hankyoreh

Pyongyang

To South Koreans, there is no city that seems more distant than nearby Pyongyang. Last year, 4,380 South Koreans visited the North. According to the Ministry of Unification, there have been less than 15,000 visits by Southerners to the North after the Korean War ended in 1953, most of which were repeat visits by the same individuals.

The images of North Korea, and particularly Pyongyang, presented periodically through the media are very limited and fragmented. In the last issue of Hankyoreh21, Pyongyang's economic changes were put in the spotlight. In this issue, I explore Pyongyang and the lives of its citizens from a broader perspective.

It was around 11:30 AM on May 12. Bored passengers waited at Gate 16 of Beijing Airport to board a yongyang-bound airplane set to depart at 11:55. Shortly later, boarding began. A female flight attendant dressed in a Hanbok cheerfully greeted the passengers at the gate entrance for the Koryo Airlines flight bound for Pyongyang.

The airplane's interior was narrow. Evidently, there was reason enough for the advice to "check all heavy luggage." After takeoff, the airplane took some precipitous drops for some 10 minutes. Screams echoed throughout the cabin. The cabin speakers remained silent. Some 40 to 50 minutes into the flight, it was impossible to know what the airplane was passing over. All that passed by the windows was blue sky. It was only when I picked up and started leafing through the quarterly from the seat pocket in front of me entitled 'Foreign Trade of Juche Year 96' - juche being the North Korean ideology of 'self-reliance,' did the flight attendant avail herself of the microphone.

"We are passing over the Apnok River or Yalu River, which marks the border between Korea and China. Eighty-two years ago, President Kim Il-sung, for the sake of the fatherland's liberation..." Her words were then repeated in English. At 11:45, the airplane touched down in the "Capital of the Juche Democratic People's Republic of Korea."

The giant poster bearing President Kim Il-sung's likeness hung in Pyongyang's Sunan Airport was a quick reminder as to where we had arrived. As we went through customs, the North Korean inspectors confiscated our cellular phones. They would be returned to us upon our leaving.

The first place to which the South Korean visitors, including myself, were driven to by bus was Mansudae Hill, where Kim Il-sung's bronze statue stands. A husband and wife who had just concluded their vows were there, as well. We were told it was a spot that newlyweds visit. Other visitors included workers from various state-owned companies there to worship the image of Kim Il-sung.

In Pyongyang, the posters saying, "Down with the American Imperialists" were no longer visible. The most common slogan to be found was stuck on public buildings, reading "our comrade, great leader Kim Il-sung stays with us forever." Other posters marking the 95th birthday of Kim Il-sung were easy to spot.

After arriving at the Yanggak Hotel, we were unable to explore the surroundings. It is only human nature to want to see how people live in other lands. Yet I was unable to meet and talk with the Pyongyang citizenry, much less take part in their everyday lives. Even though I had made my way around the barbed wire dividing North and South and came to Pyongyang, I arrived only to find that another sort of division existed. Though the reason for this may be different, those Northerners who visit the South also speak of a similar sense of partition.

From the hotel, the blue roof of the Jung-gu Market was visible. Hankyoreh21 has since obtained data showing inflation rates derived from an investigation of prices at one of the largest markets in Pyongyang. The locals are able to adjust the prices slightly through haggling. The 13,000 KPW price of a watermelon is extremely expensive compared with the 3,000 KPW that the average North Korean worker earns each month. At the currency exchange on the second floor of the market, 1 US Dollar sold for 2,900 KPW, but the official exchange rate is 140 KPW to the US Dollar. In other words, the actual price of a dollar is 20 times larger than its official price. This in turn reflects the difference between the official and the actual state of the economy. At the currency exchange attached to the hotel, 1 Euro was listed as being worth 183 KPW, but at Pyongyang's Taeseong Golf Course Store, a candy worth 139 KPW was on sale for 1 Euro. The exchange rate differed depending on the place. It is said that 2 percent of Pyongyang's citizenry works selling goods and services to foreigners, thus dealing in US Dollars, and an additional 20 percent of the population in turn has some relation to the 2 percent. These groups make up the privileged class. As anywhere else in the world, there is a clear difference in Pyongyang between the haves and have-nots.

A worker's average monthly wage was worth fifteen loaves of bread

Of the products on sale at the market, those whose place of origin was clearly specified were Chinese-grown watermelons, pears, garlic, and soybean oil. Just as in the South, the North Korean-grown garlic sold at the market was twice as expensive as the Chinese garlic. All of the artificial seasonings were imported from abroad, including such countries as Taiwan, Indonesia, and Thailand. They were in turn sold for a price of 1,500-2,400 KPW per pound or kilogram.

Pyongyang's rations are fairly well maintained in comparison with other provinces in North Korea, but for every month, only some 20 days' worth of rice, soy sauce, soybean paste, salt, and oil reach the city. That which the state cannot resolve is left to smaller industries and individuals. On May 13, Hankyoreh21 checked the prices listed at the food stand across from the hotel only to find that the price of some Namsae bread worthy of a small snack was selling for as much as 200 KPW. In other words, a worker's monthly salary corresponds to 15 slabs of such bread. At the restaurant 30 meters away from the stand, corn noodles were priced at 120 KPW. Just as was witnessed in other socialist states in the past, the prices of Pyongyang are staggering.

Sand-carrying barges could be spotted occasionally floating down the Daedong River, sand in this case being used as a construction material. Infamous for its drab gray colors, morning in Pyongyang had begun. As dawn's rays shown down, it was soon evident that Pyongyang had gone Technicolor in the intervening years. The roof of the apartment next to Kim Chaek University of Technology was a red flagpole, and construction was in swing there. Major construction begun 2-3 years prior had started to change the appearance of Glory Street. Due to financial realities, however, they could not reconstruct the buildings wholly, settling on repainting the facades. Damaged by a fire resulting from mismanagement, the Daedong River Hotel was also undergoing repairs. It is a hotel visited by many Korean residents of Japan, and is also recorded as a "historical spot" due to visits by Kim Il-sung, his wife, Kim Jeong-suk, and their son, Kim Jong-il.

Yet apart from each building being built on Liberation Street and on the premises of Pyongyang Medical School, it is difficult to find any buildings currently under construction. The Children's Heart Hospital Center under construction within the campus of Pyongyang Medical School is being built with the giant steel beams all too common in the South. Indeed, the beams were made in the South. Across the street, dozens of Northern laborers were constructing a building with their hands, devoid of any assistance from machines. After the run-up to the 1989 World Youth and Student's Festival, when apartment complexes were built along Liberation Road, all construction stopped along the road as the North descended into the Arduous March of the 1990s, which is how it refers to the period of devastating economic downturn and famine.

The sky was gray on May 14. About half of the citizens wore rubber boots. Though some of the boots are made in Pyongyang at such places as the Ryuwon Shoe Factory, many of the boots are made in China. The preference for boots stems from the fact that the mostly unpaved roads turn to mush when it rains or snows. Another reason is that the workers are often mobilized. On days when it is not raining, most men wear sneakers worth $2-3, and most women wear "light shoes" - shoes made from cotton, these days hard to find in the South. I could not spot a single pair of the white sneakers being manufactured at Ryuwon Factor during my week in Pyongyang. Indeed, there was no sign that the shoe factory was operated with any regularity. Though the South will no doubt provide materials to North Korea, the real problem is its old and inadequate equipment. At each factory, slogans praising Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il were prominently displayed on the wall.

Perhaps due to a pressure pocket, the black smoke bellowing forth from the smokestacks of the East Pyongyang Thermoelectric Power Plant hung low across the city. Anthracite serves as the fuel for the power plant. To Southerners accustomed to thinking about the environment, this was an unfortunate site, indeed. Originally the power plant was outside of city limits, but as the city expanded, it soon found itself surrounded by buildings. It is difficult to move a power plant. The heat it emits is used alongside its electricity to provide hot water to public buildings and housing. If the factory were to move, the supply of warm water would become an issue.

Four days after my arrival in Pyongyang, the streets began to feel familiar. I would glance at the faces of the pedestrians as our bus passed them by. Most were expressionless. The majority wore the same dark khaki colored outfits. The $3-4 worth of fabric is bought at a foreign goods store or the market and then fitted at a tailor's shop. The amount of pre-made clothes produced is quite limited.

The buses and trains are always filled to capacity. The lights are out on the traffic signals. In their place, uniformed women stand at the intersections and direct traffic by hand, an image now ingrained in the minds of most Southerners. In truth, there is not enough traffic to warrant the use of traffic lights. In North Korea, there are said to be approximately 320,000 automobiles. Of those, Japanese cars occupy the largest share (100,000), and recently Chinese cars are quickly on the rise. Last year, Japan cut off all automobile shipments to North Korea. It is hard these days to spot a new car. The bus in which the Southern officials rode was made in 1993 by Nissan. Though it had accrued 80,000 kilometers of mileage, its brake lining had yet to be changed. Cars parked alongside the road were seen occasionally.

Recently, Pyeonghwa Motors (a North-South joint automobile manufacturer) has started to offer a full service guarantee for the first 10,000 kilometers within the first year after purchase. Pyeonghwa Motors has but one parts store in Pyongyang. Cars are a subject of discussion for only a select few.

Most distances are traveled on foot. The bicycle is another important means of transportation. If you are driving a car, there are soldiers who stand guard in the outlying provinces that occasionally pull you over for questioning.

On May 17, we went to Nampo via the Road of Heroic Youth. Though it was a ten-lane road, the cars seen that day could be counted on one hand. It was a road completed during the so-called Arduous March of the 1990s. Apart from the highway connecting Pyongyang and Nampo, there are six other highways in North Korea. They connect tourist sites and revolutionary memorial sites, and also serve as an important means of supply for the military. Just as in the South, they can be used for landing aircraft in times of war, as well.

Rice planting had just begun in the rural village we saw. Though occasional tractors could be seen, there was no sign of rice planting machines. Developed in the North in 1958, there are now some 200,000 to 300,000 of them, a number similar to those present in the South. Yet the number of them still mobile stands at but 10-20 percent. There is a severe deficiency in parts. Occasionally, we also spotted a cow-drawn plow. The livestock there was mostly composed of goats. Due to the lack of feed, pigs are hard to raise. One Southerner in our delegation who visited a pig farm said that though the barn there was fit to quarter 50,000 pigs, there were but 1,000 to 2,000 in residence. He said he had even seen pigs so ill-fed that their ribs were conspicuously sticking out of their sides.

The next day we left for the South. Looking down from the chartered plane that day, it was hard to believe that the Pyongyang I left was in the same corner of the world as the city I saw as our aircraft touched down one hour after takeoff at Gimpo Airport. Indeed, it is harder to imagine a greater difference within such a short distance. Though time passes, the discrepancy between North and South is not getting any smaller.

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]