All Monsters Must Die (2 page)

DAY 1

To Pyongyang

SEPTEMBER 2008. THIRTY
years have passed since Choi Eun-hee and Shin Sang-ok were kidnapped, and sixty years since North Korea became a nation. We have taken our seats on the plane at Beijing Capital International Airport, en route to Pyongyang. Small screens fold down from the ceiling. An air hostess wearing a ruby-red uniform appears on the screens, multiplies. She welcomes us aboard this Air Koryo flight, bows, and says the journey will be run on Juche
-
power. Then she thanks “the Great Leader Kim Il-sung” and smiles broadly.

We look down at the magazine that has been handed out instead of the usual duty-free shopping catalogue. The cover shows a large, futuristic city in soft pastel colours — there are pistachio and pink façades, light ochre- and umber-coloured skyscrapers. Pyongyang. Here greenery is shown among the houses; there is a river and a perfect bridge. In the foreground, three smiling generations of North Koreans are looking up and beyond the border of the frame.

The magazine was published in the year 97. We are on our way to a parallel universe with a different calendar.

INSIDE THE MAGAZINE
we are served up an image of the world that is totally divorced from the one we are accustomed to. Here are reports on North Korea's successful goat farmers, recently completed cinemas, idyllic villages. Public healthcare has led to seventy- and eighty-year-old North Korean men running marathons and performing onstage. All thanks to the leader Kim Jong-il, and not least for the miraculous mineral water from Ryongkasan, which is superior to all other mineral water found around the world and even cures catarrh of the colon.

In an article on the fishing industry there are pictures of a trawler and wooden boats where the nets are pulled up by hand. In one picture of a harbour, there are four trucks in an almost too-perfect row. When you look more closely you see that it's the same polished truck, multiplied.

It's not all peachy in the magazine. One piece of reportage discusses long-range missiles, submarines armed with atomic weapons, and tens of thousands of South Korean and American soldiers who have mobilized in the South under the pretense of military exercises. These drills are in fact practice for a future attack on North Korea.

THE LANDING STRIP
at Pyongyang Sunan International Airport is enormous. The terminal isn't as grand. Once we get inside, a
VIP
lane is immediately created for the Cuban ambassador and his wife. When we leave the terminal we see a pair of black Mercedes together with a welcoming committee holding flower arrangements for the Cuban emissary.

Being part of an organized tourist trip is the only way for us to get into North Korea. You can't travel on your own, and you can't be a journalist or an author — but you can be an artist. Our previous books, we had explained during the visa process in Stockholm, are exclusively about art, and the functionaries at the North Korean embassy were satisfied with this. And so we were granted permission to take an eight-day grand tour of Pyongyang and the countryside. The schedule is packed: Panmunjom, Kaesong, Baekdu Mountain, and other places of which we have only vague notions.

We form a crowd of pale Westerners — we are all young or middle-aged men with the exception of Oksana, a Ukrainian woman with a long ponytail who lives and works in South Korea. Our cell phones are confiscated by a guide, who puts them all in a plastic bag that is taped tightly until it becomes a big plastic cocoon. Our passports are also collected.

The chartered bus sets out on the wide, tree-lined avenues toward Pyongyang. On board is the group of people with whom we'll be forced to spend the next eight days, from early in the morning to late at night. Our every step will be monitored and we'll be herded back together as soon as anyone ventures a few steps in the wrong direction or lags behind. There are twenty-two of us, including two young Swedish farmers from Värmland, a district in the western countryside; three even younger men from the posh Stockholm suburb of Bromma, wearing brightly coloured polo shirts; a very large and well-built Swiss man called Bruno; a Swedish fighter pilot, who strangely enough was given a visa in spite of his military post; a happy, bald Norwegian named Trond; a tattooed baker of Czech heritage; Andrei, a wiry Russian chemist; a Gothenburger called Nils who lives in Minsk; a Ukrainian wearing camouflage pants who is Oksana's colleague in South Korea; and Ari, a Dutch
KLM
employee. Elias, who is the youngest in the group, sat next to us on the plane. He was immersed in maps and took frantic notes. We thought he was writing in code, but when he saw us looking at his notebook he explained that he isn't used to writing by hand — he grew up with computers. North Korea has been a consuming interest for him since he was thirteen. Now he's barely twenty and this is the journey of his life. His eyes shine when he sees the rice paddies glinting beyond the avenues.

The guides introduce themselves as Mr. Song and Ms. Kim. Ms. Kim speaks Russian when addressing the chemist, the only one in the group who doesn't understand English and who is taking his first-ever trip abroad. Ms. Kim is twenty-one but she could just as well be fourteen, going by her looks. She wears a pink dress with slightly padded shoulders. Mr. Song, a small man with a centre parting and gummy smile, and wearing a short-sleeved white shirt and suit pants, is just a few years older than Ms. Kim. He is in charge.

He begins by listing a number of simple housekeeping rules: we are never allowed to leave the group of our own volition; we are not allowed to take pictures without asking; we should show respect to the people we meet; we should also show respect to photographs of Kim Il-sung, the departed father of Kim Jong-il. We are absolutely not allowed to fold the airplane magazine, sit on it, or throw it away because it contains Kim Il-sung's portrait. On second thought, it's probably best that he collects the magazines before any accidents happen.

North Korea can be called the world's only necrocracy — a country that is officially run by a deceased person. In July 1994, when a tearful news anchor announced Kim Il-sung's death on North Korean state television, mass hysteria broke out. We have seen the official mourning video on YouTube: there is crying in the schools, in the factories, at parades, and at home. Veterans in wheelchairs bawl and people in crowds hit themselves with their fists until they fall to the ground. Like a film within a film, those at home are shown casting themselves at their televisions in despair as his funeral is broadcast. These are violent scenes in which small children are crying, probably out of fear of the adults' behaviour.

No one knew how to fill the hole the leader left behind. For four years, the presidential post was left unoccupied. Then, in 1998, the position of president was written out of the constitution. Kim Il-sung was named Eternal President of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. The previous year, Kim Jong-il had been given the more modest title of General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea, even though he was already acting as the new dictator.

AFTER TRAVELLING THE
long, orderly avenues, we enter the capital. We are driven along huge boulevards with few cars. The flat topography makes it seem like all the buildings are rising from one and the same plane. There is much greenery, large open parks, enormous monuments, boxy apartment complexes in glazed tile, and everywhere there are mosaics of Kim Il-sung. Homes, façades, and streets are worn but clean. The ground-floor windows of all residential buildings are equipped with thick metal bars.

The lack of traffic makes it seem like the city has been taken over by pedestrians. People criss-cross the giant streets, and buses honk incessantly at jaywalkers and the occasional cyclist. We come to understand that honking is part of driving here. Even our bus driver honks as soon as anyone appears on the road.

To our surprise, we see a large commercial billboard. It features an ad for the Hwiparam (“Whistle”) model from the domestic car manufacturer Pyeonghwa. Modelled on the Fiat Siena, named by Kim Jong-il, financed by the South Korean cult leader Moon Sun-myung, and manufactured in North Korea, the car is a remarkable, political-composite product — “a strong and beautiful car,” as it says in the ad. The factory produces a few hundred cars a year, and each vehicle is sold for a price that's beyond the means of even wealthy North Koreans. The billboard is the first sign we see of the unholy alliance between Kim Jong-il and the super-rich Pastor Moon, best known for officiating mass wedding ceremonies between his cult followers.

We come to a halt at a crossing and have a chance to observe a young, female traffic officer, placed like a living sculpture in the middle of the intersection. She wears a chalk-white uniform jacket, a blue skirt, and white ankle socks. She stands at attention, with a short stick in her hand, never moving from her spot. Then she quickly looks left and right, her right arm shoots up, and she turns her body ninety degrees. Frozen in this new position, she takes a nearly imperceptible sidestep with her left foot, then gives instructions to a car that she's registered with an incredibly quick glance over her shoulder. The car passes and the woman swiftly lowers her stick while simultaneously making a half turn, straight as a nail around her own axle like a figurine in a music box. It is as if she wants to emphasize the movement of the passing cars.

The few traffic lights we see are shut off. There seems to be a lack of electricity to power them. These traffic lights use five colours, probably the only place in the world that does.

The bus drives us right into the heart of Pyongyang, to the Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum on Kim Il-sung Square, a giant building made of marble and granite. We are led into the damp, cool, hangar-like cellar where the strict, uniformed female guide presents trophies of war: helmets, uniforms, weapons, shot-down war planes, a plane that is said to have carried biological weapons, a helicopter, as well as a model of the
USS
Pueblo
, a seized American spy ship. Each time we leave a room, the lights are turned off behind us. In the middle of the tour there's a power outage. The guide doesn't acknowledge it; she resolutely continues, and in the dark we clumsily orient ourselves to the banging of her heels.

On the top floor, there is a slowly rotating viewing deck where we sit in front of a cyclorama depicting the 1950 Battle of Daejeon, which North Korean history has deemed the turning point in the Korean War. Forty artists have painted a backdrop to the display of barbed wire, bunkers, and real tanks and jeeps. It's an astounding, illusory scene depicting a plethora of action. Some of the props are actual relics from the war, the guide says. She also says that one million people are represented on the canvas, which measures 103 metres in length by 58 metres in height. We all conclude from just a few glances that this, of course, is impossible.

The guide doesn't mention the reports that came out just before our arrival in Pyongyang. In South Korea, it's been said that North Korean soldiers massacred civilians after their victory at the Battle of Daejeon. But photographs bearing “confidential” stamps and documents from the American army's archives, which had just been released in July 2008, show that it was the South Korean troops who carried out the massacre before they retreated. Between 3,000 and 7,000 civilian men and women suspected of having Communist sympathies were killed, along with their children, and the American command was aware of the whole thing. Maybe the news hasn't reached our guide; maybe these atrocities have long been known here. Even though the events illustrate the South's ruthless war crimes, she doesn't draw attention to them.

The British journalist Alan Winnington, who followed North Korean troops during the Korean War, saw the hastily dug mass graves where hands and feet stuck out from the earth. He wrote about the events in the British Communist newspaper the
Daily Worker
, but was accused of lying by the American embassy in London. And the U.S. military advisor Frank Winslow recently testified that the American command was invited by the South Koreans to witness the “turkey shoot” — the name given to the mass executions carried out next to the ditches that served as graves. Winslow declined, but other officers went. A few of them photographed the events.

In one of the pictures from the newly opened archive, a still-living teenage boy is about to tumble into a mass grave. The bodies form a grotesque jumble of arms, heads, and legs. The boy is lying on his stomach, while a soldier holds on to his bare feet. He is tied to his murdered comrade; they lie side by side. The corpse's arm is stretched across the boy's back as though he is seeking warmth in his sleep. They're about to accompany each other to the grave. The photographer has caught the eye of the still-living boy. His head hangs over the edge of the grave, but his face is turned and he looks straight into the camera.

In 2005, the South Korean government formed the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which is excavating Daejeon. It is thought that more than 100,000 Communist sympathizers were executed after war broke out in 1950. And Daejeon is just one of many places where massacres were carried out: 1,800 were killed in Suwon, 10,000 in Pusan, 25,000 in the southern part of Gyeongsang Province. In each of these places, remnants of bone are still being discovered in the soil.

* * *

THE BUS TAKES
us to the Yanggakdo Hotel, where we are sequestered from the rest of the city. The forty-seven-storey building is situated on an island in the Taedong River, which runs through Pyongyang, dividing the city east and west. We're not allowed to leave the island unaccompanied. There's a greenhouse for growing vegetables, a golf course, and a movie theatre.

As one of the few places in North Korea where foreigners are permitted, the Yanggakdo Hotel has a mythic aura. Here, sharks from the black market mix with diplomats, businessmen, shock tourists and regular tourists, various politicians, and envoys from marginal leftist groups. The Yanggakdo Hotel plays a leading role in Canadian illustrator Guy Delisle's 2005 graphic novel
Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea
. Delisle lived here for a two-month period and in his book he describes the rituals of this strange place that incubates secrets and hidden rooms. Like all foreigners, Delisle's freedom of movement in Pyongyang was strictly limited, and so he spent many long hours in the Yanggakdo Hotel. He had found himself at the hotel after a film project he was involved with as an animator ran out of money. It's not unusual that foreign animation projects at the edge of ruin end up in Pyongyang; here, you have the chance to finish them at a low cost.
SEK
Studio in central Pyongyang, where Delisle worked, is one of the world's largest animation studios, with 1,600 employees. Animation is one of North Korea's few successful industries — perhaps the only one after the manufacturing of weapons.
Pororo the Little Penguin
, a hugely popular South Korean series, is made here. Kim Jong-il is said to have personally given this show his blessing. He had long advocated on behalf of the production of animated series. There is said to be a motivational plaque outside of the Ministry of Culture in Pyongyang that reads: “make more animated films.”