Travelling Around Britain and the World

Tuesday 17 September 2013

Datong, the Yungang Grottoes and the Hanging Temple. Beijing and Shanxi Part 3

"Nothing but Delight that over there"
slogan seen on a tee-shirt, Beijing

Coal Fired Power Stations, 1,500-year-old Buddha Statues and a Remarkable Temple

15-Sept-2013

A Day of Rest in Beijing

China

After getting off the train from Pyongyang, Sunday was a day of leisure in Beijing; there was nothing we had to see and nobody to organise it. Lunch in Mr Lee’s Noodle Shop may not have been haute cuisine, but I enjoyed it.


Lunch in Mr Lee's Noodle Shop

16-Sept-2013

By Train to Shanxi

We were heading south west to Shanxi Province

After a leisurely breakfast we made the short walk to the station to fight with the crowds and the sometimes baffling Chinese rail system. It was a pleasant change to be reliant on ourselves rather than have a guide doing everything for us.

From Beijing to Datong

Our train to Datong left on time and, after seven hours of gently rambling through the countryside at an average speed of some 60 kph, it arrived on time.

Eating one of Alex's flapjacks on the train to Datong

Introduction to Datong

We were met by Maggi, our guide for the next two days, and were driven past the walled ‘Old City’ (of which more later) to our hotel in the new centre, a not particularly interesting street of large hotels and even larger banks.

Shanxi Province - wind farms as well as coal mines

Before leaving, Maggi gave us directions to an area where life was on a more human scale. Walking there in the evening we found a small restaurant that provided us with rice, chicken with chillies and Sichuan pepper and a dish of gently spiced spinach with garlic and nuts.

17-Sept-2013

Haggis

Breakfast at the Datong Hotel was a large Chinese buffet. In one section bowls were being ladled out from a vat labelled ‘haggis’. It looked like noodle soup but, intrigued, we took a bowl each. There were the usual Chinese condiments, coriander, chopped shallots and chilli sauce, which we would not normally associate with haggis. I took some chilli sauce - I like a slug of chilli in the morning.

Shanxi Province

On closer inspection pieces of tripe and kidney were swimming among the noodles. Oats are grown locally and although I cannot be absolutely sure the bowl contained any, there was a definite haggis-y flavour that went beyond the offal. It was excellent, my compliments to the clan McWei.

Datong's newly rebuilt city wall (with the new town in the background)

Datong's Problem

Despite having two entries in the Rough Guide’s 'top 35 things to see in China', Datong does not see hordes of foreign tourists. We had spotted the city’s downside as we arrived and encountered it again as soon as we stepped outside the hotel in the morning. Northern Shanxi produces two thirds of China's coal; Datong has several pits and two huge coal-fired power stations, one supplying the electricity for Beijing, the other serving Shanxi province's 36 million inhabitants. Black dust hangs in the air, which has a distinctive coaly smell. An atmosphere that should be sliced rather than breathed is a powerful deterrent from spending long in Datong.

The Yungang Gottoes

Maggi arrived with her driver and we set off on the 16km journey to the Yungang Grottoes. We headed west, leaving the city of 1.7 million people, and travelling through reasonably pleasant greenish countryside, albeit with a sprinkling of coal mines.

At Yungang the authorities have built a long, elaborate walkway from the car park to the grottoes. Chatting with Maggi as we walked it became clear that her English was exceptionally good. Few Chinese guides have travelled outside China so have been unable to develop their listening skills, but Maggi had spent three years living in Bury in Greater Manchester which is, she informed me, Datong's twin town. I must admit I have never been to Bury, but I know that it is famous for its black pudding – which we particularly enjoy fried with slices of sweet apple as a light lunch. I asked her if she had encountered Bury black pudding. 'I tried it, ' she said, 'but it wasn't very nice, I wasn't sure if I should have cooked it or not.' 'It's fine either way, ' I told her. She looked unconvinced.

I discussing black pudding on the approach to the Yungang Grottoes

The Yungang Grottoes are a series of 252 caves containing over 51,000 Buddha statues. Once the caves stretched along 15km of hillside, today about 1km of it is open to visitors.

Lynne at the Yungang Grottoes

After the collapse of the Han dynasty in 220CE China fragmented into three (sometimes more) kingdoms before being reunited by the Sui dynasty in 589. The Three Kingdoms period was one of protracted and complicated warfare as Wei, Wu and Shu fought for supremacy. Datong became the capital of the Buddhist Northern Wei, who built the Yungang Grottoes in three separate bursts of activity between 453 and 525. We first encountered the Northern Wei in Jiayuguan, 1000km to the west, where we visited their tombs and experienced a total eclipse.

Yungang Grottoes

Yungang is the oldest and arguably the grandest of China's three major Buddhist grottoes. We saw the slightly younger Mogao Caves at Dunhuang in the Gobi desert in 2008, the Longmen Caves are a treat in store.

Yungang Grottoes

The statues vary in size from the colossal to the tiny, the largest being carved from the sandstone caves in which they sit.

Some small and some badly eroded Buddha statues, Yungang Grottoes

In some caves even the painting survives but in others the soft sandstone has suffered severe weathering. There have been several attempts to protect them including the 11th century construction of the ‘ten temples of Yungang’ shielding the main caves. They were destroyed by fire 50 years later and the only extant protective temple was built in 1621 in the early Qing Dynasty.

Some surviving painting, Yungang Grottoes

A programme of forestation is intended to lessen the effects of sandstorms, while there are currently major works in the central section. Worryingly, the Chinese generally, and the Datong authorities in particular, have a record of turning conservation and repair into restoration, rebuilding and even downright fakery. I ought to object to the Qing portico for the same reason, but it has been sanctified by age and that makes it is easier to forgive. I offer no rational justification for my inconsistency.

Early Qing additions, Yungang Grottoes

Many of the larger statues were once covered in plaster and painted. The small holes visible on many statues originally held pegs which supported the plaster, but being even softer than the sandstone it is long gone.

Buddha statue, Yungang Grottoes

As Yungang is more-or-less outdoors, photography is permitted, which it is not at Mogao. Yungang’s statues have suffered weather damage rather than the (sometimes well meaning) vandalism at Mogao, but I am not convinced they have the same air of mystery.

Lynne and a Buddha statue, Yungang Grottoes

The site is being developed for bigger and better tourism, with stalls and restaurants appearing in an adjoining area. When Chinese tourists arrive, they come by the busload and cultural sites can quickly become theme parks. I hope that won't happen here, but given the activity in the rest of Datong, I am not optimistic.

Making sweets - the theme park is all set to go, Yungang Grottoes, Datong

Yungang to Hunyuan

We left Yungang and set off for Hunyuan, some 75km south east of Datong. The drive was through truly dismal country, passing one of the power stations that freely distribute their atmospheric blessings over fields and houses. A stream of lorries flooded past carrying coal from the pits to the power station. The road was lined with grimy little workshops and the air was full of smog. I found it difficult to swallow and started to cough, as I would until some days after we had left Datong.

Setting off towards Hunyuan

Eventually we made it into open country. Scruffy pasture sat on top of soft rocks through which streams had cut surprisingly deep, narrow gorges. This relief was short lived as we soon arrived in the small town of Hunyuan. It is alleged that when Queen Victoria’s train passed through the Black Country, the blinds were drawn so she did not have to look on Tividale and Tipton. God knows what she would have made of Hunyuan.

Hunyuan

Lunch in Hunyuan

We lunched in a private room in the town’s one hotel. Maggi ordered and provided us with the same chicken dish as we had eaten the previous evening (though minus the Sichuan peppers) and some sliced pork nestling among big mushroomy sheets of black fungus. Our request for something ‘typically local’ produced two outsized jiaozis one of which Lynne is struggling to lift with her chopsticks in the photo. The thick oaty pastry enclosed a heap of shredded unseasoned potato. I can only assume it was Maggi's revenge for Bury Black Pudding.

Lynne with that jiaozi - Maggi's revenge for the black pudding?
Hunyuan

The Hanging Temple

The Hanging Temple, also called the Xuankong Temple, just outside Hunyuan, is Datong's other entry in the Rough Guide's top 35.

It was built over 1600 years ago singlehandedly by a monk called Liao Ran. You may believe that if you wish and there has certainly been a monastery here for over a thousand years, just not this monastery. Successive monasteries have been destroyed by flooding and it has been rebuilt higher and higher up the rock wall until it is now 75m above the valley floor.

The Hanging Temple, Hunyuan

A dam now protects the valley, so presumably it has reached its high water mark.

 
The dam, Hanging Temple, Hunyuan

The temple is often crowded but we seemed to hit it at a quiet moment and were able to look round unjostled and at our leisure.

The Hanging Temple, Hunyuan

It is an airy height, but the monastery is better anchored in the rock wall than it looks from below and sits on a substantial shelf. The long poles apparently supporting it are for show, some do not even reach the temple platform and you can lean over the rail and give them a good waggle.

Lynne enjoys the airy heights of the Hanging Temple, Hunyuan

Xuankong Temple is unusual in that serves three religions, or at least philosophies, Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism; a harmonious coming together which would provide a good lesson for some other religions - if they were the least bit interested in learning it.

Buddha is here, but so are Confucius and the Taoist gods

Back to Datong, Ancient Delights and Fakes

We returned to Datong on a road that, though busy, was more scenic than the road we had arrived on - not that that was difficult.

The 'Old' City Wall and a 'Ming' Gatehouse

We drove beside the 'old' city wall and entered through a gatehouse built to the traditional and ubiquitous Ming design, but erected very recently.

Newly built city gate, Datong

The (Genuine) Ming Nine Dragon Screen

We didn't travel far along the wide streets before turning into the car park for the Nine Dragon Screen. 45m long and 8 high it was built around 1400 to screen the palace of the thirteenth son of Zhu Yuanzhang, the first Ming emperor, demons and prying eyes.

The Nine Dragon Screen, Datong

I had been annoyed with myself for missing the Nine Dragon Screen in Beihai Park when we were in Beijing ten days ago, but Datong's screen is much older and three times bigger, so that made me feel better. For 500 years it has sat alone in a courtyard, after the palace it was built to screen was burnt down by rioters.

One of the dragons, Nine Dragon Screen, Datong

Observing that the dragons have four claws (because only the emperor’s dragons have five) should be all there is to say, but it is not. The current municipal authorities are desperate to make Datong a major tourist attraction, so they are busy rebuilding the original palace. My advice would be, do not build fakes, concentrate on the genuine old attractions you already have and clean up the air. Not that they have asked for my advice*.

Behind this fence a brand new 'Ming' palace is taking shape.

An Impromptu Calligraphy Lesson

Later, outside our hotel, we found an elderly man in the courtyard with two, metre long, mop-headed sticks, one in each hand, like outsized Chinese writing brushes. He was dipping them in the hotel's fountain and writing Chinese characters on the paving stones. We watched for a while and he smiled and handed me one of the brushes. I followed him carefully as he wrote the characters. His writing could be called ‘calligraphy’; mine would best be described as 'childish'. Some of the characters were so complex that I turned them into small pools of water, though my teacher had no such problem. I thanked him for the experience, but I was happy to watch my incompetence evaporate into the night air.

Outside the Datong Hotel, Datong, where my 'calligraphy' is evaporating

* Apparently I was not alone in this view. Writing in 2020 in China Newsweek and made available in English by Sixth Tone Su Jiede said "In March 2019, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development and the National Cultural Heritage Administration published a criticism of […] Datong. […] 'Datong,' it said, 'had committed wide-scale demolition and construction in the old city ... and the demolition of old buildings which have been replaced by fake structures.'”
In 2020 the city was given three years to rectify the situation or risk losing its title as a National Historical and Cultural City. The loss would destroy its plan to build a tourism industry.

Beijing, North Korea and Shanxi
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Location: Datong, Shanxi, China

Saturday 14 September 2013

By Train out of the DPRK: North Korea Part 9

From Pyongyang Back to Beijing and the Bright Lights of 'Freedom'

Leaving Pyongyang


North Korea
On the short ride to the railway station B made good on his promise to respond to the singing of our Korean hosts the previous evening.

In the 1960s the press would have described B as ‘flamboyant’, a word that falls sadly short as a description of his performance of 'Hey, Big Spender'. He attacked the song with a panache that Shirley Bassey would have admired, flirting outrageously with the young male Korean guides, who seemed uncertain how to react. The rest of us enjoyed it enormously and joined in where appropriate. North Korea is busy arming itself to resist a military attack that will never come, they have no defence against western decadence.

Station formalities were surprisingly minimal and we soon found ourselves on a wide and increasingly crowded platform.

Waiting to board the train, Pyongyang Railway Station

Once permitted to enter the train we settled into a four-berth sleeping compartment identical to the Chinese soft-sleepers we are well used to.

North to the Chinese Border

We rolled northwards at a leisurely pace, past fields of rice and maize, orchards and villages of traditional houses. We saw no towns before the border and few people, except once, where the whole village had turned out to plant rice. Distant glimpses of farmers driving ox carts suggested that animal power was still much in use.

Ox carts in rural North Korea

A North Korean Lunch

We were called to the dining car at 12.30 and as it was our last opportunity for a Korean lunch we took it. The meal consisted of five dishes, cucumber with chilli, potatoes and veg, pork with veg, squid and a dish of very recently defrosted spam. The veg, pork and squid were all served with the same sauce which was pleasant enough if rather repetitive. The squid tasted dodgy and seemed well past its sell-by date, so we left it.

Rural North Korea

The service was interesting. First beer bottles were put on the table, then half the food arrived. After a while glasses were produced followed by the rest of the food. It was a long and frustrating sit before anyone turned up with a bottle opener.

Rice fields, North Korea

A Swiss luncher across the aisle attempted to photograph his last North Korean meal. The lead waitress was very quick to come across and tell him very firmly that photography was forbidden. Of course it was, lunch is obviously a state secret.

Rural North Korea
Horse drawn carts in the stream and a traditional village beyond the fields

Crossing the Korean/Chinese Border

We reached the border town of Sinuiju in late afternoon. It looked run down, with crumbling tower blocks and rubble-strewn open spaces. The formalities took place beside a derelict platform on which a border guard station was being built. The only completed section was the giant rectangle which would later hold pictures of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. Passports were checked and men – though not women – were run over with a hand held metal detector. The customs man asked us to open our hand luggage. He was very interested in Jw’s papers – the itinerary for our journey and several copies of the Pyongyang Times, (the DPRK’s English language paper) which he went through looking at the pictures. From my bag he pulled out my book of Killer Sudokus. He looked rather puzzled, then opened the book and started laughing. He checked one of my solutions, turned to another page, still laughing, and checked another. Satisfied that a) I can do Killer Sudokus and b) no Sudokist could be a subversive, he left us in peace without checking the last two bags.

We had heard stories of border guards examining cameras and demanding the elimination of pictures. That did not happen - it would have taken all day - but as it was we sat for a couple of hours before moving off. A few minutes later we were crossing the broad Yalu River and leaving the DPRK behind. The four in our compartment heaved a collective sigh of relief, which was, I believe, replicated in the other compartments. Across the water was the shining beacon of freedom that is China – visiting the DPRK can strangely alter your perceptions. I was glad I had been to North Korea, but I was also pleased to be out and to know that I never have to go there again - though now I rather fancy a trip to South Korea.

Village children turn out to do some planting
North Korea, just south of the Chinese border

We crossed the river on the Chinese-Korean Friendship Bridge, which runs beside an older bridge destroyed in the Korean War and left like the Pont d’Avignon as a memorial of sorts.

The end of the bridge over the Yalu River destroyed in the Korean War

Back in China

Darkness was falling as we rolled into Dandong. The Chinese border town seemed full of life and bustle after the moribund DPRK, the streets were ablaze with neon lights (the Chinese do like a bit of neon) and busy with traffic. The city even has a Tesco – how civilised can you get?

The formalities took place beside the gleaming platforms of Dandong station. We saw Je being taken away by the border guards, which was a little worrying. Apparently he had neglected to equip himself with a double entry visa. This, we thought, must happen every week, if not every day and the judicious application of a little cash would doubtless solve the problem - they could hardly send him back to North Korea.

He was still missing when the attendant arrived to announce that dinner was ready. Our section had been detached from the Korean train before crossing the bridge but had not yet been attached to the Chinese train so we had to get out and walk up the platform to reach the dining car - it was a long train.

A Chinese dinner with Hollywood Realism

We sat down and beer was distributed. The cans of Pabst beer bore a military motif and were dedicated to the American forces of World War II. Considering the attitude of the people we had just left, this caused an ironic smile followed by the thought that only in American and North Korea would this be considered appropriate – enemies often have more in common than they realise - and the line between ‘socialist realism’ (see the paintings in the Pyongyang metro) and the ‘Hollywood realism’ of the beer cans was thin indeed.

{Brandchannel inform me these special edition cans were made only for the Chinese market (why?). I borrowed the artwork from their website which has since disappeared, so no link anymore.]

Pabst beer can - Heroic American Soldier
A can with bad taste inside and out

We ate a mushroom dish with onions and chillies, meat balls, and a vegetable dish with little pieces of meat. Each had been carefully prepared in its own individual sauce; it was like eating in colour, after the monochrome of the DPRK....but...much as I enjoyed the food, the beer was poor compared to the surprisingly characterful North Korean brews.

Heroic North Korean soldier and youth on a monument in Pyongyang
Better beer, but equally dire artwork

[Update:In 2022 I collected the best of the Socialist Realism artworks we have encountered in our travels, from Estonia in the west to North Korea in the east, and made a single post out of them. It also includes Hollywood Realism and Imperialist Realism and can be found here.]

Nobody attempted to photograph their dinner, but if they had no one would have stopped them. Freedom sometimes involves not bothering to do something that nobody wants you not to.

The return to our compartment involved a long walk through the second class sleeping area, the bunks stacked three tiers high. We travelled this way from Guangzhou to Yichang in 2005, it was fine, but I am now old enough to admit that I prefer the comfort of the soft sleepers.

Je had returned with his passport properly stamped; our earlier conjecture had been right. Darkness fell and we rolled on through the Chinese night. I did not sleep well, though there was no good reason for that, and we arrived at Beijing Station pretty much on time at 8 o'clock in the morning.

Back in Beijing

Beijing is a big bustling city at the heart of a big bustling country, and Beijing Zahn is a big bustling station. There were crowds, there was noise, there were people moving purposefully – welcome back to the world.

Beijing Railway Station
(photographed nine days earlier)

We said our goodbyes as our group split up and we went our separate ways. L and I trundled our case the short distance to the City Line Hotel, where for the second time in ten days we attempted to check in while other guests were still eating breakfast.

They were, again, very obliging, though they did send us away for an hour while they prepared a room. We sat drinking coffee in a little restaurant near the station, surrounded by locals – it would have been nice to have done the same in the DPRK. The North Koreans do not understand that, indeed do not want to understand it. That was why, for all their hospitality, the perceptions of the DPRK we had before we arrived were largely unchanged by the experience of actually being there.


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Location: Sinŭiju, North Pyongan, North Korea

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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Location: Pyongang, North Korea
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