We visited an orphanage when I was in North Korea.

We had been told beforehand we would be visiting and brought along pencils and pens as presents for the children.

The orphanage that is shown to foreigners is presumably a lot better than other orphanages in the country.  This orphanage receives donations from the Red Cross and on the outside the building reminded me of a Japanese kindergarten.  The children all looked well enough and put on a performance for us.

Outside the orphanage there was a colorful mural depicting animals at play.

But if you look closer, what is the animal (fox?) on the left doing?

That’s right.  He’s videotaping.  Everyone is watched in North Korea.

Many North Koreans believe the stories about their leaders – that Kim Il Sung was solely responsible for saving them from the Japanese (the American bombings had nothing to do with it) and that miracles such as a double rainbow signified the birth of Kim Jong Il.

They are told that North Korea is one of the greatest countries in the world and workers everywhere else are brutally exploited.  When Kim Il Sung died, many North Koreans were genuinely distraught.

Guy Delisle’s graphic novel, Pyongyang, details his experience of living and working in North Korea.  He discusses the question of how can so many North Koreans believe that Kim Il Sung was so great and that life in North Korea is so much better than other countries.

There’s a question that has to be burning on the lips of all foreigners here.  A question you refrain from speaking aloud.  But one can’t help asking yourself.  Do they really believe the bullshit that’s being forced down their throats?

For those isolated in the countryside, where a simple trip between two villages requires a visa, the propaganda must be convincing.  But for my companions, it’s different, because they are among the privileged few who are able to leave the country. Every animation contract is an opportunity for some of them to get themselves invited abroad to “start a project.”  In fact, those who visit Paris or Rome are not necessarily the ones who wind up working on the production.  And only married men with children are authorized to travel.  If they’re not fooled, they never let on.

In fact, they live in a state of constant paradox where truth is anything but constant.  It’s like their permanent fear of landing in one of the re-education camps.  Officially they don’t exist, but everyone knows they’re there.  And a Sword of Damocles hangs over every head, waiting for one false move.  Striking both the “guilty” and their entire families.  At a certain level of oppression, truth hardly matters, because the greater the lie, the greater the show of power.  And the greater the terror for all.  A mute, hidden terror.

Almost everything the great leader did, has become the stuff of legend.  All North Korean adults are expected to wear pins with portraits of Kim Il Sung.

Of course people in Australia are far too clever to fall for talk of supposed miracles…

A couple of days after I returned to Australia, Mary Mackillop was canonised as Australia’s first Catholic saint.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/special-reports/what-was-said-about-mary-mackillops-canonisation/story-fn6rlm9d-1225939883268

… I now think of Mary as a friend. I feel very close to her and the relationship means a great deal to me.”
– Kathleen Evans, the woman who received Mary MacKillop’s second miracle.

“How does a miracle feel? I feel very fortunate that I was given the opportunity to live my life, have a family, have grandchildren, so that’s a miracle.”
– Mary MacKillop’s first miracle, Veronica Hopson, told Seven’s Sunday Night program.

“The entire Australian nation should be celebrating in her canonisation. It’s just an enormous buzz, but it’s a buzz about something real – this woman who lived a life of charity.”
– Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd.

“I’ve prayed to her and she’s helped me with my problems. That’s why I’m here, I wanted to thank her.”
– Sydney woman Emilia Mourani in Rome.

I purchased a Korean phrase book in North Korea.

As most travel phrase books do, it starts with basic greetings.

Then it starts to cater to more important concerns for your average tourist visiting North Korea.

With all of these handy hints, I’m surprised foreign diplomats haven’t already solved all of the problems with Korean reunification.

Everything you wanted to know about North Korean politics, but were afraid to ask.

The Japanese occupied Korea in 1910.  They controlled Korea until the end of the second world war and then in a similar manner to Germany, Korea was divided into parts controlled by the US and the Soviets.

Kim Il Sung had fought against the Japanese and was chosen by the Soviets to control North Korea.  After getting Stalin’s permission he invaded South Korea.  The attack caught the south by surprise and the north conquered most of the country.  Then the Americans sent reinforcements led by Douglas MacArthur (he was in favor of nuking Pyongyang).  The Americans retook Seoul and took Pyongyang and were on the verge of controlling all of North Korea when the Chinese invaded.  They forced the Americans back and after four years of fighting, the two Koreas ended up back where they were before the Korean war.

Even though Kim Il Sung has been dead for more than 15 years, he is still the President of North Korea.  That’s because he is the eternal president.

He was popularly known as the Great Leader and statues and monuments to him are everywhere in North Korea.

He was such a smart guy that everywhere he went he was able to give guidance to people.  He told farmers how to grow their crops and told the military how to fight.

And best of all, the children loved him.

If you visit Pyongyang’s Museum of Metro Construction expecting to find a boring museum dedicated to something like say, the construction of a metro you’ll be happily surprised.  The museum instead focuses on how great the Great Leader was.  You can learn all about how he chose the names for the subway stations and how many times he visited each station.

If you visit his mausoleum, you’ll learn how upset the people of Korea were when Kim Il Sung died in 1994 (They cried for 10 days and 10 nights).
His mausoleum is an enormous structure that was completed at the height of the North Korean famine.  But the people put their hunger aside and took comfort in the fact that they would have somewhere nice to have group photos taken.

After the Great Leader’s death, his son Kim Jong Il took over running the country.  (He’s not president though.  His father is the eternal president).

He’s a happy, smiling chap that loves to help the people and is known as the Dear Leader.

Like his dad, he is very smart and likes giving guidance to people.

He also enjoys a good laugh.

Almost every room (toilets excepted) in North Korea is supposed to have portraits of the two leaders.  There are two types of flowers named after the leaders and every adult in North Korea is expected to wear a pin with a portrait of the Great Leader.

The leader’s birthdays are holidays and a few years ago the value of the North Korean won was pegged at 2.16 to the US dollar (February 16th is Kim Jong Il’s birthday).

Kim Jong Il is known as a movie buff.  He even went so far as to kidnap one of South Korea’s most famous actresses and her movie director husband and then forced them to make movies for him.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2003/apr/04/artsfeatures1

One of the films that resulted is Pulgasari: a North Korean version of Godzilla.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHL_ZugksSA

Kim Jong Il also had a starring role in the movie Team America.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xh_9QhRzJEs

North Korea hasn’t been in the news much, so I thought it was time I updated people on my trip to Pyongyang in October.

It was an interesting time to visit.  The Worker’s Party was holding a major conference in Pyongyang to bestow a bunch of official titles (including the rank of general) upon Kim Jong-Il’s third son, a move seen as marking him as Kim Jong Il’s chosen successor.  Kim Jong Il’s oldest son was disgraced when he was caught trying to enter Japan using a false passport.  He wanted to visit Tokyo Disneyland.

While we were there it was also the 20th anniversary of the reunification of Germany.  For all of the talk of wanting Korea to be reunified, no one in North Korea mentioned this anniversary to us.  The reunification was obviously done the wrong way.
And just recently North Korea launched an attack on a South Korean island, the first open attack resulting in civilian deaths since the end of major conflict in the 50s.
The Wikileaks cables have since revealed that China regards Kim Jong Il as a spoiled child and would not oppose a reunified Korea led by the south.

We stayed in two of Pyongyang’s two international class deluxe hotels, which are 40+ storey hotels with revolving restaurants.  The other big hotel in Pyongyang is the Ryugyong Hotel, a giant rocket-shaped building.  It has 105 floors and construction began in 1987.  If it had been finished on time it would have the tallest hotel in the world. (There’s a taller hotel in Dubai now).  After the collapse of the Soviet Union, money to finish the hotel ran out and work stopped in 1992.  The building looks almost finished from the outside, but it’s unknown what it is like inside.  The hotel sat idle for 16 years and then in 2008 an Egyptian telecommunications company started work on finishing construction.  It’s supposed to be finished in time for 2012 (100th anniversary of Kim Il Sung’s birth).

Pyongyang has big wide streets, but there is hardly any traffic.  Very few people own cars.  There are some crowded buses and trams and a metro system but most people get around by walking or riding bicycles.  Some of the old public buses in Pyongyang are marked with red stars on the side.  A star is awarded for 5000 km of accident-free travel so if you’re ever catching a bus in Pyongyang, make sure you look for one with a few stars – but not too many.

We went for a ride on the Pyongyang Metro, the deepest metro in the world.  There are even portraits of the great leaders in the carriages.

We also visited the Joint Security Area on the border.  I visited this area from South Korea a few years ago, it was interesting to see it from the other side.  The security for tourists on the southern side is a lot more strict.  The southerners are a lot more concerned about attacks from the northerners than vice versa.

A North Korean soldier briefed us on the best place to strike back at the imperialists and their lackeys.

Life is obviously difficult for many North Koreans and their society is very controlled.  But that does not mean everyone is grim and depressed.  We encountered a large group of old people dancing in a public park.  They insisted that we dance with them.

We also visited an amusement park in Pyongyang that puts Melbourne’s Luna Park to shame.  (Admittedly not a difficult task).
The Oppressed People of Pyongyang enjoy a night on the rollercoasters.