All Monsters Must Die (5 page)

Kim Young-soon was arrested at the central railway station in Pyongyang and taken to a cell that was disguised as a regular apartment in a residential area. She was made to put on a hospital gown and left alone. A mother of four with a newborn, she fainted from the ordeal. She was cared for like a patient by two guards but was given no explanation as to why she was there; the guards didn't ask or answer any questions. Eventually they informed her that she had been sentenced according to a ruling by the party. It was suggested she'd said something that had leaked to South Korea, and shouldn't she take responsibility for that?

Kim wasn't told anything else. She had spent two months under constant supervision, dressed in the hospital gown. Along with her parents and her four children, she was sent to Yoduk. She was told that if she worked hard she would eventually be allowed to leave the camp. If she didn't, she'd be there for the rest of her life.

In
The Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag
(2001), Kang Chol-hwan recounts his experiences in the same camp, having arrived there as a nine-year-old with his family. They were freed after ten years, and in 1991 Kang managed to get to South Korea, where, with the help of French historian Pierre Rigoulot, he shared his experiences.

His family had chosen to go to North Korea after the Korean War. Kang's grandmother and grandfather grew up on Jeju, a subtropical South Korean island that is now a vacation paradise. Like so many other Koreans, they had sought happiness in Japan during the interwar period. Korea was a Japanese colony that was strictly monitored, but before the Second World War Koreans were not used as slaves in Japan. In the best cases, as with Kang's grandfather, they found success in Japan — some of them even grew wealthy. Kang's grandfather had been made rich by a jewellery business in Kyoto and then found success in the rice trade. But Kang's grandmother was a committed Communist.

During the Korean War, the Korean population in Japan was divided into two political camps: Chongryon, who stood with the Communists in the North, and Mindan, who who allied themselves with the American-­supported government in the South. Shortly after the war, North Korea seemed like the better option. With massive Soviet support, manufacturing gained momentum and the people were fed. In the South, on the other hand, poverty was rampant. Furthermore, South Korea granted asylum to those who co-­operated with the Japanese colonial power. For Koreans in exile, this was seen as deeply unpatriotic. In contrast, the North seemed like the true Korea, the nation where resistance against the colonizers was pure and uncorrupted.

Kang's grandmother convinced her husband to take the boat to Pyongyang with the rest of their family. Kang's grandfather took his Volvo on the boat, where they were given special treatment because of his wealth.

But North Korea wasn't the paradise that the Chongryon organization had depicted. People monitored each other, all information was restricted, and dejection hung over Pyongyang. When they tried to take a road trip to explore the areas outside the city, they were immediately stopped by the military. Free travel in the country was unheard of.

It wasn't many years until the Volvo was handed over as a gift to the party. First it was suggested, then it was recommended, and then came a final order. Still, these were happy years compared to their time in the camp. Kang's grandparents held administrative posts within the bureaucracy and the union, and they lived in one of the better areas of Pyongyang.

Kang was born in 1967 and he had a rather happy, carefree childhood in the city. He liked to fight and to wind up the children of the Soviet diplomat living in the neighbourhood. Aquarium fish were his great passion.

One day, in 1977, Kang's grandfather didn't come home from work. He was never seen again. Shortly after, the police came to pick up the rest of the family, except Kang's mother. They were taken to Yoduk. Apparently, their crime was Kang's grandfather's inability to fit in.

FOR TEN YEARS
the family toiled in the camp. Prisoners worked in agriculture, mining, and industrial manufacturing. Kang's uncle, a trained chemist, was allowed to work in a distillery. The children went to school. All the guards, teachers, and functionaries also lived in the area with their families.

Corporal punishment and humiliation are part of daily life and are dealt out both methodically and arbitrarily. Escape attempts have only one punishment: public execution. All the prisoners are forced to watch the hangings. Two to three thousand prisoners are made to chant “Death to the people's enemies” in unison while throwing stones at the bodies. Kang wrote that many of the newly arrived shut their eyes during the stoning.

Sex and love between prisoners is almost as serious a crime as an escape attempt. Women who get pregnant are publicly humiliated by being forced to describe in detail how the act of love unfolded. (For Kang these situations served the dual purpose of a punishment and a kind of sex education.) Pregnant women are forced to have abortions. If that doesn't work and the child is born anyway, the newborn is taken away from the mother at birth, never to be seen again. The children are considered carriers of their parents' disloyalty. The bloodline has to be severed.

One form of punishment for men is the so-called “sweat box,” a windowless isolation cell in which the occupant can barely move. Food rations are reduced, and so the prisoner is forced to eat insects in order to survive. After enduring this treatment, the captive crawls out on all fours looking like a living skeleton. That is, Kang recounts, if he survives his time in the box.

WHEN THE GERMAN
Friendship Association filed out of the restaurant, each and every one of them was glowing with ire — dark-eyed, teeth grinding, mumbling curses as they disappeared into the darkness. The Hwasong concentration camp is forty-five kilometres away. If the Germans had their way, it might have been a short ride for Trond and the Värmlanders.

DAY 3

Strong Water

MADAME CHOI'S TIME
in captivity was luxurious compared to life in a work camp. In the villa there were no locks on the doors, but she felt as if she were always being watched. She had long been accustomed to a hectic working life; now she didn't have much to do. The days stretched out aimlessly. During the first six months, she could only manage to eat one bowl of
jook
(rice porridge) each day.

Kim Jong-il's Friday-night movie screenings and the parties that followed were the only activities that interrupted her ennui. At these events, a selection of films from the leader's private archives was shown to a circle of dignitaries. As soon as the guests arrived, they had to partake in a ritual: knocking back a large glass of cognac. Madame had to wear a
joseonot
, the traditional dress, at these parties. That was all. She simply had to be there, appearing as if she'd stepped right out of the silver screen.

Each screening was followed by games of backgammon and mah-jong, punctuated by more large snifters of cognac, which were downed while standing. Kim Jong-il thought the true nature of proselytizers emerged when they were drunk. Then there was dancing to an all-female band that played jazz and disco. In the wee hours of the morning, Kim Jong-il took the stage to conduct this lady orchestra.

ON MAY 10,
Madame Choi was invited to Kim Jong-il's firstborn son's birthday. This was the child born out of wedlock who had earned the obstetrician and the lover's friend places in the work camp. He was turning seven.

The leader had six televisions in his office. One of them was tuned to a South Korean channel. At the birthday dinner, Madame met Kim Jong-il's wife, who differed from other women she had seen in North Korea. The wife had permed hair and dressed with a Western sensibility. Apparently, she'd accepted Kim Jong-il's illegitimate son.

Kim Jong-il talked about film throughout the meal. He harped on about how “the evil North Korean leaders” were portrayed in South Korean
TV
series. After dinner, Madame's domestic was beside herself about the invitation to the birthday party. It was unreal, an unbelievable gesture, the domestic said.

In September, after having been at the villa for half a year, Madame was woken in the middle of the night. She shook with fear, thinking that she was going to be executed. But then it was explained to her that she was simply being moved to another house, because the villa was needed for a number of foreign guests who had arrived to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of the birth of the nation. They packed up quickly, drove through the night, and finally arrived at a more modest house in the country.

After a few weeks, she was asked to write her life story. Only important people were asked to write their memoirs, it was explained, so she should consider the task an honour. After hesitating, she agreed and decided to be honest. When her account was read, it was cause for concern: her mind was thoroughly corrupted by imperialist dogma.

That was the end of the invitations to parties with Pyongyang's elite. Madame's mind needed to be cleansed with lessons on revolutionary history and Juche, the North Korean ideology. For five hours a day, three days a week, she studied Juche. On Fridays there was a test.

THE YEARS PASSED
and Choi Eun-hee filled her days with gardening. She sculpted small clay cranes, which she placed in the garden with their beaks pointing south. In her autobiography
Gobaek,
she recounts how she was forced to write to Kim Il-sung, sending her congratulations on his birthday. She was shown how the letter should begin, how a decent address should look:

In the history of humanity, you most superior, radiant, honourable, creator of the eternal, indestructible Juche Thought. Great Leader, powerful ideological theorist who led two victorious revolutionary wars against Japan and America, who gloriously established independence and achieved racial honour. Initiator, eternally victorious, brilliant Iron-Willed Commander, in revolution and in enforcement, founder of an international example, liberator from colonialism and liberator in the history of the world, you eternally brilliant, invaluable, and highest, who laid out our ingenious revolutionary strategies, Beloved Leader, comrade Kim Il-sung . . .

Madame Choi was unaware that her ex-husband Shin Sang-ok was in the country at this time. The director was also quartered in a villa, but after five months he tried to escape. He stole a car and drove until the gas ran out, reached a train station by foot, and there he hid in a storeroom filled with explosives. He snuck onto a freight train but was discovered the next morning. After being arrested, he endured a lengthy interrogation in which the guards asked him a question and then left the room when he answered, only to return after they'd consulted with Kim Jong-il on the phone.

Shin was locked in an isolation cell for three months. He tried to escape again, but was caught. This time he was formally tried and charged. He was sent to a prison, where he was put through a rigorous re-education program and made to do intense physical exercises. The guards also told him that Madame Choi had died in North Korea, and he mourned her. He tried to go on a hunger strike but violence was used to force him to eat. They said he was the first person ever to be forced to eat. He must have been an important prisoner.

Shin was made to write long, remorseful letters to Kim Jong-il, explaining that he was ready to be of service to the revolution. These correspondences had the same tone as the congratulatory letter Madame Choi wrote to Kim Il-sung.

And then, one day, he was set free. It was February 1983.

* * *

COME MORNING, WE
are sore and drained from the previous day's bus trip and the terrors of last night. The Norwegian and his gang are hungover. Others have also been sick to their stomachs. Andrei spent the entire night vomiting after tasting his first-ever matsutake. Earlier this morning, someone saw Ms. Kim tottering onto the beach in her high heels and dress to throw up. Now, all we have to look forward to are hours on the bumpy roads back to the airbase.

We walk toward the beach and pass the gravel road where members of the Korean Youth Corps, in their white shirts and red kerchiefs, are cycling to school. A long avenue of poplars with white-painted trunks leads to an unusual concrete bunker, reminiscent of a modernist beach house in an Antonioni film. A truck carrying uniformed workers passes us. The workers are standing up straight on the bed, close together; they stare gravely at us.

We aren't allowed to travel beyond the concrete bunker — that's crossing the line. Elias made an attempt to walk to a village farther along but was immediately stopped by a guard. He was given various explanations: there were roadworks; it might be dangerous for him because he doesn't speak Korean. When these unlikely explanations were left hanging in the air, he was told that these were military orders.

The morning light is mild and the winds are pleasant down by the sea. We swim and the water is so salty that it lifts us to the surface. As we dry ourselves in the sun, Mr. Song comes walking by. He spends some time skipping rocks with us. When we turn around we see that the cameraman has just captured this scene of unforced fellowship between nations.

THE BUS SHUDDERS
along the potholed roads. It takes six hours to reach Orang, and Mr. Song suggests that we should kill time by singing. Ms. Kim turns out to have the voice of an angel. She glows and sparkles as she and Andrei sing a few traditional Russian folk songs.

Andrei sits with his computer in his lap. Looking somewhat rumpled, he studies his music downloads. For some reason he has songs by various Swedish Eurovision contestants — Carola, Tommy Körberg — and
ABBA
's collected works. He pulls out a bundle of lyrics from his luggage and chooses a song by Baccara, the Spanish disco-queen duo who were in their prime around the same time as Madame Choi was kidnapped. He picks up the microphone with his eyes glued to the paper. In a low voice, he sings the disco queen's lyrics about love and ecstasy.

Andrei's song seems to go on and on forever.

* * *

IN THE ANTONOV,
we fly northwest to Ryanggang Province, a mountainous region that borders China. We land at Samjiyon Airport, which was built by a South Korean company in the 1980s, when there were ideas about expanding the tourism industry. Samjiyon was supposed to be a ski resort, but the South Koreans pulled out, leaving behind an asphalt square in a coniferous forest.

The three young men from Bromma in our group appear to be in high school. Their hair is shoulder-length, the collars of their polo shirts are popped, and they're wearing sports shorts and deck shoes. Why they chose to take a trip to North Korea is a mystery. For a moment, we wonder if the trip is part of hazing at one of Stockholm's better schools.

Our bags are loaded onto a trailer attached to a very small, bright red, antique tractor. The boys guffaw as the contraption sputters off toward a simple building that functions as a waiting room. The driver, who has a weather-beaten face and wears a brown uniform and a wide cap, drives his vehicle off unperturbed. Blue-black smoke puffs from the little exhaust, which looks like an organ pipe.

THE BUS DRIVES
us through the forest on gravel roads. Like the other buses, this one is adorned with a red sign that announces that we are “foreigners.” A few of the people walking along the road look at us curiously; many hide their faces. Some rush right out into the trees as we near.

We've started to stake out our seats on the bus already. At the front is Oksana, who talks endlessly to those around her. Those who've gone one round with her are happy to switch places. The Russian chemist and his personal guide, Ms. Kim, are also at the front. She is forced to endure his gentle stench. The smell is contained when Andrei sits still, but it's released when he makes certain sudden movements. A piercing waft slips from his collar, as if he were hiding goat cheese under his shirt. We've also found ourselves close to the front, along with the Gothenburger who lives in Minsk and the tattooed baker, but at a safe distance from Oksana's incessant chatter. The baker is having some stomach trouble. He kills the dead time by reading various issues of
World Wildlife
magazine from front to back. He's currently engrossed in an article about lemurs. The Värmlanders seem like they're fused together; one never leaves the other's side and both barely say a word. They have found their place in the middle together with the pilot, Trond, and the enormous Swiss, Bruno. Farther back is Ari, with his camera equipment; he has a freshly roused look on his face and wears a flat cap askew. Farthest back are the guys from the posh Stockholm suburb, who we've started to call “the Bromma boys.”

Elias moves around the back of the bus and delivers short, spontaneous lectures. He's a living encyclopedia on North Korea. He's read the foreign policy editorials and the stories of defectors; he follows all of the blogs; he knows everything about the ruling dynasty's family tree and about the diplomats' hardships in Pyongyang. The Bromma boys listen with amusement.

Elias talks about the North Koreans' language. In their dialect, foreign words are avoided. Words borrowed from English are extremely rare, but certain Russian words are part of the vocabulary. All this in accordance with the idea that self-reliance is an essential national trait. South Korean comedy shows sometimes poke fun at the way those in the North speak. Not least, they laugh at the clumsy soccer referees whose words for things like “forward” and “offside” become long, swollen phrases.

But certain words in North Korea have retained meanings that are lost in the South. Madame Choi writes in her autobiography that during her time in confinement she had a guide who sometimes brought her along to shop for necessities. On one occasion, the guide asked for a
bulal
in a store. “
Bulal
” in South Korean means “testicle”; in North Korea it still means “lightbulb.”

THE CLIMATE IS
different at this altitude — much cooler — and the flora reminds us of early autumn in Värmland, with yellow-hued birch trees shading the dense forest.

We are taken to a clearing, much bigger than the airport and paved with stone. A gigantic, gleaming bronze statue of Kim Il-sung reigns over the landscape. This statue could easily be in a square in a large city, with giant spotlights lining the pavement to illuminate the scene at night. But, instead, it sits in the middle of a forest.

The statue, called the
Samjiyon Grand Monument
, is supposed to depict the leader during a guerilla attack against Japan. He holds a pair of binoculars in one hand and is backed by four relief groups sculpted in the same social realist style, depicting enthusiastic followers: “On the Field,” “The Motherland,” “Yearning,” and “Forward.” The leader's body language radiates resourcefulness and decisiveness, but his face has a softness, a touch of the Buddha.

THE AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST
Roy Richard Grinker says that Kim Il-sung is supposed to resemble a mother figure as much as he does a father figure. In North Korean news articles and stories, he's often described as feminine in his ways: maternal, caring, and gentle. Far from Stalin's massive, masculine, frightening scowl, Kim Il-sung's made-up face is round and has dimples. It is the inviting, relaxed face of a person who is far too good, who spoils his own.

In
The Cleanest Race
, the American author B. R. Myers builds on this idea, suggesting that the representations of Kim Il-sung as the country's mother were later transferred to Kim Jong-il. He was The Son, but he also became the country's new or parallel Mother through a remarkable transformation: he became a new mother who lives side by side with the elder patriarch/matriarch. In October 2003, the North Korean state declared: “Let the imperialist enemies come at us with their nuclear weapons, for there is no power on earth that can defeat our strength and love and the power of our belief, which thanks to the blood bond between mother and child create a fortress of single-heartedness. Our Great Mother, General Kim Jong-il!”