My point of DPKR 3-The Truman Show?

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.

My point of DPKR 2-limited mobility, spirit and life

Leaving the airport, we were on our way to Pyongyang city. We had two tourist guides, and they would “take care” almost everything including our passports in the following few days. Without the passport, we could only follow their arrangement. All North Korean have to pin the pins to their chests. The pin was designed in DPKR’s flag and their former leader’s face. The pin was not for sale, so if you have no pin in your chest, they can know you are a foreigner. We will be caught by police if we separate from the group and walk alone by ourself. One South Korean was shoot to death on the road by police because he walked alone and refused to obey the police’s order four years ago. So we had better follow the rule.

The first thing I noticed was many residents grew trees along the roadside. But I got confused because they would saw the tree in the middle, and grew both parts. Can trees survive?

The second thing was roads were so terrible. I believed DPKR is too poor to build a normal road. How terrible it was when I sit in the bus while driving? The bus rocked and shook so much that could make me vomit if I ate full. I could not even take a nap because it felt like that someone was shaking you constantly. It was also possible to have carsickness because some parts of road were cracked, so the needed to weave the car around the road often.

The third thing was there had almost no vehicles on the road. I only saw few cars on the road after we entered the center of Pyongyang City. The tourist guide told me that only the elite of the elite could own the car. For example, if someone won the gold metal in Olympic Game, he deserved one car that government gave. They also had a few small buses without the air condition, and it was very old. In fact, almost all people walked, owning a bicycle can tell everyone you are rich here. Besides the vehicle, houses were all allocated by government. The higher class you were, the closer you live in the center of city.

Although we were in the capital city, I felt it’s not crowded here. Compared to the big city in China or Taiwan, population here is small. The tourist guide never told us what’s the population in DPKR, they would declare a huge number that have included South Korea number. I guess population is also a secret.

In Pyongyang, we could see many gigantic former leader’s statues and memorial halls. All of them were built to memorize their great leaders. Those gigantic things reminded their people never forget their former leader’s spirit. Their spirit education seems really work. People there would go to bow their great leader’s statue automatically ever day randomly.

I summed up things that I learned above. First, people’s mobility were limited by government. Few people owned the car, and gasoline must be totally controlled. Without the car, people here couldn’t leave far away from their house. Also, terrible roads force drivers to drive slow, so the scene of drag racing in Hollywood movie won’t happen in here.

Second, people’s life is controlled. Our tourists guide got approximately NT 600 dollar a month. The salary is really low for us, yet for them is really high. Actually they barely have any place to spend except some small grocery store. What really important for them is get rice from the government every month. The higher class you are, the more you get. If you are a normal person who live very far away from the capital city, I guess you may be someone who left behind, and be starved to death in famine.

Third, people spirit is manipulated. Apparently, all media here is owned by government. Government keep brainwashing everyone since he or she were born. Everyone is Patriotic and think their leader as a God. Two girls in the photo left, went to bow to their former leader’s statue at least twice when we were visiting there.

From the aspect of mobility, spirit and life, their leader controlled the whole people very well.

My point of DPKR 1-begin of journey

We flew to Pyongyang from Shenyang in August. It didn’t take too long to enter the North Korea’s territorial air space. Taking a glimpse on the land below me from 35,000 feet high, I could vividly tell how different it is between China and North Korea: High buildings fill every part of land in China, and the scene of modern city dramatically change into “nothing” except the tree after the plane crossed the boundry. Few hours later, the plane is ready for landing.

Leaving the plane, I set foot on one of the most mysterious country. The weather was nice at that day, so I could clearly count how many aircrafts parked in the airport of capital city. They had total of “6” airplanes including small one (Maybe some of them were even fake). This number didn’t make me feel strange but make me feel I was luck because I had just arrived at the country that didn’t like to deal with foreigner. At that moment, the most important thing for me was not making any mistake in the following days in order to go home alive.

Because taking picture is forbidden in the airport, I cannot show what it look like in the airport. So my trip story began when we getting on the “special modern bus” for foreigner.