Axis of Evil World Tour - An American's Travels in Iran, Iraq and North Korea

by Scott Fisher

  Axis of Evil World Tour

  An American’s Travels in Iran, Iraq, and North Korea

  by Scott Fisher

  Copyright © Scott Fisher, 2011

  ISBN 978-1-4507-5824-6

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  First published in the United States of America in 2006.

  Dedicated to my grandmother and all those who encourage others to explore.

  North Korea - Journey into Kimland

  When was the last trip you took where the guide wouldn't allow you to keep your passport? Or you weren't allowed to use the local currency? Where criticism of the place you traveled could get a guide into serious trouble? Where on your return you felt you had to be careful bringing back books, pins and T-shirts because they might be illegal?

  All this and more can be yours with a trip to the DPRK, the Democratic Peoples Republic of Orwellian Country Names, better known as North Korea. In an age where you can get Starbucks on Thai islands, Baskin-Robbins in Saigon, Coke and McDonalds just about everywhere, it's nice to finally visit a place lacking even the knowledge of such things. The most end-of-the-earth Chinese villager knows of Michael Jordan, but in North Korea our big city Pyongyang guides had no clue who he was - until we pointed out his name on an autographed basketball in the Gifts to Kim Jong-il Museum. Then they were sure he must be someone really important. A mere basketball player? No way!

  Locked Door, Kaesong, North Korea

  Photo courtesy Thomas St. John

  But I get ahead of myself. My goal here is to present the story of a trip into what can best be described as 'Kimland'. A country totally dedicated to the Great Leader Kim Il-sung, his Juche ideology and his son the Dear Leader, Kim Jong-il.

  To get started I'll go back to the beginning. From where I sit typing this in Seoul the border is about an hour away. Should I want, I could get up right now and go to a restaurant, watch the news, use the Internet, drive, or go to the airport and get a flight anywhere in the world. My guess is you can do about the same things from where you're sitting.

  Across that border up there though, it's a different story. There are no restaurants for me, or for you, outside of those select few specifically approved for foreigners. The only news is state news, on both channels. The Internet is something you access via satellite from a diplomatic compound. To leave, the city or the country, you need government approval stamped into your passport or travel document.

  This isn't a developmental issue. Third World countries don't shoot missiles over Japan or try to launch satellites into space. No, in the case of North Korea, the differences are all by choice. What I, or most others on the planet can do, like heading over to the next town to meet a friend or tuning in a radio station, are banned or tightly regulated. The DMZ is not a border between two countries. It's the edge of the known world butting up against a nation trying desperately to keep it away.

  With all this, why go to North Korea? Why go someplace so purposely unappealing to foreigners, especially Americans? For me, after living, working and studying in South Korea for the better part of a decade, North Korea had become a forbidden fruit. I'd tried to go several times, but had always been prevented because of my nationality.

  That is, until this year's 'Arirang Festival'. The "Mass Gymnastic and Artistic Performance" was ostensibly in honor of departed leader Kim Il-sung's 90th birthday in April, 2002. From the timing and openness to foreigners though, even us evil Americans, a more apt description might be 'Festival to make us feel better cause the World Cup is in the South' or maybe, 'Festival to get us a lot of hard currency'.

  My 'ticket' to North Korea

  The first reports from across the border on the festival and the possibility of American tourists being granted visas came in late March. Some friends and I started to follow the reports closely. Maybe, just maybe, if Bush didn't piss them off again with another axis of evil comment, we could actually go. Throughout April reports indicated the North was wavering between allowing and banning Americans. Finally, by early May, it was clear we had a good chance and so six of us, all having lived, worked and known each other for years in South Korea, decided to take advantage of this rare opportunity to visit a place we'd heard about for so long.

  Unfortunately, unless you're a bird, you don't just zip across the border from South Korea into North Korea. Instead you go by way of Beijing. This in order to get your travel papers, instructions from the official DPRK travel agency, a bouquet of flowers . . .

  Getting Closer

  Early in the visa application process we had been told that, news reports aside, a group of Americans would have very little chance of getting visas on our own. It would be better to join a group of Japanese college students planning to go at a similar time as part of one large group. Why? Apparently the travel agency hoped those in charge of granting the visas would just see one big group and not pay much attention to its components. It worked. We got the visas. But only after a lengthy, time-consuming process.

  It finally started to hit home that we were actually going to North Korea in the Beijing Airport, while standing in line for Air Koryo, the national airline of the DPRK. Seeing 'Beijing-Pyongyang' up on the board, plus the North Koreans (easily identified by the Kim Il-sung pins they all wore over their hearts) standing in line had everyone in the group getting excited. The odd twang of the North Korean accent began to be discernible amongst the Japanese and Chinese conversations.

  Any North Korean allowed out of the country is such an obvious elite that we were all curious about their backgrounds. The people we were looking at, after all, were most likely card-carrying members of one of the governments of the "axis of evil". I tried to feel intimidated, or at least impressed, but mostly I just felt ignored. None of the openness or gregariousness of South Koreans toward foreigners. The Northerners paid our curious looks no attention and kept to themselves. Perhaps they were used to being watched.

  When we finally boarded, I felt like I was stepping back into the 1970s. From the old Russian plane, to the crew uniforms, even the clothes and hairstyles of the 'elite' North Korean passengers, everything screamed early-70s kitsch. After grabbing some reading materials I jammed myself into the tiny seat and started to see what the North had to say.

  North Korean 'journalism' rarely fails to entertain, and the in-flight reading material on Air Koryo was no exception. As you can see from the headlines, the articles were models of unbiased reporting. The front page, of course, was mainly about the fantastic exploits of the Dear Leader, Kim Jong-il. But after that came plenty of space for anti-US and anti-South Korean diatribes.

  Photos courtesy Thomas St. John

  When the flight attendants started the drink service, I finally got a long awaited chance to actually talk to a North Korean. Sure enough, the accent was so thick it felt like a different language at first. Even a lot of the words were different, the most important one being the name of the country. In South Korean one says "han-guk," but saying that in the North apparently causes your listener's face to curl up like they've just taken a big suck on a lemon.

  This I learned about 10 seconds into my attempted conversation with the attendant. At the mention of the naughty word her face got all twitchy and our conversation was abruptly over. Odd, whenever I use the Northern term ("Chosun") in the South people just laugh at the weird foreigner. Apparently things are a bit more
serious in the North.

  On to Pyongyang

  Main Terminal, Pyongyang International Airport

  Photo courtesy Dan Harmon

  The plane touched down a couple of hours later at Pyongyang International Airport. A giant picture of Kim Il-sung looked down over the barren tarmac as we made our way down the steps of the plane and into waiting Air Koryo buses for the 30-second trip to the terminal. Once at the terminal, even before clearing immigration, I met Mr. Baek, the man who was to be our main tour guide. He first divided us into language groups, the Japanese from our tour into one group, the two Chinese into another, the two Germans got put into our six-man English-speaking group.

  This brings me to my first problem - how much should I talk about our North Korean guides? Guides are your constant companions on a trip to the North, whether you want them to be or not. The problem here is that I'm going to say some things that don't reflect well on the DPRK and I worry about possibly nasty repercussions for them. Another of the people in our group wrote a series of articles on the trip for The Korea Times once we got back to Seoul. He and his editors decided to handle the situation by changing the names of all the North Koreans involved. I've decided to handle the problem the same way, so any North Korean names mentioned will be made up.

  After Mr. Baek's brief introduction, it was time to fill out forms and, for those of us living in the South, start worrying about what exactly the North was going to stamp into our passports. A North Korean stamp, interesting rarity though it may be, would hardly prove endearing when we flew back to Seoul - with a little bad luck it could even get us deported.

  After filling out the forms, I walked up to the little wooden box housing the immigration agent and nervously handed over my passport. Mr. Baek stood next to me, ready to smooth over any problems. The agent gave my passport and the forms a brief once-over, stamped a piece of paper and . . . that was it. I've had more trouble getting through tollbooths than getting through North Korean immigration. Plus the North is courteous enough to follow the timeworn pariah path of stamping a piece of paper and then stapling the paper into the passport. The paper to be removed a few days later when you depart.

  Everyone else then began working their way through immigration. Apparently, the whole tour was on one giant group visa and everyone had to go through one line. While the others were getting stamped in, I went over to the forlorn-looking little luggage carrier to grab my bag. Even some of the little hick towns I've flown into in the South had bigger airports than this. Clean and well organized it was, a haven of international commerce it was not.

  As I was waiting for the others, Mr. Baek came up and told me I was in charge of helping him fill out the 'forbidden items' customs paperwork. I had tried showing off my Korean when we first met and, after the shock wore off, I guess Mr. Baek thought he'd put me to work. Having never been a lackey of the communist oppressors before, I decided to help him round up everyone for questioning.

  Interrogation Translator

  Photo courtesy Thomas St. John

  We finally got everyone in the English speaking group together (the guides constantly hurrying us, while we paid them little attention, was to become a major theme of the trip) and Mr. Baek ran down the list of problematic items (books, cameras, magazines, newspapers, etc.) while I translated. Anytime you had one of the items you held up your hand so he could take a look and write it down. After a few minutes though, and still only part way down the list, Mr. Baek apparently decided he had seen enough and marched us over to customs.

  He handed the customs agent our forms and then motioned for us to put our bags through what appeared to be one of the oldest x-ray machines currently at work on our planet. I swear the thing must have helped in the original fight against polio. Anyway, when some of us complained about possible film damage, the clerk motioned us over to another, much newer, machine. The bags went through, they looked over us, the bags and our forms and that was it. The world's most tightly sealed country and we get through customs and immigration in less than 30 minutes. I'd half expected cavity searches, book burnings and perhaps a cattle prod. Instead it took less time than it usually takes just to walk up to the immigration line in most other international airports. There went reality again, screwing up my preconceptions.

  Once out of the terminal, we were all herded over to what became our second home for the next three days - our tour bus. Freshly imported from Japan, the giant thing was actually quite nice - air-conditioning, video player, even an accursed karaoke machine.

  As we boarded the bus, we were again divided. The two Chinese went in the front with their guide and some type of government, most likely Worker's Party, official. Then came the group of 10 Japanese with their guide and finally, in the back, came us with our two guides. This pattern was not to vary in the slightest for the rest of the trip.

  The guides got up and took turns introducing themselves as the bus left the airport and pulled into the Korean countryside. Mr. Baek went first with another brief introduction, and then he passed off to Mr. Huk. Mr. Huk was quite young and obviously somewhat nervous. It turned out he was fresh out of college and this was to be his first experience as a tour guide. He quickly identified himself as a trainee with the tour company and asked for our understanding in case he made any mistakes. Everything was nice and pleasant.

  Then Mr. Baek got up again and recited what was to become a common refrain anytime something touchy was about to happen. "There is a famous English phrase that says when in Rome, one should do as the Romans do. Here in North Korea, please do as we do and you will have a nice vacation."

  Threat or promise? As I pondered that idea, the reason for the little speech became apparent. "We need you to give us your passports for safe keeping and exit processing. We will return them to you when you leave." What was left unsaid, said it all. "Give us your papers or there will be trouble." Fortunately, the guide in Beijing, plus a couple of travel books, had assured us that this was normal. Plus, it's not like keeping them would have made any difference - the nearest U.S. embassy was past about a million soldiers down in Seoul.

  As the countryside passed by, we all started to tune out the guides and look out the window. It was a beautiful, clear summer day and we were all anxious to get our first look at the 'real' North Korea. The road was lined with trees and we were surrounded by green countryside. Off in the distance, villagers were working the fields, using machines to work the soil instead of the animals I'd half-expected.

  The ride to Pyongyang is less than 30 minutes and, compared to Seoul and most other Asian cities, clean, green and unpolluted. The fact that we saw maybe a dozen other cars and buses during the half-hour drive obviously having something to do with that. As we approached the city, rows of bland, block-style buildings could be seen off in the distance, as well as the more famous monuments of the Pyongyang skyline.

  Pyongyang - The Monuments of Kimland

  What is it with dictatorships and their odd obsession to have everything the biggest, tallest, widest and longest? Does North Korea really need the world's biggest stadium? Or a 'victory arch' larger than the one in Paris? Or, and by far the most ridiculous, the world's largest and tallest hotel?

  My favorite though, had to be the Tower of the Juche Idea. 'Juche' is the Kim clan ideology that stresses national self-reliance and independence above all else. Rather than proving their independence by feeding their own people, they spend millions of dollars on an elaborate tower extolling the virtues of a bankrupt ideology. One guesses the irony is not lost on the international aid workers brought in to feed the starving masses of 'the nation of self-reliance'.

  The first stop on any tour is designed to smack you on the head with the reality of life in Kimland. That morning, at the airport in Beijing, our group had been given a bouquet of flowers to present at the monument to North Korea's founder, the Great Leader, the Lodestar of the Revolution, the Supreme Comrade, the Glorious General and Vanquisher of the Japanese, the Founder of Juche . . . Kim
Il-sung. This wasn't an option. A member of our group was expected to solemnly present the flowers, while the rest of us silently bowed our heads in respect and admiration. Failure to do so, all of the guides and guidebooks said, would cause "trouble."

  On the bus to the monument, again leading in with the 'when in Rome' speech, Mr. Baek explained what a special occasion this was for us. How Pyongyang newlyweds and others embarking on a new and important step in their lives would come to the statue to pay their respects. How people in the countryside would come from far and wide for a glimpse.

  As we approached the monument, the Americans in our group passed around the bouquet like it was poison. No one wanted to be the one stuck with sucking up to the Kims. Fortunately, the problem was solved, in an interesting bit of geopolitics meeting reality, when one of the Chinese members of the group volunteered to present the flowers. Now what to do about the bowing . . .

  Grand Monument to Kim Il-sung on Mansu Hill

  Photo courtesy Dan Harmon

  Kim Il-sung, Mansu Hill

  Photo courtesy Thomas St. John

  The first thing you notice as you approach the monument is simply its sheer size. Located on the top of a hill, the giant bronze statue of Kim looms powerfully over the citizens of Pyongyang below. In the statue, Kim appears with his right arm outstretched, as if exhorting his people on to some great victory. It's hard for pictures to do justice to the sheer size and weightiness of the actual figure. When you approach, even the tallest person barely comes to the bottom of Kim's feet.