Blogging fearlessly from Havana. How?!

by Abha Malpani on

One of my favorite country blogs of all time is that of Yoani Sanchez, the 32 year old blogging secretly from Havana. To write on her blog, she has to pretend to be a tourist and go to a hotel to access the Internet.

Of the 11 million people who live on the island, only about 200,000 have open access to the web — they are mainly government employees, researchers and academics, to whom the government has given permission. The rest of the Cubans can access email and a few Cuban sites from certain public spots (for example the post office), but everything else is blocked.

I first found out about Yoani on the IHT last year, and have been reading her ever since. She reports beautifully (both in Spanish and English) on happenings in Cuba — she is probably one of the only authentic sources of information coming out of the island without censorship, and she always sounds fearless.

A couple of weeks ago she was chosen by Madrid’s El Pais newspaper to get the Ortega y Gasset Journalism Prize, but she was not allowed to leave Cuba to receive her award in Spain. To add to this, I read that she made the Time Top 100 list of influential people, which is phenomenal and much deserved.

But, what I fail to understand is that, with all the international exposure she has been getting — certainly magnified by being featured in Time Magazine alongside the likes of Obama, Andre Agassi, Lance Armstrong and Oprah Winfrey — how on earth is she still getting away with her secret blogging? Does the Cuban government have any idea? She must really disguise herself well, and her German must be flawless to be able to get away with this for almost a year. Surely authorities must know — why aren’t they stopping her?

I don’t wish they catch her, I just don’t see how in such a tight regime she has been getting away with this for so long. It almost makes it questionable, no?

Infiltrating North Korea Part 11: North Korean Style Advertising

by Neil Woodburn on


Billboards are a ubiquitous presence in most any major city. Depending on local ordnances, they may fill the entire side of a building, dominate cityscapes, or simply appear on the roadside in a variety of shapes and sizes.

The city of Pyongyang is no exception. The only difference is that there is only one product being advertised here: communism.

Propaganda is the evil step cousin of advertising and the North Koreans embrace it as eagerly as an account executive on Madison Avenue pitching for the Coca Cola business.

Although there’s certainly nowhere quite like Times Square in Pyongyang, there is hardly a spot in the capital where one is not exposed to a billboard or mural extolling the virtues of communism, North Korea, or either one of the Kims.

And just in case someone is blind, a fleet of propaganda vans with speakers mounted atop drive around the city pumping out the latest rhetoric.
Naturally, the state controls the mass media as well, jamming incoming foreign transmissions and making it technically impossible to tune into any other broadcast except for the official state one. This, in part, is controlled by producing radios with only a single FM button and absolutely no dial! I had one of these North Korean specialties in my hotel room and sat staring at it for the longest time; it was simply impossible to change the station and it left me feeling completely powerless.
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In addition, there is no such thing as the internet in North Korea or cell phones. Anyone entering the country had to leave their cell phones with customs officials who kept them locked up and inaccessible for the entirety of our stay. And I certainly didn’t get a copy of USA Today under my hotel room door.

Surprisingly, being cut off from the outside world was actually somewhat enjoyable for the five days I spent in North Korea. I quite liked the freedom of not being tied to my cell phone and email and relished in the ignorant bliss of not being exposed to troubling international news. This isolationist cocoon where the state controls everything you hear and see, however, would not have been fun for too long. Living an entire life under such conditions would be hell.


There was one brief glimmer of hope, however. One day when driving around the outskirts of Pyongyang we passed a billboard doing what billboards do throughout the rest of the world: selling a product. Someone has managed to erect North Korea’s first (and only?) billboard, and as you can see, it’s advertising brand new automobiles.

And that, folks, is the slippery slope of capitalism.

Yesterday: The Followers of Kim
Tomorrow: A North Korean History Lesson about the U.S.S. Pueblo

Infiltrating North Korea Part 4: The architecture of Pyongyang

by Neil Woodburn on

Pyongyang, for the most part, is surprisingly tasteful and impressive without being too ostentatious and grandiose.

This is because Kim Il Sung, like all megalomaniacs, built his capital to showcase the power and sophistication of his regime and to serve as a shining example of Socialism’s prowess.

Nonetheless, I had still expected a horribly dilapidated city much like the carcass of so many Eastern European towns I had seen shortly after the fall of communism. But I was wrong, for the most part. Yes, such visual horrors certainly existed: Beyond the city center, for example, we could clearly make out the concrete hell of socialism where rows of prefabricated housing blocks were pushed up against each other like tombstones in a graveyard.

But the center of town itself was a pleasant exception to this horrendous architecture. Pyongyang had been leveled during the war and the communist city planners had therefore been presented a tabula rasa on which to build the model socialist city. The result was a proud capital that boasted wide boulevards, tree lined sidewalks, numerous parks, and impressive architecture that could be at home even in Europe. Almost. Pyongyang also has its share of oddball structures and at least one failed skyscraper attempting to be the tallest in the world.

Arch of Triumph
Pyongyang’s Arch of Triumph is taken right out of the pages of Paris, France. Except, of course, it’s three meters taller.

The 60 meter tall (190 ft) structure was built in 1982 with 10,500 granite blocks and stands as a tribute to the liberation of Korea from the Japanese in 1945. Or, as recounted in my copy of Pyongyang Review, the arch “reflects our people’s ardent wish and steadfast resolve to glorify forever the immortal revolutionary exploits of the great leader Comrade Kim Il Sung who embarked on the road to revolution in his early years and led the 20-year long anti-Japanese revolutionary struggle to victory and returned home by accomplishing the cause of national liberation.”

Such praise is a very typical North Korean manner of exalting Kim Il Sung and inserting his “brilliance” and leadership into every single object–manmade or otherwise–the sun shines upon in North Korea.

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Ryugyong Hotel
The Ryugyong Hotel is undoubtedly the most flagrant symbol of North Korea’s failure as judged by the outside world.

At 330 meters (1,083 ft) tall and 105 floors, this mammoth structure dominates Pyongyang’s skyline. Originally scheduled to open in 1989, it would have been the world’s tallest hotel at the time and a cultural coup of one-upmanship for the North Korean government.

Things didn’t go as planned, however. Construction was halted in 1992, leaving Korea-watchers speculating on the many reasons for abandoning such a prestigious project that was heralded in the local press as the architectural equivalent of the second coming of God.

Poor quality concrete is the most commonly suspected reason, although funding probably played a major role as well. Experts estimated the project cost $750 million dollars and tragically consumed far too many resources during a time of horrific famine in North Korea.

Today, the hotel has become a white elephant which no one, including our guides, would speak about. All references have been stripped from the North Korean mass media, including my copy of Pyongyang Review which features all the other architectural landmarks of the city. Stamps bearing its image have been recalled and even state photographs of the city are now taken in a manner that excludes this monstrous carcass. This 1,000 foot pyramid of concrete simply no longer exists.

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Pyongyang Metro
The Pyongyang Metro is something else that doesn’t really exist. Or does it?

Every visitor to Pyongyang is given a tour of the metro. But, unlike the Moscow Metro in which tourists could travel at will even during the height of the Cold War, tourists in Pyongyang can only travel between Puhung Station and Yongwang Station–coincidently, the last two stations on the line.

No one seems to know why the other stations are off limits but there is plenty of speculation. Some believe that these are the only two stations in the system and that the commuters we saw riding the train were merely there for show. The more likely reason, however, is that the remainder of the network may be broken, or simply shut down to save energy–although this most certainly doesn’t impact the rumored secret lines that connect government buildings.

The Pyongyang Metro was opened in 1973 and built in the same grandiose style as the Moscow Metro; each station a miniature palace covered in marble, mosaics, statuary, chandeliers, artwork, and, of course, propaganda. According to the 1994 English version of The Pyongyang Metro, North Korea’s subway “is not only the traffic means but also the place for ideological education. Its inside decoration is depicted artistically so as to convey to posterity the glorious revolutionary history and the leadership exploits of the great leader President Kim Il Sung.”

And, indeed, the two stations we visited were impressively decked out with mosaics that ran the entire length of the tunnel, and included themes that, according to The Pyongyang Metro book “represent the appearance of the country which is prospering day by day and the happiness of the working people who enjoy the equitable and worthwhile creative life to their hearts’ content thanks to the popular policy of the Workers’ Party of Korea and the Government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.”

Despite living up to their promise of underground museums, the stations were still a little dark and gloomy–something which even Korean elevator music piped in over the Metro’s loudspeakers failed to alleviate. This is a serious psychological design flaw considering that the stations–some of the deepest in the world–were also designed to double as bomb shelters. I can’t imagine being trapped down there for more than a few hours.

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Yesterday: The Enigma of Pyongyang
Tomorrow: The Sexy Traffic Girls of Pyongyang

A Canadian in Beijing: 798 Arts District Accepts the Cultural Baton

by Ember Swift on

The arts district of Beijing is called the “798” district. That’s its address, to be precise. It’s technically in “Da Shan Zi ???” (which is the area of the city) and this complex used to be a series of factories that have now all been converted to galleries and cafes. It’s quite beautiful and peaceful there and I have been meaning to tell you about it for a while.

My friend and I took the bus to the district. I don’t take the city buses here often because I frankly can’t figure them out. I’m sure they’re easy, but it’s confusing to me and I’d rather stick to the subways and taxis. Two out of three is not so bad, I say. Maybe I’ll work on understanding the Beijing bus system in my future, but not now. Anyway, this time it was fine because my friend is a Beijing expert and she knew exactly what bus to take, how much to pay and where to get off. Gotta love the escort service of seasoned ex-pats!

We arrived at “798” and I wasn’t sure what to expect. I have been through many gallery districts in North America, but I wasn’t expecting this labyrinth – a maze of alleys where any possible door could lead to another display of daring sculptures, huge paintings or strange installations of giant eggs or huge wax sculptures of naked men in the act of urination. I appreciate visual art but I’m not always a contemporary art lover, I must admit.

What I found especially beautiful about this area, architecturally, were how the above-ground pipes combined with the trees to form what felt like a living organism. The pipes were the veins and the trees were its limbs and the buildings housed the heart – the art. These pipes connected all the buildings and were obviously designed this way during the industrial activity of these old factories. Now, I have no idea If these pipes are still in use, but they seemed mythical somehow as they stretched above our heads and linked it all into one cohesive artistic force. If nothing else, may this be their perpetual use.

We turned a corner and came upon what my friend told me was a famous installation here in Da Shan Zi. It sits inside a circular, glassed-in, gazebo-style structure. It’s a series of posters that use very famous communist imagery like the face of Chairman Mao, the star motif, the colour red, large lettering, etc. These images are combined with the logos and slogans of famous brands like McDonald’s and Heineken as well as their logos and slogans. To me, this combination embodies all that China has become in its modern identity as a communist-capitalist country. Striking to see how branding exists in both a political movement and capitalist advertising. Both are so insistent. Both have spent time being ever-present and solicitous in this society. Communism is currently handing over the baton to capitalism and I feel as though this era is that moment of transfer. In my opinion, this art captures this perception precisely.

In one gallery there was a display of mops piled high all together. Yes, I said “mops” – the kind of mops that you’d use to mop a floor. These were all different brilliant colours, however. While it looked colourful and festive, I didn’t understand it until I looked at its reflection on the white wall. With a specially angled light pointing at it, it cast the shadow of a person’s profile with a huge mohawk, fittingly in black and white (of course, considering it was just a shadow). The artist had depicted something so everyday in a colourfully visible and elaborate way while something so unusual here which is commonly so colourful and elaborate (i.e. a punk hairstyle, which is growing in popularity, by the way) was muted and in the background.

The old begets the new.

Such is this entire district. Crumbling factory walls housing brand new ideas. Rusty pipes casting their reflection on shiny gallery windows. What used to be everyday here has now become a shadow. What is new and emerging is what was once just a shadow of a thought during the Cultural Revolution.

(Speaking of which, taking photos in art galleries is usually against the rules in Canada. Not so here. All photography was fine. This photo does not do the installation justice, but at least it gives you some idea.)

But, what makes me terrible as an art gallery attendee is that I did not take down the name of this artist, nor the gallery. I walked aimlessly and without my “investigative / photo journalist” hat on. I didn’t write anything down that day, actually. I just shot the odd photo and enjoyed the directionlessness. That’s just the way it was.

I did notice that many of the galleries are owned and/or staffed by non-Chinese (mostly white) people. There was a huge concentration of non-Chinese faces here, in face, which made me wonder how much this area caters to the ex-pat scene and tourist community as opposed to the local Chinese arts scene.

We didn’t stay for long but it felt like an important district to visit here in Beijing. I left joking that at least now I can tell everyone that I’ve taken in “some culture”! The joke is of course because this style of gallery is so very European or North American whereas the streets are where the Chinese culture sits fully and completely in every moment.

Leaving those busy streets for this quiet (and sometimes posh) gallery district was choosing to leave the inherent culture of what Beijing has to offer in its every breath. Instead, this 798 district “culture” is about taking in a new community, a new area, a new form of artistic expression here in China. And in its newness, it too has become part of what modern culture is here in Beijing – a small part, but still part of the culture of this city, nonetheless. So, I suppose that there’s no “leaving” of one kind of culture to take in another being done here; it’s more of an addition to what already exists. . . or, an extension into yet another definition of what this culture is.

Another leg in the race?

China’s joined the contemporary art relay.

And now, contemporary Chinese artists are starting to establish a global presence thanks to this 798 community, this movement, this newness. I’m sure their profiles will only continue to grow.

(And perhaps that’s what the egg is trying to tell me. . .)

May Day in North Korea

by Iva Skoch on

Czech travel agencies seem to have a new hit on their hands: celebration of May Day in Pyongyang, North Korea. Perhaps the last country on the planet where pompous celebrations of the communist regime are still going strong, North Korea is the hip place to go.

Apparently there are enough people either A) nostalgic enough for the spectacle of communist kitsch which seized in the Czech Republic only 17 years ago, B) bored with the usual vacation in the Greek isles.

For only about $1800, you get 7 nights, flights from Prague to Peking, ground transportation, a guide, and all the saluting you can handle. This agency provides special tours for US citizens who are more likely to have problems traveling to North Korea.

And, please, leave that Che shirt at home. North Korea ain’t Disneyworld.