Military processions, terrifying fairground rides and monumental magic shows are what welcomes tourists in North Korea .
We could see the tanks lining up from the 27th floor of the Yanggakdo Hotel. Our room overlooked the Taedong River and beyond it, visible through the zoom lens of my camera, dozens and dozens of armoured vehicles sat waiting for what would be one of the world’s most impressive military parades. Sadly, we were not invited to watch it. In fact, our tour guides ensured we didn’t get anywhere near the procession marking the 60th anniversary of the founding of North Korea. The country’s then leader, Kim Jong-il, was expected to attend and our small group of tourists was definitely not.
The day began like every other on our week-long tour of the Hermit Kingdom: a rushed hotel breakfast, copious amounts of propaganda and hours spent hopping on and off a tour bus to visit increasingly grandiose monuments dedicated to the country’s infallible leaders.
We briefly toured the magnificently named Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum, an experience unlike any war museum I had visited before. Detailing the Korean War from a northern perspective, the focus is less ‘let us learn from history and never repeat it’ angle and more ‘the American aggressors started the war but we won it’. The tour ended, like all museum tours seemed to in the North Korean capital, not with a cheery ‘any questions?’ from the tour guide but a more definitive ‘thank you and goodbye’. Questions are not welcomed on a tour to the world’s most reclusive nation. Some are met with a swift change of subject, some with awkward laughter, and on this particular day the question ‘would it be possible for us to attend the military parade?’ was met with an unexpected invitation to instead spend the afternoon at a theme park.
I doubt you ever have, but if you sat around picturing a North Korean fairground, you’d probably imagine exactly what we visited. A terrifying concrete carousel took centre stage, blasting out warped and haunting music as grinning horses galloped around like something from a Soviet horror movie. There were no candyfloss stalls or hoopla stands; no life-sized mascots posing for photos – indeed, not many people around at all. I suppose most were already lining the streets, hoping to catch a glimpse of their Dear Leader riding in the local equivalent of a Panzer tank.
The star attraction in the park was the loop-the-loop rollercoaster, a ride I opted to photograph rather than risk. I even captured a short video of the grinning panic on the faces of my fellow travellers when they realised too late that the bars designed to keep them in their seats didn’t actually lock. Luckily, everyone piled back onto the bus unscathed and giddy with excitement. We might not have cracked the nod when it came to the parade but at least we all had tickets to the after-party – the extraordinary spectacle of the Arirang Mass Games.
As we crossed the city, the crowds were still lining the streets waiting for the tanks to pass and the sight of a few foreigners on a bus proved a welcome diversion in a country where interaction with outsiders is all but banned. Grins and waves were exchanged and not for the first time, we wished we were able to connect with the locals like we might try to in almost any other country on Earth.
North Korea might differ in many ways, but the atmosphere at the May Day Stadium was exactly what you’d expect at any major sporting event or concert – and the Mass Games is a little of both. Vendors sold flags, families queued for snacks and grinning 20-somethings posed for photographs – the difference being that they were all clad in military gear and the images were destined for their walls or fridges rather than Facebook or Instagram.
The show itself was difficult to do justice to on a page. Imagine an opera with a cast of 100 000, where the backdrop is made up entirely of school kids with multi-coloured boards that they open and close to create an ever-changing and intricate pictorial backdrop to the show. In the foreground, tens of thousands of perfectly synchronised dancers and acrobats perform to classical Korean music, a mini military parade briefly marches by, and unseen stage hands execute set changes so seamless it’s like watching the world’s biggest magic show.
The following morning, the tanks were gone and it was time to continue our tour. We bowed before increasingly enormous statues of leaders great and dear, pretended not to notice the unfinished shell of the 105-storey Ryugyong Hotel, and of course, asked endless questions that we knew no-one could, or would, ever consider answering.
Illustration: Aslam Ebrahim
