TBU
Introduction Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5 Day 6 Conclusion

Day 4 - 15 April 2014 (Juche 103)

Palace of the Sun

Today is a great day for the DPRK. The President Kim Il Sung is born exactly 103 years ago. We initially had to go to the museum of the two leaders on Sunday, the usual opening day for the foreigners; but because of the marathon, Marshal Kim Jong Un allowed exceptionally the foreigners to go on Tuesday. As it is a very special day for the country, we expected to see a lot of people and we were right! On the road to the palace of the Sun (mausoleum), we passed the 2 statues of the leaders where an impressive crowd was queuing to pay homage to the Father and the Son of the Nation.

While waiting outside, we looked at coaches of Korean expatriates coming home to pay homage to the leader, and even the Spanish delegation of Jucheist from the Korean Friendship Association, all wearing the official pin’s oh the great leaders. We then entered the monumental building that used to be an official palace before the great President passed away on July 7th 1994, but has now been transformed with great pomp into a mausoleum by General Kim Jong Il to honor his father. The general has later been added by its son when he passed away in 2011. We had to leave all our phones, camera, pens, and coats, put our glasses in our pocket and leave any metallic stuff at a first security check. The one who can manage to take a picture of the President in his coffin is a smart one!

We are asked to move by line 4 in each row, and move forwards in a long corridor where we stayed immobile on travelators moving us slowly between a gallery of over 200 portraits of both leaders. We then entered a room with 2 big marble statues of the 2 leaders, moved towards a marble line on the ground and then bowed, row by row, to show the respect to the leader before making a single line to enter the next room.

We then aligned by rows of 6, and entered a much darker room, where the President was waiting for us. We were among a crowd of Korean, wearing their nicest clothes (we were also asked to dress properly), who bowed with respect but without any excess of tears. We waitd for our turn and bowed three times (in front of the feet, on the right side and on the left side of the body but not on the head side because it is supposed to be insulting).

The next room was a huge room with all the distinctions awarded to the President: his several Korean medals, the Order of Lenin or the friendship medal from the Communist Party Bureau of Anderlecht, a bunch of honorary doctorates from university all over the world, etc. the last room of this part was a world map on a big wall showing all the Cities the President had visited. The second part of the visit was exactly the same but with General Kim Jong Un instead of President Kim Il Sung. We then looked at room with the Mercedes and even the boats of the leaders. The general impression when we get out of this building seems unrealistic: if I compare this Mausoleum to that of Ho-Chi Minh or Mao Zedong, the later appear to be buried in the common grave!

Outside the building, we spent about one hour in the square in front of the building, where children, soldiers, officers, women of all ages wearing traditional dresses or tourist were taking pictures of themselves and the other people.

History class

The next step was the Korean War museum. Among the many similar buildings of the city, that one is maybe the biggest caricature of socialist architecture. Statues, columns and squareness give a martial impression to this building even bigger than most of the other constructions. The museum showed weapons, tanks, planes or even boats captured to the imperialist American enemy during the war and afterwards. We were then explained again how the US started the war and were defeated by the great President Kim Il Sung who liberated Seoul. The quality of the documents and the reconstitution scenes in resin showed how much they care about making their version of the History looks realistic. The photos were prohibited, like in almost every museum, so when I dropped accidentally my tiny GoPro camera on the ground just before entering the museum, one of our minders asked me with a nice smile to put my hands in pockets during the visit but did not pay attention to me thereafter; I was thus able to take a few pictures, like many other tourist, without any danger of big remonstrance.

Pyongyang party

After a lunch where the restaurant filled us with Korean food to show us how the opulence this country, as usual, we quickly walked through a park in Pyongyang. Like a Chinese park, people were singing, dancing and picnicking, pretty much like any Chinese park. We then headed to the 29th April International Friendship Art Festival to listen to a classical music concert, with other tourists and the Pyongyang elite (judging by their clothes and the 20 euro we had to pay to listen to the concert, although I am not sure we paid the same price as they). The music was quite common, although I am not an expert, except for a piece where the string players sang a few words while playing their instruments.

We then urged to leave the concert to go to the mass dance, a folk dance near the Arch of Triumph, where over 7,000 students were dancing in pair wearing white shirts and colorful dresses to celebrate the birth of the President. I tried to find a nice spot to take a picture but one of our most zealous minders saw me and asked me politely to come back to where I was supposed to stay (which was quite understandable given that they are also stressed that we might be lost since the schedule is tight and that there is no way to call us to ask us to come back if we escape too far). After a while, another tourist of our group told me that he managed to reach a small hill, about 400m from here to have a better overlook of the crowd. I then waited for a moment of inattention from the guide, who was trying to keep quiet the American of the group and buy him some beer, and moved quickly towards the hill where I could stay for about 5 minutes and take good videos and pictures. It had a strange (but safe) feeling that I wasn’t entirely supposed to be there, and that the closest other foreigners was more than 300m from me, but it wasn’t a big infraction though. When coming back, without having been seen by the guide, I noticed at a moment that I had landed in a part of the square from about 100 sqm without any civilian… I thus walked faster to join the group without any problem.

Upon leaving the dinner, we heard the fireworks and ran to a good observation spot, dispatching us among the crowd of Korean, many of which were taking photos with their phones or with digital cameras of the beautiful and bright colorful explosion all around the Tower of the Juche Idea. We finally, and surprisingly, regrouped quite easily, well helped by the 2m tall Norwegian of the group, easily identifiable in the crowd of Pyongyang.

We ended the day the amusement park of Pyongyang. It was a bit strange to see such a park in a country known to have people in great need, but wasn’t the first surprise of this trip. I then rode 3 attractions with the other tourist of the group who wanted too, passing in front of the line of children and officer, civilian and ladies of all ages. Despite the fear that the safety standards were calibrated on the local average height and weight, the rides were really fun!