North Korea 2019 #3: A Visit to Panmunjom

April 8, 2019. Our main destination today was Panmunjom, on the 38th parallel, where Chinese and North Korean forces negotiated with the United Nations Command during the Korean War and signed the Armistice Agreement. Although it lies within the Demilitarized Zone, it is also considered one of the most dangerous places in the world. Shootings, defections, axe attacks, and other incidents have occurred here over the years.

We left the city along Reunification Highway, passing beneath the Arch of Reunification, also known as the Monument to the Three Charters for National Reunification. Completed in 2001 to commemorate Kim Il Sung’s three charters for reunification, it stood thirty metres high. Two women from North and South Korea, dressed in traditional Korean clothing, jointly held aloft a shield-shaped emblem bearing a map of the entire peninsula and the words “Three Charters.” It expressed an ardent desire for Korean reunification.

Reunification Highway links Pyongyang with Panmunjom. Continue another sixty-odd kilometres south from Panmunjom and you reach Seoul, the capital of South Korea. The highway was broad, but apart from the occasional bus, almost no traffic used it. Beyond the city, the road became rough and full of potholes. We were told that US sanctions had caused a shortage of asphalt, leaving the road in disrepair. Reunification Highway seemed a fitting illustration of just how difficult the road to reunification truly was.

Once outside Pyongyang, we travelled through countryside almost the entire way. Bare yellow earth stretched in every direction, with scarcely a trace of green, giving the landscape a bleak and inhospitable air. When I asked our guide why there was no greenery, she said perhaps the planting season had not yet begun. From what I could see, most of the streams along the road had dried up, suggesting that drought was also a serious problem. This, perhaps, was the real North Korea.

Along the way, we stopped at a place resembling a rest area. It had toilets, and outdoor stalls selling local specialties, coffee, fruit, and the like. Our guide suggested buying cigarettes for the officer who would brief us. Tim and I therefore split the cost of a carton said to contain North Korea’s finest cigarettes. We gave five packs to the driver and planned to distribute the rest among the briefing officer and others. That, I suppose, was socialism with local characteristics.

The closer we came to the Demilitarized Zone, the tenser the atmosphere grew. Soldiers and sentry posts became more numerous along the road. From time to time, we saw enormous concrete structures and objects said to be barriers designed to stop enemy tanks during wartime. Our guide had warned us not to photograph military installations or personnel, so there are no pictures of this part of the journey.

At the entrance, we all had to leave the bus, register, and submit our documents. We then entered a briefing hall and gift centre, where an officer explained the site using a diagram. We were told that only very senior officers were entrusted with conducting these briefings. He was the officer who received the cigarettes.

This diagram provides a useful overview of our route. The red line is the so-called 38th parallel, the boundary dividing North and South Korea. The area marked by the green lines on either side is the Demilitarized Zone; soldiers entering or leaving it may carry no weapons other than a handgun. We viewed the diagram at point ①. After the briefing, we lined up and walked through the gate at point ②, the entrance to the DMZ. Our tour buses were waiting on the other side, now with an additional soldier aboard each one as an escort. We first drove to point ③, where two buildings stood, one small and one large. The smaller building was the former negotiation venue; the larger was where the armistice was signed. Finally, we reached point ④, the Joint Security Area, where we could look out toward the dividing line.

Our first stop, the smaller building, was where the negotiations had taken place.

Visitors were allowed to sit at the negotiating table and soak up the atmosphere. Tim promptly claimed the chief American negotiator’s seat, while the boss of our household took the opposite side—both of them were remarkably quick off the mark. I should also mention the official cameraman. We encountered people like him at several important sites, including Kim Il Sung’s former home. Perhaps someone important happened to be travelling with us; perhaps the authorities were recording our every move. There was no way to know.

Leaving the smaller building, we entered the larger one next door, where the signing ceremony had been held. The building had not originally existed; it was hastily added specifically for the ceremony.

The room where the armistice was signed had been restored with the tables, chairs, and other objects used at the time. Text and photographs on the walls explained the history. What puzzled me was how rarely the Chinese People’s Volunteers were mentioned. The presentation made it seem as though the Korean people, under Marshal Kim’s leadership, had defeated American imperialism entirely on their own. I had also read American accounts of the Korean War, and the various versions did not quite agree. Standing at this historic site among these authentic objects only left me more confused. Where, after all, does the truth of history lie?

Outside the historic buildings, the North Korean flag fluttered in the distance, and farmers could just be made out working the fields. Our guide made a point of explaining that ordinary people lived normal lives on the North Korean side and that it was perfectly safe. The other side, she said, was riddled with landmines and frequently used for military exercises, making it extremely dangerous. The implication was clear: the North Korean people loved peace; it was the enemy who was bent on war. It reminded me of something the renowned American historians Will and Ariel Durant wrote in The Story of Civilization: “Most history is guessing, and the rest is prejudice.”

Farther ahead stood two multistorey buildings and several low huts: this was the Joint Security Area. From Panmungak on the North Korean side, we could look across the dividing line to Freedom House in South Korea. Between them stood several huts. The blue ones had been built by the American side and the silver ones by the North Koreans. Running through the middle was a concrete strip fifty centimetres wide and five centimetres high; neither side was permitted to take a single step across it. This one line had divided a people and their land for decades. Not long before our visit, the leaders of North and South Korea had stepped back and forth across this very line.

Panmunjom lies eight kilometres from Kaesong. Its name came from a village between Kaesong and Hancheng—now Seoul. According to legend, a small shop made of wooden boards was built here long ago for travellers passing between the two cities, giving Panmunjom its name. Kaesong was the ancient capital of the Koryo dynasty. One of the historic states of the Korean Peninsula, Koryo ruled from 918 to 1392. It was founded by Wang Kon in 918, with its capital here.
After leaving Panmunjom, we headed to Taemyong Palace, a detached royal palace of Koryo. In 1089, Kukjagam, the kingdom’s highest educational institution, was moved here; it was later renamed Songgyungwan. When the Joseon dynasty replaced Koryo, Seoul became the capital, and Songgyungwan moved there as well.

Today, the former Taemyong Palace houses the Koryo Museum, displaying artifacts from the Koryo period. It has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

At almost every tourist attraction in North Korea, visitors were welcomed by a beautiful local guide in traditional dress. We were introduced not only to North Korea’s natural beauties, but also to its traditional clothing.

The well-known Kaesong Industrial Complex is also located here, and Kaesong is famous for its Koryo ginseng. Our guide recommended an optional meal of chicken stewed with ginseng, priced at 260 yuan per bird. Coming from a region that produces American ginseng ourselves, our verdict afterward was simply that it had been worth trying once. Tim, having heard that ginseng was good for you, kept insisting that it was good—very good.

After our Koryo ginseng lunch, we visited Hyonrung, the mausoleum of Wang Kon, founder and first king of Koryo. Wang Kon lived from 877 to 943. His burial mound is a typical Koguryo-style stone-chamber tomb covered with earth.

Inside the mausoleum grounds stood a memorial hall and two stele pavilions. The inscriptions on the steles recorded the royal tomb’s history, construction, and repairs.

Leaving Hyonrung and returning to Pyongyang felt like travelling from the ancient world back into the modern one. Our first stop after re-entering the city was the Stamp Museum, where we could view an exhibition of North Korean stamps and buy postcards, stamps, and other souvenirs. One visitor could not wait: he sat down on the spot to write a postcard to his beloved far away.

We were due to see the circus that evening. With some time to spare before the performance, we once again asked to take a walk through the streets.

The buildings lining the streets were immaculate and orderly. There was no laundry hanging outside, no open windows, and hardly a person in sight. If not for the occasional flowerpot on a balcony, one might almost have suspected that the apartments were empty. Our guide assured us that they were all occupied, allocated by the state, and provided free of charge.

There was usually a little kiosk on each street corner in North Korea. Look at Tim grinning away, as though he had never eaten ice cream in his life. People are curious creatures: change their surroundings and lower their expectations, and suddenly their sense of happiness rises. By that logic, are the North Korean people happy? Happiness is not something we can decide on another person’s behalf. Everyone has their own way of living, so there is no point in worrying about it for them.

I had no interest in the ice cream. I wanted to see what the kiosk sold—and what one of those “natural beauties” looked like.

The neighborhood they were willing to let us walk through must have been one of the better ones—perhaps the equivalent of Chaoyang in Beijing or Xintiandi in Shanghai. The streets and buildings were gleaming and smart; people were fashionably dressed and seemed in reasonably good spirits. Judging by this woman’s outfit, she would not have looked much out of place in South Korea. If things continue this way, I fear there may be fewer and fewer “natural beauties” left.

The sun had set. The circus was about to begin.

The circus was excellent. The performers gave it their all, and the audience was delighted. Most of the acts were traditional ones—the sort that, in China, many performers might now consider too old-fashioned to bother practising, let alone staging.

In terms of production, it could not compare with foreign circuses such as Cirque du Soleil. There were no lavish sets or elaborate trappings, nor was there an overarching story: it was simply a succession of individual acts.

Yet the relative simplicity kept the audience’s attention firmly on the performers and their acrobatics. Nothing was lost amid flashy scenery or distracting transitions; instead, the difficulty of the feats and the performers’ skill stood out all the more. There is beauty in simplicity.

Today’s journey had taken us through war and peace, from antiquity to the present, and from the poverty of the countryside to the prosperity of the city… Yet everything before our eyes was only surface, and it was difficult to tell what was real and what was false. It was all propaganda. Like the circus, it was only a show.

North Korea 2019 #3: A Visit to Panmunjom

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