Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!enterpoop.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.news From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: 'Paradise' lost in North Korea Date: Mon, 23 Nov 92 15:07:21 EST Message-ID: Lines: 156 \SE A \HD 'Paradise' lost in North Korea \SH Border village virtual ghost town \BY Willis Witter \CR THE WASHINGTON TIMES \DT TUMEN, China TUMEN, China - Across the Tumen River, tree-covered ridges rising above a two-story portrait of North Korean leader Kim Il-sung are emblazoned with a motivational message: "Work faster." But the North Korean village below lies deserted, a virtual ghost town, in eerie contrast to the buzz of bicycles, shoppers, vendors and tourists on the Chinese side of the border. In between, a 3/4-mile, two-lane bridge carries an occasional pedestrian, bicycle or truck laden with sacks of food and clothing back and forth between the two worlds. Tumen, a Chinese border town of about 40,000 - mainly ethnic Koreans - is a spot where North Korea peeks outward without its customary mask of belligerence. It is also a window into a society otherwise hidden from the world - a place where, recent visitors say, life is getting harder, discontent is spreading and ordinary people are looking to their bitter enemy, South Korea, as a possible savior from a life of grinding poverty. "Everybody knows that people in South Korea and China have a much better life. They [North Koreans] all want North and South Korea to unite because it will make their lives better," said one Tumen resident just back from a trip to the other side. Reports of food shortages, even hunger, are widespread. "It's no paradise," said one Korean-Chinese, using words that mocked official North Korean claims to have created a worker's paradise. "They're miserable, suffering, hungry." The collapse of communism denied North Korea cheap energy from the Soviet Union and a market in Eastern Europe for its goods. Even China, preoccupied with its own market-based reforms, seems uninterested in bailing out one of the world's last bastions of communist orthodoxy. North Korea maintains a virulent style of communism defined by personal devotion to Mr. Kim, the so-called great leader and his "juche" ideology, which elevates isolationism to the level of a religious crusade. Radios and televisions receive only government channels. Even radios and televisions entering from China are rewired at the border to block out Chinese stations. In fact, the control of information is so complete that some diplomats expressed surprise that North Korean peasants have any knowledge at all of South Korea's vast wealth. "If that's true, it would surprise me," said a diplomat in Beijing. "The control of information is so complete, I don't see how that kind of information could go around." North Korean society is heavily policed for ideological conformity. Defectors say penalties for dissent are severe, and often entire families are sent to remote prison labor camps if just one member openly criticizes the government. People are "afraid," said one Korean-Chinese who recently spent more than a week with a family in North Korea. The fear, he said, breeds a mindless conformity: "All they talk about is Kim Il-sung, juche ideology. It drives you crazy. "But they whisper that they are miserable. They know Kim Il-sung is responsible." Korean-Chinese, who have stayed with relatives for up to two weeks at a time, say virtually everything in North Korea is in short supply, especially food. A meager diet of corn and rice is supplemented with few vegetables and an occasional fish. Meat is rare. Sketchy reports of food riots or hungry North Korean soldiers stealing food from warehouses lead some diplomats and outside analysts to conclude that famine-like conditions are pervasive. In Tumen, however, recent visitors were skeptical. "They eat poorly but are not starving," said one. Rural North Korea remains hidden from a trickle of Western visitors corralled into tightly supervised tours of the showcase capital of Pyongyang, home of North Korea's elite 2 million. But it is in rural North Korea, where many of the remaining 18 million to 20 million live, that conditions are believed to be the most severe. It is here where trade with China is one way to cope. Although daily traffic at the Tumen River bridge looks like a trickle, each year hundreds, perhaps thousands of Korean-Chinese - and a fair number of North Koreans as well - are able to cross. Visits range from day trips to several weeks. Small-time merchants with no relatives frequently arrange to visit people willing to pose as long-lost aunts and uncles. What then takes place is primitive small-scale bartering since North Korean cash is worthless in China. Chinese clothing is especially popular, particularly coats and sweaters. Chinese-made appliances such as tape recorders and sewing machines are traded as well. In exchange, North Koreans trade seafood - mainly dried fish, sea cucumber and octopus - that is coveted in China's landlocked Jilin Province. One merchant who visited North Korea four times said that on the first visit to a village about 50 miles from the border no one knew what dried octopus was. The next time, he said, it was readily available even though everyone in the village refused to eat it. The Chinese appear uninterested in North Korean-manufactured goods that were once a mainstay of cross-border trade. In fact, North Korean goods that sit unsold at Tumen's indoor market resembled garage-sale leftovers destined for Monday's trash collection. One display was loaded with kitchen utensils such as bottle openers, corkscrews and other utensils that looked like they had fallen into the kitchen garbage disposal on more than one occasion. "The quality is so shoddy, but what can we expect from North Korea. They can't make anything good," said one ethnic Korean whose family moved to China more than four decades ago. At the Tumen River bridge, Chinese guards were relaxed, often joking with visitors. Individuals discreetly sell Kim Il-sung pins - a badge worn by every North Korean - to visitors milling around the riverside park at the Chinese entrance to the bridge. The price: $20 for South Koreans; $10 for Americans. A block away, the price drops to $4 and sometimes a worthless 100 won North Korean banknote is included as a bonus. One hustler even offered to procure a single-channel North Korean radio - for $300. The proposition, he said, involved considerable risk - a clandestine trip across the river and the possibility of a long prison term if caught. When a visitor offered a meager $50, the deal fell apart. This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM