A Capitalist in North Korea

by Felix Abt

  At present there are two operating lines, which is impressive when comparing it to, for instance, Singapore’s metro, which has the same number of lines. The first one is the Hyŏksin (Renovation) Line that spans about 10 kilometers from East to West Pyongyang. The Pyongyang metro is the only one in the world where stations are not carrying names in reference of a geographical location nearby, but to some important pillars of the socialist revolution such as renovation, victory or unity.

  The station Samhung (Three Origins), for example, stands for Kim Il Sung’s three goals of education: knowledge, morality and sport which the governmental Korean Central News Agency explained as follows: “A country can thrive when pupils grow up to be knowledgeable, morally impeccable, and physically strong.” In a country full of political symbolism, the Hyŏksin line wasn’t commissioned by chance in 1975. That year was the 30th anniversary of the founding of the Korean Workers’ Party.

  The second one, the Ch’ŏllima Line, was named after a very fast horse from ancient Korean mythology. It is about 12 km long, stretching from North to South Pyongyang. Its construction started in 1968, and the line was opened in 1973, which at the time was a far shorter time than usual in most countries. It took the capital of Thailand, Bangkok, with resources multiple times those of Pyongyang, seven years to build its 21-kilometer long metro underground, which opened in 2004.

  There was another reason for all the sophisticated but highly labor-intensive construction with little mechanization, according to the engineer Pang. “Last but not least and as you are well aware,” he proclaimed, “our country has been besieged for decades by hostile foreign forces. If these warmongers launch war again on us the Pyongyang Metro provides a good shelter for the population of Pyongyang.”

  A very busy Pyongyang metro gets even more hectic during the early morning and evening hours.

  I have repeatedly visited the Pyongyang Metro. But, like pretty much all other foreigners, I was allowed to travel only between, Puhŭng station on the banks of the Taedong river near the Pyongyang Cosmetics Factory towards Mangyongdae, Kim Il Sung’s birth place and the next station called Yongwang. I couldn’t embark alone, but rather with one or two staff. For me, a well-off expatriate, a one-way metro ride cost nothing as my staff paid for the ticket and refused to be refunded by me as, in their words, “it costs just peanuts.”

  They were right. For North Koreans, the trip cost a mere $0.003, making it affordable even on the country’s lowest salaries. Foreign students studying in Pyongyang were the luckiest of all groups. They got access to the whole metro free of charge as they, unlike me and other expatriates, had no car to move in the city, while taxis would have been out of reach given their tight budgets. It was a show of international solidarity with fraternal socialist or developing countries, where most students came from.

  When foreign tourists visited the two permitted stations of the Pyongyang Metro, they sometimes reported North Koreans as being better dressed in those areas than elsewhere in the city—as if a show was being staged for them. This could be a wrong impression based on their own stereotypes of traveling in North Korea. For example, I sometimes gave employees a lift in my car and dropped them at various stations that were off limits to outsiders; even in those, I never observed that passengers were dressed more nicely than at those stops visited by tourists. Neither did my employees change their clothing when they arrived at certain stations.

  It’s understandable why foreigners (with the exception of foreign students who are seen as having solidarity), who may be suspected as spies, cannot travel within most stations. The Pyongyang Metro is an object of national security, subject to utmost level of secretiveness imposed by the government. The subway gets this veil because it’s considered important for the defense of the country, a bomb shelter for Pyongyang residents in case of war. The state fears that foreigners will report this information back to hostile governments such as Japan and the US. The metro is even left off maps of Pyongyang.

  This metro car in Pyongyang is meticulously clean, devoid of the graffiti and advertising that plaster subways in New York and London. The flipside of this blessing, however, is that a loudspeaker blares out news and propaganda. Two portraits of the first two Kims, similar to those found in living rooms, are also visible.

  Arriving at the bottom of the Puhung station, which is the terminus station of the Chollima line towards the city’s south, the end of a corridor reveals thick, steel blast doors—confirming that the Metro is built dually as a bombing shelter. Newspapers are prominently displayed, in particular the Rodong Sinmun, and all advertising is absent.

  The Metro is not only a war refuge, but a haven where the party portrays the glorious history of the country and exploits of its leaders; this is because the metro itself is considered an outstanding exploit. The impressive mosaic “The Great Leader Kim Il Sung Among Workers,” a title that pretty much describes what’s happening in the picture, always grabbed my attention, along with the lavish chandeliers hanging from the ceiling.

  At the Yonggwang (Glory) Station, the architecture gave off a similar totalitarian but awe-striking aura. Huge pillars lined the area, displaying what looked like revolutionary victory torches and flames. The torch is a common motif in North Korea ranging from the “torch of Pochonbo” for Kim Il Sung’s 1937 guerilla raid on a town with that name, along with the “torch of Kangson” for the rapid industrialization and forced collectivization. Most familiar, though, is the “torch of Juche” for the victory of Kirn Il Sung’s independent stand and self-reliance ideology.

  A mosaic reveals a panorama of Chonji, or the Lake of Heaven on Mount Paektu, the mountain near the Chinese border considered to be the mythical cradle of the Korean people (Kim Jong Il was also said to be born there). In another area, a mural depicts the Tower of the Juche Idea in central Pyongyang.

  In 2004 I met by chance a railways engineer from the German company Siemens at a bar of a hotel in Pyongyang. He explained to me that the first rolling stock was new and was made in China. He mentioned that, later, second-hand trainsets were supplied mainly by formerly socialist German Democratic Republic (East Germany) as part of a countertrade deal.

  Locomotives made in North Korea here on display at an exhibition hall in Pyongyang. “We are looking for investors to build a modern factory for 1,000 locomotives,” Mr. Lee, a senior official from the railways ministry, told me. “Is that figure not too high?” I enquired?” “If there are locomotives left, we can export and sell them abroad!” Mr. Lee answered. It wasn’t clear to me how he did the math: To handle the passenger and cargo traffic volume multiple times larger than the total volume of North Korea’s in the world’s largest railway tunnel beneath the Swiss alps called Gotthard Base Tunnel (due to open in 2016) only 29 trains with locomotives were ordered.

  Pyongyang also runs a tram system that covers most areas where the metro doesn’t venture, such as the western and southern parts of the city. The standard-gauge lines, the classic style around the world, run along Pyongyang’s wide streets such as the Tongil (Reunification) Boulevard and Kwangbok (Independence) street. Kim Il Sung presented the first tram line, about 20 kilometers long, during his 79th birthday in 1991. As with most important construction projects, the Korean People’s Army took care of the construction.

  Needless to say, the tram lines were finished in a massive effort by thousands of soldier-builders that worked at what the government called “Chollima speed,” a reference to the lightning speed of a Chollima, or fast running horse from Korean mythology. The second tram line, 10 km long, was also finished in a timely manner and put into service a year later on Kim Il Sung’s 80th birthday. He died 2 years later at the age of 82. The Great Leader always attached great importance to public transport, at least in Pyongyang.

  A street car with a female driver moves in front of the Pyongyang Maternity Hospital. One January, when the streets were covered by snow and ice, I drove every day and at any time, once even at midnight, sometimes more than once a
day, by car to this hospital where my pregnant wife had to stay for a bleeding problem.

  It was an impressive place in a country that, surprisingly, has good medical facilities depending on where you go. Doctors and nurses took care of her extremely well. Her room was heated so well that she had to open the window from time to time. As the shower had only ice-cold water I brought thermos bottles every day. She could mix cold and hot water and have a warm shower.

  Trams in need of repair

  Thinking over all the pomp and circumstance displayed on trams and subways, I realized from watching television what it all meant. On TV shows, public transportation was a recurring motif, a symbol of progress of the socialist civilization. The regime used it to prove to the Koreans that the workers’ paradise had become reality, and that they could rely on the party for such efficient and cheap technologies that benefited all.

  The first trams had been purchased in 1990 in what was then communist Czechoslovakia, a set of 45 double-articulated ČKD/Tatra trams. Several hundred more followed in 1991, and then used cars from East Germany were commissioned. After the German reunification the trams in the formerly socialist East Germany were systematically replaced by new, modern trams. The used trams were meant to be sold to the highest bidder or to be disposed of.

  There was considerable interest in these trams. But the German subsidiary of my first employer, the ABB group, lobbied hard against strong competition, and successfully got hold of them free of charge. They figured it was cheaper to give the rolling stock away free of charge than to properly dismantle them. Therefore, ABB did not need to convince the German government to give them away, but rather the company had to show authorities it had a better purpose for these trams in a country that desperately needed them.

  An ABB division then specialized in producing locomotives, train motors and drives for trains, launched a sort of public relations offensive to get a first foot into this isolated market, a strategy explained to me by Dr. Klaus Wilhelm, a senior executive at ABB Germany in charge of business development. Before dispatching the trams, he ordered the company logo to be prominently displayed in their interiors. The strategy, unfortunately, didn’t work: ABB was disappointed to learn that all logos were removed when they arrived in Pyongyang.

  While the metro runs from 5.30 am till 10 pm, street cars and buses continue from 6 am till 10 pm. Even then, a tram arrives every thirty minutes till late at night when the metro is already closed.

  Pyongyang’s trolley buses were definitely aging and sometimes didn’t operate well. But North Koreans don’t loathe this inevitable process. The constant scarcity of resources made North Koreans frugal people, cultivating the long working life of their tools. Stars were painted on buses, trucks and trolley buses to mark every 50,000 kilometers of service, a sort of award for longevity. Occasionally, I saw buses with 50 stars—signifying a superb 2.5 million kilometers of service, or 63 times the distance around the globe.

  These old rusty vehicles wheezed along the streets. Pictured, passengers get off one of the blue trolley buses that was to be replaced on the 100th birthday of Kim Il Sung in 2012.

  Thanks to the rapid development of North Korea’s neighbor, China, the city’s public transportation became brighter and more colorful. Pyongyang saw the benefits in 2005, when it was granted dozens of used Chinese single and double-decker buses, free of charge, in a wide range of colors including pink, green, tangerine and dark blue.

  During rush hour, passengers form a long and orderly line, reflecting the rank-and-file realities of everyday life.

  The PyongSu company bus at the factory building, which cut down travel time and costs for employees. It thus freed up their time to allow for more productivity and rest.

  At PyongSu, our resources were extremely tight, meaning I could afford to purchase a bus in China at a low price. With the low costs came a caveat: the bus didn’t offer sufficient heating during harsh winters, and no air-conditioning during the very hot summer days. Nevertheless, it was a step forward, making our staff less tired and allowing them to spend a few hours more with their families. Still, I regret not buying a bus with these modern amenities that are considered “normal” anywhere else. My laborers deserved these perks.

  For the sales team that had to move to hospitals, clinics and pharmacies I intended to buy motorbikes. But all of them were females who were not allowed to drive motorbikes in the same way they couldn’t ride bicycles. I abandoned the idea and instead made a tightly coordinated visiting schedule for them. I hired a minibus to pick them up and drop them off at the visiting points.

  Finding good transportation was demanding and a headache. We had to take into account a large number of parameters, such as closeness to hospitals and density of the population in a targeted area. When our then-new company became known to the most sought-after doctors and pharmacists, I freed up resources by reducing promotions in hospitals, and shifted the marketing side predominantly to pharmacies. From there on, a sales person—who was usually a trained medical doctor or a pharmacist—could stay in one pharmacy for several hours observing customers, training pharmacy staff and helping them sell products.

  Our transportation and logistics became more straightforward as we became familiar with these pharmaceutical practices. In addition, the health authorities and our staff were relieved when we gave up on the state-owned hospitals. We were the only company—and, to complicate matters, a foreign and North Korean joint venture that promoted new therapies and pharmaceuticals.

  In 2006 the state closed a Chinese-run pharmacy that sold medicine at the entrance of a hospital. It was threatened by the challenge of a privately-run pharmacy to the socialist public health system. We considered the move a clear warning to limit our activities, and our re-adjustment did not come too late.

  No traffic crosses the imposing Rungna bridge over the Taedong River. Public transportation was minimal and state-owned vehicles were not allowed to be used on Sundays to save electricity and petrol. Everybody was crossing the bridge on foot on Sundays. Deceptive foreigners sometimes took pictures on Sundays, reporting back home that there are no vehicles on the streets of impoverished Pyongyang. On the other hand, tourists on a visit at a weekend during an important national holiday when, exceptionally, there are plenty of buses and cars on Pyongyang’s streets—in any case more than on any other day of the year—took videos of the street traffic. They uploaded them on YouTube to “prove” that Pyongyang has much more traffic than in the past.

  Chapter 12:

  Partying, Pyongyang-style

  “Great ideology creates great times.” — Kim Jong Il

  While living in Africa in the early 1990s, I travelled extensively through the west and center of the continent as regional director of a multinational group. I witnessed all sorts of famine, civil war, ethnic violence, violence against women, and street crimes. My house in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, where the company had its regional headquarters, was surrounded by high walls and armed guards.

  I was advised by the local police to wake up at a different hour every morning, and to take different routes to my office for safety reasons. But one night at 8 pm, when I dropped a customer off at a lively street on my way home, three thugs forced their way into my car and forced me at gun point to drive out of Abidjan. Driving down the streets, we passed civilian and military police commandos, heavily armed with machine guns.

  I was afraid of the police more than the gangsters, because if law enforcement saw any criminals, they could shoot indiscriminately regardless of my presence. We finally arrived at a forest where I had to leave my car, wallet, watch, glasses and clothes, except for my underpants. I was happy they let me go without shooting me. Others haven’t been so lucky.

  Because of experiences like these, I understand that the problems that afflict North Korea are nothing compared to the misery in other parts of the world. Therefore, I cannot believe the prestigious British magazine, The Economist, when in August 2012 it declared North Korea “the wor
st place on earth.” The country has toughed through serious conundrums in the 1990s, but this judgment is unfair and patronizing to the North Korean people, who have been stonewalled by the international community. North Koreans have learned to make do with what they have, and many of them are happy despite their meager lives.

  High times in Pyongyang

  At a young age, North Koreans learn to sing, and love to do so their entire lives. They even greet foreigners at farms and factories by singing national themes as a choir. This is quite embarrassing for foreigners, who aren’t trained to sing equally well when they are asked to sing in turn. Restaurants are also full of highly popular karaoke rooms. Of course, there are a number of good restaurants besides the many dysfunctional ones that lacked funding. Despite the electricity blackouts, they’re open until 10 or 11 p.m. or, sometimes, as long as guests are wining and dining.

  From Western-style fast food restaurants to luxurious and traditional Korean restaurants, Pyongyang has enough restaurants to cater for any preferences and for those who can afford it. But be prepared: power-cuts in the middle of dinner lead to impromptu candle-lit meals.

  In high-end North Korean restaurants in Pyongyang and overseas in China, Thailand, Russia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the main attracts are the waitresses, who are graduates from the rigorous Pyongyang University of Music and Dance. They are selected for their beauty, grace, singing skills and usually master at least one musical instrument. Looking splendid in their traditional Korean dresses, “they seem to hover as they glide between tables, effortlessly serving customers or serenading them from the stage or floor”, as a foreign journalist described them. I took these pictures in two different North Korean restaurants in China.