The Truman Show is a 1998 movie that chronicles
the life of a man who is initially unaware that he is living in a constructed reality television show being broadcast around the clock to billions of
people around the globe. Truman becomes suspicious of his perceived reality and
embarks on a quest to discover the truth about his life.
Before I went to North Korea, I thought their government was
totally vicious and people were pitiful. However, I got confused after
traveling there. People there seem very content about their life. Sometimes I even
thought we tourists were all like Truman. When we arrived at every scenic spot,
locals became excellent extras. Just like the two girls I mentioned before. They
went to bow to their former leader’s statue at least twice as we were visiting “萬壽台”.
After bowing, they still kept wandering around there. Everyone pretended to behave
like a normal person that foreigner got use to, or did what like the two girls
did to give us a strong message that they really worship their leader because
their leader really concern for people.
“Is it necessary for them to do these?”
I asked myself.
Before I went to North Korea, I
traveled to the northeast china. I stay in Harbin, Shenyang, and Inner Mongolia.
I had really bad impression on their sanitation and living habit. For example,
I couldn’t use any toilet in outdoors. Even in the main subway station of
Harbin and Shenyang, toilet is so dirty that I couldn’t go inside. They don’t
flush after using toilets. The vomit smell would keep me 20 meters away.
Besides the problem of horrible toilet, cutting into the line or helping other
order to food were two things made me angry. One day, I was queuing to buy
breakfast. There were five people in front of me. I had waited almost 10
minute, and there were still 5 people in front of me. I gave up queuing after I
found out the first person was helping others order.
We always talk about the speedy progress speed of Chinese
GDP growth rate. How about promoting the quality of mental wellbeing? I think
North Korean is much more well educated in the etiquette. Under the repressive
rule of Kim’s dynasty, I think people follow every rule including manner. They
lined up, smiling to foreigners and keep everything in good order.
One evening, my tourist bus was going back to the hotel.
Everyone except me on the bus was so tired that they all took a nap. When our
bus passing by a school’s swimming pool and temporarily stopped waiting for the
only red light in Pyongyang, a group of pupil saw us, some of them were shy, but
some of them ran toward us, leaned on the school fence with big smiles and
curious eyes. They waved their hands, then ran back to swimming pool shyly. At
that moment, I did not believe the government ask them to do this.
The media in the west world and our country always depict
North Korea as a horrible country. After traveling there, I would like to take
things more objectively. North Korean government always does something that is
hard to understand for us. Media see Kim as a clumsy leader, while I think they
did those things because he has to do it. North Korea is a poor and backward
country, or we can say that they have potential but still have a long way to go.
Kim must have noticed sticking in the mud would not be a the long-term plan.
However, is the development of Chinese modernization a good example to follow?
I think they are thinking about it.
