Travelling Around Britain and the World

Friday, 13 September 2013

Last Day in Pyongyang (2) Serious Study and Juche Thought: North Korea Part 8

Shops of the Elite, Visiting Educational Institutions and the Juche Tower

A Stroll in Pyongyang's Empty Streets and a Shop for the Elite


North Korea
After lunch we were told we could walk in the streets and visit a shop and café. This sounded interesting - might there at last be an opportunity to see real North Koreans in their natural habitat? Of course not, it was merely timewasting until our next appoitnment.
The bustling streets of Pyongyang

We did take a short walk through the streets near the city centre. They were hardly bustling; indeed they were as empty as they usually were. We wondered if anyone lived in these gleeming apartment blocks. If you ask a guide the answer is 'Of course.' If you ask them why the streets are so empty, they look puzzled, this is the only city they have ever been to, so it is normal.

Mangoes, Cornflakes and Nescafé- for Some

We also entered a shop, it had dark tinted windows - like most Pyongyang shops - but it also had two red plaques above the door. The plaques commemorate visits by a Kim, father, son or grandson, and this shop had been visited twice. This was no ordinary gorcers.

Red plaques show the dates of visits by Kims

Inside was a small self-service store and we immediately noticed the fruit. For us food had been plentiful if not always expertly cooked or served, but we had hardly seen any fruit. At some meals an apple, cored and sliced had been served between four or six, but that was it. This shop was full of fruit, and not just locally produced apples and pears, but imported tropical fruit as well, bananas, pineapples and mangoes.

Fruit apart, the rest of the stock, though nicely presented, was surprisingly mundane. Apparently, what the elite of the DPRK crave is Kellogg’s cornflakes, Nescafé and Edam cheese.

Upstairs was a café bar, hardly the sort of establishment your regular working Korean could expect to patronise. A waitress appeared and took orders, but we had just eaten, and a snack or a lukewarm Nescafé were the last things we wanted. Some orders were placed but we, and several others, did not bother. It mattered not, we were going to sit there for an hour come what may.

Café-bar for the elite, Pyongyang

Wedding Photos

Eventually we left and strolled through more eerily quiet streets to a square dominated by a statue of what would have been apsaras in a country less disapproving of religion.

This is where newly married couples come for their wedding photographs, and if business was hardly brisk, there was at least some activity. Our guide charged up to one couple and insisted on them posing for the photograph below - and a dozen like it. The newlyweds look less than delighted – and I don’t blame them.

Wedding photo with a few unwanted extras

The Grand People's Study House, Pyongyang

Eventually enough time had passed and we set off for the Grand Peoples' Study House, which is both the national library and a correspondence university. There was the usual vast marble entrance hall dominated not, this time, by a picture Kim Il Sung, but a statue of the great man seated on a throne. Of course it was not really a throne as North Korea is a People’s Democracy not a monarchy. That the present leader is the son of the previous leader, who was in turn the son of Kim Il Sung is irrelevant; he is leader only because he is, by far, the best man for the job.

Kim Il Sung welcomes us to the Grand Peoples' Study House, Pyongyang

Nearby was something unusual – a photograph of Kim Jong Un. The ‘Marshall’ is not omnipresent, unlike his late forebears.

A rare sighting of Kim Jung Un
Grand Peoples' Study House, Pyongyang

Our tour involved dropping in on some rather basic reading rooms, though they were apparently proud of a Heath-Robinson contrivance which allowed the reader to tilt the desk surface for ease of reading.

Reading room with tilting desks!
Grand Peoples' Study House, Pyongyang

There were computers about the building linked, we were told, to the library catalogue but in one room there were several dozen computers and the students seemed to be doing more than merely searching for books.

J sat at an unoccupied desk and attempted to find the result of the Ukraine v England World Cup Qualifier played the previous Tuesday when we had been away from Pyongyang and access to the BBC World Service. [it was 0-0, I am really sorry I missed it]. The attempt was doomed, but as the machine spluttered with indignation at being asked such a trivial question, all the computers in the room crashed. It was probably a coincidence.

None of these people know the football result
Grand Peoples' Study House, Pyongyang

They were up and running in a few minutes and J typed ‘peace and democracy’ into the library search. It came up with a few suggestions. We left them on the screen and walked away.

Learn with the Magic Roundabout
Grand Peoples' Study House, Pyongyang

We visited what we were told was the music department. It was a reading room like all the others but also equipped with ancient cassette tape recorders. A staff member stuck in a tape and we all joined in with ‘Yellow Submarine’, though ‘Let it Be’ was rather less of a sing-along success. Was this all they knew of western music? Did they know about Beethoven and Beyoncé? The staff member had gone so there was no one to ask.

Music department
Grand Peoples' Study House, Pyongyang

In another room a language class sat in a 1970s-style language lab. B asked if he could speak to the students. Surprisingly the guide agreed and he walked to the front and made a start. His little speech did not seem to go well, and an attempt at interaction with individual students was met with embarrassed silence. Only then did the teacher in charge mention that this was a Chinese language class and none of the students spoke English.

B starts to talk - in the wrong language
Grand Peoples' Study Hall, Pyongyang

In the English class next door his carefully chosen words about the value of education went down rather better.

We were shown some of the books from the English language section, aged and tatty copies of Huckleberry Finn and Gone with the Wind and a much glossier non-fiction publication entitled The Story of the German Shepherd Dog.

Every reading room had the inevitable portraits of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, but we did escape their gaze while in the lift – perhaps the authorities should look into that. On the roof there was a small gift shop with exactly the same goods as in every gift shop, and some views across the city.

The Grand People’s Study House overlooked Kim Il Sung Square with the Juche Tower over the river.

Kim Il Sung Square, the Taedong River and the Juche Tower, Pyongyang

The 9th of June Secondary School, Pyongyang

Our educational afternoon continued with a visit to the 9th of June Secondary School. We arrived around 5 o’clock and were greeted in the entrance hall by a local guide, presumably a teacher, and a painting of a grandfatherly Kim Il Sung, a fatherly Kim Jong Il and the sort of train they do not have in North Korea.

Kim Il Sung & Kim Jong Il welcome us to the 9th of June Secondary School
Pyongyang

There were few children around. Many, maybe all, stay after school for compulsory homework (though if it isn’t done at home….?) and extra-curricular activities but by this time most had dispersed, possibly to home or more likely to one of the many activities the state likes to organise to keep youth happy, or at least properly occupied – ‘give me the child and I will give you the man’ as the Jesuits might have said.

We started in the biology room which had a microscope on every bench, how many would be sharing it we never found out. There was little other equipment and the room had a Spartan air.

Wow, microscopes, 9th of June Secondary School, Pyongyang

Other classrooms were even barer. This was, presumably, a show school, but it all looked a bit 1960s, though not brightened by anything on the classroom walls except the obligatory portraits of the Kims and framed displays of children in uniform with a red scarf round their necks - ‘scout of the week’ type pictures. There were no displays of children’s work, no posters and no bright or stimulating material. There was a room full of stuffed animals – a personal gift from Kim Jung Un – but whether it was ever used (and if so, for what) we never discovered though we were shown it with great pride.

Stuffed animals, an essential teaching resource
9th of June Secondary School, Pyongyang

We were not immensely impressed, but the sight of blackboards and sticks of chalk, made me come over all nostalgic - even the orphans' school we visited in Myanmar had white boards.

A blackboard, how nostalgic
9th of June Secondary School, Pyongyang

Our visit finished, almost inevitably, in the auditorium where we were treated to yet another song and dance show, this one mercifully brief. The performances were technically good, if rather joyless. At the end they came forward and grabbed as many as were willing to dance with them in front of the stage.

Concert party, 9th of June Secondary School, Pyongyang

At the end, B joined them for the photographs and then attempted to introduce them to the hand-jive. One or two hesitantly started to follow, but after a glance at their teacher they soon gave up. Spontaneity is not encouraged in the DPRK education system. Perhaps we could send them Michael Gove (oh please let’s).

Anyone for the hand jive? No?
9th of June Secondary School, Pyongyang

The Juche Tower, Pyongyang

Taking our leave we moved on to the Juche Tower, a landmark visible from all over the city, particularly at night when the red flame is lit up and much of the rest of Pyongyang isn’t.

The tower was ‘personally designed’ by Kim Jong Il to celebrate the 70th birthday of Kim Il Sung. Various dimensions accord with the dimensions of the elder Kim’s life, and it is, they claim, the tallest granite tower in the world.

Juche Tower, Pyongyang

‘Juche,’ literally self-reliance, is the basic creed of Kim Il Sungism and brilliantly fills the gaps left by Marxism/Leninism and Maoism. Beyond the basic (and distinctly non-Marxist) idea that North Korea has to be self-sufficient in every way, and the related and self-explanatory ‘military first’ policy, there does not seem to be much to ‘Juche Thought’ and it is difficult to imagine what ‘Juche Study Groups’ do with their time. Ironically, what applies to the nation does not apply to the people; far from being self-reliant, the government ensures they are supplied with every thought they should ever need.

Over the entrance are plaques presented by various worthies, including a clutch of long-deposed African dictators and a selection of ‘Juche study groups’ in an assortment of Universities, none, as far as I could see, came from the UK.

Inside a lift plods up to the observation platform below the flame. Our group and others were shuttled upwards in a series of journeys. L and I shared the lift with three men one of whom was short but immensely wide and powerful. A laminated card round his neck identified him as a member of the Myanmar weightlifting team in the DPRK for a competition; we had seen similar well-muscled individuals around the hotel earlier. On the back of my t-shirt were the words ‘souvenir of Lake Inle’, at least that is what I believe, though Burmese is one of many alphabets I cannot read. The wide short man, however, could read my back and asked if I had been to Myanmar. We had a brief conversation and I told him how much we had liked his country, which seemed to please him. It was a small interaction, an everyday experience anywhere else, but one that had been totally absent in our dealings with North Koreans.

From the top we could look back to the ‘Grand Peoples’ Study House’ and Kim Il Sung Square or downstream to the now familiar outline of the Yanggakdo Hotel…

The Yanggakdo Hotel, Pyongyang

... or upstream to the Rungnado Stadium where we had seen the Arirang Games…

The Rungnado Stadium, Pyongyang

... or across the river to the distinctive bulk of the Ryugyong Hotel. Construction began on this 105 story concrete pyramid in 1987. It was topped out in 1992 but work ceased leaving the 330m building without windows or interior fittings. Work restarted in 2008 and was, allegedly, completed in 2012, though it has yet to open. How North Korea would fill 8 revolving restaurants and either 3000 or 7500 (reports vary) guest rooms is a mystery.

The Ryugyong Hotel, Pyongyang

Back on the ground we were passed by a long stream of children, all in a uniform similar to the scouts. Some carried brushes and they were on their way to clean up the streets round their school. We waved and some waved back, after checking first to see if the teacher was watching. Adults often work until 7 or 8 and the state is keen to occupy the children for as long as necessary, and make sure they grow up with the right thoughts.

Farewell Dinner, Pyongyang

It was the end of a long day and back on the bus the guide announced we would go straight to our farewell dinner. Insurrection ensued. The revolutionaries demanded we return to the hotel for a shower and a change of clothes. The demands were met.

We dined in a department store, but the store was closed so we saw nothing of the goods on sale, being merely whisked up to the restaurant, which was also closed - to everybody but us. The meal was good if similar to others we had eaten and I will miss the kimchi when we leave. The sudden production of a main course, in this case a hefty beef stew with rice and vegetables stirred with egg, just as we thought we had finished caught us out, yet again.

On the way back we received a little lecture, which essentially said ‘Terrible lies are told about our country in the west. You have seen the truth, now go home and tell them.’ So I have, and undoubtedly the guide would be disappointed, maybe amazed, that I have found so little positive to say about the DPRK. To redress the balance here are two good things: 1) Pyongyang is very clean, 2) The DPRK brews the best beers in Asia.

The lead guide sang the folk song Arirang, and turned out to have a very good voice. The assistants were called on to sing and they too had good voices, though the only songs they knew were in praise of the nation’s leaders – hymns to Kims. B promised to reciprocate on our behalf in the morning.

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Last Day in Pyongyang (1) Gifts and the Metro: North Korea Part 7

The Gifts Showered on the Eternal Leader and the Dear Leader by their Grateful People - and a Remarkable Metro System

North Korea

There is so much to say about our last day in Pyongyang that I have split the post into two.

Why is There a Palace of Gifts?

Back on Day One, after bowing to the corpses of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il we had been permitted to marvel at the medals bestowed on the two great leaders by the awestruck chiefs of other countries, provinces, municipalities and counties - including Derbyshire (though no one there seems to know how our when - or even if - that came about.) During their lifetimes they were also showered with gifts by the grateful people of Korea, the envious ordinary citizens of lesser countries not fortunate enough to be blessed with such great leaders and by those leaders themselves in recognition of their own inadequacy.

Two palaces have been built to house these gifts so the toiling masses can see the high regard in which their leaders are held. Both were on our itinerary, but the palace of foreign gifts has been closed for months. It is some way from the city and, allegedly, the road has been blocked by a landslide. Why it has taken so long to clear a landslide is not a question we were expected to ask.

Mixed Messages and Gentle Leg-Pulling at the Palace of Gifts

The palace of gifts from loyal Koreans is closer and, after a leisurely breakfast, that was where we started our last full day in the DPRK.

We arrived at yet another of the country’s monumental buildings. 'You can take photographs,' we were told as we got off the bus, 'but not of the soldiers.' A soldier was barely visible, guarding the entrance of the building a hundred metres away, and any photo of the building had to include him. This resulted in much blowing of whistles and shouting from the guards near at hand. We had been in the DPRK long enough to know that the appropriate response is to smile, shrug and lower your camera – but not before you have taken the picture.

The palace of gifts from loyal Koreans, near Pyongyang

A local guide turned up to escort us. We lined up behind her and she set off towards the palace. We followed in single file. For some reason she did not take a straight route and we followed her, turn for turn, twist for twist, sniggering like naughty schoolchildren. About half way she turned round, realised what was happening and burst out laughing. It was one of the few times when the shell of professional reserve cracked and we made fleeting contact with the person beneath. Such levity was ruthlessly stamped on by shouts and whistles from the soldiers on guard.

No photographs were allowed inside the palace, so here is a nice picture of
the North Korean countryside to break up this big slab of print

The marble halls resembled an overcrowded museum. Some gifts, like the exquisite double-sided embroidered screens and delicate porcelain vases were impressive. Others, like a set of intricately carved wooden three-dimensional battle scenes were in doubtful taste while yet more were just weird - a lacquerware combined air conditioner and CD player and a huge vase decorated with hundreds of thousands of melon seeds, mustard seeds, corn kernels, grains of rice and lentils all individually painted and stuck on by hand. There were more mundane gifts, too, including several televisions, still in their wrappings, which had been there long enough to look dated, and a couple of sets of golf clubs.

Kim Jong Il reportedly took up golf in 1994, played one round in 38 under par, including 11 holes-in-one, and then - with nothing left to prove - retired from the game. His feat was reported by, among others, the Daily Telegraph. They did not suggest the report was fact – even the Express is not that stupid - but that it had been reported as fact by the North Korean media. The problem with such stories is that they are not always what they seem. For a probably reliable version of the origin of this myth, click this link to the (South) Korea Times.

Later Kim Stories Requiring a Pinch of Salt

[Update 1:.Kim Jong Un’s uncle, Jang Sung Taek was executed (probably by firing squad) in Dec 2013. The widely reported story that Kim had him torn apart by a pack of wild dogs originated from a satirical post on Weibo – China’s homegrown twitter service.

Update 2: The April 2014 story that all North Korean men must have their hair cut like Kim Jong Un came not from Korea but from 'Radio Free Asia' based in Washington - not actually part of Asia, the last time I looked at a map.]

...and here's a Pyongyang cityscape, for much the same reason

Finally we were led into a central room containing white plaster statutes of the two dead Kims several times life size. You can imagine our elation when we were invited/instructed to line up and bow to them.

A Ride on the Pyongyang Metro

Back on the bus we headed into the city for a ride on the metro. L and I have used the metros of a dozen cities in Europe, Asia and Africa, largely because it is a cheap and convenient way of getting about. Only in Moscow, where some of the stations really are works of art, has travelling on the metro been an end in itself and the Pyongyang metro likes to think it is in the same league. We had been promised a ride of six stops, though persistent rumours said there were only two, or at least only two they were prepared to show us, and the guides would change their minds at the last minute.

We arrived at Puhung (Revitalisation) station, the terminus of the Chollima line, and waited while our guides bought the tickets; we could not buy our own, of course, as the ticket office only accepted local currency and we were not allowed any.

The tickets were tiny, by far the smallest I have seen on any mode of transport. They also cost 5 won (2p) making the metro affordable to most local residents.

The Moscow metro specialises in long steep escalators which move unnervingly quickly. Pyongyang’s were equally steep and if they were rather slower, they made up for it by being even longer. Pyongyang has the world’s deepest metro system, most stations being around 100m below ground; according to rumour it was designed to double as a shelter in the event of a nuclear attack

Down into the bowels of the earth, Puhung Station
Pyongyang Metro

The platform was one of the few places in Pyongyang where we saw a crowd.

Crowded platform, Puhung Station
Pyongyang Metro

It was interesting, but hardly compared with the best of Moscow’s, though we were greeted onto the platform by none other than Kim Il Sung himself. Well, that was a surprise.

Kim Il Sung leads the welcoming party, Puhung Station, Pyongyang Metro

We were informed that we would travel one stop, get off to see Yonggwang (Glory) station, the finest on the network, then continue for another four stops. That scotched some of the rumours.

Despite the crowd on the platform there was plenty of space in the carriage and the guides had little difficulty corralling us at one end and snuffing out the danger of our coming into contact with ordinary people. The doors closed with a whack fierce enough to amputate any limb left in the way, then bounced half open again before finally slapping closed.

If the Koreans had some reason to be proud of their stations, there was nothing special about the trains* and we found ourselves rattling along in a flimsy formica box, though at least the seating was soft. At the end of every carriage was the usual portraits of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, though the younger Kim is hidden in my photo by the hand rail (I should probably go to prison for that).

A flimsy formica box, Pyongyang metro

We alighted at Yanggwang and had a good look round. It was impressive, I thought, but hardly a threat to Moscow.

Yanggwang Station, Pyongyang metro

Back on the train, the next carriage was more crowded and L found herself seated between a middle aged woman, who sat motionless staring straight ahead, and a young soldier who was nodding off when she sat down and eventually fell asleep on her shoulder.

We stopped at Ponghwa (Beacon), Sungri (Victory) and Tongil (Reunification) before getting off at Kaeson (Triumph). Except for Kaeson, beneath the Arc de Triomphe, station names give no hint of where you are in the city.

At Kaeson, L disentangled herself from the sleeping soldier without waking him and we had time to admire this mural before making for the surface. There is something about socialist realism painting that appeals to me. My inner cynic (never very deeply buried) squeaks with delight at the hopeless mismatch between the people portrayed and everyday reality, and yet it is called ‘realism’. We saw a splendid display of such posters in Tallinn but there the posters are in a museum and the people no longer have to pretend to believe in them. That is, I think, the best way to enjoy them.

[Update: I have since put together a collection of Socialist Realism sculpture, painting and posters from Eastern Europe and North Korea called Socialist Realism and some Western Fantasies, I think it's worth a click.]

Mural, Kaeson Station, Pyongyang metro

We emerged by the Arch of Triumph, which proves that at least one station name is related to what is above it. See Pyongyang(2): A Day for Waving for the story of the arch.

We emerged by the Arch of Triumph, Pyongyang

Not Quite KFC - Who Cares?

We were within walking distance of our designated lunchtime restaurant which was touted as the North Korean version of KFC – not a description that thrilled me**. The meal started with vegetables and pasta in a nondescript sauce, then a huge pile of chips arrived which for once were hot, followed by a small hillock of fried chicken which may have been a little greasy but was also hot. So much of what we had been fed in the previous week had been tepid or cold that I had forgotten how good hot food can be. Washed down with a couple of glasses of draught beer, this plentiful heap of comfort food somehow transformed itself into a delight.

*I am no railway buff and I have no idea where or when the train we travelled in was built, however, I read that the Pyongyang metro rolling stock largely consists of pensioned off trains from the Berlin U-Bahn. We were probably travelling in D series carriages built in West Berlin between 1957 and 1965.

**I last ate KFC in 1983 at a picnic in a park on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington (the western state, not the eastern city). I still regret it.


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Thursday, 12 September 2013

The Nampho Barrage and back to Pyongyang: North Korea Part 6

A Big Dam, The Pyongyang Railway Musuem and the Temple of Youth

The Nampho Barrage

DPRK
(North Korea)

Waking to a cool and misty morning we marched to breakfast in sprightly style urged on by the martial music from the nearby collective farm.

Breakfast was not exciting, but it was the first time we had eaten in the same room as the Korean guides. Only as we left did we see their breakfast and it looked much more interesting than ours. Not for the first time (and not only in Korea), we were disappointed by being given what people thought we wanted.

Back on the bus we set off for the Nampho barrage. The huge dam, 15km outside the city of Nampho, was built in the 1980s at the cost of some 4 billion US dollars to close off the Taedong River from the Yellow Sea.

Kim Jong Il welcomes us to the Nampho Barrage

We drove along six kilometres of barrage to the visitor centre on Pi Do Island, beside the sluice gates and ship locks. The viewpoint on top of the building was dominated by a large concrete anchor.

Huge concrete anchor (and lighthouse?)
Pi Do Island, Nampho Barrage

Despite the poor weather we could see ships waiting out at sea while one was making its way through the locks, of which there are three, the largest capable of taking vessels up to 50,000t. According to Wikipedia it is a capital offence to photograph the dam. Below is my picture of the lock. Not everything you read on Wikipedia is the absolute truth (well who knew that?).

A ship goes through the lock, Nampho Barrage

We shared our visit with another group. On the roof we overheard two of their number giving their guide a hard time. In reply she said that she could not understand why some westerners had such a good time in Korea and then went home and told terrible lies about her country. North Korea is, of course, a paradise where, as our guides had told us, there are no taxes, health care is free, housing is free and everybody is equal. I have no wish to tell lies and I accept that (almost) all of the above is true. There are no taxes because the government is the only employer, they pay all the salaries and it would be perverse to give it out with one hand and collect it back with the other. In Britain we also have ‘free’ health care, though nothing is really free; we pay through our taxes, they pay by having lower salaries than they otherwise would. Free housing sounds wonderful until you realise it means the government decides where everybody lives; loyalty is rewarded and the gleaming tower blocks of central Pyongyang are much more attractive than the stained concrete of Sariwon. Everybody is, of course, equal, but as a man who was often in our thoughts in the DPRK once wrote, ‘some …are more equal than others.’

Inside the visitor centre we should have watched a film about the dam, but they could not make the machine work so instead we had a lecture from a nice young lady in traditional costume. The dam was designed to improve navigation to the port of Nampho and control flooding, so allowing more land to be used for agriculture. There is a third benefit: people living on the south side of the estuary who could see the city of Nampho over the water, but had to make an 80km journey to get there, could now make the 8km trip across the dam instead. This (I would have thought) minor benefit, was talked up as though it was the dam’s main raison d’etre. This seemed odd - we had seen no one else on the roadway as we had driven across, and the rail lines were coated with rust.

If you have to listen to a lecture, have a comfy seat
Nampho Barrage

Lunch on the Way Back to Pyongyang

Leaving the barrage, we drove back to Pyongyang, soon picking up the Youth Hero Highway again and bumping uncomfortably along for many miles. On the final section the westbound carriageway has smooth tarmac. In the absence of other traffic there seemed no reason for us not to use it, but the policemen on guard waved their flags emphatically to ensure we stayed on the bumpy side. As we rattled along two or three private cars with tinted windows sped past us on the other side. These were clearly people who were more equal than us. Indeed I got the impression they were very equal indeed.

We turned off the highway before reaching the city and after a short trip through the countryside and then round the urban periphery we reached the restaurant set aside for our use. Not for the first time we wondered what damage we could do by eating alongside ordinary people.

We started with the usual regrettable cold fried fish. Small and bony with a tough batter, it was almost impossible to find anything to eat on it. The cold chips were no more appetizing. It improved after that, chicken drumsticks, salad with mayonnaise, kimchi (I was beginning to develop a taste for this spicy fermented cabbage), a plate of warm vegetables and a helping of what can best be described as ‘granny's beef stew’. When we felt we could eat no more, along came the expected bowl of rice, this time accompanied by noodles, beansprouts, mountain herbs and bellflower root. It was the best dish of the meal, but few were capable of doing it justice.

The Yanggakdo, again

Pyongyang Railway Museum

After driving into central Pyongyang and checking back into the Yanggakdo (the same room, the same sheets on the bed), we set out on a short trip to the city’s railway museum. Not part of the normal tourist itinerary, this was the result of a special request made some days before by one of our number who had once worked in a railway museum.

We parked in the courtyard of another of Pyongyang’s huge monumental buildings. The railway museum occupied three rooms inside and an engine shed outside. We had the museum to ourselves and I suspect the few days that had passed since the request were to schedule a temporary closure – of course they could not risk our meeting any ordinary citizen-railway enthusiasts.

The two downstairs rooms, to nobody’s surprise, concentrated on when, where and how often the Kims caught a train.

Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il welcome us to the Railway Museum

We saw the trolley that Kim Il Sung’s wife used to escape the Japanese during the war – or was it a trolley like the one she escaped on? I may have lost concentration – or perhaps they blurred that point.

The trolley on which Mrs Kim escaped from the Japanese (or not)
Railway Museum, Pyongyang

The museum guide was very proud of the ticket printing machine, designed in North Korea, that Kim Il Sung alone had realised would be necessary for the proper running of a railway. What a guy. They only had a picture, but it looked antiquated enough to be in a museum.

Upstairs we entered an end room where a huge diorama of the building of a railway bridge filled two storeys of wall. The curved, trompe l’oeil painting was extraordinary. The trucks, rails and some of the equipment nearest us were real, but at what point reality became painting was the subject of much discussion.

What is real? What is painted?

Outside in the engine shed were three real engines. Two were remarkable only because of their Kim connections but the third, a narrow gauge, Glasgow built steam engine was the only artefact we had seen that merited a place on a museum in its own right. Sadly, there was no information about it.

A genuine museum piece
Railway Museum, Pyongyang

When we left the shed we found the previously empty courtyard crammed with teenagers all chattering excitedly about the prospect of finding out exactly how often Kim Il Sung caught a train. We were ushered away before they could be tarnished by our cynicism.

The Temple of Youth

We moved on to the Temple of Youth, another huge building shining brightly in the sunshine. Here the most talented of Pyongyang’s - indeed the country’s – youth gather for extra-curricular activities. Having a child selected to attend the Temple of Youth can win a family that most prized of assets, an apartment in the capital.

The Temple of Youth, Pyongyang

With a lot of other foreigners we wandered the wide corridors, here and there being ushered into spacious, carpeted rooms. We saw embroidery and calligraphy.....

Calligraphy class, Temple of Youth, Pyongyang

...a room full of computers where fourteen-year-olds were being taught to touch-type and several music and dance lessons where the boring stuff halted as we arrived so they could give a brief, and always very polished performance.

The central atrium display involved a rocket heading for the moon. North Korea did put a satellite in orbit in 2012 (at the fifth attempt) and has ambitions towards manned space flight (they are a very ambitious nation) but this display looked very much like an American space shuttle (but don’t tell the students).


The space shuttle of the hated Americans
Atrium, Temple of Youth, Pyongyang

All visitors were then directed to the vast auditorium, where a packed audience sat through an hour long show. There was some acrobatics, some magic and much singing and dancing in small groups and in large ensembles. You do not have to be a parent to enjoy such things, but it does help, even when they are as professional as this.

And they were remarkably professional given that some were only seven or eight while the oldest were thirteen or fourteen, though the high-pitched voices of some of the younger children did tend to grate. The music involved the usual pastiche of western tunes and further along the row a guide was translating some of the words. ‘Ardent Desire’ sounded an inappropriate title for a song by a pre-pubescent girl, but the song turned out to be about the ardent desire of the Korean people that Kim Jong Un should be healthy, happy and wealthy. Come to think of it, that is inappropriate, but not in the way I had first thought.

Dinner that evening was a choice between eating in the Yanggakdo or going out for a pizza. I like Italian pizza, but it is virtually impossible to find (outside Italy, of course). What most of the rest of the world knows as pizza is American pizza which, in my humble opinion (and I am only pretending to be humble) is an abomination. We went with the minority view that dinner at the Yanggakdo was the lesser of two evils. In the event maybe it was, but not by much.
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Location: Nampho, South Pyongan, North Korea
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