Left Flank

Ok, I get the point! Nothing changed in DPRK the night the New York Philharmonic Orchestra played (TMH's sly derision, ROK Drop's matter-of-fact outrage, Joshua's total outrage, DPRK Forum's Google-enabled skepticism). But, if not only a way to dupe those foolish American liberals, it was a very entertaining way to upstage ROK President Lee Myung-bak's inauguration. Lorin Maazel owes Lee an apology.

Say you're the beleaguered tyrant of a certain Northeast Asian country.  In a moment of financial duress, you signed an agreement in which you agreed to disclose and eventually give up a nuclear arsenal in which you've invested a great deal of money, pride, and prestige.  You know that in a year, there's an even chance that you might be dealing with the most naive and pliable U.S. President since Jimmy Carter.  You also know that if too many people start getting the idea that you're stalling on that declaration, momentum will shift in favor of turning the economic screws on you again, which you know could be the end of you. You can't survive without money from your enemies, and one of your best sources might soon dry up. Even the foreign diplomat who had been the main proponent of going easy on seems to be turning sour.

Can you last this year without performing on that accursed nuclear deal? Yes, you can!

Fortunately for you, your enemies have an inexhaustible appetite for superficial displays. They desperately want to believe that the gas chambers, nuclear tests, concentration camps, abductions, famines, and global crime syndication are merely a misguided artist's cry for attention. Some of them, though not all, even have the self-important delusion that they can change your nature by playing music for you.

To its credit, The Economist doesn't mention why the gulags are still full and the North Korean people still struggling to survive, but it does dispose of "the self-important delusion":

But will all this bonhomie—both contrived and genuine—really change anything? Donald Gregg, a former American ambassador to South Korea who attended the performance, called it a «16-inch broadside of soft power into the hearts and minds of the [North] Korean people.» But conservative American commentators have attacked it as pandering to a brutal regime. History suggests orchestral diplomacy may be of little real relevance. The Boston Symphony's visit to the Soviet Union was followed soon after by the crushing of the Hungarian uprising. America's relations with China fared better after 1973, but its alignment against the Soviet Union was the critical factor. America has no strategic interests in North Korea beyond stopping it from being a menace.

For the record, that same feature article includes some interesting vignettes of foreigners experiencing Pyongyang.

Choosing what to play in Pyongyang proved the easy part. Finding a suitable venue and getting the orchestra and instruments there were more difficult. The seat of the State Symphony Orchestra, the Moranbong Theatre (recently refurbished under Kim Jong Il's guidance—«no details escaped him,» gushed the state news agency), was rejected as too small. The East Pyongyang Grand Theatre, though bigger, needed modifications to bring its acoustic qualities up to the Philharmonic's standards (the North Koreans obligingly made the alterations, including building an «acoustic shell», at their own expense).

Pyongyang's harsh winter and shattered economy were obstacles too. Organisers worried that the instruments would be damaged by temperature variations as they were transported into and around the city. The chandelier-decked foyer of the venue itself was freezing. Mr Mehta held talks at the foreign ministry with an official wearing a thick overcoat in his office. Pyongyang's heating has been so bad this winter that residents complain they cannot remember the last time they were able to have a shower, says a diplomat.

Unable to find any heated trucks in North Korea to carry the instruments, the orchestra arranged for some to drive up from South Korea (South Korea's Asiana Airlines provided a Boeing 747 jet to fly the orchestra itself in and out of Pyongyang). The North Koreans promised good heating at the hotel and venue—and they delivered it. Mr Mehta had to ask for a window in his room to be unsealed so that he could get a bit of cool air.

The authorities spared no effort to isolate the Americans from the reality of life in Pyongyang. Some attempting a morning jog were turned back by guards at the perimeter of their hotel. Officials like to put foreigners there. It is on an island in Pyongyang's Taedong River from which it is difficult to get into the city proper, and there are no taxis available. When they were not rehearsing or performing during their 48-hour stay, the Americans were taken on bus tours of the city's monuments, including a giant bronze statue of the late President Kim—the country's leader during the Korean war.

It's only been a couple years since I've had heat and air conditioning in a college classroom in Busan, and still not the rest of the building. It must be a Korean virtue to sacrifice when others have much more.

At first, Brent Choi's account of his trip to the DPRK sounds like many others, but then there's his impressions of his 30ish North Korean tour guides as contrasted with tour guides he met at Mt. Geumgang (Note: this is my romanization habit) in 1998:

At first the visitors and guides gave basic introductions and began talking about non-contentious issues like the weather. After «testing the waters», the North Korean guides then began to ask about South Korea's political situation including the upcoming presidential election, while the South Koreans barraged the guides with questions about nuclear programs. Not everyone was engrossed in politics. Some guys asked about local women.

The guides I met this time differed from those I encountered in the past. When I visited Mount Kumgang in 1998, all the guides were over 50 and would start arguments with visitors over things like unification and the presence of U.S. forces.

The guides in Pyongyang were much younger, mostly in their 30s. It seemed like a rapid generational change is under way in the North, with the older generations who survived the struggle against Japan or the Korean War, and even those who grew up under Kim Il Sung in the 1970s and 1980s being supplanted by those in their 30s and 40s, the so-called «Arduous March» generation who were teenagers during the famine years of the 1990s.

Our young guides were from this group and displayed a strong loyalty toward Kim Jong-il. They belonged to the elite class of the country, having graduated from Kim Il Sung University.

These guides didn't bother to hide the tough conditions faced by North Koreans. When I asked about the food situation, they replied that everything was «tense» and rations were suspended from time to time. When that happened they came to Pyongyang Market a couple of times a week to purchase rice. If that was the life of young elites from the ruling Workers' Party, I was afraid to ask about the common people.

Hmmm, scratch the surface, and what do we find...it's still unclear what North Koreans really think. But, Choi's discussions are a start.

As I compare the Choe Sang-hun's and Jack Kim's accounts of the second DPRK-ROK summit in Pyongyang, I can't help but think Jack Kim is a better writer. Choe's account, working from similar notes, clearly lacks...something? Oh, yes, bite!

Compare Kim's opening graphs...

Roh Moo-Hyun has billed his first trip to the communist North as a chance to end animosity born with the partition of the Korean peninsula at the end of World War Two.

But his critics say the visit is aimed more at domestic politics and expect him to tiptoe around the sensitive issues of nuclear weapons and mass human rights abuses.

North Koreans dressed in their finest waved pink and red plastic flowers and cheered on cue when Kim arrived at a main square in Pyongyang, repeating the greeting minutes later as Roh stepped out of an open car supplied by North Korea.

A portly Kim, in his trademark drab zip-up jacket and wearing platform shoes that made him appear taller than the dark-suited Roh, shook hands unsmilingly with the South Korean leader and his wife.

The two shared greetings of «nice to meet you» and then barely spoke to each other, pool reports from Pyongyang said. The pair reviewed a military guard of honor.

Kim's cool greeting was in sharp contrast to his effusive welcome for the South's then president, Kim Dae-Jung, at the first summit in 2000. Then, the two leaders rode together in cars, embraced, and harmonized in singing patriotic songs.

...with Choe's.

Stepping into the international spotlight at a delicate time for his isolated regime, the North Korean leader Kim Jong Il greeted South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun, who arrived in Pyongyang Tuesday for a summit meeting. Roh was met by the cheers of hundreds of thousands of North Koreans.

The mobilized crowd erupted into well-choreographed chants of «hurrays!» and «national unification!» as Roh rode through central Pyongyang in an open limousine with Kim Yong Nam, the North's nominal head of state but second to Kim in power.

The usually drab sidewalks of Pyongyang blossomed in color as North Koreans dressed in their holiday best waved pink and red paper flowers, according to South Korean television footage from Pyongyang. Roh, only the second South Korean president to visit Pyongyang since the two Koreas were divided 60 years ago, smiled and waved.

Roh travels with a bold initiative: if North Korea agrees to escalate down a half century of animosity with arms cuts, the South will help rebuild the North's moribund economy, creating a «joint economic community» as a prelude to eventual reunification. Roh will also test Kim Jong Il's willingness to give up his nuclear arsenal in return for economic rewards and diplomatic relations with the United States and others.

Kim Jong Il greeted and shook hands with Roh in front of a cultural hall in Pyongyang, where Roh's motorcade stopped for a welcoming ceremony. Clad in his trademark mud-colored Mao suit and unsmiling, Kim ambled down a red carpet, guiding the South Korean leader past a parade of North Korean soldiers goose-stepping with rifles tipped with bayonets.

So, were the flowers paper or plastic? And, I love the details about the Dear Leader's transformative attire! And, doesn't yellow connote caution? How long will it take South Koreans to recover from the overzealous propaganda and methods employed by successive reactionary regimes bent on sinking the DPRK into their own fiefdom?

What was that about «joint economic community»?

McClatchy's Tim Johnson, and author of the blog, China Rises, lays his thoughts down about the DPRK in a video. For committed DPRK pundits, Johnson presents nothing new or shocking, and never really gets that far into the hermitic state or any particular place where he goes. One would think only about hundred people live in North Korea whenever these documentaries are filmed. But, for newbies, it's a short introduction.

But, really, this picture says so much more about Kim Jong-il's playground.