“Does everyone ride bicycles in North Korea?” I ask Eddie. We’ve sped across the northeast of china from the center of Beijing to the border city of Dandong. Nearly 7 hours on the high speed train which is a point of pride for Chinese modernity. Out the window, my head bounces back and forth like a lawn sprinkler, taking in this new landscape. I am intrigued by these sprawls of “Super block” apartment buildings which dot the dreary landscape from city to city. Hours after leaving Beijing, traveling at 300k/m, we still seem them, relentless in their functional shape and ominous presence. I try and imagine what life is like for someone in a abitrary window in a arbitrary building we pass by. What do they do? How do they live? These cliche travel thoughts are refreshing and novel, mainly because I have no idea what the answer would be.
Eddie (I felt the same), 5 hours out of Beijing
Eventually, the super blocks give way to rolling green hills and quaint villages. I am somewhat surprised by the lush scenery even though I was told we were going to rural China. I was starting to think it was impossible to the escape the grey, repeating city scapes. Dense forest open little pockets for quaint villages with chimney’s puffing and dirt roads to fill in. I see a man washing his car in a shallow part of the river and a family scrubbing away at their laundry.
Súper Blocks, somewhere, China
The train is clean and fast and on time. Each stop gives a group of passengers enough time to suck down a cigarette. They wait at the doors like a diver pushing to the surface for a gasp of air. Huff huff huff. As we near Dandong, the Chinese border city to North Korea, a couple of locals board the train donning camo and carrying large, industrial looking bags. Eddie tells me this region is known for a certain ‘vivacious’ talking style. A conductor quickly finds this out as he tells them they are not sitting in their assigned seats and they explode with a flurry of words and hand gestures. The conductor loses this battle and moves onto the next car.
Pocket village far from Beijing
We arrive mid-afternoon in Dandong and the sun is bright and piercing. A large statue of Chairman Mao pointing into the distance greets us as we find our way to the taxi line. Our taxi driver is a friendly local who Eddie befriends quickly. After figuring out where our room was, we chatted about life in Dandong and he accepted our request to drive us to a rural village outside the city the following day. Without too much sun left, we drop off our bags quickly and catch a $1 taxi to the Yalu river.
The river is within a 2005 Tiger Wood’s swing from North Korea.
Yalu river
There it is, one of the most repressed, strangest, dangerous, and information deprived countries in the world. A place where anything said by the government is the truth, and dissent means concentration camp or death for you, and your family. Among some of the sensational and comical claims made by the North Korean government about their current leader Kim Jong-Un:
He could drive at 3 and was a professional sailor at 9
He and archeologists found a unicorns lair
He and scientists created a drug that can cure aids and Ebola (among others) with a single injection
A double rainbow appeared at the moment of his birth
I immediately feel for the first time that being in China is immensely safe (in comparison) and look behind me at the dense urban scene with a sense of capitalist/socialistic comfort. The countries are split by the natural barrier of the Yalu river, which nearly touches in some areas, leaving only a barb wire fence to separate the contrast of the barren North Korean shore with the Chinese super blocks.
After walking 5 minutes we see a boat tour sign; a chance to get even closer. Eddie talks to the guy us sells us on a 2.5 hour excursion, that is leaving in 10 minutes. So, minutes after arrived to the Yalu, we find ourselves on a bus with other Chinese tourists heading to a remote port north of Dandong. The scenery is beautiful and we even see a chunk of the Great Wall (what is it doing out here?), but I quickly realize this is not a 2.5 boat ride, but a 2 hour drive and half an hour on the water.
I sat in the front seat of the bus
After 45 minutes of barely any villages, we turn a corner and the narrow road is closed in on both sides with restaurants and shops. A hundred or more squeezed in the length of a couple city blocks.
We haven’t eaten a meal today and i am drawn to a meat stick stand that nearly causes us to miss the boat. It was worth it. We take off, cross under the another “broken bridge” that used to connect the countries. Here, away from the cities, the countryside is picturesque with rolling hills and farmland on both sides. We talk with a man who tells us that we are not looking at farmland on the North Korean side, but cleared land. Cleared by the military to make cover difficult for anyone thinking of leaving. He then tells us the guard tower is not for those trying to cross into the country but for defectors. The woman sternly standing in the small tower takes on a new atmosphere knowing this.
A poor quality phone zoom image of a cyclist in N Korea. Damn the one time I want a telephoto lens!
“Does everyone in North Korea ride bicycles” I ask eddie, as a woman slowly tops a small hill which feels within throwing distance of where we are. The only vehicles we see are work trucks, while the (farmers?) slowly pedal in front of the rolling hills in the distance. Again I wonder, what did they do today? What are they thinking about? Even further from answers, I have more questions. What do they think of us? Are these boats full of peoeple visible to them, or do they not give a shit? Do they really think the world is in awe of North Korea’s accomplishments as they are told?
I don’t expect people to understand why I am drawn to be this close to North Korea, but I feel a mix of empathy and curiousity. I really cant put myself in their shoes: I work in the information hub of the world, and they are the most information deprived country on the planet. We battle fake news, while in North Korea fake news is anything not stated by their all-reaching and self-procalaimed all-wise government. Yet, I wonder if they still crave the fundamental human needs of belonging, purpose and social connection. Or perhaps survival is the bottom line. The boat ride was short but the memories are long. The figures moving across the green landscapes incite questions and feelings of mystery, and slight concern. There is nothing I can do for them, but so much more I want to know.
Rural North Korea in all its glory
Back in Dandong, we decided (I insisted) we eat at one of the North Korean restaurants in the city. We passed one that was closed and one eddie had been to before, and just before giving up and turning around, we found our spot. All the blinds were closed; I thought it was closed, but Eddie made his way in and flagged me to follow. The waitress who saw us look startled, and I felt like we were interrupting something intimate. But the large room was empty part from the pre-made tables and the gargle of empty fish tanks. Edie spoke to them in Korean (his mother his from South Korea), which may have caused the the deer-in-headlights look she gave us. Behind the counter was a middle-age woman who screamed “I’m watching these girls, and you.”
It was a surreal dinner to cap off the day: we were the only customers, outnumbered by fair-skinned, pretty North Korean waitresses 4 or 5 to 1. They stared and giggled and continuously made their hair in the mirror. For who? I wondered. There was an upstairs area that, when we asked about, one waitress said “for karaoke and other activities”.
We ordered cold noodles, a traditional dish in Pyongyang, along with kimchi, grilled eel, green bean pancakes and a small bottle of Soju. The girls were always in pairs or larger, moving between the mysterious upstairs and the kitchen. After Eddie talked with them in Korean again, one of them changed the TV channel. We were enjoying the North Korean state propoganda where a man gave a tour of a historical monument and applauded the developed nation they were lucky to be a part of. The noodles were a great, slurpy, refreshing dish I’d gladly have again served by these curious creatures. Eddie and I guessed they didn’t live much of a free life here, they seemed attached to the hip, and were likely daughters of middle class or better families. It seems like they weren’t chosen by accident, nor could they extend their cultural work experience much past the walls of the restaurant.
When we went to pay, there she was. The “manager” sitting sitting all along, reading some magazine. We paid and left this North Korean enclave to sit by the Yalu river, a bridge between worlds, both of which remained complete mysteries to me.