Miguel Gao gets a rare chance to peer into the surreal reality of life in the world’s most bizarre nation

The most popular adjectives with which to describe North Korea are Orwellian, paranoid and totalitarian. Repressive and isolated get ample play, as do dystopian and Kafkaesque. Vanity Fair writer and former Trotskyist Christopher Hitchens described it as a “slave state”. Former US president George W Bush declared it evil in his infamous “axis of” speech. The word that best describes the North Korean experience for most visitors, however, must be surreal.

Life in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), to use its official title, revolves around the personality cult of the Great Leader Kim Il Sung, who – absurdly – was made presi­dent for life after his death in 1994, and that of his son and suc­cessor Kim Jong Il. Kim the younger is usually referred to as the General or Dear Leader, but has also been variously described by the Korean Central News Agency as the Sun of the 21st Century, the Highly Intelligent and Almighty Leader, the Greatest Personifier of Human Wisdom, the Incarnation of Might Displaying Infinite Creative Ability, and Top Brain of the Socio-Political Organism.

Though the citizens of the DPRK worship their Incarnation of Might, and many accept stories explaining how his birth at Mount Paektu, which strad­dles the border with neighboring China and is worshipped as the mythical birthplace of the Korean people, was heralded by a double rainbow forming over the volcanic mountain and the arrival of a new star glittering in the heavens, they are surprised to learn of the Western media’s regular regur­gitation of an urban myth: that they believe ol’ Top Brain scored multiple holes-in-one during his first ever round of golf. The DPRK does boast two golf courses, however.

In the capital Pyongyang, your tour group (there’s no other way to enter but on an offi­cially sanctioned tour) will cheerily clap along as your shy guide, exhibiting all the undis­guised nervousness of a karaoke virgin, bal­ances at the front of the bus while warbling the cheery Korean song Pan Gap Seumnida, or Pleased to Meet You, into a microphone. Should your country ever cross swords with hers, however, rest assured that she would have no qualms about cutting you in half with bullets from an AK-47. The DPRK is perma­nently on a war footing, and all outsiders are viewed with suspicion.

Souvenir hunting proves tricky, and foreign visitors are kept clear of shops frequented by everyday folk. Books, all published by the state propaganda department are available (big seller: the snappily titled The American Imperialists Started The Korean War). Post­age stamps are also popular, especially a de­sign – frequently sold out – featuring former US President Richard Nixon being stabbed in the eye with a pen. Splash out on a beer with lunch and, should the eatery be short of Euros or Chinese yuan (foreign visitors are not per­mitted to handle North Korean Won, and US dollars are a political no-no), you could get two more beers as your change.
Postage stamps are also popular, especially a design

Pyongyang is a meticulously planned city. Many of its multi-lane boulevards are broad enough on which to land a 747, but most accommodate little more than creaking cantilever buses and the oc­casional bicycle smuggled in from China, the DPRK’s neighbor to the north. In startling contrast to other East Asian cities, there is no brash advertising lining the roads, just hand-painted social-realist billboards promoting juche, the state ideology that pursues a society characterized by self reliance. While the rest of the world suffers propaganda that insists we’d all have many attractive friends if we only drank more Bacardi Breezers, the word on the North Korean street is that they don’t need any friends at all.

Every Pyongyang monument is in some way linked to armed conflict. Soldiers, packed tight into open trucks, wave and beam like harmless, apple-cheeked children as they pass by. The English-language MP3 narration at Kim Il Sung’s Mausoleum is performed by an emotional man from Yorkshire who sounds as if he’s about to burst into tears. Hardline communists enthusiastically accept packs of Marlboros (preferably Reds) as gifts.

And while neighboring China has marshaled its masses to provide cheap labor for the rest of the world, and thereby become an economic superpower, the DPRK invests an estimated 200 million of its people’s man-hours each year in a choreographed extravaganza of gymnastics, music and dancing. That way the politically vetted elite permitted to reside in Pyongyang can watch kids in fuchsia leotards doing back-flips through hula-hoops. They call it the Mass Games, and it’s the most surreal sight in the most bizarre nation on the planet.