All Monsters Must Die

by Magnus Bärtås

  As we shuffle down the gangplank, Mr. Song laughs and says we look as humbled as the Pueblo’s crew when they were taken off the ship. We laugh with him; we’re part of his gang now. We casually ask if it’s true that there are only five acceptable haircuts for men. We read an article about it and saw a video from North Korean television posted on YouTube called “Let’s trim our hair in accordance with the socialist lifestyle.” In the video, people with unacceptable haircuts are secretly filmed on the street, and those who have crossed the line with wisps of hair hanging down the backs of their necks are stopped and questioned. Hairstyles like these are detrimental to human intelligence, the host proclaims. Long hair leaches nutrients, which leads to the brain being drained of energy. The ideal length is one and a half centimetres at the back of the head and five centimetres at the crown. Older men can have up to seven centimetres of hair to comb over a bald spot.

  Mr. Song stiffens and looks worried. He wonders where we’ve gotten that information from. He asks if the article mentioned the punishment for having the wrong haircut.

  LUNCH IS SERVED on a boat that sails slowly along the Taedong River. It’s the best lunch yet. A large catfish is surrounded by kimchi and pickled radishes. We end up next to the Bromma boys, who tell us about their interest in travel — an interest that we soon learn leans toward shock tourism. They’ve come to North Korea via the Mongolian-Manchurian steppe and Beijing. After North Korea they are going on a guided tour of Afghanistan, where they’ll travel in a convoy of armoured vehicles on the trail of known war sites. We tell them we’ve been to Iraq and one of them asks: “Do you have any tips?”

  After the excellent meal, the group’s energy is renewed and some of us start to take liberties again. Oksana has gone exploring along the river. Ms. Kim is on the verge of tears but the wind whisks away her words. Elias bombards Mr. Song with questions that he doesn’t want to answer. When they finally manage to get the group back together, we are herded a couple hundred metres up to Kim Il-sung Square.

  Mr. Song suddenly starts speaking crisply: “It’s hard to explain to you, but we have different priorities in this country. After the famine in the mid-nineties, which was the result of a combination of floods and drought along with the American imperialists’ trade embargo, we realized that we had to protect our country at all costs and fend for ourselves. From 1988 on, our new politics have been called Songun Chongchi. This means the military comes before all else: before the other citizens, before healthcare and everything else. Previously, the workers were the most important group; but if the workers can’t defend themselves against the imperialists, everything will fall apart. So now we say, ‘Military First.’”

  Mr. Song doesn’t say anything else about the hierarchy of the rest of the population. But the distribution of aid by international organizations during the second half of the 1990s illustrated how each level of North Korean society is valued according to their degree of usefulness. When Oxfam, Doctors Without Borders, and Doctors of the World realized how cynical the system of distribution was, they left the country.

  In North Korea, the population is divided into classes, like a modern caste system organized around people’s genealogy. A person’s place in the class system is finite; it not only determines food rations but where you live, your career, your privileges, and your general standard of living.

  The highest echelon — the “core” class — is made up of members of the Workers’ Party of Korea. In the next group are workers, farmers, engineers, teachers, and regular soldiers. This category is called the “wavering” class. The lowest level, the “hostile” class, is made up of fifty-one under-classes, which include, among others: relatives of people who collaborated with the Japanese before 1945, political prisoners, and dissidents. Intellectuals who were forced to come to North Korea during the Korean War, shamans, clairvoyants, and descendants of gisaeng (the Korean equivalent of geishas) are also included. One of the lower castes is called kotchebi (“swallows”) and is made up of orphaned children and youth. The swallows flit through cities in search of food and form criminal gangs to support themselves by pickpocketing.

  Class is determined by the bloodline rule that Kim Il-sung established in 1972. This edict can be traced back to a Confucian tradition: a person is responsible for the last three generations of his ancestors. “Factionalists or enemies of class, whoever they are,” said the leader, “their seed must be eliminated through three generations.”

  Between 1995 and 1998, starvation aided this eradication. Mr. Song talks about floods, drought, and trade embargoes as reasons for the catastrophe, but in a functioning society 5 to 10 percent of the population does not die because of difficult weather conditions. In Barbara Demick’s book Nothing to Envy, a defector who was a teacher in Chongjin recounts how several of her five- and six-year-old students died of starvation during these years, yet she was still expected to get the children to praise the leader every day. Mr. Song doesn’t mention any of this, but an older guide in another group told a tourist the other day that his son died during the famine — and this tragic statement was shocking for its candour.

  It’s hard to understand how an industrialized society that had achieved some level of prosperity could fall so fast. Insight into what actually happened has only recently come to light through the stories of defectors. In This is Paradise!: My North Korean Childhood, Hyok Kang gives an eyewitness account of how the famine mercilessly ravaged her classmates:

  The poorest lived on nothing but grass, and during class their stomachs rumbled. After a few weeks their faces began to swell, making them look well nourished. Then their faces went on growing until they looked as though they had been inflated. Their cheeks were so puffy that their view was impeded, and they couldn’t see the blackboard. Some of them were covered with impetigo and flaking skin.

  As time passed, there were fewer and fewer of us sitting at the school desks.

  When the economy collapsed in 1995, the strict social code that held citizens in the state’s iron grip relaxed. People stopped going to work, and workplaces were looted of supplies and equipment that could be traded for food. Defectors have told stories of soldiers roaming the city streets and countryside in search of something to eat, how they robbed civilians and got into shoot-outs with the police, and how corpses were left on the stairs of train stations. In his autobiography Hwang Jang-yop, the creator of Juche Thought, testifies that during the worst period cannibalism was rife and human flesh was sold on the black market as “beef.” It’s possible that the assertion of widespread cannibalism is exaggerated, even if most North Korea experts agree that it did occur.

  AFTER MR. SONG’S sudden disclosure about military-first politics, we are taken to Warehouse No. 1, a store exclusively for tourists, which is a relatively new thing in Pyongyang. You can buy ginseng, paintings, porcelain figurines, and a number of beauty products. Ari takes pictures of everything. Andrei is drawn to the liquids like a divining rod. With his slightly turbid eyes, he scrutinizes the containers. He spends a long time holding a bottle of alcohol containing a dead snake. He meets the animal’s gaze through the glass.

  We buy Kaesong Koryo Insam–brand face cream and aftershave, which is spiked with ginseng root. The brochure explains that the creams are good for the brain’s health, for the heart, and for the blood vessels. Moreover, the brochure clarifies, the cream is nothing short of a miracle. It protects against cancer, radiation poisoning, and AIDS.

  * * *

  BY 1983, CHOI EUN-HEE had been in North Korea for five years. For the last four, she hadn’t been invited to the Friday parties in the palace. But one day she received another invitation.

  It was the sixth of March. It turned out to be an enormous banquet with over one hundred guests and magnificent floral arrangements. Madame Choi was the guest of honour and Kim Jong-il was unusually animated. He delivered a speech in which he christened her the mother of North Korea, mother of Joseon. H
e said that Korea was made up of a people with the same history and the same culture.

  Then the impossible happened. Her ex-husband, Shin Sang-ok, arrived, surrounded by dignitaries. Madame Choi stood and stared at Shin, and all the party guests stared too.

  Finally, Kim Jong-il exclaimed: “Why are you standing there? Go on, give each other a hug!”

  The guests applauded.

  Kim Jong-il then turned to Shin. “Comrade, we would like you to elevate our film industry. From here on you will be our official adviser.”

  Fresh applause. Kim Jong-il continued: “Let’s arrange a wedding for you two. The fifteenth of April, the Great Leader’s birthday.”

  More applause.

  Kim Jong-il had held Madame Choi prisoner and nearly drained the life from Shin. Now he was crowning them king and queen of the North Korean film industry and had put himself in charge of planning their wedding, even though they were divorced.

  When they sat down, Kim Jong-il took Shin’s hand, placed it on his knee, and squeezed it.

  “I’m sorry for having caused you so much agony. But no one has touched a hair on Madame Choi’s head. Now I’m returning her to you exactly as she was. Mr. Shin, we Communists are pure, isn’t that so, comrade?”

  The surrounding guests mumbled approvingly. The cognac flowed, and the party lasted until three in the morning.

  SHIN WAS DEEPLY weary. After his escape attempt, he had been locked in the isolation cell, where it was impossible to lay down. The prison was a panopticon, which made it possible for the guards to always keep an eye on him. As soon as he tried to shift into a new position, they screamed at him. This was supposed to cleanse him of his sins against Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il. He stared at the stone wall and thought about film — about films that had already been made and about future films. He thought about the film about Genghis Khan that he wanted to make. That was what kept him alive.

  AFTER BEING REUNITED with Madame Choi, Shin was put on a two-week revitalization program of herbal medicines. Like Choi, he had to go through ideological re-­education. Shin was back in shape by October, and he quickly began working in high gear, just like the good old days in South Korea.

  Miraculously, Shin Films was resurrected in North Korea, and on a much grander scale. The couple was given an enormous budget, and a film studio was built outside of Pyongyang for them, in addition to the existing Korean Film Studio. They also had unlimited access to extras.

  Soon, the film studio had nearly 1,800 employees. But the first feature produced by Shin in North Korea was filmed in Prague. An Emissary of No Return (Doraoji annu milsa) was the first North Korean film to be shot outside the country. It tells the story of the diplomat Yi Jun, one of the greatest heroes and martyrs of the resistance to the Japanese occupation. Prague is supposed to represent The Hague, where Yi Jun tried to reverse the 1905 treaty that placed Korea under Japanese rule. For the first time, a North Korean film featured Westerners — both in major roles and as extras. Before then, Westerners had been played by North Koreans, who dyed their hair blond.

  The next films on the slate were all made that same year (1984), and were shot in the studio lot: the musical Love, Love, My Love (Sarang sarang nae sarang) and the historical drama Runaway (Talchugi). In one scene in Runaway, Shin wanted to show the anti-Japanese guerillas blowing up a train with dynamite. But instead of building models and using special effects, the authorities gave him an actual train that he could explode on camera.

  By now, Shin and Choi were sleeping only three or four hours a night. In a way, they were happy again.

  * * *

  ANOTHER MONUMENT IS on the itinerary for the afternoon: the Mansu Hill Grand Monument, where a statue of Kim Il-sung, twenty-two and a half metres tall, gazes out over Pyongyang. Behind it, on the wall of the Korean Revolution Museum, is a mosaic that depicts the snow-clad holy revolutionary mountain. We obediently line up again and bow. Elias starts waving to the people, his right hand moving like a propeller. The German North Korean sympathizers arrive with their crocheted vests and beards. None of them greet us.

  Mr. Song takes us aside and says in a low voice: “Look at my haircut: a normal, simple centre parting. You see that a lot in North Korea. Nothing strange here.”

  He explains that North Koreans have better hair growth than Westerners; that they rarely lose their hair, don’t go grey, that it grows quickly, and that they have to cut it often. When we’re back on the bus we look around at the nineteen other men in our group. Seven are more or less bald; three have significantly thinning hair. And all nineteen are under the age of forty.

  Mr. Song is right.

  AFTER THE MONUMENT, we are taken to the flower show to admire Kimjongilia and Kimilsungia, blossoms named after the leaders. The first is a blood-red begonia developed by a Japanese botanist; the other is a violet orchid, a gift from Indonesia’s President Sukarno when both Kims were visiting in 1965 — the only known occasion that either of North Korea’s leaders used a plane to leave the country. Since the trip to Indonesia, the flower has been diligently cultivated. Kimjongilia is said to represent love, justice, wisdom, and peace — words that don’t necessarily spring to mind when thinking about Kim Jong-il.

  It turns out the weekly flower show is a huge attraction. Arrangements adorned with light and water features shimmer and bubble. There are colourful installations with models of Pyongyang’s famous monuments surrounded by flowers. Paintings of Mount Baekdu in different seasons provide the backdrop. Young women in uniforms and families pose for pictures in front of the arrangements. Most people are in brown Home Guard uniforms. Women have bangs and shoulder-length hair that is combed back and fixed in place with the regulation cap. The jackets nip in at the waist.

  Women pose, smiling, carefully made up. Over the years, make-up has been one of the few products that North Korean women are able to buy. Cosmetics for women and tobacco for men. The feminine ideal is to be pale and slim; eyebrows are plucked and filled in, and lips are painted red and lined with a contouring pencil.

  In Illusive Utopia, Kim Suk-young describes North Korea as “a fashion-conscious nation.” She means that the design of the uniforms is part of the body politics — that is, part of the aesthetic formation of the nation. It’s prescriptive down to the last detail, and it permeates everything from the mass games, parades, theatre, opera, and film to people’s everyday clothing. What makes North Korean uniforms unique, she says, is the accentuation of the feminine. She compares them to Chinese revolutionary uniforms, which strove to nullify the differences between the sexes. North Korea went in the other direction, choosing to enhance Woman as a dualistic character. Traditional, virtuous clothing has been preserved and complemented with uniforms that style women as both feminine and military. And the North Korean body politic is an extension of the ruling dynasty’s own aesthetic preferences. The leaders visit textile factories, examining fabrics and feeling their quality; they study street life in Pyongyang and give detailed orders about the manufacturing of high heels. At parades, women carry automatic weapons and wear slinky knee-length skirts and tall boots while marching in synchrony, legs lifted high.

  The female traffic officers in Pyongyang express the same aesthetic ideal. Their employment contract is like that of a modelling agency. In addition to being beautiful, they have to be at least five feet, three inches tall and unmarried. They are drilled in behaviour and choreography, and the state supplies them with make-up. They have four uniforms, one for each season. During the cold winter of 2005, Kim Jong-il personally saw to it that they were given extra-thick cotton underwear, according to a traffic cop who was interviewed in a Chinese newspaper. Whether Kim Jong-il actually got involved — he is known for being a micromanager — or it’s just the North Korean way of speaking, where everything is thanks to the leader, is hard to say.

  North Korea even has its own unique fabric. Made from limestone and anthracite, Vinalon,
or “Juche fibre” as the product is also called, was invented by the North Korean chemist Ri Sung-gi in the 1930s, while he was still living in Japan. (He returned to Korea of his own volition during the Korean War.) Full-scale manufacturing began in 1961 under the slogan: “Vinalon is the solution to the clothing problem.” Kim Il-sung was excited about this operation, not least because one of its by-products could be used in the manufacturing of chemical weapons, including tear gas, mustard gas, and a poisonous gas that is absorbed by the blood. For a time, most things in North Korea were made of Vinalon. As North Korea expert Bertil Lintner says in Great Leader, Dear Leader : They “wake up under their Vinalon quilts and have to put on their Vinalon suits, caps, and canvas shoes before going to work.”

  MADAME AND SHIN experienced at first hand how clothing was governed from the top down in the fashion-conscious nation. In their joint memoir, they recount the order to wear a hat in the beginning of the 1980s: “The instructions from the Party were religiously followed, so everyone started putting something on their head. Some women wore Western-style hats with a large shade and other women wore hats with ear covers resembling children’s hats, all while wearing modified joseonots.” On another occasion, when Kim Il-sung had just come home from a trip to Eastern Europe, a message was relayed that men should wear ties. “The next day, everyone was wearing a tie regardless of whether it matched their other clothes or not. People who did not have a dress shirt still wore a tie on top of collarless shirts. From then on, party members and office workers put aside their Mao suits and started to wear ties at work. But Kim Jong-il insisted on wearing a Mao suit.”

  Kim Jong-il was also deeply involved with Madame’s private wardrobe. Rather early on during her imprisonment, he sent her fifty or so boxes of fabric and clothing. There was cashmere for coats, silk for Korean dresses, thin veils, velvet for evening dresses, and three mink coats. Almost every day he sent her boots, hats, and gloves. One of the boxes was filled with make-up. Madame got chills when she saw that all the cosmetics were from her favourite brand. She must have been watched and studied over for a long period of time before the kidnapping.