I should have written this days ago; chalk it up to laziness I guess.
We woke up the next morning at 4:45 AM, we were especially tired because instead of going to bed like intelligent people would have we stayed up and watched 2 hours' worth of Wonder Woman. What a fantastic show. The second episode, especially-the villain was an evil flautist who could hypnotize women(he called them 'kittens' and stole money from his own shows. I'm not kidding. What a cool job, I might aspire to be an evil flautist when I get back to the states. Anyway, we got up and got McDonald's at the 24 hour place right by our hotel. In retrospect it was fairly tactless; after all, the protests are about US beef, but a McMuffin was exactly what I needed at the time. Karlina pointed out later that we should have maybe been a bit more careful-it seems that the protests had gone on the ENTIRE night. We walked down the street and saw campfires on the pavement, the road was still blocked off and there was no way our bus was getting to us successfully. I did an impromptu radio interview about our thoughts on the beef issue and we spoke to students about what was going on. As it was the day before, everyone was very genial and informative, if a little more tired. 6 o clock rolls around and we finally found our tour guide, a South Korean woman whose English name is Pearl. The bus met us a ways down the street and we were on our way. I couldn't sleep on the bus ride very well; I always have a hard time sleeping on buses because I'm afraid I'll miss my stop, although on this particular bus this didn't make much sense, as we were all going to the same place, but whatever. Karlina was still sick so she slept most of the way
Two hours later maybe, we switched buses and headed up to Kaesong. We were told to put all Western objects-advanced cameras, cell phones, books, et cetera- in a locker before the security check. Karlina and I, in our exhausted state, accidentally forgot to put away our cell phone. This could have been a serious error, but amazingly the North Koreans never noticed it, so I guess in a way we managed to break the law in a totalitarian state(two points for us).
A disclaimer for the following descriptions: I am of course aware that North Korea is the source of countless human rights abuses and is easily one of the most corrupt and 'villainous' nations on Earth. What follows is, to a large degree, contextual; we have been living in a dirty, industrial and by all accounts 'successful' country for nearly a year now. So I guess basically take what I say with a grain of salt.
North Korea's nature is jaw-droppingly beautiful. Of course this is because they have no industry but regardless of that the fact remains the same. The trees were a color of green I haven't seen in a year, healthy and alive. We actually saw deer, which is impossible around Seoul. And we were taken to a waterfall which is easily among the most beautiful things I have ever seen in my life.
The people are another issue entirely. I can't say that the guards were standoffish to us(actually, we both got to shake a soldier's hand and one of the guards who spoke to us even had a pretty good sense of humor), but apparently they guard the citizens to no end, pretty ruthless. Pearl said there's one guard to every house. We weren't allowed to speak to or take photos of the people, but most of them looked sad to me. Sometimes they would be behind fences or walls, and we could just see their faces; Pearl told us that these were people who did not have nice enough clothes to even be seen publicly.
Kaesong itself was a brownish color through and through. There were no cars whatsoever(save the South Korean tour buses) and people were sitting on train tracks because there is actually no train to run the tracks. Life seemed simple and peaceful but not in a happy way at all. It was a huge trip coming from the protests to a spectacle like this. Somehow the government saw fit to keep Kaesong completely dilapidated, even for the tour guides, and yet still found the money to make these massive murals and golden statues of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. The sheer defiance inherent to this kind of rationale was amazing to us.
Lunch was good, a lot like food in South Korea, but as Pearl had just informed us that anywhere between 75 and 80% of the population has died from famine in the last 20 years it was hard to stomach too much food. We were taken to various museums and shops but of course the big draw for us was to see the North Korean people going about their daily lives.
I can't say it looked completely awful. The natural surroundings were gorgeous, and there was something to the simplicity of life there that was attractive to me as well. North Korean grandmothers held their grandchildren's hands, Allison saw a soldier flirting with one of the tour guides; some elements of life there felt very familiar. We were also told of state-run radios in every house, however, which can be turned down but never off; citizens are forced to wear a Kim Il Sung pin when they turn 18, instead of being given the chance to vote as in other countries; guards inexplicably posted in the middle of corn fields-not, as Pearl told us, only for the benefit of the tour buses, but because this was their full-time post, day in and day out.
Ultimately going to North Korea was a great experience, so bizarre that it hardly felt real and unbelievably candid considering the nation's reputation for being hardline Soviet. I left feeling like the government must be really desparate for funds if Kaesong is the best that they can show and it still looks like it does.
I'll post photos that Pearl sent us on here soon. I'm thinking of writing on this blog more often as we start travelling; the idea of writing a book on our travels (or at least a series of essays) has struck me more than once. Sorry if things feel disorganized or scattered; it's probably because to some extent they are.
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