongyang look exactly the same, or how in the world they managed to keep all 200,000 (or however many—couldn’t get a straight answer to this either) gifts in the International Friendship Exhibition House dust free, if it wasn’t on the propaganda tour, it wasn’t getting answered. You’re on a permanent first date with North Korea. And with no chance for any real intimacy, there’s no chance for love.
So as I stand there taking photos of their perfect version of nature from their designated nature photo-taking spot—with Older Handler to my left, and Local Handler and Fresh Handler to my right—I decide at long last to just stop trying. My dogged determination to find answers to unanswerable questions and bond where no bonds were allowed to be forged was slowly making me crazy. It’s no wonder that when I’d allowed my mind to wander down that hallway, it led me straight to the psych ward.
Back inside and through more hallways, we arrived in a foyer with large wooden doors on either end. Something was about to be revealed that should have struck me as astonishingly weird but no longer was. When we arrived in the foyer, the local large-wood-door-opening guides were sitting when I guess they should have been standing, because they both shot up and apologized to Local Handler as if we’d caught them two (or three) sheets to the wind, playing strip poker.
I honestly can’t remember who exactly was explaining what—it was an amorphous mix of urgent, excited, and very hushed whispering describing what I was about to see. Inside the first room would be a life-size image of the first dead Great One that one or many of them told me (warned me?) was so lifelike that “many people say” it’s like you’re standing in the presence of the Dear Great dead One himself, only he’s not dead at all (they, of course, said this in a far more cogent, reverent, obsequious, effusive, and fulsome way). I guess to ensure I understood the gravity of the situation, one of the eight handlers positioned in the foyer added, “many people have fainted” and “even cried out!” upon seeing the Great Wax One, so I should prepare myself.
I bit my tongue hard, determined to stick to my recently implemented five-minutes-ago new plan of “no questions asked/no talking back,” and therefore let pass the 300,000 questions and comments I had swirling around in my head.
I was ushered to the opposite end of the room. We walked in a perfectly straight line, shoulder to shoulder, as silently and solemnly as one would if one were walking to one’s own beheading. When we reached the Great Wax One, we bowed deeply and for a very long time. So long I nearly started laughing because I couldn’t figure whether I was waiting for them to stop bowing or they were waiting for me. I figured you don’t get anywhere in life without taking a shot, so I stood up, and they followed.
This was the point at which I thought, well, North Korea has outdone itself. I’m in batshit-crazy town. And the Great Wax One actually did look pretty real, standing there amid fake nature.
We stared at him for a while, until an appropriate amount of time had passed and I was told to move along. Which begged the question: what constitutes an appropriate amount of time to stare at a life-size wax statue of a Dear dead Great Leader whom everyone thinks is still running the country, while standing in an underground bunker in middle-of-nowhere North Korea surrounded by matching handlers? Answer: approximately two very long minutes.
The room on the other end was similarly surreal and creepy, and we followed the same drill. If I remember correctly, it was first Great dead One and his wife and second dead One as a baby riding a horse, or something like that. As you might imagine, all the propaganda starts to blend and become one after a week or so.
By that point I was ready to pack up and leave, and hoped this was the grand finale. But nope; we still had the other building to see. As we walked across the driveway from one building to the next, a squadron of uniformed guards performing some type of drill marched past us. Having eclipsed us by a minute or so, they reached the second building first and were in the middle of an elaborate changing-of-the-guards ceremony when we reached the front door of building number two.
I failed to catch myself before innocently commenting that many countries share the same custom at important landmarks, like Buckingham Palace in London. “Totally different,” snapped Older Handler. And…I’m off yet again. My period of self-imposed “just shut the fuck up already” lasted roughly ten minutes. “Well, why do you say that? It’s the same concept, isn’t it? Have you seen the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace? You know they do the same thing at the Gyeongbokgung Palace in Seoul, South Korea, too” (now I’m really playing with fire…do not pass go, go directly to jail).
As we stepped inside I asked Older Handler to ask Local Handler how often they change guards. “She doesn’t know,” Older Handler replied without asking Local Handler.
“How can she not know? She works here, doesn’t she?”
“Not her department. She works inside.”
I’ve completely fallen off the wagon, “Well, can you at least please ask her for me?”
Korean, Korean,
Korean, “She doesn’t know.”
I looked at the former love of my life for the last hour and give her the stink eye while saying to I guess anyone, or myself, “She doesn’t know. And yet she works here. And walks outside. Why is this secret information? What do you think I can possibly do with this information? In other countries this is actually published information because they are proud of their changing-of-the-guard ceremonies—it’s something tourists specifically turn up to see.”
Not only am I getting nowhere fast and annoying everyone, risking deportation or worse, but also I’ve been unkind to poor Local Handler, who has done nothing wrong. Quite the opposite, she’s been positively lovely throughout. And over what? I want to cry. And just like that, for the first and last time in North Korea, I moved myself along.
Seems I’m the best of myself everywhere in the world except North Korea, and in line at the Starbucks at Fourteenth and Sixth in Manhattan.
Our tour of the second building (which looked exactly like the first) completed, Local Handler walked Fresh Handler, Older Handler, and me back to our car. I still felt badly about my (mental) row with Local Handler, and I wanted to make amends. I wanted her to know how much I appreciated her time that day and all the kindness and patience she’d shown me. I wanted to somehow acknowledge whatever I thought I had seen in her eyes that made me feel like we had managed to connect.
Once Older Handler and Fresh Handler were halfway into the car, I quickly turned back away from the car toward Local Handler and tapped her on the arm. I took both her hands in mine and looked her in the eyes and said in English, “I want to thank you; you’ve been so kind. I’m so glad I met you, and I wish you all the best.” She gave my hand a slight squeeze, smiled, and said in English back to me, “Thank you.” A little bit like we were real new friends.
I didn’t mean it! pleaded poor Alice.
—Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
Chapter 21
Driver
Driver was like an avuncular yakuza with bad manners. But for some reason I liked him from the moment we were introduced in the airport parking lot. He spoke no English. Or he was fluent and faking it. But what would be the point?
He was either in his late sixties or early forties. I honestly cannot remember which. I do, however, remember being really surprised by how old or how young he looked when Older Handler told me his age. His visage had a sort of timeless oldness to it. Like alcoholics who live where there’s nothing but sun.
He had a gold tooth or two, spiky hair, and a generally gruff exterior. He was slight and not particularly tall, but he had the air of somebody who could and would viciously tear any enemy apart, regardless of whether or not it was deserved. I always felt bad for having these feelings about him, because he was probably a decent man. I was judging a book by its cover, a man by his looks.
Except he did violently stomp to death an innocent bug that I had painstakingly rescued from our car just mere seconds ago…while he watched.
Though I am pathologically afraid of insects, I refuse to kill anything unless all other options are exhausted and circumstances demand it. So instead of squashing or swatting said insects to death, I force myself to mollycoddle the things I fear most and try to gingerly expel them (lest I accidentally kill one) from wherever I am.
Driver had watched me carefully eject the bug from our car with the obvious intention of keeping the bug alive. And it had been just the day before when I’d had a whole conversation with Driver and Older Handler—who I doubted by that point was accurately translating anything to anyone on my behalf—at the DMZ (when I was asking them to pull our car over to shoo the scary flying insect out) about me not killing things, and being a vegetarian, and thinking all beings’ lives have equal value. And that’s probably where I lost Older Handler’s desire for accuracy.
Not to mention, if I managed to get the bug out of the car, did he not think I would also be capable of stomping on it myself? Clearly stomping to death a hapless insect already down for the count is far easier than ensuring its safe passage out of an automobile.
The ironic thing is that Driver meant to be valiant. He’d killed the bug for me, not to spite me. Recall how I’d literally squealed from fear at DMZ, not because of the danger of the place but because of a fly. And I’d made no bones about it…insects are persona non grata number one.
Because he knew this, Driver brutally stomped the bug—I am not embellishing—it was a Falklands War disproportionate-style stomp. In response to which I involuntarily slap-smacked him on the arm. It was a knee-jerk reaction. We slap-smack each other as punctuation marks all the time at home! C’mon! (For example, I would have just slap-smacked you there.)
As soon as I smack him, I realize what I’ve done. But it’s too late. I can see in his eyes that I’ve hurt his feelings and somehow made him feel stupid or rejected. In one fell swoop I seem to have destroyed so much. Our tenuous relationship, so hard-won, has now been jeopardized. I feel truly awful. Especially since—next to Waiter with accent horrible, and Fresh Handler—I love Driver third best.
I immediately start apologizing in English, while alternately begging Older Handler to apologize for me in Korean (she’s an unreliable bitch, but she’s all I got) and explain to Driver that we slap-smack each other all the time at home as a gesture of endearment, blah blah, and on and on. I blab so fast that I fumble over my own words of contrition, and Older Handler stops translating altogether. No doubt in an effort to ameliorate hurt feelings, Older Handler instead knowingly turns to me and states the obvious, “You hurt Driver’s feelings.”
It takes only microseconds for Driver’s hurt to turn to humiliation crossed with embarrassment, like the feeling you have when you tell a joke that doesn’t land. Then he transitions to mad. His face now inscrutable, he turns his back to me and walks into the fakarant.
Lunch rolls like a step-family dinner—that is, awkwardly. Driver isn’t making eye contact. Now I feel mad-bad and wish I could say something like, “I’m sorry that you killed an innocent bug, causing me to accidentally punch you on the arm, and now you won’t even look at me, let alone speak to me via Older Handler, even though I’ve apologized a billion times, and I feel gutted about this. Please don’t be mad.” I’m also really happy he’s so unabashedly hurt; that means he’s experiencing actual feelings, and there’s nothing the Party can do about it. Try as it might to present its citizens as perfect beings, Koreans are human, too.
Driver was an enigma: sometimes chivalrous and gallant, sometimes just plain trashy.
At the clam bake he pretended the cone-topped, plastic squeeze bottle was his penis, and that the oil spraying from it to kindle the gasoline flames into the fiery inferno needed to char our clams was his pee. He was chedah (we all were), so we were laughing as he “peed” in giant circles and figure eights with that ever-present cigarette dangling from his mouth. But even as we laughed, there was a sense of menace that so pervaded his demeanor it was hard to shake. As usual, I felt truly awful about judging him so harshly. He was probably just an aging bad boy, with misleadingly ugly shoes.
I always tried my best to correctly say “thank you” in Korean whenever he let me in or out of our car. Gamsahamnida. I got it right once. If you’re sounding it out loud right now and thinking to yourself, she must be an idiot, because that’s easy to say, try it without this book in front of you.
I didn’t have a cheat sheet. And even though I’d learned 169 new English words using Kaplan’s vocab app on my phone, I couldn’t get this single Korean word right.
Because we visited at least eight places each day—and he picked me up from and dropped me off at my hotel each day and let me in and out of the car for lunch, dinner, and bathroom stops—I estimate that I probably thanked him the wrong way twenty-two times per day. That had to annoy the shit out of him. But every time I pronounced gamsahamnida wrong—which, by the way, I managed to say the wrong way exactly the same way every time but could not manage the r
ight way twice—he’d smile or laugh with me at my “oops!” Like he actually enjoyed my gaffes. He came off like a pro linebacker who shows up at the dog park with a Chihuahua instead of a pit bull.
I’d brought sunglasses with me as gifts for my NoKo team. You’re advised to bring gifts to give halfway through your trip, in addition to monetary tips at the end of your stay. Not knowing how many handlers I’d have or if they’d be male or female, I’d brought three different unisex styles and a fourth more feminine pair. I presented the sunglasses at lunch one day, inviting Older Handler, Fresh Handler, and Driver to each select the style that suited their taste best. Driver practically knocked Fresh Handler over lunging for the girlie one.
He was a tough guy in a cat eye. He wore the frames with pride.
Driver smoked at every opportunity, and he smelled rank as a result. Eventually I had to ask Older Handler to ask Driver not to smoke just before getting back in the car, that’s how bad he smelled. But he took the news like a gentleman and a champ. He immediately stopped smoking anywhere near me or our car. And soon his smoking became fodder for familial-like banter between the two of us—me teasing him about how his disgusting smoking habit was going to kill him, and him hurling back insults at meals about how weird I was for not eating meat. Our “Shit I Think Might Be Real” list teasing made me feel like we were becoming friends, or so I thought, and best of all required no Older Handler translating.
Sometimes when Driver and I were joking around and having fun, I would feel real affection for him, so I would tell him I was going to miss him, and he would tell me the same. And I meant it. And I do. Not the way you miss a best friend or your family or anything close. But there was something there. And I think he felt it too.
Neither of the others took the least notice of her going, though she looked back once or twice, half hoping that they would call after her: the last time she saw them, they were trying to put the dormouse into the teapot.
My Holiday in North Korea Page 12
