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

Infiltrating North Korea Part 9: Worshiping at the Altar of Kim

by Neil Woodburn on

It’s impossible to visit North Korea as a tourist without being forced to personally pay respects to the Great Leader oneself.

This is always done at the capital’s Mansudae Grand Monument where an enormous bronze statue of the Great Leader towers above the city. According to my copy of Pyongyang Review, the statue was built in 1972 due to the “unanimous desire and aspiration to have the immortal revolutionary exploits of the great leader Comrade Kim Il Sung remembered for all time and to carry forward and consummate the revolutionary cause of Juche [self-reliance] which he initiated.”

The Grand Monument is one of the holiest places in Pyongyang and our guide appeared a little nervous when we piled out of the minivan. “There are a lot of people here,” he told us. “Please don’t do anything that would embarrass me.” He also asked that we did not take any photographs of the Great Leader which would cut him in half. Only full shots were allowed in order to show the utmost respect.

Before leaving the parking lot, our guide walked us over to a small flower stand where a member of our group was asked to purchase an arrangement. After doing so, we joined a large crowd of North Koreans also bearing flowers, and walked up a slight hill towards the statue and two large monuments which stand on either side of it, one of which commemorates the anti-Japanese struggle while the other chronicles the socialist revolution and includes a large slogan that reads, “Let us drive out U.S. imperialism and reunify the country!”

Because of the mass of people paying their respects, we had to wait a moment before a member of our group was allowed to walk the remaining distance and place the flowers at the base of Kim Il Sung. When he returned, we all stood nervously in a line facing the statue. I wasn’t about to bow, and I assumed that the others in my group wouldn’t as well. Our guide however, had no choice. He bent low to the waist and offered up a very serious bow to the Great Leader. And then, we were free to go.

We hung out for a little while and watched as a never ending flow of North Koreans did the same as we had just done; parading up to the statue, offering flowers, and then bowing deeply to Kim Il Sung. For an atheist nation, I never would have expected such religious devotion.

Yesterday: The Cult of Kim
Tomorrow: The Followers of Kim

Infiltrating North Korea Part 8: The Cult of Kim

by Neil Woodburn on

“Comrad Kim Il Sung is worshipped by the Korean people, not only as the liberator of the Korean nation, but also as the genuine father and teacher who provided them with all rights and benefits which are indistinguishable to independent beings” –Pyongyang Review

The cult of Kim permeates North Korea.

From the moment we arrived at the Pyongyang airport and were greeted with a large smiling mosaic of Kim Il Sung on the outside of the terminal, there was hardly a moment when the face of either the leader or his son were not staring down on us in one form or another. “The Great Leader Comrade Kim Il Sung will always be with us!” is the most popular of political slogans in the North, and perhaps the most accurate as well.

Kim Il Sung was North Korea’s first leader following the defeat of the Japanese in World War II. He was trained under the Red Army and handpicked by the Soviets to take control of their newest colony. And he did not disappoint. The new leader quickly whipped the North Koreans into a communist stronghold that actually outpaced South Korea with rebuilding and economic growth in the immediate years following the war.

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In the process, Kim established himself as an omnipotent, iron-fisted ruler who tolerated no dissent, exiled opponents and naysayers to concentration camps, and cut off the population from international contact. A pervasive secret police force bolstered by an invasive network of personal informants further ensured that everyone toed the party line.

Like all communist leaders worth their salt, Kim patterned himself as the nation’s messiah. Through a carefully orchestrated combination of nonstop propaganda, brainwashing, and continuous re-education, North Korea has emerged as the world’s largest cult and Kim Il Sung as its glorified leader.

Kim is integrated into all aspects of life: children sing praises to him at school and workers honor him with shrines at their factories. Kim’s portrait is also hanging in every classroom, train station, public square and on the front of every official building. As if that’s not enough, every single North Korean adult is also required to wear a pin of his likeness on their lapel. “Korean people revere him as their father,” Pyongyang Review says, “and deem it their duty and their loftiest moral obligation to hold him, the man who fed and led them, high and loyal.”

Since Kim’s death in 1994, his son, Kim Jong Il, has assumed the throne and is now featured prominently in state propaganda standing beside the Great Leader (who has posthumously been promoted to Eternal President) or gloriously leading the nation forward on his own. In what is undoubtedly the only choice North Koreans have had in deciding a leader, they can now pick between their pins of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il to decide which leader they will affix to their lapel.

There is simply no escaping the Kims when traveling through North Korea. The above gallery is just a small selection of the never ending flood of statues, mosaics, photographs, and other Kim iconography we encountered during our five days embedded in the world’s largest cult.

Yesterday: The Mass Games
Tomorrow: Worshipping at the Altar of Kim

Infiltrating North Korea Part 7: The Mass Games

by Neil Woodburn on

Infiltrating North Korea is a two-week series exploring the world’s most reclusive nation and its bizarre, anachronistic way of life. To start reading at the beginning of the series, be sure to click here.

My trip to North Korea was only the second time since the Korean War that Americans were allowed into the country. The reason for this rare exception was the Mass Games.

The Mass Games is a wild spectacle of dancers and performers that takes place in Pyongyang’s 150,000-seat May Day Stadium, one of the largest in the world. While the games can loosely be described as a “Super Bowl half time show on steroids,” such an analogy fails to capture even a sliver of the energy and uniqueness that is the Mass Games.

For starters, over 100,000 performers participate in the event. This includes some 20,000 students holding up placards with militaristic precision that puts to shame the student section of any American college football stadium. And they’re not just flipping cards that spell out simple slogans either. The North Korean students create rich, detailed landscapes and portraits often enriched with flowing animation.
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Although the card show is impressive on its own, the 240,000 square-foot stadium floor is where the real show takes place. This is where thousands of performers tell the story of how, according to the Mass Games program, “the Arirang nation [Korea], once a colonized tragic people, has become the master of their destiny and faces the world as a dignified nation.”

The result, spread over four acts, combines elements from rhythmic gymnastics, Broadway musicals, and Cirque du Soleil. A rash of brightly-colored costumes and a booming soundtrack enhance the spectacle even further. The most amazing aspect of the whole production, however, is the jaw-dropping, grand scale of thousands of performers working in complete unison, as though a single body.

This is, after all, the philosophy behind the Mass Games. Like the socialist system which created this spectacle, the Mass Games emphasize the group over the individual and illustrates how working together for the common good can produce such works of perfection.

From a Western perspective, the Mass Games are indeed a microcosm of the North Korean nation where everything is perfectly regulated with no room for error or misinterpretation–a place where the individual is lost to the collective amidst a colorful fantasyland where everything appears perfectly wonderful but nothing is really true.

The North Koreans aren’t the only ones to implement such propaganda on such a grand scale. Other communist nations did so as well–such as Czechoslovakia’s Sokol performances that were held in the world’s largest stadium until 1990. Like communism, however, the mass gymnastic movement eventually disappeared from the face of the earth with the sole exception of North Korea.

One day too, it will disappear from Pyongyang as well.

This was my one chance to witness a truly endangered performance and I was therefore eager to purchase the best seats I could. In a typically un-socialist move, however, foreigners are charged mind-numbingly higher prices than locals. If you go, be prepared for only two ticket prices: $150 and $300. I opted for the more expensive tickets–the most I’ve ever paid to see any show–and ended up sitting where Madeline Albright sat when she came to visit. This was the best seat in the house–except for the open area just to my right where Kim Jong Il would have sat had he attended.

When the lights finally dimmed and the Mass Games started, it took only a moment to realize I had made the right choice to come so far and spend so much. The show was as spectacular as I had hoped and I sat through its entirety wondering how so many people could be so perfectly synchronized and expertly choreographed.

And then I remembered where I was.

Yesterday: Art and Culture, Pyongyang Style
Tomorrow: The Cult of Kim

Infiltrating North Korea Part 6: Art and Culture, Pyongyang Style

by Neil Woodburn on

Infiltrating North Korea is a two-week series exploring the world’s most reclusive nation and its bizarre, anachronistic way of life. To start reading at the beginning of the series, be sure to click here.

Like all communist regimes, the North Korean government considers art, culture, sports and education as integral parts of the socialist upbringing. From pre-1989 East Germany to present day North Korea, socialist leaderships have consistently provided free, high-quality education for the arts, as well as inexpensive access to performances and events. I remember spending the equivalent of a nickel to see a superb ballet in St. Petersburg in 1991. Today, North Korea has kept up this tradition despite limited resources and a waning economy.

Sports Facilities

The country’s commitment to sports, for example, can clearly be seen on Chongchun Street where, in the span of less than a mile, one can enjoy almost a dozen separate stadiums for soccer, handball, table tennis, tae kwon-do, weight-lifting, volleyball, basketball and swimming. In addition, the government has also built for its people the enormous Kim Il Sung stadium (100,000 seats), a permanent circus arena of over 70,000 square meters, a futuristic cone-shaped ice rink hall, and the May Day Stadium–one of the largest in the world with seating for 150,000 people.

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Grand People’s Study House


Perhaps the most pleasant building in Pyongyang is the Grand People’s Study House, a 30-million volume library and study hall built in 1982 and designed in classic Korean style. We spent more than an hour touring the facilities and learning about the “high-tech” system which delivers books to the librarian along an automated track. The stacks aren’t accessible and all books must be requested in such a manner–including the few Western ones available such as Huckleberry Finn and select works by Hemingway and Steinbeck.

Despite not being able to personally access the books–something actually quite common in Western Europe as well–the Study House was still rather impressive. Its 600 rooms serve as reading areas and lecture halls and naturally, every single one is decorated with portraits of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. The lectures are free and open to anyone. Frankly, it’s a great concept in my opinion, like a free university where just anyone can drop in.

We poked our heads into a handful of lecture halls but there was only one where I could understand the language spoken: the music appreciation room. In this room students could request CDs and headphones from the librarian and then sit back and listen at one of 30 desks topped with a boombox. What was truly entertaining, however, was the example of western music the instructor proudly played for us: Chim Chim Cheree from Mary Poppins–certainly a classic of western music!

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Mangyongdae Children’s Palace


The Children’s Palace is a younger person’s version of the Study House. But instead of lectures and book reading, the palace serves as a type of after-school activity center where students can take classes in tae kwon-do, ping-pong, calligraphy, needlepoint, painting, computers, and a variety of musical instruments. The building is massive. It has almost 700 rooms, 103,000 square meters of space, and, according to my copy of Pyongyang Review, was built in a semicircular shape “to emphasize the warm embrace of the motherly Party which takes loving care of all students and children.”

I had low expectations when told we would tour the facilities, but was pleasantly surprised to discover it was one of the highlights of the trip. Our guide led us from room to room where students either performed for us (see the video at the top of this post) or allowed us to look over their shoulders as they strung beads, embroidered, or performed some other type of hobby.

Although I was a bit disappointed to learn that only boys could take computer classes, I was nonetheless blown away by the extraordinary talent we witnessed throughout our tour.

I still had to keep in mind, however, that the packed classrooms and perfectly choreographed performances had been carefully arranged for our visit and was just more of the propaganda continually fed to us during our trip. I therefore wondered just how busy this place was on a regular basis-although something tells me it’s probably not too different than what we witnessed.

The grand finale of our tour was a show in the palace’s 2,000-seat theater where the most talented students sang, danced, and played music for us. I’m usually not impressed by such displays–in fact, I’m always disappointed by how woefully terrible young students normally sound at talent shows. But this one was different. Every single student seemed to be a child prodigy who performed way above his or her age, breezing through each performance without a single mistake. The only slightly disturbing thing about the performance was the tightly regulated structure of play. Every guitar player, for example, sat in the same erect position with the same stoic face and played in the same robotic fashion as though rigidly choreographed by the army. There was no spontaneity, individuality, or squeezing more play out of the notes. On the other hand, some of the dancers and soloists certainly exhibited their share of personality and spunk, especially the spry girl featured in the video above.

Overall, the afternoon spent in the Children’s Palace was a real, unexpected treat. I’m sure it was all just another part of the smoke and mirrors intended to portray North Korea in a positive light–although I could be wrong–but it was entertaining nonetheless and I highly recommend visiting if you get the chance.

Yesterday: The Sexy Traffic Girls of Pyongyang
Tomorrow: The Mass Games