by Felix Abt
An advertising billboard “in a uniform way,” a message of conformity, is promulgated by the Korea Advertisement Company. Compare this to my PyongSu advertisement on the left, which carries more originality.
Subversion and propaganda?
Whenever I ordered foreign literature, consisting mostly of commercial and technical books, my staff had to submit them to the authorities for a review. The censors made sure my potentially dangerous material contained no hostile propaganda.
ABB, which had a strong presence in South Korea, made a faux pas when they began sending us their Korean-language literature from Seoul. They thought it would make more sense, since those books were written in Korean and were cheaper to send. But the authorities found glamorous photographs of their southern neighbor, which looked like counterrevolutionary propaganda: the high standard of living down there, they thought, was too good to be true. To get by them, we also had to remove ABB’s South Korean address and replace it instead with ABB’s Pyongyang address using stickers. The authorities noticed the tactic, but didn’t seem to care.
We had other awkward encounters with the ideology police, of course. I sometimes bumped into inspectors who arrived after 7:30 p.m. at our office, when I was not supposed to be around anymore. They weren’t naïve, but understood I was expecting them in the one-party state. Nevertheless, they came off as embarrassed, and that they instead preferred to review all of the foreign material in my absence. I let my Korean staff handle the matter with them behind closed doors in the meeting room. The inspectors were always upright with us, not veering into zealously from their set procedure. I respected them: they had a tough and rather invasive job, and just wanted to do it right.
Yet DHL Pyongyang always handed me private courier deliveries over the same day they arrived. In Vietnam, however, when I received a book, like one on Wild Life in East Africa sent by my mother for my birthday, DHL called me the day of the arrival and informed me that delivery would take another five days. The reason is that customs and “cultural control” procedures needed to be implemented. It’s one of the many examples the North Korean authorities surprised me with their much less bureaucratic and more pragmatic approach.
With my marketing and sales team, I put together these leaflets in 2007 informing doctors and pharmacists of our products. They were the first we published, and were subject to state approval. The funny part was that, while doctors in other countries were tired of being overfed with information by pharmaceutical companies, North Korea was just the opposite.
PyongSu was on a tight budget, so we had to choose a simple marketing approach. We did everything ourselves, a sort of Juche style of self sufficiency. To name one example, I advertised PyongSu Cetamol as drug of choice for moderate pain, including headaches and dysmenorrhea; alongside the message, I offered women advice on how to prevent or alleviate pain related to dysmenorrhea. To capture my target audience of female, I took some photographs of a waitress, pictures to the right, and turned her into our model. Leaflets were usually in Korean and some, like these, were also in English for foreign patients.
A few food aid workers in Pyongyang were put off by our style. “How can you recommend a more balanced diet for dysmenorrhea while the people suffer from a shortage of the most basic food?” one outraged NGO staffer asked me at the bar of the German embassy. The reason was more a conflict of interest because we worked in two vastly different fields, rather than a legitimate complaint. For one large line of products one of our target groups, consisting of middle class Pyongyangites, was different than those of the NGOs, who were offering food and health-care to the nation’s famished people. But not all North Koreans were ravenous. These customers fit into a wealthier demographic: since they could afford higher-priced pharmaceuticals, they could indeed take on a more balanced diet.
I wanted to display customer-friendly, informative printed posters in the “quality pharmacies,” both ours and selected partnering third party pharmacies, to positively differentiate ourselves from others. But the bureaucratic procedure was extremely lengthy and involved heavy inspections, since pharmacies were open to the public. Painted product information posters however were rather easy to hang up – considered politically much less sensitive compared to printed matter. I therefore had them painted by hand to more quickly circumvent the censors and get our messages out—as can be seen in this pharmacy shop.
At a café in Pyongyang that received German investment, my secretary and I enjoy a German Tchibo cappuccino with the German manager of a medical equipment company. Behind us, wall photos showed a happy German family enjoying their spare time on the Rhine River. After more than a year since putting up the pictures, they were removed and replaced by paintings showing Korean landscapes. German photos, apparently, carried the wrong propaganda message.
In any public ceremony, including PyongSu’s, the party reminded the Korean participants of their debts to the nation’s heroes. The above slogan is now used for Kim Jong Un.
Outside the DPRK, the government is embarking on thrusts of propaganda directed at overseas Koreans. Uriminzokkiri, which roughly means “on our own as a nation,” is the official website of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea in Pyongyang. It spread the message that the North Korean leadership is, according to its website, “guardian of the homeland and creator of happiness” for all Koreans. But under South Korea’s National Security Law, Uriminzokkiri was banned in an attempt to block communications in support of the North.
Another party-sponsored overseas group is the Committee for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries, which is charged with disseminating North Korea’s views around the globe. Unlike Uriminzokkiri, it’s aimed at non-Koreans. Through its Korea Friendship Association (KFA)—a body designed to give the committee’s views to foreigners—had a Spanish man named Alejandro Cao de Benos de Les y Pérez as its president, it is trying to foster constituencies abroad that are sympathetic to the plight of North Korea. Under Cao de Benos, the group does some business operations: it’s involved in attracting funding and foreign investment for North Korea, running a body in Pyongyang called the IKBC (International Korean Business Centre). KFA’s website calls itself “The Official Website of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea,” which a senior cadre from a competing state organization told me is “somewhat pretentious.”
A video by another organization featuring Pak Jin Jun, a beautiful student at Pyongyang Teacher’s University, went viral on the internet. Her message was clear: Whereas poverty and chaos reign in the capitalist West where people even kill themselves and die of hunger, the Korean socialist system guaranteed a life of happiness and serenity. The video showed her family, cheerfully clapping their hands and happily singing together at home. It is a masterpiece of North Korean propaganda worth watching.
The face of Juche
Over seven years, I hosted all sorts of visitors who were hoping for insight into the so-called “hermit state.” The Juche Tower was almost always on their wish list. After all, it was the world’s second tallest monumental column behind the San Jacinto Monument built in memory of the decisive battle of another revolution in the Western hemisphere, namely the Texas Revolution in 1836. Its towering height is, of course, symbolic of its influence over the lives of North Koreans.
Over the years, I’ve always been impressed by the wit and fluency of the English-language speaking tour guides at the tower. One pretty and affable young guide struck my attention: she graduated first at the Foreign Studies University, where she learned perfect English and sophisticated etiquette for dealing with foreigners. She must have been talented, or else she would not have received this job that is respected in North Korea.
I met her for the first time at the Juche Tower when she was a twenty-something university graduate. During another visit a few years later, she told me that she had happily been married. A couple of years later, I visited yet again, and she was gleeful that she recently gave birth to her first child. She was very ef
fective at her work communicating the ideas of Juche; never overzealous, she kept a relaxed demeanor and was fully convinced of what she was representing. Her self-confidence gave her an authoritative aura on all things Juche. Tourists asked her plenty of silly, embarrassing, and sometimes even provocative questions, but nobody could ever disturb her; she had the situation under control.
This new guide, fresh from the Foreign Studies University, welcomes visitors at the Juche Tower.
My tour guide and I have a chat at the top of the Juche Tower overlooking Pyongyang. In the background, the Taedong River is visible with the May Day stadium on its bank. Had there been “Miss Juche” elections in North Korea, all foreigners would have elected this lady as Miss Juche. Her dress turned from red into light blue, signifying that she had become a wife and mother.
This woman and her colleagues taught me a remarkable history of the monument: The 170-meter high tower, designed by Kim Jong Il himself, was built in 1982 on the occasion of the 70th birthday of his father, Kim Il Sung, the founder of the Juche idea. The government erected it on the eastern river bank of the Taedong River, opposite the Kim Il Sung Square in central Pyongyang. The structure contains a stunning 25,550 blocks, each representing a day of Kim Il Sung’s life. The slabs are dressed in white stone with seventy dividers, or lines on all four sides of the tower. The entire edifice is capped off with a 20-meter high, 45-ton torch that shines every night.
I happened, by the way, to meet the daughter of the man who donated this immense torch at a business meeting. The lady headed a successful business in Pyongyang and was involved in all sorts of endeavors, such as glasses, paintings, and restaurants. She proudly told me the story of her father and his contribution to this monument. He was a close comrade of the Great Leader Kim Il Sung, and waged guerrilla warfare alongside him and the rest of the party circles.
Visitors take an elevator to the top, where a balcony offers a 360 degree view of Pyongyang. It’s one of few places where they’re allowed to film and take pictures. North Koreans brag that the entire structure was erected at “Chollima” speed in only 35 days, and that it was dressed up in 76 days. In front of the tower sits more propaganda: a single, 30-meter high statue comprised of three figures. One man grasps a hammer, another holds a sickle, and the final one carries a writing brush. They represented the classes of the workers, the peasants and the intellectuals.
At the Juche tower, a stone was left on behalf of my predecessor, resident ABB country director André Reussner, who passed away in 2002 at a Bangkok hospital. The North Koreans removed the plaque when the ABB group downgraded its engagement with North Korea, a sort of pragmatic move for them.
North Korean painters reproduced an older propaganda painting, except they rendered myself as a doctor to represent PyongSu. It was part of an old business idea of mine to paint foreigners on North Korean propaganda posters, although the project never materialized. Notice the position of my head, which is lowered and makes me not fit in so well, while the North Korean figures stand triumphantly in front of the Juche Tower
The word Juche or Chuch’e literally means “main subject”. It often has been translated and interpreted as “independent stand” or “spirit of self-reliance” or “always putting Korean things first.” To my mind, the last one is the most accurate one. Kim Il Sung explained that the Juche idea is based on the belief that, in his word, “man is the master of everything and decides everything.” And of course, in Korea, man should always be Korean and never a foreigner.
In a nutshell, Juche was, according to Kim Il Sung, the “independence in politics, self-reliance in the economy, self-defense in the military.” Although Juche is the national ideology of North Korea, Kim Il Sung has also recommended it as a solution to developing countries. North Korea has been organizing international seminars on Juche since 1977.
North Korea rejects globalization as an imperialist plot to suppress other nations, and its overseas campaign recommends third-world solidarity instead: this self-sufficiency embodies the Juche Idea. This poster announced the “World Congress on the Juche Idea” in Pyongyang in 2012 where more than 500 Juche supporters from about 50 countries participated. None of these individuals were government representatives, but were simply left-leaning individuals acting on their own accord in North Korea.
North Koreans demonstrate their reverence for soldiers. In this case, the armed forces are waving to onlookers, who shout word “Kamsahamnida” (a formal way of saying thank you). The crowd is honoring the military for defending the country against foreign aggressors.
But as the new leaders shift priorities away from national security to economic development, Songun (military first) propaganda is being toned down. Kimilsungism and Kimjongilism, a mixture of socialist ideals and Juche nationalism, are being promoted instead.
After the death of Kim Jong Il in December 2011, the North Korean media swiftly heralded Kim Jong Un as the “great successor,” according to several news reports. Most importantly, the propaganda apparatus stated, the young Kim would uphold the Juche philosophy and the “Army first” policies, creating an uninterrupted line from his father’s rule.
Like both his grandfather and father, the press went along with the story that Jong Un descended indirectly from Mount Paekdu because his father was supposedly born there. That made him “the spiritual pillar and the lighthouse of hope” for all Koreans, according to all the state newspapers. The personality cult, it seemed, did not end with single personalities, but stretched across family lines.
A few days after the news broke, the managing director of a North Korean company operating in a Southeast Asian country sent me a letter that affirmed what I suspected. “I am now in great sadness to hear that our Great Leader has passed away,” he wrote, “but we will push ahead our work to build up a great powerful nation by upholding the wise leadership of our new Leader General Kim Jong Un according to the lofty will of our Great Leader General Kim Jong Il.”
The letter made it clear that he, like all North Koreans, understood that Kim Jong Un would be the undisputed successor. The fervor hasn’t wavered.
1 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/northkorea/7249849/North-Korea-secrets-and-lies.html
2 http://lucforsyth.com/tag/policy/
3 http://www.amazon.com/The-Impossible-State-North-Future/dp/0061998508
Chapter 4:
Healing the Great Leader’s Children
“Poverty is not socialism. To be rich is glorious.” — Deng Xiaoping
Working in Pyongyang’s pharmaceutical industry was full of daunting obstacles and headaches. By the second half of 2007, when the sales of our first few pharmaceuticals began rising, I noticed a sinister oddity in our success. One of our products skyrocketed to a level of popularity far beyond that of all other pharmaceuticals. The drug? Diazepam, a sedative used to treat anxiety and insomnia.
More eponymously, the tablet was known as Valium, launched by my former employer, Roche.
It is one of the most common drugs in the world and was put on the World’s Health Organization’s “Essential Drugs List,” meaning it was a core pharmaceutical needed for basic health care. But it is also believed to be one the world’s most abused pharmaceuticals.
Valium today is notorious for its addictive properties, and is also frequently ingested, together with alcohol or other substances, by people trying to commit suicide through an overdose. There’s no proof, though, that North Koreans in particular were abusing this drug because they were more depressed than other people around the world. Rather, their usage followed a worldwide trend.
I told the sales team that only patients with a prescription from a doctor could buy the product, and that we should regularly check if the pharmacies were following our directives. If they did not, we would not sell the product to them anymore. As a precaution, I later restricted the sales to our own pharmacies where we could directly oversee how the drug was handled.
But even that move wasn’t enough to smothe
r a potentially explosive situation. One day, I traversed with a Belgian pharmacist to the gift shop of the Pothonggang Hotel where I was shocked and embarrassed when I saw that our Diazepam was on sale. The visitor must have known that Diazepam was, according to the International Narcotics Control Board, a Schedule IV controlled drug that required vigilance when sold even with a prescription. But the tablets were sold here just like the snacks and the souvenirs!
I vividly imagined waking up to the foreign newspapers, with the headline: “In North Korea Valium is sold over the counter like chewing gum!” The risk that a foreign journalist would have seen this blunder in a hotel shop was high, because a large delegation of foreign reporters was in town around the same time. What a fantastic opportunity for a Western journalist to do some noisy North Korea bashing, I thought.
How would the government react? Would PyongSu be shut down and would I be kicked out of the country? Anything was possible. Every day, I googled the keywords “North Korea” and “Diazepam” to check up on whether somebody had written about it. Luckily, the poetic destruction of PyongSu never came.
That was my first run-in with a potential disaster, but others haven’t been so lucky dealing with the North Korean market. Over several years, a line-up of businesspeople tried and failed to set up a small medicinal tablet factory in Pyongyang, and even we had trouble keeping foreign talent in the country. A Filipino pharmacist gave up on this task, simply because he felt lonely in his hotel room. Then, a German production pharmacist stayed a few years but left. Both were experienced at setting up and running large production sites, but PyongSu’s situation turned desperate when the German pharmacist left for personal reasons.