North Koreans watch from their neighborhood on the outskirts of Pyongyang as buses carrying the New York Philharmonic orchestra and the media pass by Monday, Feb. 25, 2008. The New York Philharmonic began a two day tour of North Korea. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
by Bay Fang
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PYONGYANG, North Korea — The man from the foreign ministry in the standard-issue black wool coat and Kim Il-Sung pin, assigned to guard one busload of journalists, glanced at me curiously as I boarded. “Have you been to Pyongyang before?” he asked me.
I told him I had, when Secretary of State Madeleine Albright came to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il in October 2000. He nodded knowingly and said he remembered me.
“What has changed the most since that time?” I asked him.
“Take a look and you tell me,” he replied. “Seeing is believing.”
It has been nearly eight years, but on first impression, not much has changed in Pyongyang. The frosty white landscape, with orderly squares drawn like a tic-tac-toe board outlining villages, showed few signs of life. The only vehicles on the streets were a few military trucks, some minivans, and our bevy of buses.
Workers in dark, shapeless clothes trudged along the sides of the road, or pushed their bicycles on icy paths. The broad, clean boulevards were lined with Stalinist buildings, with colorful murals shouting such slogans as, “Let us be armed with socialist ideals!” Residents said that just like the last time there was a major American delegation in town, the city was dark up until yesterday, but as soon as the planes were expected, buildings and streets were lit up. In fact, as our buses sped on the traffic-free streets on the road from the airport, street lights were extinguished as soon as the convoy passed.
On the way to the hotel, we passed Kim Il-Sung Memorial Palace, Kim Il-Sung University, and Kim Il-Sung Square, all named for the Great Leader and eternal president of the country.
Our government escort, Lee Jun Chol, informed us that unluckily for the group, the festival for the Kim Jongilia flower had just finished, while the Kim Il Sungia festival does not begin until April.
Lee studied literature at Kim Il Sung University, and said his favorite novelist was a North Korean who wrote about the Japanese occupation of the country. When asked if he had read any American authors, he replied, “Yes, but I don’t like anything American – except for you!”
But although these English-speaking “guides” were still in charge of shepherding foreign journalists around, and politely preventing them from speaking with other North Koreans, guests were generally free to photograph anything they wanted. And repeat visitors were surprised by the access granted – that could also have simply been a factor of the overwhelming size of the delegation.
Just like during Albright’s 2-day stop, the capital has put its best foot forward for the visit of the New York Philharmonic.
Dancers in flowing robes and perfectly synchronized movements, against backdrops of pastel cherry blossoms and waterfalls, gave a special dance performance for the delegation and other invited guests in the luxurious, brightly-lit Site of Immortality Art Theater.
Though most of the pieces were devoid of overt political content, instead merely extolling the virtuous peasant – with such pieces as “the fan dance” and “the water jar dance” – the last ensemble piece starred a dancer in traditional heroic Communist garb, waving a red scarf in representation of a guerrilla fighter battling the Japanese occupation.
“I thought all the pieces were strong, with the exception of the last one,” said Lady Yoko Nagae Ceschina, the Japanese-born Contessa underwriting the visit, as she stepped out of the concert hall into the iced-over courtyard.
“It seemed more Russian than traditional Korean. But when they kept to real Korean music, they were very strong – it showed that in the future, they will be a strong country.”
The Philharmonic will give its highly anticipated, 90-minute concert Tuesday evening. But on Monday, the official KCNA news agency had on its Web site an article discussing the superiority of traditional North Korean music to western music, extolling such native pieces as the piano concerto “Song Devoted to Comrade Kim Jong Il.”
“Particularly the achievements and experience made in thoroughly subordinating Western music and musical instruments to the Korean music with the main stress put on the national music and musical instruments are a clear proof of the validity and vitality of the Workers’ Party of Korea’s unique idea of literature and art,” the article read.