Uden, who traveled to Pyongyang and Wonsan, a port on North Korea's east coast, from March 11-14, said he witnessed plenty of chicken, fish and vegetables and an array of computer and camera accessories during his visit to the "Dong-il" market in the capital city.
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A street photo of Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, taken during British Ambassador Martin Uden's visit in early March. (Yonhap) |
In his travelogue that was written after his second trip to the North following the first in 2008 and sent to Yonhap News Agency, Uden said that overall, both the variety and quantity of food products available at the Pyongyang market were a "fair bit less" compared with three years ago, noting the absence of beef was especially noticeable.
"This March, I saw no beef and a tiny amount of pork. But plenty of chicken of all sizes, both cooked and uncooked, and some duck. Large amounts of good-looking fish and plentiful root vegetables," the British diplomat said in his travelogue that offers insights into the daily life of ordinary Pyongyang citizens.
"In terms of the food aid that the DPRK is seeking at present, it's worth remembering that even if this one market appeared reasonably stocked, it's not possible to draw wider conclusions from that," he said, using the abbreviation of the North's official name.
Uden said he arrived in Pyongyang on the second Friday of March, the day of a devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan, but was kept in the dark about the disaster until Monday, when the state news organizations carried reports about it. He called the incident an eloquent example of information control by the government.
"In (North Korea), you can only know what the state wants you to know," he said.
The diplomat also described monotonous roadside landscapes between Pyongyang and Wonsan, a challenging life environment facing Western diplomats in the North's capital and experiences of contact with North Korean officials in his four-part travelogue.
The following is the full text of Uden's travelogue.
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A street in Pyongyang (Yonhap) |
Visit to Pyongyang. The Program -1
I try to get to Pyongyang once a year. It's such an important part of my work in Seoul, that I find it enormously helpful to see the reality of life in the DPRK. I'm lucky in that I can stay with my colleagues in the British Embassy up there.
Most of my EU colleagues in Seoul are accredited to both North and South Korea, and when they travel up there they have to stay in a hotel and rely on the DPRK government for transport and arrangements for their visit. It's a lot easier for me since the British Embassy can arrange the program, and we have our own transport to allow us to move around with more freedom.
I'm going to post a short series of blogs on my visit there. Apologies that it's taken a while to get this written, but the terrible crisis in Japan has of course been an enormous preoccupation. I also make no claim to particular or fresh insights. Nobody just travelling there for a weekend can claim that.
The UK established diplomatic relations with the DPRK just over 10 years ago, and we opened an Embassy not long after. We have our office and residential buildings in the German Embassy compound, and the Swedes also share the office building. The compound itself is in a larger diplomatic area which is closed to normal North Koreans, but our diplomats can travel throughout Pyongyang and to a small number of North Korean towns (Nampo and Wonsan) but anywhere else needs permission from the DPRK government.
Life for my colleagues in Pyongyang is undoubtedly challenging. There are a few shops and restaurants that take only foreign currency and, therefore, can pretty much only be used by foreigners. But there is virtually no social interaction with North Koreans, other than with the local Embassy staff provided by the DPRK government, and only a limited number of restaurants in Pyongyang that will serve foreigners.
So life is very circumscribed and restricted, as well as somewhat oppressive in such a state-controlled environment. We make sure they get away regularly and their postings are shorter than, say, in Seoul.
I went with some colleagues from London (eases the load on the Embassy) and travelled in and out on Air China. (EU concerns about Air Koryo mean we don’t use it as a rule.) Apart from meeting all the UK and DPRK members of the Embassy, we saw other EU Heads of Mission, the Chinese Ambassador, representatives of international organizations and NGOs, the English-language specialists who work at Pyongyang universities as well as DPRK officials at the Foreign Ministry and the Workers’ Party of Korea. More on all that to follow.
Worth recalling that we were there just after the terrible events in Japan. The earthquake happened on Friday afternoon, local time. Even on Sunday, our interpreters knew nothing about it, nor did the (British) English-language specialists we saw on Sunday night. Why the state news organizations kept this news back until Monday, I've no idea. But it's an eloquent example of the effects when control of the sources of information is completely in the hands of government. You can only know what the state wants you to know.
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The German embassy in Pyongyang (Yonhap) |
Visit to Pyongyang. Shopping -2
So many parts of everyday life in Pyongyang are opaque to the foreigner (to say the least).
We find that our Embassy interpreters are happy to answer our questions about their daily life, but we don't want to put them in any embarrassing position by asking awkward questions, and indeed sometimes they don't know the answers to our questions.
There is an overall Lowry-esque feel to Pyongyang, with innumerable stick people (you hardly ever see a fat North Korean) bustling from one place to another in drab clothes, much like the work of Lowry when he painted industrial Lancashire. The fact that much of the transport is trams and trolley-buses, and buildings too are box-like and grey all adds to a rather anachronistic feel.
Unless you read Korean it can be hard to make out the shops and service centers that often make up the bottom storey of blocks of flats. But there are plenty of barbers, repair centres, cafes and shops. Foreigners really aren't too welcome, but it is clear from the outside that the selection of goods on offer is small.
However, you don't see the long lines that you might associate with old communist stores. In Pyongyang people rely on the state system of distribution for their staples, above all rice, but there are also markets both official and unofficial. I visited the Dong-il market when I was there in November 2008 and was keen to go back.
There was a very clear difference in terms of the food on sale - largely dictated by a change of season in a way that has fallen out of habit in consumer societies used to large-scale imports of food. In 2008, there was plentiful pork and a fair amount of beef - at a time when farmers would traditionally have been slaughtering their livestock in preparation for the winter.
This March, I saw no beef and a tiny amount of pork (one woman with four unappetising bulging plastic bags). But plenty of chicken of all sizes, both cooked and uncooked, and some duck. Large amounts of good-looking fish (don't ask me what sort) and plentiful root vegetables - potatoes, carrots, radishes - but little green vegetable. No Chinese cabbage (but there wouldn't be - it's all made into kimchi in the autumn) and just a few savoy and red cabbages.
Overall, a fair bit less in variety and quantity compared to 2008. From the attention paid by the throngs of customers, I guess that the prices were within reach of their pockets. In terms of the food aid that the DPRK is seeking at present, it's worth remembering that even if this one market appeared reasonably stocked, it's not possible to draw wider conclusions from that. How much this situation is reflected out in the countryside, or even in other parts of Pyongyang, I can't say.
Another difference from 2008 was the electronic goods available. Just about everything will been produced in or imported through China. In 2008, there were a few computer accessories (computers themselves aren't sold in markets like this) but noticeably more this time and of higher spec. It was just computer mice before, but now some flash drives, although I don't recall seeing any DVDs, either blank or recorded. The level of digital cameras available has certainly gone up.
Not just the standard palm-sized shiny simple model, also the black sophisticated camera with multiple settings, as well as spare batteries and flash drives. Lots of cell-phone accessories, but also no cell-phones here.
Sadly this is the sort of place where there are sensitivities about photography. Foreigners are allowed in and can make purchases, but trying to take pictures would be a step too far.
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Wonsan, a port city on North Korea's east coast (Yonhap) |
Visit to Pyongyang. Wonsan -3
It was unseasonably warm while I was up in the DPRK(Democratic Peopls' Republic of Korea). In mid-March it can easily not get above zero, but in the middle of the day on Sunday 13 March in Wonsan it was 19°C. Wonsan - on the opposite side of the peninsula from Pyongyang - is one of the few places diplomats from Pyongyang can go without prior permission from the Foreign Ministry. So we took two cars and drove the 200km to Wonsan.
There is a pretty good paved 4-lane road all the way, with occasional potholes but generally a good surface. In contrast to South Korea, the striking thing to me about the road is its utter sameness. By the side of the road are 6 or so lines of trees which, if they aren't meant to impede photography out of a car window, certainly do a good job of it.
Then the fields behind, stretching to the nearest line of hills, are flat and growing rice or wheat. On steeper terrain there may be fruit orchards, but by and large that's the extent of the agricultural diversity. No poly-tunnels; no market gardening. Going across the entire width of the country, we go up and over the mountains that run down the spine of the peninsula, and over the whole country it's clear that no speck of cultivable land is left untilled.
The only places where the trees lining the road are absent are where a river or some other geographical feature makes it impossible or along two long, flat stretches which (from seeing just the same expedient used in the south) are clearly designed to be used as emergency airstrips.
But travelling through South Korea, the vibrant tourism industry is ever with you. Every few miles there will be a signpost to a temple, museum or just another town. I didn't keep careful count, but on the 200 kms, we saw one pagoda by the side of the road, took one stop at the only wayside station, and there were very few junctions off the road.
Indeed, it was clear that any nearby villages were protected from view by earthworks, which also obscured any locations of military significance.
To give an idea of the state of the countryside from Wonsan to Pyongyang, we made a rough count of the livestock we saw over these 200 kms. There were:
- About 25 herds of goats, each of 20-50 goats;
- Over 100 oxen, most of them pulling ploughs or carts;
- About ten tractors (but only one on the way to Wonsan in the morning);
- Over 20 stalled vehicles awaiting attention by the side of the road;
- Three pigs;
- Six dogs;
- Four excavators;
- Perhaps 100 vehicles in total on the road;
- Simply thousands of people working in the fields.
It's easy to see that with thousands of people working and only ten tractors between them, there's an awful lot of manual labour going on.
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Downtown Pyongyang seen from the British embassy in the North Korean capital (Yonhap) |
Visit to Pyongyang - The Embassy -4
My visit up to Pyongyang typifies in a small way the reason we have an Embassy there, but also the limitations of what we can hope to achieve. Without some means of engagement, we have no chance of influencing North Koreans, slim as the chances may be for a true dialogue.
Indeed the meetings we had with DPRK diplomats and at the Workers' Party followed a familiar pattern. It only takes a straightforward question to set the DPRK side off on what is clearly a carefully scripted description of their position, with plentiful ideological explanation, but also taking anything from 20 to 40 minutes.
I can't help but be enormously impressed at the patience of our Ambassador there. Sadly the basic message from them on dialogue between North and South Korea was very similar to what I hear from their counterparts in Seoul - that the basis of trust (expressed as a lack of "sincerity" on the other side) needed for any progress does not exist at present.
Being there can also give some insights into what life is truly like in Pyongyang. It would be easy to see the DPRK as populated by ideologues and automatons, but speaking to the city's inhabitants it becomes easier to realize that while some are indeed part of the machine, others - including those thousands toiling in the fields - are doing little more than trying to earn their daily bread. And some of the insights, even if only about what's in the shops or what the road to Wonsan looks like, can only come from personal observation.
Of course we do more than that as an Embassy there. We have had an English language program there for some time, in which our specialists work in Pyongyang universities trying to improve the level of English taught there. There's no doubt that these days access to external sources of information can only come with a command of English. We also keep in touch with the international organizations, non-governmental organizations and other Embassies there, seeking their views on, for instance, the food situation in the DPRK.
As opportunity offers, we can also find other ways to ensure that a true picture of the outside world is seen in Pyongyang. That might be the "Bend it like Beckham" film we got shown at Christmas on DPRK TV. Or it could be bringing DPRK officials to London when we can and where appropriate. Trying to show that the world is not ranged against the DPRK or its people is well worth it. But so long as they are denied the chance to have access to external media, and so long as any kind of dissent is seen as treasonable, it will be a long, hard job to chip away at the atmosphere of isolation and fear that the regime needs to justify the harsh conditions that North Koreans have to endure.
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