North Korea, Chapter 2: A Cat Can Look at a King

August 3, 2008

This morning we get to peer, quite literally, at the cold, dark heart of North Korea: We are going to Kumsusan Memorial Palace to view the glass-encased, preserved corpse of the departed "Great Leader."

The theatrics involved in this pilgrimage are intense—starting with the donning of neckties (they're required for the men in our group). Arriving by bus, we find we are far outnumbered by thousands of North Koreans who are coming via streetcar—women in colorful traditional garb, men in matching dark blue polyester pants and shirts, young military recruits in too-big uniforms and hats that nearly swallow their delicate heads. Mr. Kim, one of our guides/minders, says Pyongyangites typically will visit Kumsusan once a year on excursions organized by their work units or clubs. It is no overstatement to say this is hallowed ground for the North Korean regime; one official brochure describes it as a "glorious temple."

From a staging area of covered walkways between the train tracks and the parking lot, we can see the mausoleum in the distance. It is an enormous grey stone structure, surrounded by a moat and with a vast plaza stretched out in front. "Kim Il Sung Will Be With Us Always!" read large signs on either end of the plaza.

We line up four abreast and proceed, perhaps not quite as orderly or as reverently as our guides would have liked, into the first of five or six very lengthy corridors outfitted with airport-style moving walkways and short escalators. The walkways move painfully slowly, but actually walking on the moving walkways is apparently verboten, and walking on the hallway separating the "to" and "from" moving walkways, our guide indicates, is completely out of the question. So we stand on the people-movers and are transported ever so slowly, over 1,000 meters, toward the main attraction. At one point we are "wanded" by security guards.

 

Disembarking from the last moving walkway, we are led over a shoe-cleaning device that is outfitted with green bristles and moist pads to remove dirt from our soles. Then, after surrendering our cameras and even our pocketbooks to the cloakroom girls, we are ushered through a set of huge, ornate doors into a hall lined with grey marble. There is nothing in the cavernous room except, at the far end, a towering, lily-white statue of Kim Il Sung. The Great Leader stands perhaps 20 or 25 feet high, against a backdrop of soft blue and orangy-pink lighting, as if he were the sun itself, rising. (Or is it setting?) Soft music is playing. I think we are supposed to bow before the colossal icon, but I'm too busy gawking to adhere to protocol.

 

Crossing through another massive room lined with grey marble and dominated by a massive staircase, we are taken into the "Hall of Lamentation." Attendants hand us small Sony audio recorders with a taped English message about the death of Kim Il Sung on July 7, 1994, right here in this very building--his former home and office. According to one official brochure, this is the building where Kim Il Sung "resolved with keen insight all problems, big or small, that arose in achieving the Korean people's cause for socialist construction and national reunification...[and] guided important meetings, formulated and published the lines and policies of the Party and the state, and directed the great politics of human love."

The great politics of human love?

The Great Leader, the official story goes, was burning the midnight oil, toiling at his desk at 2 a.m. on behalf of his people when he was stricken. The narrator's tremulous voice tells of the "inconsolable grief of the Korean people," who became almost "lifeless" upon learning of the tragedy. The poured out their sorrow here in this hall, where his body lay in state, and their tears "fossilized" in the floor, which explains, the voice says, why the black marble sparkles today. Kim Il Sung, the voice continues gravely, was "sent from heaven" and will live for eternity. When Kim Jong Il heard the "ardent" appeals of the public, he made the glorious decision to turn the building into a mausoleum. So the windows were bricked up and vast sums were spent remodeling the interior, adding the people-movers and the shoe-cleaners and whatnot. All, of course, as the country was plunging into a deep famine that killed three million people, according to some estimates, and left untold others eating grass, acorns and tree bark. This goes unmentioned.

 

After that buildup, we prepare to enter the inner sanctum. To reach it, we must first pass through what looks like a bank of four elevators or the entry to Star Tours at Disneyland. We step into the small space, and suddenly high-powered air jets fire strong bursts of wind over our entire bodies--dislodging any specks of dandruff or lint that might, mon dieu, fall upon the floor where the Great Leader rests.

 

Thus blow-dried to an acceptable level of cleanliness, we file into a dimly lit, silent cube of a room, stretching perhaps 30 feet tall and paneled in black marble. Uplights cast a deep red glow into the vaulted ceiling. Guards are posted at each corner. The corpse of Kim Il Sung, dressed in suit, lies in a clear box, his illuminated body covered from the shoulders down by a crimson cloth and his waxy-looking head propped up on a white cylindrical pillow. The procession begins from his feet (bow once), stops at his right elbow (another bow), then at his head (no bow here, unclear why), and lastly at his left elbow (final bow). Some women, grasping kleenex, let out small sniffles. Art, one of my fellow travelers who grew up in communist Poland, dismisses them. "Crocodile tears," he said. "They made me cry too, for Stalin."

 

Like a meal with one too many courses, the tour continues into a room lined with display cases filled with medals, proclamations and honorary degrees conferred upon Kim Il Sung by obscure universities and backwater African dictatorships. Large photos of Kim with nefarious personages of the 20th century--Yasser Arafat, Moamaar Kadafi, Haile Selassie--adorn the walls. Lastly, we are shown Kim's personal train car and black Mercedes, parked in front of a huge electronic map illustrating, with multicolored lights, all the trips Kim took by train and plane, domestically and internationally, by year, down to the very last kilometer.

The presentation is so overwhelming, so mind-blowing, that I am actually happy to spend 20 minutes reversing course on the tortoise-like moving walkways, because it gives me a little time to start digesting what I have just seen. Of course, as we are leaving, more crowds are being transported in, and I search  their faces, looking for clues about what they are thinking about the whole experience. Are they impressed, as they are supposed to be? Do they see it as an elaborate charade? Are they simply happy to have a day off from work? After a while, some of us begin an impromptu game: Make the North Koreans smile. We  grin and wave, and even say Annyeong Hashimnika --hello or good morning--in Korean, and see what reactions we can elicit. We get strong responses--lots of waves and smiles back--from younger people, particularly women and teenage girls.

It is a relief: I come away with a little faith that one-to-one, human-to-human contact might still be able to overcome the pablum our leaders feed us.

 

Notes on photos: Pictures of moving walkways, Kim Il Sung statue, awards room and train from KOREA  PICTORIAL, Pyongyang, DPRK, 1997. All other photos by Julie Makinen and traveling companions.