The Prison State of North Korea and its Genial Inmates

“Is Australia divided into a North and South as well?” asks my tour guide Mr Li. Resisting the urge to make a joke about the Northern Territory, I tell him that it is not. Such was the type of naive, yet always cordially couched questions about Australia that I fielded during my visit to North Korea.

North Korea is a nation of 23 million prisoners—physically and psychologically—but it is important to separate the regime from the perpetually violated, yet often still jovial, and always inquisitive, people who have the misfortune of living in the last truly rogue state.

Arid land, emaciated husks of livestock (their owners not dissimilar), and a myriad other abject miseries fly past the window of the 17.27 to Pyongyang. Local farmers stare wide-eyed, some waving at perhaps the first foreign person they have ever seen.

The city of flat soil, Pyongyang, is by far the most gentrified in the nation, yet the bleak hopelessness which defines rural life doesn’t ebb when you arrive on urban ground; it is simply traded for an existence—perhaps even crueller—among total artificiality, a state of limbo in which the citizens are imprisoned but are forced to acquiesce with their captors, lest they be sent to one of the North’s notorious “aquariums”.

Pyongyang is only for those who are, relatively speaking, in on the joke—those who know that the outside world at least exists; those who know that Kim Jong-il didn’t, in fact, hit eleven holes-in-one the first time he picked up a golf club. These are mostly political elites, families with a history of loyalty to the regime, and polyglot tour guides, like Mr Li.

Outside residents are prevented from travelling anywhere near the capital by checkpoints littered along the inbound roads. From afar, Pyongyang almost passes as an average city. Pastel-shaded apartment buildings occupy the outskirts of the city, dated—but not offensively so—glass structures cast shadows over downtown, and spotless public squares are plentiful. On the ground, however, Pyongyang’s brittle veneer of moderation shatters.

A visit to the Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum sets the tone for my trip. Captured US army vehicles from the Korean War proudly accent the sides of a vast granite courtyard leading to the entrance of this palatial structure, with towering bronze statues guiding the way. My camera is collected and I head in, closely followed by security, to learn the truths about the Korean War (after bowing to the statue of Kim Il-sung in the lobby, of course). A short film is played first, detailing how the “South Korean puppets’” and the “American imperialists” were the true aggressors. Leading me through various exhibits reflecting the same sentiment, the female guide has her script memorised, musing matter-of-factly on the might of the DPRK and the “absolute atomisation” of their enemies. She clearly doesn’t believe what she’s saying, and that makes two of us. There were indeed atrocities committed by both sides during the Korean War—the Sinchon massacre comes to mind—but there is no mention of any wrongdoing on the North’s part whatsoever.

The final exhibit I am guided through is gauche even by North Korean standards. A rather realistic jungle setting plays home to various recreations of battle scenes with wax soldiers and replica weapons. Indomitable Koreans, faces contorted in roars of battle, bayonet Yankee chests. A slaughtered American lies mangled, faux crows pecking at bloodied eye sockets.

Exiting through the gift shop, I am easily persuaded to purchase a copy of the rather presumptuously titled Japan’s War Crimes Past and Present for my library.

Militaristic propaganda is no less brash in public. Driving (or cycling, as the overwhelming portion of the population does) through any street in Pyongyang, you will see, painted on bus stops, Korean fists pummelling the US Capitol, buildings wearing screens showing missile launches and a ten-foot-high flag on every second street light.

This particular evening happens to be New Year’s Eve, so Mr Li and I make the pilgrimage to Kim Il-sung Square, but not before trading swigs of local ginseng liquor and becoming exponentially funnier to one another—he, edifying me with his arsenal of obscenities in Chinese; I, telling some stories about Australia.

One gets the impression it was one of the very few moments he gets to genuinely laugh; a temporary prison break. New Year’s Eve in Pyongyang is no mean event. Floating into Kim Il-sung Square, we are greeted by a hundred thousand people chatting, chuckling and generally having a good time.

I weave my way to the front of the square, where ice carvings of nuclear missiles, among other things, stand proud. Children frolic and laugh, their youth a fleeting ticket to ignorant bliss before they become aware of their imprisonment. Murmurs grow louder, my cue to rendezvous with Mr Li for the countdown.

As I duck and dodge through the crowds, receiving a fair share of curious stares, a tap on my shoulder halts me. A slight, short, fresh-faced woman extends her hand to me with a sheepish smile. Her dress—the greatcoat likely the heaviest part of her—gives her away as a soldier, off duty to celebrate the evening. I’m surprised, and a tad suspicious, but I humour her hand regardless. She lowers her head an inch, and with a chirpy “Happy New Year”, walks away.

I am greeted no fewer than five more times on my journey back to Mr Li—two children and three soldiers. Soldiers, simulacrums of whom are plastered across the city crushing Americans—one of whom, for all they know, I could be.

Mr Li, upon my return, hands me a bottle of an unidentified liquor with a snake floating in it and tells me to knock it back when the clock strikes twelve. I am in no state to refuse.

The year departs, snake coats my palate, and a shower of fireworks ignites the sky. My initially cautious, reticent demeanour abated by fermented grain and Mr Li’s warm smile, I jest to him that a particularly wayward firework might be a missile. He laughs.

The light-heartedness reverts to a formal tenor the next morning. I am to join the ranks of very few other Westerners in meeting the President of North Korea.

I’m not talking about Kim Jong-un. The incumbent Kim, you see, is not the President—merely the Marshal of the Workers’ Party. Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-un’s grandfather, retains the title of President, almost twenty-five years after his death. A “necrocracy”, as Christopher Hitchens once put it. A short drive takes us to the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun, the mausoleum where the President and his son Kim Jong-il perpetually lie in state.

Mr Li, suit pressed, hair slick and face solemn, briefs me on what is to come, although his words do not do justice to what I am about to experience. He straightens my tie, and we advance to the North Korean Mecca.

Exploring Beijing in the days before my arrival, I had been taken aback by the grandeur of Mao’s mausoleum at the southern end of Tiananmen Square; its stone statues, metal detectors and guard of austere soldiers. But Beijing’s efforts hold not even the ghost of a candle to those of Pyongyang.

Entering through two solid bronze doors, I am stripped of my coat and gloves by the concierge. Proceeding through two airport-grade metal detectors, I am thoroughly frisked by a soldier. He lifts my hand and scrutinises a cut on my knuckle for no less than five full seconds.

We continue on in silence—talking is forbidden in the complex—along what may well be the longest travelator on the planet, a five-minute end-to-end journey lined by oak walls. Locals precede and tail us, calm—for now. Sorted into quad-file lines, we turn left. The immense size of the room I have just entered almost brings me to a standstill. White marble underfoot and gilded columns lining the walls, we stride up to bizarre, quasi-modern 3D holograms of the great men and bow thrice.

There is no loitering; lines are kept moving and I am hurried on. Mr Li whispers to me that we will now see the leaders. We are readied to stand in their presence by an electric shoe cleaner and walk-through personal dust blower—a doorway with concentrated jets of air blowing inward.

We enter a large square room, each corner manned by a soldier at attention, dark but for a soft red glow engulfing the pedestalled crystal coffin in the centre. The President lies within, suited and draped with a red flag to his breast.

He looks rather spritely for a man who has been deceased for a quarter-century, his healthy sheen courtesy of annual jaunts to Russia for embalming and upkeep. An agonised shriek pierces the silence as a local woman, tears flowing, prostrates herself in front of the pedestal.

The man to my right muffles a cry, others dab tears away with handkerchiefs. The line flows regardless; we bow three times and shuffle on to an identical room, repeating our praises for General Kim Jong-il, who died in 2011.

The day of reverence concludes in the adjacent museum, which displays the awards and accolades presented to father and son by various institutions, domestic and international.

An occasional muffled wail interrupts. One wonders from what vein the overly theatrical displays of emotion are sourced—are people simply trying to appease those they are with and keep up appearances, or is the grief a genuine feeling, synthesised by the lifelong indoctrination and cult of personality that dominates every aspect of life in North Korea? Either way, it is further indicative of the pervasiveness of the omnipresent state and the leader’s cults of personality on the minds of its helpless subjects.

I farewell Mr Li at Pyongyang Station, and my North Korean visit concludes with an overnight stay in Sinuiju, a town recently opened to visitors, a stone’s throw from the Chinese border town of Dandong. I am shown around what is said to be the most prestigious kindergarten in the country, and yet another disparity between the state narrative and reality rears its head. The head of the kindergarten pulls a folder off the shelf and invites me to look at some drawings the children have done. Sketches of missiles and guns and Korean youths punching bloodied Americans fill the pages.

I am escorted to an impressive auditorium, where my minder and I occupy the only seats out of the 400-odd available. Students of the school trot out, spiritedly dancing and singing along to patriotic numbers, including everyone’s favourite, “Ode to Kim Jong-un”. A troupe of young girls perform soccer tricks and wave the North Korean flag around for the grand finale. Everything is choreographed to perfection—a fitting metaphor for the veneer of the country as a whole.

With the show over, I am invited to meet the performers. They appear far more interested in my camera or in touching my hair and giggling than they do with blowing me to smithereens as “their” art would suggest.

After a search of my luggage and camera I am out of North Korea, so easily crossing the border over which many have perished attempting to flee.

North Korea is a prison. All are imprisoned physically, their passports—those who have one—held by the state and rarely permitted use, the overhanging threat of labour camps for those caught trying to flee.

Individuals with some form of knowledge about the outside world—usually those in Pyongyang, people like Mr Li—face further imprisonment in artificial opulence, forced to kowtow to the demands that come with the rampant narcissism of the regime, forced on pain of death to worship the very men who bestowed this abjection upon them.

It is more than likely that most in Pyongyang feel a helpless guilt when they try to reconcile the famished, tortured rural population living in desolate misery with the hundreds of millions of dollars squandered on marble-and-gold buildings to fill with more propaganda in their city—propaganda which does not in any way reflect the people or their attitude to outsiders. This holds true for civilians and military, young and old. The people of North Korea are spirited, genial and curious, despite their situation.

Do not turn a blind eye to the blatant crimes against humanity perpetuated daily; the worst crimes in history have been aided by ignorance and inaction. Change begins only with awareness and understanding. And when one is aware of the difference between the regime and the public—oppressors and oppressed—then one understands why change is imperative.

Jasper Burgess is an intern in the office of Aaron Stonehouse MLC and a student of International Relations and History at the University of Western Australia.