Yale student Jerry Guo is back from summer trip to North Korea — and admonishes us in the WaPo for not knowing what the Workers Paradise is really like:
And just as no one inside North Korea appeared to know where the Dear Leader was or what life would be like if the Dear Leader departed, very few people outside North Korea have any real notion of what life there is currently like. We think it’s all gulag and famine.
The truth is that the DPRK I toured this summer is, in many ways, no different from countless other struggling fourth-world nations, with its share of haves and have-nots. And in the capital of Pyongyang, where the country’s elites dwell, I saw — beneath the veneer of Western paranoia and Stalinist mind-control — fleeting signs of grassroots capitalism: street vendors hawking junk food, indoor markets brimming with imported goods, even murmurs of drug use in the swanky underground casino.
Later, he writes, “This was not the bizarro-land that I’ve read about in countless magazine articles and history books. No, this could have been Anytown, USA.”
Well, almost like Anytown, USA, as it would turn out. Later, he was interrogated for six hours by Public Safety Bureau officers for taking photos in a department store. So I guess North Korea really is a tad quirky — but that just makes it all the more fun, I suppose.
Oh, and those warnings by the World Food Program that North Korea is on the brink of starvation?
I read that report the week after I first rode into the country on a train from the Chinese bordertown of Dandong. And while conditions are certainly grim, the view I had of the countryside from my window suggested that they might not be as stark as all that: young boys giddily waving hello, men leisurely fishing, schoolchildren swimming in irrigation canals.
All this seems to suggest that the country is farther from imminent collapse than we in the West have hoped and have been predicting for more than a decade. Indeed, by dangling so many carrots before the party elites, Kim, or whoever is running the show, is no doubt trying to ensure that another generation of closet capitalists will carry on his legacy of shaping Pyongyang into a macabre playground for adults.
Spring break 2009, anyone?
I dare someone to contribute to the WaPo a piece this jovial after a trip to Burma. Or how about “My Excellent Adventure to Darfur?”
Speaking of trips to North Korea, photographer Eric Lafforgue has posted more outstanding photos from the DPRK, and for the more architecturally minded, check out Kernbeisser’s recently uploaded photos, including some taken on the Sept 9 holiday.
(HT to reader)
16 Comments
The truth is that the DPRK I toured this summer is, in many ways, no different from countless other struggling fourth-world nations,
What is this guy talking about! Does the man even know what the term third world means, or in point of fact, meant. What, are fourth world countries supposed to be just slightly shittier than third world and onward up the ladder. Don’t use a term you don’t understand!
On the Burma topic, I had a rather ditsy friend who ended up working in Burma for 2 months. When she got there she sent an email saying, in effect, what’s all the fuss, every thing’s normal here. After 2 month’s she pulled a completely 180 and was calling the place a totalitarian shit hole from hell.
I think this guy is slightly ditsier, he spent too much time in the (foreigner only?) casinos and late night massage parlors. Hmmm… one hour without handlers and you get arrested and are forced, after six hours, to sign a confession that was dictated to you and has propaganda value. You’re right dude, people aren’t getting bayoneted in the streets every five minutes, and have the freedom to walk around and do things like fish, or pay bribes to operate an illegal stall in a market after working a full 8 hour plus day, in order to feed their families. Everyone is over reacting. The place is totally cool. Par-tae on in the -Yang! Wooo-Hooo!
Spring break 2009, anyone?
It’s a shame the guy doesn’t seem to understand that he saw the very best NK has to offer. The train from Dandong to Pyongyang (and Pyonyang to Kaesung/Panmujon) goes through NK’s breadbasket (평안 남도 to the north of 평양, and 황해 to the south.) This is the DPRK breadbasket, and it is grim. What about the other provinces?
The only inkling I got of what life must be like there was when I saw a thousand strong batalion (if that’s the right word) of soldiers visiting Kim Il Sung’s mausoleum from 함경. Not a single one of them stood taller than my colar-bone; most were horribly stunted dwarfs.
I’m glad Jerry found his trip so entertaining, maybe next year he’ll visit cambodia’s killing fields for some new comedy material.
The piece would be funny if it weren’t for the fact that Norkville is NOT FUNNY. I think it must have been pulling teeth for the poor, newly enlightened wayfarer to board the flight and leave this misunderstood Shangri-La, only to find himself back in The Evil, Capitalist, Most Ignorant US of A.
Give me 8 mile any day over That Dark Disneyland to the North. (TDDN).
How many North Koreans could be fed on 4 years of Yale tuition?
As if George W. Bush hadn’t done enough damage to my regard for Yale…
mmm yeah this is almost offensive. guy sounds like a total douche. if he wrote some piece being like, “NK is a poor, sad craphole” everyone would be like, “we know you a-hole is that what your expensive Yale education taught you?” he’s just trying to say NK IS AWESOME so people will pay attention to him.
I guess one can find commonality anywhere if they look hard enough. Fair enough. North Koreans are fellow human beings, probably more like the rest of us than not. They just happen to live in a dictatorial shithole. All his observations prove it that it takes a lot of effort and a long time to completely beat all the humanity out of people. As much as the regime in North Korea tries.
When I was in Myanmar ten years ago I saw plenty of children playing, smiling villagers, regular people eating, having tea, and buying groceries and the like. Not everybody is in jail, dying of disease, or working as part of a slave labor crew. Having said that, paradise it ain’t. The buildings, roads, and streets were falling apart, the power was off at least half the day, and few if any cars, trucks or tractors seemed to have been built prior to the mid-70s. (Though there were plenty of somewhat recent Japanese and Korean made second hand buses going from city to city.) A lot of people were obviously poor as hell - local kids were dropping by guesthouses to ask backpackers to treat their cuts and rashes with antibiotic cream or iodine - and the average person was anywhere from nervous to terrified about discussing anything remotely political.
If N. Korea is so great, how come the locals can’t tell us that themselves? Why do we need this “Guo” to interpret?
Perhaps Yale can offer a grant so Guo can perform extended research in the north.
The village called. They want their (useful) idiot back.
Top 3 douche phrases:
“obligatory kowtowing to the 70-foot Kim Il Sun”
“6,000 Mercedes-Benzes that run wild on Pyongyang’s broad boulevards”
“bacchanalia of Western extravagance”
…at least he learned some vocabulary for his Yale fancy-pants edumacation.
What I would give to wipe my ass with his diploma…
As if Bill Clinton hadn’t done enough damage to my regard for Yale…
Actually, Burma in 2002 was a cool place. I checked out temples 10 times better than anything Thailand has and didn’t have any minders. The people were very cool–of course when nobody was in earshot they’d diss their clown generals in charge (I asked WTF was with a 45-kyat note and one guy explained that an astrologer told the junta that notes divisible by 9 would be lucky–nice, rule by fortune telling).
I did three weeks on my own and the only restricted area was in the eastern part where they were fighting Karen rebels. As our Yale buddy has elucidated, a tourist does not seem to have that kind of freedom of movement in Despo-Cultland.
#10—hilarious.
“fleeting signs of grassroots capitalism”
Indeed, I can’t think of many other places where grass roots would be in such high demand.