North Korea 2019 #1: Arrival

On April 6, 2019, we boarded Air Koryo flight JS152 and, heads held high and spirits soaring, flew across the Yalu River to Pyongyang, capital of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, embarking on a journey as thrilling as it was mysterious.

The plane was a Russian-built Tupolev Tu-204, with six seats to a row and workmanship that looked a little dated. Once seated, I thought I would shoot a short video, but before I could even turn on the camera, a flight attendant sharply stopped me: no photography! From the moment I sat down, mystery followed close behind.
With nothing else to do, I could only wait for the famous Koryo Burger. It is the sole in-flight meal served by Air Koryo and has been savaged online. Feeling adventurous, I slipped out my phone and secretly took two photos.

Western fascination with the Koryo Burger probably has less to do with the food than with the curiosity of seeing a closed country serve a Western-style hamburger. It looked a little meagre and none too appetising, but tasted acceptable enough. In North Korea, this is supposedly known as “the best hamburger in the world.” With that thought in mind, I quietly finished it.

After a flight of just over an hour, we landed at Pyongyang Sunan International Airport. The terminal was quiet and nearly empty. Apart from two flights arriving from Beijing and Shenyang, there were no other arrivals, nor did we see any planes taking off.
Even so, a long queue formed at customs because the baggage inspections were stringent. Our phones were taken away for examination; supposedly, officials would go through the photos and other contents. One traveller with our tour company had a copy of the film Salt on his laptop. When inspectors discovered that it contained ten minutes of material about North Korea, they confiscated the computer. The agency had therefore warned us before departure to delete everything related to South Korea. In practice, perhaps because the international marathon was taking place the next day and so many foreign visitors were arriving, the officials took our phones but neither asked for our passcodes nor appeared to open them before handing them back. With such a crowd, it was probably little more than a formality. They seemed much more meticulous about inspecting books, newspapers, and magazines, carefully checking for religious material or anything concerning South Korea. My guess is that printed media remains the mainstream in North Korea itself, so that is what they guard against most closely.

Two lovely guides were waiting to meet us. They accompanied us throughout the trip and were rarely out of our sight; they even stayed at the same hotel. Apart from private spaces such as our hotel rooms and the toilets, everything we did had to remain within their field of vision. The older guide was called Mi Son. Experienced and capable, she was the one in charge.

The younger one, Yong Min, was her junior assistant. Both were fascinated by the special effects in a certain beauty-filter app and could not stop playing with it on our phones.

We were closely looked after throughout the trip, leaving almost no opportunity to interact with local people on our own. If we could not meet the people, we could at least look at the buildings. Before reaching North Korea, the media had left me with the impression that its architecture consisted largely of single-storey, tiled-roof houses. The countryside between the airport and the city more or less matched that picture.

As we approached the city, however, the scene changed completely. Massive buildings appeared everywhere. This was the capital, after all—it had to project a certain grandeur.

Downtown was more startling still, with high-rises everywhere. The buildings were modern in design, novel in shape, and varied yet harmonious in colour, their different heights forming a carefully balanced skyline. It was hard to believe this was Pyongyang.

The main purpose of our visit was to take part in the 30th Pyongyang International Marathon the following day. By then it was already afternoon, so our only scheduled visit was to the Arch of Triumph, where we could also get a look at the race route.

Pyongyang’s Arch of Triumph stands at the western foot of Moran Hill, in the city’s Moranbong District. It was completed in 1982 to mark leader Kim Il Sung’s seventieth birthday. Built from more than 10,500 blocks of granite, it rises 60 metres—10 metres taller than the Arc de Triomphe in Paris—and measures 52.5 metres across, making it the largest triumphal arch in the world. Its granite pillars bear the dates 1925, when Kim Il Sung joined the resistance against Japan, and 1945, when he returned home in triumph.

The arch is adorned with finely executed reliefs.

Inside the arch, a lift takes visitors to a rooftop viewing platform overlooking the surrounding area. The first thing that came into view was Triumph Square, with its enormous mural.

The mural depicts Kim Il Sung meeting the citizens of Pyongyang here on October 14, 1945, and delivering his triumphant homecoming speech.

All around us stood row upon row of brightly coloured high-rises.

Innovatively designed modern buildings could be seen in the distance as well.

This seems a good moment to introduce the only other member of our group: Tim, a lawyer from Australia. Despite his imposing size, he was guileless and kind, happily agreeing to almost anything—a big kid at heart. In private, we called him Little Tim. When we discussed the itinerary, our guides brought out the predetermined schedule and asked whether there was anything we wanted to change. At the mention of the zoo, I said, “The zoo… perhaps we could skip that…” But Tim kept insisting, “That sounds good! That sounds good!” Well, there were only three of us in the group, so we had to look after the “minority interest.” In the end, not a single item was changed, and we accepted our socialist re-education programme from beginning to end. The next day, Little Tim would be running the 20-kilometre half-marathon—his first race of its kind.

From the rooftop, looking towards Moran Hill, we could see the stadium at its foot: Kim Il Sung Stadium, the starting and finishing point of the next day’s marathon. It seats 100,000 spectators and is used mainly for football matches, as well as the mass gymnastics of the annual Arirang Festival.

Tents had already been erected in the stadium plaza, where people were coming and going. They were probably making the final preparations for the next day’s marathon. The thought of running past such an iconic landmark gave me a quiet thrill.

After coming down from the roof, we asked to take a walk along the streets. They were not particularly crowded. Most pedestrians wore dark clothing and hurried past with serious expressions. The streets themselves were exceptionally clean. Posters advertising the next day’s marathon had been pasted in the windows.

Most major intersections in Pyongyang have pedestrian underpasses. Some sections had no lights and were pitch-dark. Our guide hurriedly switched on her phone’s flashlight, adding yet another layer of mystery to this close encounter with the city.

As we walked, our guides made it clear that they did not like us photographing passers-by. Out of courtesy, I took only two hurried shots of people through the windows of buses. Looking at them later, I saw faces filled with weariness and indifference. They largely matched our initial impression of the North Korean people—an impression that would change considerably as the journey unfolded.

That evening, we had dinner with competitors from several other groups travelling with the same agency—more than a dozen people from around the world. The power went out twice during the meal, plunging us into total darkness. I thought to myself: once upon a time, I had paid good money to experience dining in the dark in Beijing; now I was getting it for free. Our guide laughed and said, “Welcome to Pyongyang.”

As it turned out, those were the only two power cuts of the trip; they never happened again. First impressions are often incomplete, and so it was with Pyongyang. Its modern buildings were fantastical and dazzling, as though we had entered a capitalist society, yet the revolutionary statues, portraits, and slogans everywhere constantly reminded us that this was a socialist country. The immaculate streets and the tired, hurried faces of the pedestrians made everything seem at once real and unreal, as if we had slipped into another age.

We had been here only a short while. Like the Ryugyong Hotel veiled in mist, North Korea remained hazy and mysterious to us, waiting for us to draw back its veil little by little.
Although ordinary North Koreans used mobile phones, the rates for foreign visitors were high, so we had no intention of getting service. With no phone connection or internet, and no permission to venture out alone, there was little to do at night. Since we would be running the marathon the next day, we turned in early…

Good night, Pyongyang.

Continue Reading

In This Series

More posts

Day Seven: A Whirlwind Tour of Athens

Day Five: Rhodes, City of the Knights

Day Six: Christmas—Taking Gains and Losses as They Come

Day Four: Ephesus, After the Sea Receded