High Heels, Free Housing and Ration Coupons

Everyday life in North Korea

 

 

 

 

Similar to the caste system in India, the Songbun status system plays a major role in deciding how North Koreans live their lives even before one is born.  Based on a person’s bloodline, the system determines one’s access to education, food, jobs and more.  The system was into place in the late 50s determined that those who were landowners in the 1950s and those who committed political crimes are lowest in the order and while those who committed their efforts to the Japanese resistance during the war rank the highest.  But this “system” isn’t obvious to people and one has no idea the system exists…until someone who is capable is continuously barred from opportunities.  

 

 

Our tour guide told us that all North Koreas get free education and housing.  Males get a housing unit when they get married and are given incentives such as bigger apartments to raise bigger families.  It is mandatory for males to train in the army, and whether someone has trained as an army officer is a common trait that women look for when seeking for potential husbands.  Our tour guide joked about marrying a foreigner since she hasn’t found a husband, but leaving North Korea is no easy task.  Some North Koreans work as foreign workers in Russia and China so their country can earn money on foreign currency.  North Koreans earn about 200 to 500 RMB a month, depending on what they do.  Teachers, soldiers and doctors are on higher wages while those in the service industry earn the least.  Farmers might be those working the hardest but everything that is grown belongs to the government.  

Foreigners aren’t allowed to use North Korean currency, so the exchange rate has been a mystery.  But it doesn’t really matter because North Koreans only need very little money when using ration coupons.  The foreign currency spent by tourists is mainly how the government earns the big bucks.  While there might be a slight difference in wages depending on a person’s profession, everyone is required to help out on a farm each year, especially students on their summer holidays.  The volunteering also extends to maintaining the city’s beautiful image.  When I first passed by the city’s green pastures from afar, I saw what looked like sheep hanging out on the pastures, but they were actually students voluntarily weeding and they were all wearing their white uniforms!  University graduates get to have three choices when deciding on their jobs.  Whether they get their desired profession depends on their background, looks and grades.  The more presentable people get picked to work as performers, tour guides and even traffic guards since they are most seen by tourists.  Those working as foreign workers earn around the same wage, but they are not allowed to leave their work premises but are allocated the opportunity to shop.  

 

If you look at what people wear on the streets of Pyongyang, high heels are an essential item for women.  If you go down into the subway stations, the sound of high heels is even more evident (the subway system is pretty cool and resembles the one in Russia with the deeply dug stations that act as bomb shelters and elaborate paintings and grandiose chandeliers). Like everything else on sale in North Korea, the locally made items are the most affordable, especially with the ration coupons given to each person, but for the better quality items, the majority of which are imported from China, nothing comes cheap.  

Living Like a Tourist in North Korea

Food and drink

 

When I first mentioned going to North Korea, I got asked whether there would be enough food for tourists.  And the answer is a definite yes.  A large portion of the travel fee goes to purchasing food during our stay in North Korea.  With the endless fields of corn in North Korea’s farmland, it’s not surprisingly to learn that corn is a major staple for North Koreans, especially during times of food shortage.  The typical meal for tourists always has kimchi, bean sprouts, scrambled eggs and spicy stir fried pork.  Everyone gets a bowl of rice and North Korea’s rice is probably one of the best in the world, with just the right amount of stickiness and a fragrant aroma.  Another specialty is ginseng chicken cooked in soup.  There’s nothing added besides ginseng and salt, so the taste is quite bland, but the flavour of the ginseng is quite distinct when you taste the glutinous rice stuffed inside the chicken since it has soaked up all the ginseng essence.  Don’t be surprised if the power goes out during dinner time, which happened twice for me, since electricity supply can be unstable.  The most brightly lit places in Pyongyang are probably the Mansu Hill Monument and the Kim Il Sung Square.  Housing units are relatively dark at night, but North Korea does make extensive use of solar panels, which can be spotted on the roofs of most buildings and homes.

The majority of tourists that visit North Korea stay at the Yanggakdo Hotel.  The 170 metre hotel sits on its own island in the centre of Pyongyang.  We were advised to not wander outside of the hotel’s gate by ourselves by our guides.  Built in the late 1980s, the hotel houses about a thousand rooms and most of the furnishings are reminiscent of those in the 80s, especially the sofas.  Hot water is only available during a limited period of time, so showers have to be taken after 8pm.  If you look closely at the elevator buttons, you’ll notice that there’s no fifth floor.  There are stories that share more about the surveillance rooms and propaganda posters that exist on the floor, but I won’t share more about them.  Just Google it and you’ll see.  What I did notice were the tour guides stopping on the same floor in the morning before heading down for breakfast in their separate room.  Perhaps they gather for a briefing before the start of each day, who knows?

As much as the hotel is a five-star one in North Korea standards, I really missed having a comfy and spacious bed to sink into, so three days in the country was enough, at least for the first visit.  We used the brand new airport that just opened up in July.  This is part of the massive plan for North Korea to open up to more tourists and the outside world.  But Air Koryo is the only airline that travels in and out, mostly to other parts of North Korea and China.  The Russia manufactured planes have relatively new leather seats.  No pictures are allowed but I managed to slip a few in!  All in all, this has been an interesting journey and an experience of a country that is so unlike any other, but it will be even more interesting to travel further outside of Pyongyang if I do step foot into the country again.

The Other Side of the Fence

North and South Korea’s Border

 

Separating North and South Korea, the Korean Demilitarized Zone was created in 1953 through the Korean Armistice Agreement.  Stretching 250km long and 4km wide, this is the most heavily militarized zone in the world (yes ironic-despite its name!).  Both sides are allowed to patrol with the militarized zone but neither side is allowed to cross the centre line crossing the middle of the zone.  North Korea runs tours that take visitors to the building where the armistice was signed and the conference tables and chairs are still kept intact.  Tourists need to line up to enter the zone to make sure everyone visits the area in an orderly manner, but the soldier tour guide was friendly enough to pose for pictures with eager tourists.  We walked around a small room packed with Korean souvenirs like ginseng and ornaments as we waited for our passports to be checked by the guards.  There’s of course propaganda telling of the need to unite both Koreas for the next generation.  The buildings where the soldiers stand on either side to keep guard stood opposite each other on either side.  We weren’t able to see any visible guards on South Korea’s side although similar tours run on the other side for tourists.  In the past few months, relations have been quite tense due to two South Korean soldiers stepping on landmines suspected to be laid by North Korea and the South responded with the renewed use of loudspeakers broadcasting propaganda against the North.  The “competition” between the two sides even occurred with the flagpoles when each side kept making their flagpole higher than the other.  North Korea’s flagpole is now the world’s fourth highest, standing at 98.4 metres!

North Korea: First impressions

The Great Leaders

Coming from a city that is perpetually surrounded by advertising, it was odd to see that the only type of advertising that goes on in North Korea are propaganda billboards.  The pictures and paintings of Kim Jong Il-the DPRK’s Supreme Leader from 1994 to 2001 and his father, the Dear Leader Kim Il Sun, can be found everywhere.  Even the billboards without them would have paintings of patriotic soldiers motivating citizens to defend their country and remind them of the importance of self-sustenance.  Juche is the political ideology of North Korea which means self-reliance authoritarian rule.  There’s even a Tower of the Juche idea built, with an eternal fire at the top of the tower.  The idea is for North Korea to have political independence, economic self-sustenance and self-reliance in defence.  These ideas are widespread and constantly drilled into everyone’s minds, not only on billboards, but also on television, where the local channel always airs concerts of war songs, and music videos with images of the atrocities of the war times and of course in newspapers.

 

The Mansu Hill Grand Monument has magnificent bronze statutes of the leaders.  Our two tour leaders (yes every group has two leaders-one does the talking and the other checks on the other and keeps an eye on the group so always follows last in the group) made sure we bought flowers and lined up single file and bowed to the monument solemnly to show respect.  For North Koreans, their leaders are still alive in their hearts, so we only bow once (instead of three times, when the person has died).  Every North Korean’s essential dress code includes a pin of their great leaders.  A new edition of the pin comes out each year, so we’ve seen different versions of them.  They’re not for sale though.  If someone’s pin gets lost, an application needs to be made for a new one to be issued.  W came across hundreds of students in the Kim Il Sung Square during the day and evening practicing for the mass celebrations in October to celebrate the founding of the Workers’ Party of Korea’s 70th anniversary.  There’s also the Airirang Mass Games that mobilizes tens of thousands of people to participate, but they’ve been cancelled for the past two years.  It takes months and months to organize but people that participate get gifts from the government, like television sets, and packs of food, so many choose to participate in the fun.  

 

The International Friendship Exhibition is a 200,000 square feet museum housing the tens of thousands of gifts that have been given to North Korea’s leaders in Myohyangsan, a two hour drive from Pyongyang.  It was pouring rain that day and flooding in many places, but the potholes on the road were the most annoying part.  Unfortunately, no pictures were allowed.  We had wear shoe covers before entering the larger than life building that is typical of North Korea’s Stalinist architecture and had to bow when we came across the wax statutes of the leaders.  The idea of the museum is to show North Koreans and tourists that the country is so wonderful that the leaders receive gifts from all over the world.  According to unofficial sources, even during the famine years in the 1990s, North Korea still provided aid to Middle Eastern and African countries to build up more allies, so it’s not surprising to see gifts from countries like Libya.  Gifts range from tiger and bear heads to a dining table and even a room dedicated to a bullet proof car and aeroplane from the Russians.  Smaller gifts range from chess sets and pens to suitcases and books-you name it and the museum probably has it!