More on North Korea

CNN's travel section just published my story on the Mount Kumgang trip. You can see it by clicking here

Food for Thought

Some of the food consumed during my travels

More Korea Pics

More photos can be found at my flickr site

Be Careful Out There

Safety signs posted at the ship engine building factory of Hyundai Heavy Industries in Ulsan:

What a Relief - Capitalism in North Korea

Prices were not cheap when it came to touring in North Korea. Most curious was the bathroom policy on the Kumgang Trail.



In order to protect the environment, we were told, there would be a charge to use the outhouse. Actually, there are different prices depending what you want to do.



For just one U.S. dollar (dollars only, no wan accepted here) you can urinate. For $2 you can sit down and really enjoy yourself. The sign explains everything. Though I got chased away for taking the pictures.

Neighbors to the North

Judging what life for North Koreans is like from encounters at Kumgang Mountain is a little like making conclusions about oranges based on drinking Tang. It’s a watered down version.



Or is it?

Theories abound about the North Koreans who work at Kumgang Mountain. Theories because few will talk to you. Fewer will let you take their picture. None will let you take a picture of the Kim Jong Il pin that they all wear because “they want to” said one and “so you can tell us from the South Korean workers,” said another. Ask for a photo and they all say the same thing: “not while I am working.” As if we would have a chance when we were all hanging out aftwards.



You’ll never see a North Korean alone in the Kumgang region. They always travel in pairs so that each can keep an eye on the other.

The ones who work at Kumgang Mountain are hand picked. Most, it seems, attended a hospitality trade school. Almost all are of average height and weight. Taller and more filled out, it seemed, then the gaunt soldiers we saw along the way. North Koreans are said to be shorter than their South Korean counterparts because of malnutrition. Those working at the resort were not.



They were also dressed in western style hiking clothes – goretex jackets, hiking boots and pants. All seemed new. But every so often you’d see a worker walk by who was not meant to deal with the public and he or she would be dressed in more modest wool clothes. The North Koreans you got a glimpse of beyond the fences also seemed to be more moderately dressed. All seemed to be wearing dark colors.

They also all wear this pin to differentiate them from the South Korean employees. All said it was their choice to wear the pin, they were not asked to.





If Hyundai Asan knows more about their situation, they certainly weren’t telling the group of reporters I traveled with. One military official told us he thought the Kumgang Mountain workers were kept separate from other North Koreans so as to prevent them from telling others what they had glimpsed of the South Korean life. But some of the workers we talked to said they did go back to visit their families.

It goes through your mind that the workers must see the South Koreans with their fancy hiking clothes, new shoes, gadgetry and lots of money, and recognize that their situation is different. But does it bother them? I got the sense that some of them looked down on the western style of life. Whether they believed in the communist lifestyle, or were indoctrinated to believe in it is a question that can’t be answered.



They certainly had rehearsed answers to tell us. At least that was our theory. One snack vendor seemed to find it curious that we were asking whether she wanted this job that allowed her to encounter foreigners, versus a job elsewhere.

“Why would it matter?,” she asked. “All jobs are important.”

We were advised by Hyundai not to talk politics and current events. But the North Koreans we encountered seemed versed in the current news, though with a different spin than ours. The snack vendor asked why the US was holding off on sending oil and rice to North Korea, despite the six-party agreements. I explained that the US wasn’t the ones responsible for sending that, it was South Korea’s role and only once North Korea shut down its reactor.



Another asked if it was true that the US was amassing equipment to attack Iran. Papers in Russia and Kuwait and reported that the week before we were there.

Two of them said that they didn’t hate Americans, just what President Bush was doing to them. That seemed to be the practiced response. Another hypothesized that the US wouldn’t invade North Korea because they are scared of the great leader who would protect the Koreans. That was the only mention of Kim Jong Il. The subject was relatively taboo.

A waitress got very upset that the journalists had taken her photo. She asked that the photos be erased. Then she insisted. It wasn’t clear if she was offended that she hadn’t been given permission, scared that her photo was taken or just really shy. But she was upset enough to raise the issue with our handler from Hyundai Asan.