Infiltrating North Korea Part 15: More song and dance, and a conundrum about chocolate

by Neil Woodburn on

Since posting last week about the North Korean talent show I attended at the Mangyongdae Children’s Palace in Pyongyang, I’ve received a number of requests asking for more video of these outstanding child performers.

And so today, we present a short compilation of some of the best performances from the show.

The above video was shot in the palace’s main theater after we toured classroom after classroom of students learning guitar, violin, piano, table tennis, tae kwon do, and a slew of other cultural pursuits; the Mangyongdae Children’s Palace in Pyongyang was a regular factory of the fine arts.

The culmination of the tour was the palace’s 2,000-seat theater where star pupils put on an amazing show for myself and a small cluster of fellow tourists. The rest of the theater was filled with a much larger group of young students dressed up in their Sunday best and giddy with excitement over the foreign guests within their midst. Of course, none of the students sat next to us, but they were just a few rows away, separated by an aisle and a watchful group of minders and teachers.It was shortly after the show ended that I experienced a rather odd moment.

I had brought with me a Toblerone chocolate bar from home that I wanted to pass on to one of the students. Naturally, we weren’t allowed to do such a thing and so I looked for an opportunity to slip one of them the candy bar when the eagle-eyed minders weren’t looking my way. And that’s when I started to worry.

If any of the adults saw the exchange, the kid I gave it to would get in trouble for accepting something from a foreigner. If any of the other kids saw the exchange, they would get in trouble for not reporting it. That’s the way the system worked. During Stalinist times in the Soviet Union, for example, anyone who witnessed or overheard something even slightly prohibited and failed to report it, were just as guilty. People were actually sent to the Gulag for not reporting on their friends, neighbors and family even though they had done nothing wrong themselves.

I imagine that North Korea isn’t all that different. Sure, no one was going to a labor camp for my Toblerone bar, but there most certainly would have been some type of ramification if anything had occurred other than the student immediately running to the nearest teacher to hand over the contraband. But let’s face it, most any kid on this planet is going to take the risk of keeping the candy bar despite the near certainty of getting caught. And then everybody gets in trouble.

So what’s the harm in a single bar of chocolate, you ask?

Plenty.

A political system whose whole existence is dependent upon keeping the populace ignorant by believing that the outside world is a far worse place, would have problems explaining how a simple bar of chocolate could be so incomprehensibly better than anything domestically produced. And believe me, it was. I had one piece of North Korean chocolate and nearly gagged.

A single, tiny triangle of Toblerone could be all the catalyst needed to make one start questioning the whole system; “If they lied about the quality of foreign products, what else have they lied to us about?”

Revolutions often begin with dissatisfied stomachs and although I had the power to possible start one within the easily won-over taste buds of a music student at the Children’s Palace, I chickened out and eventually ended up leaving the chocolate on the pillow in my hotel room where some adult housekeeper better equipped at possibly outsmarting the system might have figured out a way to enjoy the chocolate without getting caught.

But, I digress. Be sure to click on the video above to watch the wonderful musical talents of North Korean students who have never tasted the joy of a Toblerone bar.

Yesterday: Pyongyang Sock Hop
Tomorrow: A Sunday Drive through Pyongyang

UNESCO delists a World Heritage Site

by Neil Woodburn on

It would be easy to think that once a location becomes a UNESCO World Heritage Site that such an honor is irrevocable.

UNESCO, however, recently shocked the world by proving that they can just as easily remove a site from the list as they can add one.

And why would they do such a thing?

Because sites can change for the worse over time and become something entirely different.

Ironically, it is quite often the UNESCO stamp itself that is the downfall of these World Heritage Sites. Once a location makes the list, tourists soon follow. And tourists, as we all know, quickly attract local authorities and entrepreneurs trying to make a buck.

The problem is that UNESCO actually has no authority over their World Heritage Sites–that’s up to the local governments. And when these local governments start dabbling in the sites, their status becomes endangered.

This is exactly what happened at the Arabian Oryx Sanctuary in Oman after poaching decreased the oryx population by 85% and the government followed up reducing the land area by 90%. This pissed off UNESCO bad enough that they responded by honoring the sanctuary with the organization’s first ever delisting.

It’s sort of sad to see it on the website, with a big line drawn through the name, but I think UNESCO made the right choice. Hopefully this will be a shot across the bow for other countries that need to start thinking seriously about protecting their own World Heritage Sites.

Czech Christmas, Part III: The carp must die

by Iva Skoch on

What do Czechs eat for Christmas? Typically, I don’t like when people ask me this question because the answer, “carp,” is followed with a reaction of pure disgust.

If just eating carp sounds disgusting to you, I can´t wait to hear what you´ll say about the rest of the tradition. (And I can’t wait to hear the reactions, particularly after my Santa post.)

As Neil likes to remember from his time living in Prague, about a week before Christmas, fish vendors start appearing on street corners. They bring tubs or barrels full of water and packed with carp.

It is freezing cold, so the vendors usually drink heavily while selling the fish. By the evening, these guys can be quite entertaining.

People come to these vendors, usually with kids, so they can pick and buy their own carp. Then they either kill and gut it (in front of the kids, which some people criticize) or they take it home alive. They fill a bathtub full of water and leave the carp there so the kids bond with it. They usually name the thing, of course, which makes it all the more fun when it comes to time for Daddy to kill Carl the Carp.

Mom then fries him up and serves him with potato salad. This used to be very common, and I still remember the times when we couldn’t bathe for a day or two because Carl the Carp had a monopoly on the tub. After the fall of communism, animal advocacy groups started a campaign calling the entire tradition inhumane. More and more often, people will just eat a schnitzel with potato salad to avoid a moral dilemma. They don´t actually have to kill a pig, which is much more morally acceptable. As anywhere else, the wealthier people become, the more they like to remove themselves from the whole “killing the animal before you eat it” part. It is a little hypocritical, but that´s the way it goes.

Tobaski Feast Day (Eid Al Adha): A cultural sharing

by Jamie Rhein on

One of my Peace Corps friends emailed me a couple days ago. He reminded me that today is Tobaski. That’s what this Muslim holiday is called in The Gambia. Perhaps you’ve heard it called Eid Al Adha–or just Eid. This is the day when Muslims celebrate when God told Abraham not to sacrifice Ismail (Issac)but a sheep instead.

Today every married male is supposed to kill a sheep if he can afford one, if not , than a goat, and if not that –a chicken. The food is cooked to be shared. A portion is to be given to poor people, meaning those without. A portion is shared with friends and family who stop by for a visit and a portion is kept for the family who bought the sheep. Most is given away. When the sheep is killed there is a blessing said to Allah (God).

The build up to this day is enormous. People get new outfits made, clean house, buy a sheep–if they can afford one, and gather coins to give out to children. One reason why the holiday feels so joyous is because the harvest is done, people have money, the mosquitos have largely disappeared and it’s not so hot during the day. It’s hot. Just not so hot.

During my first Tobaski in The Gambia, I must have traveled somewhere because I don’t have any recollection of what I did– By my second Tobaski, I stayed in my village to join in with my best friend, Fatou’s family celebration. I had a Grand Buba made (a traditional women’s outfit that used so much fabric I had a pair of pants and a shirt made out of it later) and gathered coins. I let my friend talk me into visiting various families and accepting money. Since I was a single woman, I was still eligible to receive money.

Okay, you can bet I balked at this one. The idea of taking money from the people whose lives I was there to help seemed not right. But my friend talked me into it saying that people would feel good if I participated. They’d be thrilled. They were thrilled and I had a blast. On this particular day I felt like I belonged–and the sheep tasted great.

About the money, I think in the end it amounted to about $1.20. I tried to give it to my friend, but she wouldn’t take it, so later on I bought something for us to share. The photo is of women in their finest. This isn’t my village, but it sure looks like it could be. Those trees in the background look like they are mango trees. This is not the time of year when they are ripe, though.

Cleaning museum to open in Pocatello, Idaho

by Catherine Bodry on

If you’re looking for the ideal family vacation destination — one that’s fun for every age, and maybe a bit educational as well — you have something to look forward to. Don Aslett’s Cleaning Museum is scheduled to open in fall 2008 in the small southeastern Idaho town Pocatello.

Don Aslett started a international janitorial company, and is as big a cleaning fan as you can find. In fact, in order to communicate the scale of cleaning he’s talking about, his museum will prominently display a giant model of Noah’s Ark — because we’re talking about biblical proportions of clean.

The 50,000-square-foot museum will include a horse-drawn street sweeper, as well as the largest antique vacuum cleaner collection in the world. And there’s stuff for the kids, too: a three-story globe called Kid’s Clean World where “children can take part in interactive exhibits teaching them how to wash their hands, make their bed and clean their room.”

And if you need some cleaning tips, the third floor of the five-floor museum will function as a training center.