J-10
04-07-2005, 08:12 AM
Western tourists on revolutionary march in North Korea
Thu, Apr 07, 2005
PYONGYANG, (AFP) - Englishman Martin Boyle is not a defector, an aid worker, a diplomat or an undercover journalist. Just what is he doing, then, in North Korea, one of the world's most isolated and maligned nations?
Over a game of pool in one of Pyongyang's few luxury hotels, the 42-year-old university lecturer from London recounts his meetings with North Korean soldiers in the demilitarized zone that divides the communist north from the capitalist south.
With excitement and enthusiasm, he explains his week in North Korea has also taken him to an urban school where he has helped teach students and to rural areas of the country that very few Westerners have ever visited.
Boyle is one of a tiny number of Western tourists who venture to North Korea each year and, although his travels may make the likes of US President George W. Bush incredulous, he has thoroughly enjoyed the experience.
"I don't know whether it's the best place I have been to but it's certainly got to be the most memorable. I'd certainly like to come back," Boyle tells an AFP correspondent who is in North Korea to report on the nation's recent World Cup football qualifying matches.
Fewer than 2,000 Western tourists visit North Korea annually, according to Beijing-based Nick Bonner, the director of Koryo Tours who has been taking foreigners into the land of the mostly unknown for the past 11 years.
The numbers have crept up only slightly since North Korea began allowing Western tourists in during the late 1980s, with dictator Kim Jong-Il's famously secretive government maintaining very tight restrictions on how many are allowed into the country and what they can do there.
Tourists must travel with government-approved agencies, minders-***-guides shadow visitors around the country, mobile phones are banned and photos of anything that shows the country in a bad light are actively discouraged.
Foreigners are also given a strong dose of the communist propaganda that fiercely decries the United States and attempts to elevate Kim and his father, Kim Il-Sung, who ruled before him, into near God-like figures.
But for the tourists, that is all part of the allure.
"If you want revolution, this is the place to see it," Bonner, who has also helped make two highly acclaimed social documentaries on North Korea, says from Beijing.
Indeed, revolutionary posters and banners are ubiquitous in Pyongyang, as are statues of Kim Il-Sung, who was installed by the Soviets in 1945 and remains enshrined in the constitution as "president for eternity" despite dying 11 years ago.
One of the ultimate experiences in North Korean propaganda for Western tourists is a trip to the demilitarized zone, the scene of one of the world's most tense and enduring military stand-offs.
The package tours take tourists to the edge of the "DMZ", where North Korean soldiers stand just a couple of metres (a few feet) away from their South Korean enemies, separated by an imaginary line.
A North Korean military officer generally meets the tourists to explain the United States caused the 1950-53 Korean War and that, under the "Great Leader Generalisimo Kim Il-Sung", North Korea won a magnificent victory.
"I tried telling them that the North Koreans started the war and they didn't win, but they were having none of that," an Irish tourist aged in his 50s who does not want to be named recalls from Pyongyang.
While also very sceptical of the North Korean military's version of events, Boyle came away from the DMZ experience surprised at the soldiers' high levels of organisation.
"The atmosphere was very tense but I found the soldiers to be very professional, not the rag tag army they had been made out to be in the south," he says.
Among the other revolutionary places accessible to foreign tourists is the incredibly bizarre International Friendship Exhibition at Mt Myohyang about two hours drive north of Pyongyang.
The exhibition, in two enormous marble and granite buildings, contains nearly 300,000 gifts from people around the world to both Kims.
The presents include a bullet proof train carriage from former Soviet dicator Joseph Stalin, a stuffed white crane from American Christian evangelist Billy Graham and an AK-47 rifle from Cuba's Fidel Castro.
Tourists are also taken to the 170-metre (557-feet) Juche Tower in Pyongyang, which was built to represent Kim Il-Sung's ideological mix of self-reliance and Communism.
The Triumphal Arch, which marks the place where Kim Il-Sung made his victory speech following the end of the Japanese occupation in 1945, in the centre of Pyongyang is another obligatory stop.
The arch is a replica of the Arche de Triomphe in Paris, but in line with the North Korean rulers' obsession with trying to outdo the West, is three metres (10 feet) taller.
One of the most dazzling attractions in Pyongyang is the Korean People's Army's State Circus, which, despite its military links, allows tourists a break from the relentless propaganda and a chance to see locals enjoying themselves.
The circus acts include stunning high-wire acrobatics, clowns that pull soldiers and other spectators on stage for some hilarious, self-deprecating antics and men performing extraordinary balancing-juggling acts on the round edges of cannisters.
But Bonner says the most enticing thing for foreigners, and the reason he conducts the tours, is the chance for Westerners and North Koreans to interact and begin to understand each other's viewpoints.
"When you go there, you get an opportunity to see both sides. And what you do see is there's a fair amount of untruths on both sides. Tourism gives you this unique perspective," he says.
Boyle, who has lived in Taiwan and China and long had a deep interest in East Asia, agrees that gaining an understanding of how North Korean people think is one of the best aspects of visiting the country.
"It's demolished a few of the prejudices I had but it's confirmed a few as well," he says.
As for the ordinary citizens, Bonner, who has been to North Korea more than 100 times to take tours and to film the documentaries, is angry they are often linked in the West to its perception of Kim Jong-Il and his regime.
"They are some of the genuinely friendliest people who will go out on a limb for you... on a people-to-people basis, I'm not having them insulted. I just find that ignorant."
From (http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20050407/wl_asia_afp/nkoreatourism_050407043439)
Thu, Apr 07, 2005
PYONGYANG, (AFP) - Englishman Martin Boyle is not a defector, an aid worker, a diplomat or an undercover journalist. Just what is he doing, then, in North Korea, one of the world's most isolated and maligned nations?
Over a game of pool in one of Pyongyang's few luxury hotels, the 42-year-old university lecturer from London recounts his meetings with North Korean soldiers in the demilitarized zone that divides the communist north from the capitalist south.
With excitement and enthusiasm, he explains his week in North Korea has also taken him to an urban school where he has helped teach students and to rural areas of the country that very few Westerners have ever visited.
Boyle is one of a tiny number of Western tourists who venture to North Korea each year and, although his travels may make the likes of US President George W. Bush incredulous, he has thoroughly enjoyed the experience.
"I don't know whether it's the best place I have been to but it's certainly got to be the most memorable. I'd certainly like to come back," Boyle tells an AFP correspondent who is in North Korea to report on the nation's recent World Cup football qualifying matches.
Fewer than 2,000 Western tourists visit North Korea annually, according to Beijing-based Nick Bonner, the director of Koryo Tours who has been taking foreigners into the land of the mostly unknown for the past 11 years.
The numbers have crept up only slightly since North Korea began allowing Western tourists in during the late 1980s, with dictator Kim Jong-Il's famously secretive government maintaining very tight restrictions on how many are allowed into the country and what they can do there.
Tourists must travel with government-approved agencies, minders-***-guides shadow visitors around the country, mobile phones are banned and photos of anything that shows the country in a bad light are actively discouraged.
Foreigners are also given a strong dose of the communist propaganda that fiercely decries the United States and attempts to elevate Kim and his father, Kim Il-Sung, who ruled before him, into near God-like figures.
But for the tourists, that is all part of the allure.
"If you want revolution, this is the place to see it," Bonner, who has also helped make two highly acclaimed social documentaries on North Korea, says from Beijing.
Indeed, revolutionary posters and banners are ubiquitous in Pyongyang, as are statues of Kim Il-Sung, who was installed by the Soviets in 1945 and remains enshrined in the constitution as "president for eternity" despite dying 11 years ago.
One of the ultimate experiences in North Korean propaganda for Western tourists is a trip to the demilitarized zone, the scene of one of the world's most tense and enduring military stand-offs.
The package tours take tourists to the edge of the "DMZ", where North Korean soldiers stand just a couple of metres (a few feet) away from their South Korean enemies, separated by an imaginary line.
A North Korean military officer generally meets the tourists to explain the United States caused the 1950-53 Korean War and that, under the "Great Leader Generalisimo Kim Il-Sung", North Korea won a magnificent victory.
"I tried telling them that the North Koreans started the war and they didn't win, but they were having none of that," an Irish tourist aged in his 50s who does not want to be named recalls from Pyongyang.
While also very sceptical of the North Korean military's version of events, Boyle came away from the DMZ experience surprised at the soldiers' high levels of organisation.
"The atmosphere was very tense but I found the soldiers to be very professional, not the rag tag army they had been made out to be in the south," he says.
Among the other revolutionary places accessible to foreign tourists is the incredibly bizarre International Friendship Exhibition at Mt Myohyang about two hours drive north of Pyongyang.
The exhibition, in two enormous marble and granite buildings, contains nearly 300,000 gifts from people around the world to both Kims.
The presents include a bullet proof train carriage from former Soviet dicator Joseph Stalin, a stuffed white crane from American Christian evangelist Billy Graham and an AK-47 rifle from Cuba's Fidel Castro.
Tourists are also taken to the 170-metre (557-feet) Juche Tower in Pyongyang, which was built to represent Kim Il-Sung's ideological mix of self-reliance and Communism.
The Triumphal Arch, which marks the place where Kim Il-Sung made his victory speech following the end of the Japanese occupation in 1945, in the centre of Pyongyang is another obligatory stop.
The arch is a replica of the Arche de Triomphe in Paris, but in line with the North Korean rulers' obsession with trying to outdo the West, is three metres (10 feet) taller.
One of the most dazzling attractions in Pyongyang is the Korean People's Army's State Circus, which, despite its military links, allows tourists a break from the relentless propaganda and a chance to see locals enjoying themselves.
The circus acts include stunning high-wire acrobatics, clowns that pull soldiers and other spectators on stage for some hilarious, self-deprecating antics and men performing extraordinary balancing-juggling acts on the round edges of cannisters.
But Bonner says the most enticing thing for foreigners, and the reason he conducts the tours, is the chance for Westerners and North Koreans to interact and begin to understand each other's viewpoints.
"When you go there, you get an opportunity to see both sides. And what you do see is there's a fair amount of untruths on both sides. Tourism gives you this unique perspective," he says.
Boyle, who has lived in Taiwan and China and long had a deep interest in East Asia, agrees that gaining an understanding of how North Korean people think is one of the best aspects of visiting the country.
"It's demolished a few of the prejudices I had but it's confirmed a few as well," he says.
As for the ordinary citizens, Bonner, who has been to North Korea more than 100 times to take tours and to film the documentaries, is angry they are often linked in the West to its perception of Kim Jong-Il and his regime.
"They are some of the genuinely friendliest people who will go out on a limb for you... on a people-to-people basis, I'm not having them insulted. I just find that ignorant."
From (http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20050407/wl_asia_afp/nkoreatourism_050407043439)