JPG: Stories: Photo Essay: North Korea

North Korea

By Claudia Martin

28 Jul 2008

No electricity, no cars on the street, just bikes, and uniformed soldiers with guns keeping post everywhere, even in the surrounding farmland and green hills. It's like big brother is watching except there no industry, no internet, just great, luscious greenery untarnished by industrialism.

The city we visited, Kaeseong City, (photo regulations didn't allow me to record most of this) was like a deserted movie set from the 40's. It appeared that no new buildings have been constructed since the Korean War, so everything is very run down and desolate. The only people with cars were some military officials. There were armed guards in green uniforms standing like statues everywhere, even in the green hills, which were beautiful and untainted by any development. The difference between Seoul was like night and day. What people are lacking in development the surrounding nature is profiting from. The people's Big Brother control has given Giant bugs and birds and plants a safe haven from the industrial metropolitan sprawl an hour away. Crossing the 38th Parallel I entered the industrial complex which was a bit more modern, and customs took 3 hours, but finally in Kaeseong City we passed on to a mountainous region to begin the tour. First we hiked up to a waterfall and a Buddhist temple in the hills. I drank pure clean spring water from the mountains. Any time I attempted to take pictures of people or the run-down buildings the accompanying North Korean officials threatened to delete them (most of my pictures were of trees, flowers, and tourist attractions). We later had a lunch Kaeseong style in a giant banquet hall with chandeliers and giant wood doors. The meal was several small, korean dishes, some kimchi, meat, mushroom stems, nothing spectacular, but I felt bad eating with the incredibly skinny, poor people I saw outside. Then an old man scoffed our foreign faces and our chopstick skills, which made me feel a little defensive.

Yesterday was "victory" day for the North Koreas. Though they lost the Korean War according to any other country involved, Kim Jong-Il called it a victory for the North and made it a holiday. We weren't allowed to talk about it during the tour, but everyone was in formal attire, regalia, and women in the traditional colorful dresses, or Hanbocks, and powdery make-up. Everyone was ordered to pay their respects to the giant statue of "General Kim" in the middle of the city. I did get to pet the turtle statue for good luck, see a 700 year old bloodstain on a stone bridge, and partake in north korean ice cream and powder coffee, (bees love this apparently) which was a little simple but enjoyable.

On a short hike up to a temple and waterfalls, everything was blanketed in an emerald glow and the humidity didn't feel like bottom of a grimy fish tank (how I feel most of the time in and around Seoul), but rather like a thousand slobbery kisses from the nature gods.

Though I only had a day, this trip really hit home the pain felt by North and South Korea from their division. This split, regardless of the patriotism and chauvinism spouted by either side, is the cause of a lot of resentment (actually what "Han" from Seoul's Han River stands for), and emotional repression and denial. I was slightly aware of the unmentioned fractured blanket that hung over Korea when I taught the South Korean flag's symbolism in my classroom and had students redesigning it to include the North Korean flag. Being in North Korea I could just feel, intuitively, the great sore scabbed over by years of forced vegetation and enervating conformity. The liveliness of the untarnished natural surroundings made the contrast between spiritual life and death that much more apparent. I am leaving South Korea soon, happy for more diverse food and culture options again, so not too torn up about my departure. However, a return trip, if my dream of the two side uniting takes place in my lifetime, would be a joy, and I hope for such an incentive in the near future.