The Best American Travel Writing 2016

by Bill Bryson

  Bocas Marina is separated from town by mangroves and saltwater channels and is accessible only by boat. Dad relies on water taxis, which charge a dollar per person, to get him back and forth. But, he tells me, he rarely makes the trip to town. I can see why. In recent years, Bocas has become a stop on the international backpacking-and-partying circuit. Its waterfront is lined with stilted buildings in Caribbean-pastel tints: hotels, tour companies, and dance clubs that advertise “Nasty Monday” specials ($1 beer bong and $1 tequila shots) and Organic Trance, a genre of music that apparently makes heavy use of the didgeridoo. Restaurants have slogans like “No Place Like Om” (at an Indian vegetarian spot) and “Store in a Cool Place” (at the Super Gourmet kosher deli). Between the dreadlocked travelers selling handmade jewelry and the blond revelers in short shorts dancing on hostel balconies, Bocas could just as easily be Thailand or India or anywhere else on the sun, surf, and cheap drugs itinerary.

  None of that is my father, but not because he’s 70 or because he’s stuffy. A believer in the enduring power of the counterculture, Dad is not uncomfortable with eccentricity or queasy at the spectacle of youth. But he’s also not overly enthused about spending time in a crowd of strangers. While I travel for culture—for food and architecture, history and art—Dad travels, above all else, for nature. Sailing, and seeing the world at eight knots per hour, appeals to him because it means experiencing places that aren’t accessible to most of us. Dad doesn’t dislike Bocas, but for him it is a means to an end. That end is the hundreds of largely uninhabited islands that lie just southeast of here, in the San Blas archipelago.

  For me, on the other hand, this trip has taken on a weight and meaning beyond its scope. After years of being told that having children will change everything (a truism that, when spoken by people with kids to those without them, can sound like a threat), this is my last chance to travel as the person I’ve been.

  Being my father’s daughter hasn’t been my primary identity for decades. But as I prepare to become a parent myself, I’m acutely aware of the anchor he has been in my life. My dad becoming a grandfather makes him mortal for me in a way that he has somehow escaped until now. He’s not a religious man, and when he talks about having a grandchild, he seems more at ease with aging—and with death—than I can ever remember him being. “It’s a total trip,” he tells me. “Becoming a grandfather puts me in touch with something cosmic—something beyond my everyday life. It plugs me into something greater and beyond any of us.”

  My first full day in Bocas is Good Friday, which the mayor has declared a dry holiday. There is to be no alcohol sold anywhere, and the sailors of Bocas Marina are not happy. But they have a plan. A small group arranges for two pangas to shuttle them to the Blue Coconut, a bar-restaurant built above the water off So-larte, one of the outlying islands. Dad and I decide to join—though more for the company and the easy access to a clean, swimmable bay than for the bar’s signature curaçao cocktail. We sit for hours that afternoon beneath the thatched roof as a half-dozen sailors drink Balboa beers and trade stories. At one point, Dad rolls out one of his favorites from Southeast Asia: the time I befriended a small, cheerful monkey, spending every moment I could with it over the course of weeks, only to have it turn one day and bite me.

  When I was a kid, our adventures were big. I snorkeled with sharks in Palau, stumbled upon massive anti-American protests in the Philippines, and stepped up as a vital crew member as we sailed into drenching, violent rain. But our four days together in Bocas are made up of smaller, sweeter moments.

  In that short span, we hit more “sights” than Dad has likely visited in his months on the island. We go to Playa Estrella, where the Semana Santa fiesta is in full swing. There are DJ booths, banana boats, wasted tourists, and large local families celebrating despite a drizzle. Someone in the crowd calls, “Oye, mamá, ¡baile!” and I give a quick shimmy. Dad and I find the quietest piece of sand we can and spend a couple of hours wading into the water, out of place among the throng. We go on a snorkeling excursion, where we swim among platter-shaped fish and Seussian corals. We visit the botanical garden and search for snakes, sloths, and monkeys among the foliage, but find only plants—common U.S. houseplants supersized by the near-equatorial climate. I know the packaged nature is underwhelming for Dad. But his spirits are high. He seems to relish his role as a father, talking me up to anyone who will listen. When we meet parents traveling with young kids, it takes him back. “Remember when . . . ,” he says. Or, “Where was that?” Or simply, “That was such a great trip.” Will I have the guts to take my kid out of school to go sailing?

  This, I realize, is what I had come to Panama for. I wasn’t here for the beauty of the place, though it is stunning. I’d come for the concentrated time with my dad. Just him and me. The last time we’d traveled alone together was 14 years before, when I was in college and had just met my now-husband, Tim—and any traveling we do together from now on will almost certainly be as a larger, noisier family. For me, this trip was a bookend. But it was also a much-needed reminder of the joy Dad took in traveling as a parent and, therefore, what I might hope for—and aspire to—myself.

  One morning, we take a water taxi into town, curious to see what tours might be within reach of a very pregnant woman and a soon-to-be-grandfather recovering from major surgery. We walk up and down the main drag, but I’m irritated by the hustling salesmen, and, since taking a tour was my idea, I feel the pressure of choosing the right one. So I procrastinate, and instead of buying tickets, Dad and I end up at the Super Gourmet, where we find our favorite ice cream, Häagen-Dazs coffee, buried deep at the bottom of the freezer case. As we sit on the sidewalk outside, the Doors’ “Hello, I Love You” hums through the market’s speakers. Plastic spoons in hand, barely saying a word, we devour the entire carton.

  MITCH MOXLEY

  The Reddest Carpet

  FROM GQ

  Kim Jong-il loved the movies. After a hard day running the world’s most oppressive regime, the jumpsuit-clad dictator would, according to local lore, repair to his private cinema deep inside a Pyongyang bunker, where he’d select his entertainment from a collection of 20,000 videos. The Dear Leader, who ruled North Korea from 1994 to 2011, was reputed to worship Rambo, and it requires little imagination to picture him chortling at the explosions, the macho dialogue, the buxom actresses, the sheer charisma of the vigilante.

  Comrade Kim—whose official titles included Iron-Willed Brilliant Commander and Guiding Star of the 21st Century—died in 2011, and yet he attends the movies still, in a manner of speaking. Here he is now, in a sprawling mural on the wall of the Ponghwa Art Theatre lobby, standing alongside his father, the Great Leader and Eternal President Kim Il-sung, surrounded by smiling soldiers and dancing women and cheering masses. Together they welcome guests and delegates to a very special event: the opening ceremony of the biennial Pyongyang International Film Festival.

  I’m standing below the mural, staring gape-jawed at the Kims as attendees file into the auditorium. Swirling around me are military men in olive uniforms and half-moon hats, high-ranking government officials with jet-black hair, and hardworking citizens of the capital decked out in fine suits and traditional dresses that look like Christmas trees. There’s also an oddball assortment of foreign delegates from countries as far-flung as Myanmar and Iran.

  The communist government of Kim Jong-il’s apple-cheeked son, Kim Jong-un, has allowed exactly eight tourists to attend the festival. I am one of them. We’re a collection of curious film buffs who have paid a group called Koryo Tours about $2,000, on top of airfare to and from Beijing, for the privilege of visiting the secretive Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

  It’s a strange time to be in the country: just three days ago, a 25-year-old American named Matthew Miller was sentenced to six years of hard labor for tearing up his tourist visa upon arrival because of a “wild ambition,” he supposedly said, to see a North Korean prison. Meanwhile, two other Americans are languishing in the
country’s penal system for alleged Christian proselytizing. This is all while Seth Rogen and James Franco are preparing to promote The Interview, the Kim Jong-un assassination comedy that will ultimately provoke North Korean sympathizers to launch an epic cyberattack on Sony Pictures, nearly forcing the studio to abort the film’s release—which shouldn’t have been surprising, for this is a country that treats cinema as a matter of life and death.

  “Let’s go!” says Miss P, our petite headmistress of a guide, trying to usher us to our seats in the auditorium. We’re lingering in the lobby. Miss P is wearing cat-eye glasses and a no-nonsense skirt and blouse, and making clear on our first full day in the country that she disapproves of lingering. “Let’s go!”

  Miss P leads us past two young women in flight-attendant outfits offering cups of a sugary carbonated apple drink, and past a bustling concession stand selling cans of coffee, bags of dried banana slices, and mystery-meat wieners. Meanwhile our other local guide, Mr. O, a 30-something man with square glasses, a dimpled smile, and frizzy hair that perpetually looks like it’s just been towel-dried, corrals a few members of the group who’ve wandered off to take photos. Miss P looks like she’s about to burst a blood vessel. “Come on,” she says. “The ceremony will begin.”

  The eight of us take our seats together in a row. I’m sitting beside Koryo’s tour leader, Vicky, a sardonic Scottish expat who lives in Beijing and is on her 10th trip to the DPRK. On my right is Andrew, a friendly man with a peppery gray beard who is the No. 1 Tupperware salesman in the United Kingdom. Farther down is Roman, a dreadlocked Polish DJ who’s writing his master’s thesis on North Korean cinema, and Hyae-shook, a Korean Canadian housewife whose parents fled from the North before the war. In the aisle in front of us is the photo crew: Yuri, from Moscow, secretly shooting for GQ, and Mark, a bon vivant from Los Angeles.

  Koryo’s representatives have told us we’ll be safe as long as we don’t do anything stupid. But I can’t help wondering what happens if the North Koreans find out I’m a journalist. Does reporting on the film fest qualify as “something stupid”?

  The festival’s hosts—two women and a man—appear onstage to light cheering. They welcome guests in Korean and awkward English. The ceremony’s vibe is Eurovision meets grade-school pageant.

  Above the stage is a suspended plastic dove that looks like it’s pooping out a rainbow-colored film reel. A sunrise graphic playing on a screen in the back appears to have been made on Windows 95. The hosts call to the stage the minister of culture, a squat, bullet-shaped man. “During the festival, you will be able to witness with your own eyes the reality of Korea,” he says in the halting monotone of a career bureaucrat. “In which the beautiful dream and ideal of the people come into full bloom, as well as the confidence and optimism of the Korean people, who are making a dynamic struggle to build a thriving nation under the wise leadership of the dear respected Kim Jong-un.”

  After a few more speeches and song-and-dance performances, the hosts announce the opening picture: Fast Girls, a low-budget 2012 British drama about female track-and-field hopefuls, whose rippling muscles and nubile buns get enough screen time to become characters unto themselves. The story centers on a sprinter recruited to the national relay squad. At first her rebellious streak makes her an awkward fit, but—in a common North Korean movie trope—she ultimately learns the value of teamwork and cooperation.

  We sit back and take in the movie, oblivious and numb. That’s the power of film, of course, and a clue as to why the dictatorship would allow it. And the local film crews scattered throughout the auditorium, whose cameras are often pointed in our direction, provide a clue as to why the regime would allow us.

  As the credits roll, the audience politely applauds. “And the crowd goes wild!” Vicky says drily. “That was pretty shite.”

  It almost doesn’t matter. The world’s most unlikely film festival is under way.

  The Yanggakdo International Hotel—aka Festival HQ and our home for the duration of the trip—looms like a spectral fortress in the middle of Pyongyang. It’s situated on a small island halfway across the moat-like Taedong River, which conveniently prevents mischievous tourists from giving their guides the slip. The place is basically Alcatraz with a pool—and a bowling alley, brewpub, billiards room, Egyptian-themed casino, revolving rooftop restaurant, and a “full body” massage parlor in the basement.

  Visitors often compare Pyongyang to a movie set. More specifically, it’s like The Truman Show. It’s as if every person, every object, has been placed there especially for you. There’s something costumey about the way people dress, and something dialoguey about the way they talk. You can also learn a lot by what’s unseen: garbage, pets, glowing restaurant signs, shopping malls. Look closely and everything seems cheap and staged.

  In this respect, the city makes a natural setting for a film festival—a celebration of the imagination. PIFF was launched in 1987 as the Pyongyang Film Festival of Non-Aligned and Other Developing Countries. This was toward the end of North Korean cinema’s golden age, a real thing that existed almost entirely due to the unbridled enthusiasm of Kim Jong-il, who served as minister of culture before grabbing North Korea’s unsteady reins after his father’s death.

  The Dear Leader still casts a girthy shadow over North Korean cinema. He wrote not one but two treatises on film—On the Art of the Cinema (1973) and The Cinema and Directing (1987)—that continue to steer the country’s movie industry. The books are filled with weirdly precise directives about how film can serve the country’s juche (loosely, “self-reliant”) ideology. A pretty standard example: “A writer who is to serve the people must naturally have a deep interest in their lives, and be quick to recognize the urgent problems which can be used to raise the level of their class consciousness and to advance society, and must strive to solve them in the interests of the revolution.”

  In the decades after the DPRK’s founding in 1948, movies were used to reinforce and perpetuate the national myths: the fatherly wisdom of the leaders, the virtue of sacrifice to the nation, the importance of the collective over the individual. (Schoolchildren and workers attended mandatory film screenings as a means of ideological training even as the country struggled to feed its own people.) Though fewer in number than in the heyday of the 1970s and ’80s, most films produced in recent years follow the same formula.

  Kim is said to have dabbled behind the camera himself, supposedly producing such films as 1969’s Sea of Blood, a black-and-white epic set during the Japanese occupation. In 1978 he allegedly ordered the kidnapping of the South Korean director Shin Sang-ok, who served four years in a prison camp—surviving, Shin later said, on “grass, rice, and salt”—before finally agreeing to make movies alongside the Dear Leader. By then Kim had grown despondent about the state of the North Korean film industry. Unbothered by more pressing issues facing his country, Kim sent filmmakers to East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and the Soviet Union to learn the latest techniques, but North Korean movies still paled compared with those made overseas. “I have been struggling with this problem for five years,” Kim told Shin in 1983. “We have to know that we are lagging behind and make efforts to raise a new generation of filmmakers.”

  Kim and Shin embarked on a mission to create a new type of North Korean movie, one that both entertained and indoctrinated. The duo made seven films together, the best-known of which is 1985’s Pulgasari, a $3 million monster movie often called North Korea’s Godzilla. The director escaped in 1986 while on a film junket in Vienna, fleeing to the U.S. embassy. The film lives on, however, on YouTube.

  PIFF now receives around 500 submissions from more than 50 countries. This year, 29 movies are screening in three competitive categories—features, documentaries, and shorts and animation—with another 63 shown out of competition. (Still, the delegates I speak with during my stay view PIFF more as a novelty than as a serious stop on the festival circuit.) The festival’s lineup is stocked with pictures that will never reach a theater in the U
nited States: Myanmar’s The Moon Lotus, for example, alongside India’s Singh Saab the Great and an Egyptian documentary called I’m Tremendously Happy That I’m Going to Play Golf.

  If nothing else, the festival allows some basic interaction between North Korea and the outside world. Dozens of delegates are here screening films from all over the globe, and that qualifies as cultural exchange, even if those movies aren’t 12 Years a Slave. It’s about baby steps. But there’s a flip side: Hosting an international film fest is also a chance for the regime to say, Citizens, look at how open we are! Witness these many foreigners flocking here to show us their movies! “Of course, it’s a big propaganda event,” says Johannes Schönherr, author of North Korean Cinema: A History and a festival delegate in 2000. “And of course, foreigners who attend the event become extras in the big propaganda show.”

  The morning after the opening ceremony, after a breakfast of eggs and “rice gruel” from the hotel buffet, we’re taken on a tour of the sprawling Pyongyang Film Studio, which is sometimes called North Korea’s Hollywood. It’s a peculiar moniker, considering no films are actually being shot here during our visit. The studio puts out just a handful of movies a year, a distant cry from the days when Kim Jong-il was an on-set fixture. It’s now essentially a prop-aganda tool, like the movies it once pumped out, suggesting a booming industry that doesn’t really exist.

  Today the lot is crawling with school groups. We walk through empty sets made to look like ancient times and others resembling midcentury Europe and China. South Korea Street, as it’s called, portrays the “puppet” state on the other side of the DMZ as debauched and morally bankrupt. There’s bar after fake bar, ads for Suntory Brandy, and a hand-painted poster for Marilyn Monroe’s The Seven Year Itch.