Pyongyang A Journey in North Korea

Recently I have degenerated. I have been reading comics, particularly one that was drawn/written by a French-Canadian cartoonist who spent some time in Pyongyang.

I found some of Guy Delisle's accounts nostalgic as they gelled with my own experience in North Korea. It seems that the experiences of the typical foreigner in North Korea are fairly similar, with many being subjected to similar routines and itineraries in a city that had been described as a "phantom city in a hermit kingdom". Of course, United Nations and World Food Program staff have different itineraries, and perhaps get to visit different places and see somewhat different things within the country.

Even though I visited the International Friendship Exhibition Hall, I had no idea that the highway which began in Seoul was deliberately built to end at the Hall. Neither did I know that the Hall was dug into the side of a mountain to withstand a nuclear attack. I also did not know that at least half of those residing in Pyongyang served as informants at one time or another.

Referring to Chinese guests in Pyongyang hotels, the cartoonist noted that "you don't have to be a psychic to know they're Chinese. The leave the door open, watch television in their underwear, and yell to each other from room to room until late into the night."

Another funny account was when the author noted that the hotel he stayed in had light bulbs not exceeding 40 watts. He mused that he was going blind but thought that perhaps reading George Orwell's 1984 "might be worth it."

But I guess it is less funny, or plain sobering, when the author wrote that North Koreans "live in a state of constant paradox where truth is anything but constant".