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This is the eighteenth and final installment in a multi-part blog on North Korea. You can find the others here

One "special request" we filed with our minders was to be permitted to walk into Pyongyang unescorted, perhaps as far as the railway station and back. Much to our surprise, they said it was possible. They had already added several of the places we asked to see--a grocery store, a shop, and the amusement park--but we weren't terribly optimistic about this one.

On our last day in North Korea our minder informed us that we would visit yet another museum, and then the bus would drop us off--with him as escort--to walk back to the hotel. Our request to walk alone had been denied, but at least we'd be on foot rather than seeing the city through the aquarium barrier of a bus window.

The "museum" visit was the same repetitive barrage of regime propaganda. By that point I no longer heard it. I loafed around outside watching a crew working on a mural high on the side of a building. They didn't have scaffolding, just a makeshift platform of the sort window washers use, only this one was lashed together from old lumber, mismatched sticks and brittle twigs. One poor bastard clung precariously to the platform while two long lines of men hauled at fraying ropes attached to pulleys. With each heave one side of the platform jolted up, then the other, and each time I saw that man's life flash before his eyes.

The use of press ganged manual labour and a total lack of safety standards is typical of North Korea. An expat aid worker who made repeat visits to Pyongyang told me that on one trip he noticed building had begun on a broad multilane highway between Pyongyang and a coastal port city. Masses of people clad in ragged clothing carried rocks in their bare hands and bags of dirt on their backs, carving out the highway entirely with hand tools. When my friend returned three months later, the road was finished.

As the builders of the pyramids would tell ya, a persuasive leader can accomplish amazing things with slave labour. But I found it strange that they could mobilize enough workers to carry out these massive public works projects, and yet they couldn't do something simple like get food to their people.

As promised, after the museum trudge our bus dropped us off near the railway station. Our minder immediately began walking away from the station at a rapid clip, but we asked if we could take a look inside. We were only permitted to view a waiting room; the station guards wouldn't let us enter the main area. At the time of my visit Kim Jong-Il was in Russia and would be returning by private armoured train within days. We heard rumours that the country's entire rail network had been shut down for reasons of security. Apparently this lockdown also extended to rail-related waiting rooms and lobbies.

The little square in front of the station was filled with loitering people who squinted at us with eyes of deep suspicion. They were nothing like the cheerful families that filled the park where we walked on the national holiday (those families could very well have been planted there for our benefit). These were regular working folk, whose daily life had steeped them in a deep mistrust of strangers. I had the distinct and uncomfortable feeling that we were not welcome.

Our minder sensed it too. He began walking along the same dull street we had driven down every day on the bus. It was setting itself up to be another pointless excursion through the mundane already-seen, but we persuaded him to take a small detour by turning a different corner and simply marching off in that direction.

Our new route took us through a residential cluster of apartment buildings. It was like any other rundown concrete neighbourhood, except for the fact that there weren't any people. The shuffling of our feet echoed between the walls with apocalyptic gloom. And then we heard the lonely notes of a saxophone from somewhere above us. It bounced between the buildings, lonely at first and then wrung out with sorrow, fading and renewing itself over and over. I finally spotted the guy sitting high in a window, and he waved and blew another phrase.

It was the one time I felt as though I'd formed a genuine connection with someone in North Korea; that we were able to communicate without filters or minders, person to person, and I felt his frustration and his pain. I assured him of my sympathy by stopping there in the middle of the street to listen, and for a moment the barriers they'd built between us fell away.

And then control was reimposed. We returned to the sanitized main street, crossed the bridge, and trudged the length of our island prison to the hotel.

After a final tasteless lunch in the revolving restaurant we were driven to the airport, where-- just moments before passing through customs--we were each handed a one way ticket to Beijing and our passport. They'd held onto our documents the entire time we'd been in the country--whether to prevent us from escaping or to forge copies for their spies, I don't know. If you meet a rustic looking Korean with a Canadian passport who goes by the name Ryan Murdock, I'd appreciate it if you called his bluff.

My tourist visa had been issued on a separate blue piece of paper, rather than the usual sticker or stamp. This paper was stamped on entry into North Korea, and on exit they stamped it once more before taking it back. Earlier we had asked our minder if we could get an exit stamp in our passports. We were all dedicated travelers, and a DPRK stamp is incredibly rare. We were told it was impossible, totally illegal for foreigners. But once out of sight and through the customs gate, a handful of American cigarettes slipped through the window was enough to convince a soldier to shoot a quick glance over his shoulder and quietly stamp one in.

Our minder had also told me it was impossible for foreigners to buy the local DPRK currency, and that it was illegal to take it out of the country. I was able to get a little of this as well. It's never difficult to grease the wheels in a socialist country. Someone's always on the take.

Waiting in the departure lounge, we met two interesting foreigners who confirmed most of our suspicions and filled in the blanks on the rest.

The first, a businessman running a joint venture with the regime, said the North Koreans were so desperate for money that, short of raping a girl in the middle of Kim Il-Sung square, he could do whatever he wanted inside the country. His method was simply to push his way in, and when they pointed a gun at him he knew it was off limits. But even he wasn't able to get inside the black markets.

He also confirmed how Kim Il-Sung actually came to power. At one point in his story he said, "Like any good communist he killed all his comrades." A North Korean looked up sharply, obviously having understood. But the foreigner returned his glare with a steady, unflustered gaze. "That's right. I said Kim Il-Sung murdered all his friends." The North Korean looked away.

The other person we met was a prominent European aid worker, and he helped us complete the story.

Several times during our stay we tried to get one of the pins with the picture of the Leader that every North Korean must wear. We didn't have any luck, and our new friend wasn't surprised. He said it was impossible for foreigners to get one inside North Korea, it's one of the two taboos which cannot be breached. Citizens are given a certain number of pins, and they're strictly accounted for. If you want one of these your best bet is China, along the North Korean border. Starving Koreans who manage to escape the country on foot often try to sell their pins for food. Apparently the going rate is $25 US. Apart from the pins, the other unbreakable taboo is sexual relations between a North Korean woman and foreign man. The foreign man is deported immediately and the Korean woman is shot.

The European also told us that, though the people close to the top know the Juche philosophy and the propaganda is total bullshit, no one ever shows it in public. At most they might confide in a husband or wife, but publicly everyone pretends to believe. Insiders fall out of favour very easily and are often shot. Unlike the former USSR and other communist countries, there were no dissident groups in North Korea, no opposition groups of any kind. Control is absolute. Transgressors are dealt with swiftly and harshly.

About the Korean nuclear program, he said it was generally agreed Kim Jong-Il probably had a couple nuclear bombs, but they were more of a danger to him than anyone else. Their technology is believed to be so primitive that the North Koreans could just as easily destroy themselves attempting to use it. They do, however, possess massive quantities of conventional, chemical, and biological weapons, capable of inflicting heavy damage on Seoul and other parts of the South before US forces wiped them off the map. Our European friend felt that American use of North Korea as a threat to justify George Bush's missile defence program was completely groundless.

Finally, the he told us that the regime continues to survive despite widespread starvation because the rest of the world wants it to remain just above water. South Korea doesn't want the North to collapse because it would be flooded with refugees which would destroy its growing economy. The US wants to uphold the status quo to ensure stability on the Korean peninsula, and (at the time of my visit--a month before 9/11) to help justify massive military spending.

I was surprised to learn that the biggest donor of food aid to North Korea is the United States, though the regime doesn't acknowledge this. North Korea explains away container loads of US-stamped rice as guilt payment for damage caused during the Korean War.

For further info, and to complete the pieces of your own DPRK puzzle, check out North Korea Through the Looking Glass by Kongdan Oh. It's still one of the best sources out there and comes highly recommended.

So that was it.

I flew out of North Korea on Northern China airlines, on a plane filled with rich members of the DPRK elite going shopping in Beijing. Finally free to say and do whatever I liked, I sat beside the guy from Norway, and we made loud jokes about the Leader while the North Koreans shot us murderous looks. As we got closer to landing, they slipped into the lavatory at the back of the plane one by one to change their clothes and remove their Kim Jong-Il pins.

Back in Beijing I took the guys to a little restaurant I'd eaten at the week before our trip. When the food arrived we shoved our faces into it, grunting and slurping like swine, and no one uttered a word until it was finished. After a week of starvation in the DPRK it was a Bacchanalian feast.

Later that evening, we walked down Sanlitun and ate dessert in a sidewalk café. I can't describe to you how wonderful it felt to be there. The warm summer night hummed with activity. I felt such a sense of freedom simply from walking down the street. People were laughing, music boomed from nearby bars, pretty girls wore short skirts and smiled. Never in my life did I expect China to feel like the land of freedom. I wanted to sit there all night just to soak it all in.

I didn't realize until then how dull and grey and constrained North Korea had been, how utterly lifeless. Everything was held subdued and in a state of constant tension. On the streets nobody smiled, and there were no pretty girls. Compared to Pyongyang, Beijing was pulsing with life energy, and it almost felt like the West.

Looking back, it's amazing to me now that China felt so free. I didn't know it at the time, but I would go back to that same street 11 months later. For two months I would travel the length and breadth of the country, from its loftiest Tibetan heights to the depths of its western desert frontiers. And the conclusions I'd come to would be something else entirely.

But that's a different story for another time...

This is the seventeenth in a multi-part blog on North Korea. You can find the others here

We said goodbye to our brave military escort at the DMZ, thankful that they'd protected us from the imminent danger of American attack.

We made one last stop on our way back to the capital, just outside Kaesong city. It was reputedly the tomb of an early Korean king and his Mongolian wife, but as with everything else in the DPRK, nothing could be taken at face value. North Korea has been known to fake archaeological findings to support whatever version of history is the current party line.

Even if the physical site was authentic (and I believe it was), who knows how much of the interpretation was propaganda? The history of the Koryo Dysnasty--one of the founding kingdoms of Korea--is politically charged. The North believes that if they can claim control of that history, they can claim the right to lead a reunified Korean peninsula. 

To the best of my knowledge, this burial mound was the only ancient tomb known to have survived the bombings of the Korean War. But despite my normal interest in history, I didn't want to be there.

The sun beat down on the site like a hammer, without even the mitigating hope of a breeze. I followed along at the tail end of our group, dragging my heels alongside an equally deflated Norwegian. I'd become sick to the gills of monuments, propaganda and especially stories about the Leader, and Jon felt the same. 

As we plodded along in our sweat soaked misery, Jon whispered all the idiotic comments he wanted to ask our guide. He looked so sincere, and his Norwegian accent pushed it over the edge.

"Why is it that we never see the Leader? Is it because he's so fat and ugly?"

And, "I have a question. Last night I had this dream that I was having sex with the Leader. Is this normal?"

I could picture so clearly Jon asking these questions in sincere tones, and the look of absolute horror that would freeze on the face of our guide.

We were cracking up like school kids, trying desperately to keep a straight face while stifling snorts of laughter. Contagious hysteria wasn't far off.

I said, "You know that blister on my foot? Last night the skin peeled off and... it was... it was in the shape of the Leader!"

I didn't realize until we got back to Beijing the constant pressure we'd been under. Always having to be careful of what we said, the awareness that we were permanently under surveillance, every conversation listened to, and the seriousness of the North Korean guides with their relentless badgering propaganda. It was finally beginning to pile up.

One of the other guys drifted to the back and warned us to keep it down. If the North Koreans heard any of our jokes about the Leader, the least they would do was deport us immediately.

But I no longer cared what happened to the trip. I'd seen the DMZ and I was leaving the next day. Deportation would simply mean a couple less Communist monuments to suffer through.

The holes in the cracks of the regime continued to reveal themselves. On the drive back to Pyongyang, we stopped at a rest area that had been built to straddle the empty highway. There were of course no customers, only a few bored workers sulking in dark corners of empty rooms. 

I happened to look into the kitchen on my way to the washroom, where I saw three workers filling plastic water bottles from a tap and re-sealing the tops with a paper clip and a lighter. They looked guilty when I caught their eye, but that didn't stop them from trying to sell us those same bottles a few minutes later.

Back in the city, we were forced to make an unplanned detour because several main roads had been closed for the national holiday. We passed through semi-rural sections on the outskirts of Pyongyang, where the buckled tarmac was like one prolonged act of god. We didn't see any other vehicles, only people walking down the nightdark centre of the road.

The housing areas of the outskirts were the diametrical opposite of the marbled grandeur we'd been shown in the city. Crumbling cement dwellings clustered around shared courtyards. Many of the houses were completely overgrown with plants and vines, as people tried to supplement their meager diet by turning their roofs into makeshift gardens. Behind one house, in a little yard surrounded by ruined walls, I saw a woman and child squatting beside a pile of coal, breaking lumps off with a hammer.

Soon after that, we passed what must have been a black market. Our minders jumped up and ordered us to put away our cameras, and they refused to answer questions. The quick glimpse we caught revealed a government soldier with a rifle standing guard in front of a little walled courtyard. Inside, people looked to be buying and selling with paper money.

I found out afterwards that the government turns a blind eye to these unofficial markets because they're just about the only thing staving off more widespread starvation. Not everyone has access to them, however, and only dollars are accepted.

That night, back on our floor of the deserted hotel, we lined up shoulder to shoulder in front of the elevators and demonstrated our best North Korean goose step march while one of the guys took a photo. The shutter clicked, we burst into laughter, and the elevator doors slid open to reveal the head of the DPRK government tourist service.  A couple seconds earlier and he would have walked straight into our goose-stepping line.

He was friendly enough to talk to, but there was something strange about his eyes. A barely submerged cruelty, perhaps. I got the feeling that he would have shipped us off to a concentration camp without the slightest hesitation.

This latest close call finally convinced us that we were losing all sense of caution. It was definitely time to leave.

This is the sixteenth in a multi-part blog on North Korea. You can find the others here

Our presence on the wrong side of the frontier caused a mild scramble among the South Korean forces.

Frantic radio messages were dispatched. Binoculars were trained on us. Reinforcements jogged over to take up positions half-concealed by the corners of buildings, where they conducted a whispered conference and pointed accusing fingers of guilt. They clearly considered us traitors to humanity.

A group of North Korean soldiers-- the promised "escort for our protection"--was posted at attention along the edge of the line, and a pair flanked the freshly painted blue door of the truce building.

Our escort whisked us directly inside, where a table had been divided precisely down the middle by the 38th parallel. Having experienced the North Korean sense of one-upmanship, I could just imagine the petty squabbling which must take place there, each side attempting to grab just a little more territory by pulling the table towards them when they thought no one was looking.

Like their North Korean counterparts, the US military also conducts tours on the South Korean side of the DMZ, and a strict agreement is in place to prevent brawls inside the negotiating room--when one side enters, those from the opposing side are not allowed to go in.

For guests of the US Forces, walking to the opposite side of that room--and technically crossing the line--is as close as most people will ever come to entering the world's most reclusive country. I guess it was fitting that, on a trip where everything felt like a strangely reversed mirror image of reality, I had the opposite experience--it's the only time I've ever stepped over the border to enter the geographic territory of South Korea.

I've spoken to friends who participated in those US military tours, and I'm told it's a serious, strictly supervised affair overburdened with a list of strange rules: dress codes are enforced, with collared shirts, no jeans, no open-toed shoes, and no clothing featuring English lettering. It's also absolutely forbidden to gesture towards, point at, or otherwise attempt to communicate with the North Korean forces on the opposite side.

The North Korean tour was nothing like that. Instead of acting tense, the soldiers inside the truce building went out of their way to seem laid back and sociable. They laughed loudly at our jokes, answered all our questions, and smiled as much as possible. They even encouraged me to lean back comfortably in my chair and put my feet up on the conference table. They really went that extra mile to present the impression that we were all one big happy Juche-believing family.

Even as we sat there laughing it up, the South Korean military was busy adding to our dossier. South Korean soldiers stuck their faces right up against the window glass, staring at us intently while speaking into portable radios. They peered at us through binoculars to see us better from 5 feet away, and one arrived with a camera and attempted to capture a clear photo of each of our faces.

Unlike the US military tour guides, the North Koreans didn't discourage us from making attempts to communicate. They pointed at the enemy soldiers and laughed as though to say, "See what we're up against?" When I finally had enough of all the picture taking, I pulled out my camera to take photos of them taking photos of us. The North Koreans just laughed and encouraged me.

Back outside, the air was thick with heightened tension. South Korean soldiers had taken up positions that mirrored those of our escort, standing eye to eye across that thin concrete line, glaring into each others faces only centimeters apart. I was reminded of the fact that, despite all the rules, gunfights sometimes broke out here.

I still couldn't believe the world's most heavily defended border was nothing more than a strip of concrete one foot wide and a couple inches high, with only self-discipline separating hate from fanatical hate.

I turned to our escort. "What would happen if one of us tried to run across the line?"

"You'll be shot," he said.

That was ambiguous.

"Who'll shoot us?" I asked. "You guys or them?"

"You'll be shot," he repeated, looking me steadily in the eye. It was pretty clear which side he was referring to.

By then an American soldier had joined the South Korean deployment. He lingered in the background, watching us from around the corner of a building while the South Koreans continued to photograph us, one man using binoculars to spot and direct the man with the camera.

I turned my back and put my head down anytime I saw that camera being raised, but in the end it wouldn't have made much difference. The video cameras that peppered the wall of the building opposite us were busy recording everything.

I resented that a little. I realize they need to watch the DMZ carefully, and that they would naturally be suspicious of someone who gained access to the other side. But the thought that some government bureau-rat might one day hold this trip against me--or even worse, attempt to label me as a sympathizer--really pissed me off. I'll travel wherever and whenever I like. I'll see things for myself and form my own opinion as to the conditions and rightness or wrongness of a place. I don't need a nation or a government to tell me how or what to think.

When we finally had enough of being stared at, suspected and photographed, our military escort led us inside the large glass-fronted building, to a second storey balcony overlooking the line. By the time we got there the South Korean solders on the other side had disappeared, but I'm sure they were watching us from the other large building that mirrored our own.

I was posing for pictures when one of the North Korean soldiers approached and began to interrogate me.

"What do people in your country think of North Korea?" he asked. From the sneer on his face, I knew he was itching for an argument.

"We don't get a lot of news from Asia," I said, groping for a diplomatic exit. "People in Canada really don't know very much about Korea."

A little more honesty would have been satisfying, but total honesty would probably have gotten me shot ("Actually, the rest of the world thinks North Korea is a seething mass of brainwashed lunatics ticking slowly toward a catastrophic implosion.")

He then said, rather forcefully, "Did you see the flag of your country on the other side?" 

He was referring to a plaque on the south wall of the truce building which showed the United Nations flag, and below it the flags of each country that had fought on the UN side in the Korean War.

I admitted that I had.

"What did you think about this?"

"I was a little surprised." It was only a partial lie. I was surprised to see a Canadian flag decorating the room, but of course I knew we'd fought against them.

"What do people in your country think about the Korean War?"

 "We don't learn much about it," I replied. "It's not studied much in our history classes."

He seemed satisfied with that answer, but I knew that we each drew different meanings from my statement. He believed Canadians don't study the Korean War because we're filled with shame and remorse. The truth is we don't study it because, despite the incredible sacrifices made by those involved, in the larger picture of world history it was an isolated 3 year war that happened over 50 years ago. At most it would occupy a page in a high school history textbook.

You must realize by now that the North Koreans don't see it this way.

For the DPRK, the Korean War and the earlier Japanese occupation of 1925-1945 are very much current events. They're the constant topic of films and books, newspaper stories and propaganda. They talk about it so much it feels like it happened yesterday. This obsessive resentment is deliberately kept at a slow boil by the regime. When a people are held in constant fear of the enemies surrounding them, they're less likely to realize that the very regime which claims to be protecting them is the worst enemy of all.

While we were standing on the balcony, another soldier came over to tell us about Kim Jong-IL's visit to Panmunjom. For the record, I don't believe in a million years that he ever actually went there. He would never be reckless enough to place himself within an easy sniper's shot of the Americans.

But this solider was convinced.

"When the Dear Leader was inspecting this site, a cloud of smoke came down to blanket the area. The Leader could see the DMZ, but his enemies couldn't see him. When he left the area, the fog mysteriously lifted."

For a moment we were knocked speechless--not by this miracle, but by the fact that the solider absolutely believed it. He, on the other hand, clearly interpreted our speechlessness as awe.

One of our guys finally managed to sputter, "Do you mean to say that the Dear Leader generates his own fog?"

The soldier simply said "Yes."

He wasn't smiling.

This is the fifteenth in a multi-part blog on North Korea. You can find the others here

The highlight of my time in North Korea--the moment that made all the badgering and propaganda worthwhile--was our visit to the Demilitarized Zone and the truce village of Panmunjom. This thin line bisecting two worldviews is the last Cold War frontier, and the world's most heavily defended border.

The uneventful drive from Pyongyang featured the same broad tourist highway we'd seen on the drive north to Mt Myohyang, with the same manufactured greenery on both sides. There were more roadblocks and checkpoints as we neared the border, but this was the only indication of the massive concentration of conventional, chemical and biological weapons stockpiled in the surrounding hills.

One of the guys in my group was carrying a Beatles tape he'd picked up in Beijing, and much to our surprise our minders let him put it on. At times like that the world seems to waver and reality looses its grip. We were rolling down a highway in the most oppressive totalitarian country in the world, listening to songs of love and freedom. It felt like that music insulated us and protected us from the horrors outside.

Between songs, our minder explained Kim Il-Sung's brilliant idea for reunification of the two Koreas.

"The Great Leader saw one country, two systems, and two governments. In this way the Fatherland can be reunited."

"But isn't that two countries?" I asked.

He just repeated the formula.

At the end of the road we pulled up in front of a small building. We were told to wait there, and that several soldiers would accompany us around the Zone "for our protection."

We met a strange Australian 'tourist' inside. He was sitting in the corner with his two minders, dressed entirely in military fatigues, right down to the polished black boots. When we questioned him he insisted he was just a civilian on vacation, and that he dressed this way because it was "more comfortable." He became another subject for our daily speculations. You don't come to the world's most heavily defended border dressed like a combatant if you're a tourist.

The military guide arrived and took us to another room, where he explained the features of the DMZ using a large scale model and wall map.

"Here we can see firsthand the suffering and anguish of the Korean people over their divided Fatherland," he said, peering at us with beady eyes, as though we were personally responsible.

One of our guys pointed to the map, at some islands which appeared to be very close to the border. One was clearly to the north of 38 degrees. But the red line didn't extend that far.

"Which country do those islands belong to?" he asked.

The soldier answered a totally different question three times in a row, repeating by rote the same general information from his speech about where the border runs.

Peter finally gave up and let it pass. Even the Lonely Planet guidebook is clear that the islands belong to the South. The North Koreans didn't want to admit this, for some reason unknown to us.

We reboarded the bus accompanied by our military escort, and passed through triple rows of electric fence.

"You are now inside the truce village of Panmunjom," our minder said. "It is called the "peace village" because no weapons are permitted here."

I pointed out the window at a soldier walking past.

"How come he has a rifle?"

Our minder glanced quickly at the AK-47 slung over his shoulder. "It's not loaded."

"There's a clip in it," I said.

"No bullets."

Clearly the subject was closed.

We were taken to the building where the Korean War armistice was signed. I could sense the North Koreans rolling up their metaphorical sleeves for a serious bludgeoning of propaganda.

"The US came here hiding behind the flag of the United Nations, with their South Korean puppet stooges and their 15 satellite countries," they said.

"Notice that the UN flag is all faded and yellow, but the DPRK flag is still as bright and fresh as the day the truce was signed. It points to the fact that the intentions of the United States and the United Nations were rotten to the core, while those of the DPRK were pure."

That was a bit of a cheap shot. No doubt they've replaced their own flag several times since 1953.

Few people realize that a full peace treaty was never signed--only a cease fire--and so a state of war still exists between North and South Korea, and by extension the 15 countries of the UN mandate. The North Korean opinion of that cease far was made very clear to us.

"Here you see a copy of the armistice agreement. We regard it as nothing more than a worthless piece of paper."

Suitably chastised, we were loaded into the bus once more and driven a short distance to a small parking area. I happened to look to the left as we pulled in, and saw a group of soldiers hiding in the bushes. As our bus rolled to a halt the officer nudged the lead man. They marched out of the shrubbery and passed the bus in a crisp column, hurrying along as if on some important business. No one else in the group had seen them waiting there; they were all looking to the right where the border would be.

When we were finally permitted to disembark our military escort ordered us to pair up and form two columns. We were expected to march in an organized fashion to reflect dignity and respect of this important place.

After the barrage of propaganda we'd just put up with, not to mention the insults to our countries and our countrymen, this was too much. As we marched across the parking lot in the hot sun, one of the Brits began whistling the song from Bridge on the River Kwai. It immediately spread through our ranks until we were all whistling loudly in protest.

The Korean soldiers just looked at us with puzzled expressions. They either didn't get it, or they thought it was a traditional marching song. Lucky for us they hadn't seen the movie.

I thought the tortures of Tantalus were finally over and that they'd let us see the line, but I was wrong. They halted our column beside a large marble monument which depicted a replica of the final scrawled signature of the Great Leader. According to the official story, Kim Il-Sung died of a heart attack at his desk, where they found his still fresh signature on a document urging the reunification of the two Koreas. That's how deeply he cared about reuniting his heartbroken Korean people. How poignant. How moving. The soldier blathered on and on about the signature as we stood there sweating in the blazing sun, and it was all I could do not to shout "Shut up! No one gives a shit! Just show us the goddamned border!"

He finally ran out of patriotic things to say, and we were allowed to march over the hill two-by-two.

Two large three-storey buildings faced off across the no man's land of the border, covered in tinted glass and bristling with an array of video cameras and microphones. The line itself--over which so much blood has been shed--was nothing more than a strip of concrete about a foot wide and two inches high.

Five rectangular blue buildings, divided precisely in half by the 38th parallel, straddled the line. The center building was the famous 'truce building', where meetings are occasionally held between the two Koreas and through which all messages pass between North and South.

North Korean soldiers had been deployed around the truce building, standing almost nose to nose with an equal deployment of South Korean troops on the other side of that one foot line.

The soldiers on the south side didn't look very happy to see us. In fact, the first glimpse of white faces on the wrong side of the line prompted a small scramble of troops. US military advisers came running from the three-storey building to peek around corners with binoculars and cameras as we were marched over to the truce building's blue door.

This is the fourteenth in a multi-part blog on North Korea. You can find the others here

The Arch of Triumph commemorates North Korea's liberation from the Japanese occupation at the end of World War Two. It looks an awful lot like the Arch in Paris, but of course Pyongyang's Arch was deliberately built to be 3 meters taller...

North Korea doesn't acknowledge the Pacific War (WWII) and the role it played in the liberation of the country, which made this a natural topic to bring up with our minders. It's good to test the waters every now and then, to remind each other we both know where the line's been drawn in the bullshit.

"When was Korea liberated from Japan?" I asked, shading my eyes and squinting up at the flat grey stones of this rather uninspiring monument.

"In 1945, after the Japanese surrender," he said.

"After Japan surrendered to America in the Pacific War?" I asked, in my most conversational tone.

"After the surrender," he repeated, with a little more emphasis on the neutrality of the last two words.

He didn't want to say who Japan surrendered to. It was of course America, but the official party line is that Japan surrendered to the unorganized and scattered Korean resistance groups, one small faction of which was led by Kim Il-Sung.

In the highly creative North Korean version of history, Kim Il-Sung led a vast army of all the united resistance forces, crushing the Japanese occupation single-handedly. Both our minder and I knew this wasn't true--he had lived abroad while working at an embassy posting, and so he had a little more awareness of the outside world than the average isolated North Korean.

We exchanged a glance, one of those "you know and I know, so don't push this any farther" sort of looks. I was satisfied and didn't press the issue. It was exactly the type of answer I'd expected.

After plodding around the hot grey pavement of the Arch of Triumph in the sun, we were taken to a hill on the outskirts of Pyongyang to trudge around the Revolutionary Martyr's Cemetery. This is the burial place of military heroes from the liberation war against Japan. Each gravestone is crowned by a lifelike bust of the person buried beneath it.

A site guide led us to the graves of important people such as the Great Leader's brother, and others whose stories of sacrifice and heroism on behalf of the Fatherland were considered particularly moving. At the top of the hill, the focal point of the cemetery, was the grave of Kim Jong-IL's mother, also a revolutionary hero (at least according to the current version of history), and the occasional third in the North Korean Holy Trinity. The base of her monument was strewn with flowers, evidence of the many North Koreans who came each day to pay their respects. We were once more obliged to line up and perform the "one-time bow" in homage to the founders of this cruel regime. It was just one of the prices we paid for admission.

Moping around communist monuments in the sun was finally beginning to wear me down. I was growing tired of listening to the ceaseless stream of nonsense about the Leader and seeing all those god-awful militant revolutionary monuments, and so I finally began to tune it all out.

Besides, I was more interested in the far-off view of the Pyongyang cityscape, with its enormous pyramid hotel that towered over everything. That strange black pyramid--that heartless shell--would begin to show up in more and more of my photographs. It mesmerized me. It lured me in. It was slowly becoming an obsession.

On the way back from the hills we drove past the former Presidential Palace of Great Leader Kim Il-Sung. According to an Australian businessman who joined our group from time to time and who does business with the regime, it was just one of several residences maintained by the Great Leader. Today it's a mausoleum where, thanks to the same Russian technology that brought us the eternal remains of Lenin and Chairman Mao, Kim Il-Sung's embalmed corpse is on permanent display.

Masses of local people were lined up in the entrance courtyard to file past the Great Leader and give the respectful "one-time bow", but unfortunately this wasn't on our itinerary. Apparently foreigners can be admitted, but it's difficult and must be arranged far in advance.

The Australian businessman also told me that no one knows where the current leader Kim Jong-Il lives. He's believed to move around between several residences for fear of assassination, and to have many mistresses.

I decided to test this notion with our minders later that day.

"Where does the Dear Leader live?" I asked, my voice tinged with the appropriate tones of respect. "And does he have a family?"

Both times the answer was a brisk "I don't know."

They either really didn't know--which I suspect is the case--or they weren't permitted to discuss it with us.

I found that rather strange. As recently as a month before my visit, the Asian edition of Time magazine published an old family photo of Kim Jong-Il with his wife and kids. His eldest son had been picked up at Tokyo's Narita airport while trying to sneak into Japan on a false passport in order to visit Tokyo Disneyland. The existence of his family was common knowledge in the outside world, but it was apparently a state secret within the country. I got the impression that to even speculate about it was forbidden.

I was bursting to tell our minders all about the Tokyo Disney bust, but slighting the Leader even innocuously was the one thing which would have gotten us in serious trouble in North Korea, and that was certain to place our lives at risk.

[Those interested in reading more will be fascinated by this link to a high level North Korean defector's report of Kim Jong-Il's residences and living conditions]

This is the thirteenth in a multi-part blog on North Korea. You can find the others here

Every first world metropolis needs a subway, and the Great Leader's urban paradise is no different. But as with everything else, the North Koreans went a little overboard. Other world cities pride themselves on having functional transportation systems. Pyongyang's exists as yet another monument to the glorification of the Fatherland.

Each subway station in Pyongyang is slightly different, with a different décor and name derived from its revolutionary theme, which bears absolutely no relation to the station's geographical location.

The stations I visited were deep underground, far deeper than necessary judging by the flat topography of the city and the lack of competing lines. The escalator felt like it was descending to the Earth's core, or perhaps to the depths of hell. My ears popped more than once on the way down. I assumed the stations were to be used as bomb shelters in the event of war, or that they had some other nefarious purpose.

I've largely confined these travelers' tales to what I saw and heard at the time, rather than bring in what I learned after I got out. But I'll make an exception here. I later learned that our suspicions were likely quite accurate. This quote from a very cool website on the Pyongyang metro: "Documents passed to Changchun Car Company, which built the original subway cars, indicate that Pyongyang has a substantial secret metro system for government use", and "Apart from the secret lines, the Pyongyang Metro was designed as part of a broader military system of tunnels and underground installations. The stations are very deep underground and are fitted with multiple (usually triple) heavy blast doors, indirect linking tunnels, and other features that imply military purposes or service as emergency shelters."  I've provided the link at the bottom of this blog for anyone interested in reading more.

The platform of Puhung (Rehabilitation) station was built of marble, polished to a high sheen to better reflect the glow of the enormous chandeliers which lit the station. Its walls were adorned with broad ceramic tile mosaics, the largest of which graced the entryway above the stairs: "The Great Leader Comrade Kim Il Sung among Workers" (15.8 x 9.25 m). According to the official English-language brochure The Pyongyang Metro: "In the underground station is the mosaic mural "The Great Leader Kim Il Sung among Workers" which depicts the great leader who, regarding "The people are my God" as his motto, devoted his whole life to the people, sharing life and death, sweets and bitters with them."

Here's another dose, if you simply can't get enough of that wonderful propaganda: "The works of art at Puhung Station 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 the questionable choice of subject matter, the North Koreans really do excel at this type of art. Their craftsmanship is impeccable. By contrast, the subway cars themselves were a little down at heels. The doors didn't even open automatically--we had to open them manually, and turn to slide them shut again. Inside each car the two regulation framed portraits of the Leaders hung at one end, in case we needed another reminder of who's in charge, or who we have to thank for all this.

Our car was nearly empty, perhaps because they'd chosen the national holiday to take us for our token ride, or perhaps, as I suspected, because the system rarely ran, given the power cuts and blackouts which have become a daily constant in the country. Quoting again from the Pyongyang Metro website: "Indeed, whether the Metro is in regular service at all is not entirely certain. Practically the only non-North Korean eyewitnesses to Metro use are the visitors given the showcase ride on the system."

It seems that the other passengers in our car may have planted there for our benefit, though they did do a very good job of seeming to be surprised by the presence of foreigners: "Inevitably, they are taken for a one-station ride, between Puhung and Yonggwang stations, accompanied by their North Korean guides. A handful of well-dressed Korean passengers also board the train."

Our driver was already waiting for us when we arrived at the next stop: Yonggwang (Glory).

After touring the subway station, we were whisked off to an amusement park. This wasn't part of the official agenda; it was actually a request. It all came about as we drove past the park on our bus a couple days earlier. One of the guys in our group saw the park, leaped to the window, and in a thick Norwegian accent cried with great sincerity, "Oh a roller coaster! Why are we just going past?" Being rather compassionate individuals and quick to extend the hand of hospitality, our minders sought permission to take us to this gem of the People's Paradise.

At first glance, the Mangyongdae Fun Fair didn't look like very much fun. It was shabby and down at heels, a far cry from Disneyland or even Canada's Wonderland. Glum soldiers with Kalashnikovs guarded the entrance--perhaps to ensure patrons really did have a good time. Many of the "rides" seemed like the rusted remnants of an inner city children's park.

The only notable attraction was the roller coaster we had spotted from the road, but even it looked exhausted. Ground down by privation and years of hardship, it seemed barely able to summon the inertia to make it around its two loops. Every time I watched it go up, I was sure it would creep to the top, lose speed, and simply fall off.

A few of us agreed to ride it with Jon, despite the fact that we had to pay $4 each. A long line of Koreans snaked around the platform's base; they'd probably been waiting for two hours or more in the stifling summer heat. One of our minders simply pushed through to the bottom of the stairs, barked a command, and everyone immediately cowered aside to let us pass. I didn't see a singe person grumble at the unfairness of our VIP treatment.

Now I have to tell you that I've jumped out of airplanes, climbed mountains and met grizzly bears in the wild face to face. I'm not the least bit nervous about roller coasters because they're designed to be safe--but this one looked like an elaborately devised random execution machine, something straight out of Kafka. It was with considerable hesitation that I allowed them to strap me in.

The cars creaked and groaned as they slammed around the track, metal screeching against metal in a triumph of communist engineering. When we reached the top of the loops, I did feel that moment of indeterminate hesitation I saw from below, but after only the briefest of shudders we continued down the other side, shaken and thankful to escape with our lives. The entire ride--one circuit of the tiny track--lasted less than a minute. Not really worth the wait for all those Korean people, but I guess it was worth $4 to us because it was so odd.

Those interested in reading more about the Pyongyang Metro are urged to check out this excellent site, complete with maps, photos, and all the speculation any North Korea watcher could ever desire: www.pyongyangmetro.com

This is the twelfth in a multi-part blog on North Korea. You can find the others here

 
Our escorts chose National Liberation Day--the holiday celebrating Korea's liberation from the Japanese occupation of the Second World War--to make our obligatory visit to the Grand Monument on Mansudae Hill. There were a lot more people than normal in the streets of Pyongyang, and the sun blazed down with a festive vengeance.

The Grand Monument is the famous gold-tinged statue of Great Leader Kim Il-Sung that towers over the city. He stands gazing off into the distance, his hand indicating the way ahead for the Korean people, the Juche way of prosperity and self-reliance. Nearby I saw a man pulling up grass and stuffing it into a cloth sack. I wondered if he was planning to eat it. When the food crisis was at its worst, the government printed books on how to use such things as grass for food. This coincided with the cheerful "Let's eat only two meals a day!" campaign. Somehow I doubt that the corpulent elite participated in that one.

All visitors to North Korea are expected to stop at the Grand Monument to place flowers in a show of respect to the Leader. I'd been told this before I entered the country, and I wondered why they hadn't brought us on the first day. This holiday was the obvious reason--they'd been saving it up.

One of my colleagues placed the bouquet for our group, and we lined up to give the 'one-time bow' as instructed. No doubt the North Koreans extracted full propaganda value from the occasion, telling the local people that yet another group of foreigners has traveled here from afar to pay their solemn respects to the Leader, who is of course revered around the globe.

I was surprised by the number of North Koreans who were there and at other public monuments. I wondered how often residents of Pyongyang visited the place, if it was mandatory, and how often they placed flowers?

The Grand Monument is flanked on both sides by statues depicting war scenes, one showing the Great Leader valiantly at the forefront of the fight against the Japanese, and the other showing him bravely leading the fight against the Americans and their puppet stooges the South Koreans during the Korean War. It was a shrine on an enormous scale to his (manufactured) memory and his greatness.

What I find most disturbing about the entire thing is that the Grand Monument had been built more than 10 years before Kim Il-Sung's death. Despite all his noble talk of self-sacrifice and living for "his" people, he was a full participant in the cult they built around him, and in his eventual deification.

Later that afternoon, our minders took us to a large park where local people gathered to celebrate the holiday. I have to admit I was a little surprised by this. It was the closest we'd gotten to actual North Koreans, and given the boisterous gathering and loose crowds, it was there that our escorts ran the greatest risk of us making unsupervised contact.

The people in the park were more relaxed than those we'd glimpsed on the edges of tourist sites. They waved hello and smiled rather than glare at us with fear and suspicion.

Small groups gathered in circles on the ground, playing traditional instruments, eating and drinking. Dancing broke out with increasing frequency, and small crowds of onlookers formed around those blessed with the greatest talent. Good natured drunks staggered through the scene, spreading good cheer with breath that would stop a lion in its tracks.

We strolled through the park at a relaxed pace with our minders. They even paused from time to time to translate for us when someone said hello. Of course it was nothing more than "hello" and "where are you from," but it was the deepest level of contact we'd experienced so far.

At one point, half of our group paused on the margins of a crowd to watch some particularly good dancing. One minder stayed, while the other half of the group continued along the path with our other minder. It wasn't difficult for me to take advantage of the confusion and drift off alone in the direction they'd gone.

I thought I'd made a clean escape, but a casual glance over my shoulder picked up our video guy--the suspected spy--quick legging it in hot pursuit. He was twisting through the crowd with a harried look, but I hit an open stretch and my legs were longer. I adopted my most naïve look and sped up until I lost him.

I eventually ran into the other group, but for a brief five minutes I was alone and unsupervised in North Korea.

This is the eleventh in a multi-part blog on North Korea. You can find the others here

It took me nearly a week to realize why Pyongyang felt so much like a stage set. It wasn't just the marble monuments and the enormous public buildings, the empty ten-lane streets and the weird scarcity of people. It was the almost total absence of shops. In all our bus rides through the city, I'd seen nothing to suggest that people actually lived there.

I did see the odd place that looked like a store, with a plate glass window and display shelving, but they were always dark and empty. And I never once saw a restaurant. Restaurants must have existed for the elite, but no signs marked their location and they weren't advertised.

As travelers, this robbed us of a staple window into that place. When wandering alone I tend to ditch tourist sites and guidebook highlights in favour of grocery stores, cafes and small shops. Shelves stocked with strange products tell me more about the physical and emotional appetites of a culture than an airbrushed museum ever could. Watching the flow of life ebb and surge through a café or down a street gives me an immediate sense of how a culture views space, how they interact with each other, and which small details of life they see as important.

Because Pyongyang was bereft of shops and other natural gathering places, we were forced to interpret its people through cold stone of monuments and the tedium of propaganda. We voiced these concerns to our escorts, and though they were confused by the mundanity of our request, they agreed to pass it along.

Two days later they announced that our request had been approved, and we pulled up in front of what our minders referred to as a 'local' bookstore. But the books were in English or other foreign languages, with only a small Korean language section next to the door. The shop obviously existed for the benefit of Pyongyang's small number of resident foreigners--embassy and aid workers--and its even scarcer visitors, though I can't imagine how desperate you'd have to be to want to read anything by the Great Leader.

While in the store, one of my colleagues told our minder that he was interested in buying a tape of revolutionary songs. He asked him to recommend one from the stock on the counter. Our minder took him aside, and in a low sultry whisper said, "Do you just want a normal tape, or are you interested in hard revolutionary songs?" It sounded like he was offering hardcore porn.

As the week dragged on, we kept asking to be shown some aspect of day to day life in North Korea--a place where residents shopped, not a place designed for foreigners. They finally agreed to show us a supermarket. When we walked in, I was immediately surprised by the number of goods on the shelves. I'd expected scarcity. It wasn't crammed like the shelves in the West; the goods were more sparsely laid out, but there didn't appear to be shortages of anything.

On closer inspection, I discovered that every single item was imported from Argentina. A foreign aid worker from Scandinavia who happened to be shopping in one of the aisles filled us in. Apparently the store was run by an Argentine businessman as a joint venture with the North Korean government, and it was where the North Korean elite and resident foreigners shopped.

This obviously wasn't what we were hoping to see. But perhaps there really was nothing to show us. I suspect that for the rest of the population there are no shops. The rest survive on government rations, and on what little food they're permitted to grow for themselves.

The Scandinavian aid worker also told us she had freedom of movement within Pyongyang, and was allowed to drive her own truck. However, she couldn't go outside the city without an escort, and permission was difficult and time consuming to obtain. The entire time we talked she spoke in a low voice, looked around often, and was very careful in her choice of words. Thanks to her we were given an authentic glimpse into life behind the walls, so our stop there wasn't a total loss.

The supermarket obviously didn't meet the terms of our request, and so as a last resort our minders made a brief stop at a shopping mall. It wasn't what we in the West would think of as a shopping mall--more like a four-story department store in a nondescript gray building. But it was obviously where upper caste North Koreans shopped. (As for the elite, they typically fly to Beijing.)

The shelves were somewhat bare and unusually stocked, with the strangest items laid out side by side. One section featured items as disparate as food, tools, a circular saw blade (but no saw), clothing, sports equipment, and fake Rolex watches, all placed side by side and spaced carefully to give the illusion of abundance.

With each of the products, one display item was set out on top of a stack of boxes that presumably contained identical items. Things are never as simple as they appear in North Korea, however. While browsing the music section I saw four harmonica boxes sitting beside some other instruments in a glass case. I asked the attendant if I could see one of the harmonicas. She opened the boxes one after another, but they were all empty.

It felt like I'd punched another small hole in the façade.

This is the tenth in a multi-part blog on North Korea. You can find the others here

Any propaganda tour of Pyongyang is bound to include a visit to the American spy ship Pueblo, captured by North Korea in 1968. To most people 1968 is ancient history, the distant past. But the North Koreans are still gloating over it and the international incident it caused.

Our site guide was a grizzled old campaigner with a chest full of ribbons, apparently one of the three North Korean soldiers who actually boarded and captured the ship. He escorted us around the vessel, pointing out ancient electronics equipment, maps, empty weapons racks, and documents which included photos of the captured crew and blown-up copies of their signed confessions (which, from my reading at least, didn't seem to admit to much of anything). Places where the Pueblo had been hit by North Korean small arms fire were circled in bright red paint.

The old soldier described the entire boarding operation in minute detail, with vividness and immediacy, as though it had all happened yesterday.

We then had to watch a video showing old international news footage voiced over with anti-American diatribe, proving that then-President Lyndon Johnson first denied the Pueblo's spy mission and was later forced to admit to it. America maintains that the ship was in international waters at the time of its capture. As for me, I'm not taking any sides on this one. I'll leave you to look up the details and decide for yourself.

After 40 minutes of virulent anti-American propaganda, we turned to the old soldier and said, "Thank you very much for the tour. Here are some American cigarettes." He accepted them happily.

From the Pueblo we were taken to an enormous eight story public building called the Children's Palace. As with all government structures, its interior was sheathed in marble and lit by elaborate chandeliers.

The Children's Palace is where kids go to enjoy "voluntary" extra-curricular activities.

We passed through room after room where groups of children studied things like embroidery, painting, calligraphy, traditional dance, singing, and traditional Korean musical instruments. The computer lab was filled with the latest PC's, running software newer than anything I'd seen in Japan at the time. Our minders tried to usher us through quickly, but I lingered for long enough to see that the screen displays were all in English, and the kids were just clicking randomly with the mouse. They didn't actually know a thing about computers. Like government workers everywhere, they'd been instructed to sit there and look busy.

At the conclusion of this tour, we were led to a large concert hall on the first floor to watch an "informal" show put on by the children. It was nothing short of incredible. They had full stage lighting and sets, an orchestra, and water fountains. It rivaled any professional show I've seen in Canada. They sang like opera stars, played a variety of Korean instruments and danced--of course the themes were mainly revolutionary, but this didn't take anything away from the sheer spectacle of their performance.

As if on cue, the event hit a creepy patch when they came to the obligatory song dedicated to the Leader. Old video footage of Kim Il-Sung among the people flickered across the background, and whenever he made an appearance the Koreans in the audience burst out in applause. In the grand finale, the singers turned toward his image, one hand on their hearts and one outstretched, singing "Thank you" with tears of joy streaming down their faces. (Thank you for what, exactly? For turning them into slaves?) 

At least the Great Leader came across as warm and friendly in his videos, and with a touch of charisma. The next song was devoted to the Dear Leader Kim Jong-Il. Very little video footage of him exists. This was projected on the screen, as well as the same four or five old photos I'd seen on bulletin boards in all the hotels. Without fail he always looked ill at ease and slightly maniacal.

Throughout the entire one-hour performance I had to keep reminding myself that these were just children. The strict discipline and rigorous training necessary to achieve such a level of skill must have been Spartan indeed, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't voluntary. I suspect it's the same as athletics in any totalitarian country. Those who demonstrate an early aptitude for sports are shoved into it from a young age and forced to train relentlessly as their duty to the Fatherland. Yet another example of how personal will and individual dreams are swallowed up for the glory of the nation. In the DPRK even childhood is expendable.

This is the ninth in a multi-part blog on North Korea. You can find the others here

One of my creepiest experiences in North Korea was a tour of a primary school.

Our bus pulled into an empty, cheerless concrete schoolyard, and we were marched up to the principal's office. I had immediate flashbacks of all the times I'd spent in the office as a kid, and the string of suspensions I earned. I wonder how I would have fared in Pyongyang?

  We sat around a large conference table, where the principal told us about the North Korean school system and how her school is run. In primary schools, morning classes are devoted to Communist morality, revolutionary history, Korean language and arts (with revolutionary themes), and the study of the lives of the Great Leader and the Dear Leader. I suppose leftover time must be allotted to math and science. Afternoons are apparently free leisure time. Students can go home and do their own thing, or they can voluntarily study such things as traditional music or dance. We would learn more about what "voluntary" meant that afternoon.

While we were talking one of the guys asked if he could take her picture. She nodded yes, but as he began snapping photos she stopped in mid-sentence and pointed to the wall above her head, at the ever-present framed pictures of Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il. "Please be careful not to cut the Leader's photo in half," she said.

I later discovered that it's a crime to do so. It's also a crime to tear a picture of the Leader in half, even if it happens accidentally.

(I heard a story about a German who visited North Korea on the same sort of trip as me. He was smoking in his hotel room, and he butted out his cigarette on an old newspaper. He didn't know there was a photo of the Leader on the other side. The cleaning staff found it and reported him. Armed men burst into his room, threw him on the floor, and shoved guns in his face, screaming in furious Korean. The situation was eventually calmed down, and he was immediately deported to China, his trip at an end. The punishment for locals is time in a concentration camp.)

After our brief talk with the principal, we were given a tour of the school. We were told that unfortunately it was summer vacation and the students were away. We'd seen kids all over the city wearing school uniforms, but apparently they were involved in "voluntary extra curricular activities." I wonder if the kids are always on vacation when groups of foreigners come to visit?

Despite that warning, when we toured the classrooms we discovered some children had been brought in for our benefit. The girls were dressed in frilly white dresses and traditional Korean gowns--hardly the kind of thing you'd wear to school.

The hallways were silent, but just as we were about to step into the science lab the room broke out into animated voices. We walked in on the teacher in mid-lecture, as one eager boy was offering the perfect answer to her question. The noise died moments after we left the room.

In another classroom I saw a picture of Kim Jong-Il as a child sitting on his father's knee. I asked our minder how old the Dear Leader would have been in this photo. He said about 10 years old. I then asked him the date. It corresponded exactly to the date when the military museum guide told us the child prodigy General Kim Jong-Il was leading battles and planning military strategy against American and UN forces during the Korean War. The official propaganda is full of such contradictions, but everyone ignores it as though their life depended on it (it does).

  Those first two classrooms were weird, but they had nothing on the art class. We entered the room to find that the kids had just finished drawing perfect copies of a bird. They were just setting down their pencils as we walked in. Tacked up on a bulletin board were other samples of their work. One showed a ship being torpedoed, with "USA" written clearly on its side. Another showed an American soldier being stabbed in the throat by a schoolgirl with a giant pencil as great gouts of blood spurted from the wound. This isn't something they dreamed up on their own. Everything about their upbringing in North Korea has been carefully calculated to indoctrinate such hate.

Our last stop was the music classroom. The students struck up a well-rehearsed concert just as we walked through the door, but the effect was calculated to seem like they'd been "practicing" all along. They played for 20 minutes, accordion, guitar, traditional songs and dances.

They were really quite good, but I didn't get the impression that they were enjoying it. Their faces were frozen in fake smiles, and they all swayed back and forth in the same zombie-like fashion. When anyone made a small mistake, they snuck fearful glances at the stern-faced teacher like a pet cowering in anticipation of a kick.

When the concert ended the children set down their instruments and rushed towards us in a group. They simply wanted to grab and shake our hands, but all I could think about was that drawing of the American soldier being stabbed in the throat--I covered my neck and almost recoiled in horror.

Here are a few more photos from the school visit, because you really have to see it to believe it...

Studies in the lives of the Great Leader and the Dear Leader, one of their core subjects: