My Holiday in North Korea Read online

  My Holiday in North Korea

  The Funniest/Worst Place on Earth

  Wendy E. Simmons

  Contents

  Copyright

  Advance Praise for My Holiday in North Korea

  Photography Note

  Author’s Note

  For

  Introduction

  Prologue

  1. Arrival

  2. Curiouser and Curiouser

  3. The Koryo Hotel

  4. James Franco Could Have Killed Me

  5. Shit I Think Might Be Real

  6. And then There Were Two

  7. The Simulation Cinema

  8. Next Stop: Normal People

  9. It Takes a Hero

  10. Hot Doctor, Dimly Lit

  11. The Kids Are Alright

  12. The Grand People’s Study House

  13. Go Green Go

  14. “Say Cheese”

  15. The Day I Hit the Wall

  16. My Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Waste

  17. The Older One

  18. And the Earth Goes ’round the Sun

  19. Clam Bake and a Hot Spa

  20. Friends for Life

  21. Driver

  22. The Gynecologist

  23. They’re only Human

  Postscript

  Author’s Note: Seeing Is not Believing

  The “Shit I Think Might Be Real” List

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2016 by Wendy E. Simmons, Vendeloo, Inc.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form without written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For information address at: [email protected].

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  WENDYSIMMONS.COM | MYHOLIDAYINNORTHKOREA.COM

  COVER PHOTO BY WENDY E. SIMMONS

  All photos are trademarked, and exclusive property of Wendy E. Simmons

  DESIGN BY ERIN TYLER

  Printed in the United States of America. This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

  EPUB: 978-0-7953-4722-1

  MOBI: 978-0-7953-4747-4

  Advance Praise for My Holiday in North Korea

  A death-defying adventure, filled with despair and tiny pieces of hope, and beautiful—I wish I was as brave as Wendy.

  James Altucher, bestselling author, entrepreneur, podcaster

  Writer and photographer Wendy Simmons shares a personal account of her vacation to one of the most reclusive nations on the planet, North Korea. During her journey she finds herself caught between an international crisis sparked by the release of the Sony Pictures film The Interview and accidentally crashing the “wedding” of a North Korean bride to be.

  Buzzfeed’s Gabriel Sanchez

  Wendy Simmons gives a glimpse into NoKo in this humorous and entertaining book. Through her eyes we see the sometimes absurd, yet always aching existence of a country under the thumb of oppressive rule.

  Myles Kennedy, Singer/Songwriter Alter Bridge/Slash & The Conspirators

  My Holiday In North Korea by the very funny Wendy Simmons is a must-read for anyone who wants to lift the veil and spy on the real North Korea. Ms. Simmons happened to be there during the whole debacle surrounding Seth Rogen and James Franco’s dumb movie, The Interview, which gives us, the reader, unusual insight into what was actually going on over there during that particularly absurd stand-off. But more than that, it is Ms. Simmons ease at being a traveler to distant and strange lands that gives this book its unusual insight into what people behind a real iron curtain think, and yes, feel.

  Maria T. Lennon, novelist, screenwriter, and the author of Confessions of a So-called Middle Child, and Making It Up as I go Along (Random House)

  Wendy Simmons traveled to a place few of us will ever go and found herself in the ultimate Potemkin Village. Her intrepid desire to discover the reality behind the stagecraft escorts the reader through My Holiday in North Korea with words and pictures that render this mysterious country both knowable and unknowable, and always fascinating. Simmons’ insightful and funny storytelling evocatively captures the deception, corruption, humor and, ultimately, anguished humanity of a bizarre nation. It’s a wild trip.

  Jon Reiner, James Beard Award-winning author of The Man Who Couldn’t Eat

  All photos in this book were taken by and remain the copyright of Wendy E. Simmons. All rights are reserved.

  Full-size versions some photographs featured in My Holiday in North Korea: The Funniest/Worst Place on Earth can be viewed at MyHolidayInNorthKorea.com.

  I have used the names North Korea, Korea, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, DPRK, the Hermit Kingdom, and NoKo—a moniker I believe I may have coined—interchangeably throughout this book.

  I have also used the word Party (as in, the Workers’ Party of Korea, the ruling political party of the DPRK) when I may mean the Regime, because I don’t know if, or what, the difference may be. Apologies to both.

  Wendy E. Simmons

  When I used to read fairy-tales, I fancied that kind of thing never happened, and now here I am in the middle of one! There ought to be a book written about me, that there ought! And when I grow up, I’ll write one.

  —Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

  For

  Kim Jong-un, the Supreme Leader of NoKo, for being batshit crazy enough to make this book possible. And my handlers, for showing me around.

  Now, HERE, you see, it takes all the running YOU can do, to keep in the same place.

  —Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass

  Introduction

  You just know some things are wrong. Being shaken down by a Buddhist monk at a thousand-plus-year-old temple is one of those things.

  It was my second-to-last day in NoKo. How anything could still surprise me by that point in my trip, I have no idea. Yet somehow, it did.

  Fresh Handler, Local Handler, and I were touring the Pohynsa Temple (Older Handler had decided to sit this one out and wait with Driver near the car), an eleventh-century temple complex that Local Handler was quick to point out “had suffered extensive damage from American Imperialists during the Korean War.”

  After we climbed a short set of concrete stairs to the main pagoda and went inside, I put a donation in the wooden box, lit a candle, stood in front of Buddha, and said a silent prayer. I prayed for Fresh Handler’s well-being and happiness, hoping against all hope that she would be okay, and I prayed for Older Handler and Driver, since by then I’d grown fond of both of them, too. Then I prayed for all North Korean people, because let’s face it, there but for the grace of God go I. It’s a stroke of luck, this life we lead: where we’re born, how we die. And finally I said a prayer for the Buddhist monk I’d seen standing outside. In a country that “actively discourages” all religion, I couldn’t imagine he was having a great time.

  When we exited the pagoda, the monk stood waiting. I naively thought to say hello. But no, this was North Korea (silly Wendy). He wanted money for my sins:

  LOCAL HANDLER, FRESH HANDLER translating: The monk says the last time an American Imperialist visited this temple, he felt so ashamed of himself for the damage his American Imperialist bombs caused to the temple in the war, that he gave lots of money to feel better.

  ME, to myself, feeling an improbable mix of apoplexy and
apathy: Are you fucking kidding me? (Then out loud.) Please let the monk know that I’m an American, not an American Imperialist, and that wasn’t my war. I wasn’t even alive. I don’t advocate violence of any kind. I don’t even kill bugs! And in all my years of traveling to dozens of Buddhist temples around the world, never has a monk tried to extort money from me. Oh, and please let the monk know I said a prayer for him inside.

  Put a fork in me. I was done.

  Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat pocket or a watch to take out of it, and, burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it…

  —Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

  Prologue

  It’s amazing how badly you want to go outside when you’re not allowed to. It was such a nice night in Pyongyang, and all I wanted to do was not be stuck inside my dim, drab, smoky, weird, empty hotel.

  My handlers and I had just arrived back at the Koryo Hotel. It was only 6:00 p.m., but since foreigners aren’t allowed to leave their hotels without their handlers, I wouldn’t be allowed back outside until 7:30 a.m. the next morning, when they returned to fetch me. I felt like a dog with a shock collar on.

  I moaned, “I feel like I’m being sent back to prison.”

  Older Handler recovered quickly and volunteered to take me on a walk.

  “Meet in the lobby at 6:55; walk from 6:55 to 7:05.”

  Itineraries and meeting times are very strict in North Korea.

  We walked two long blocks up and two long blocks back, with people staring at me the entire time—clearly not happy to see an American Imperialist. We stopped in front of a tiny enclosed stand. Older Handler asked me if I’d like to try a North Korean ice cream “special treat.” I declined, ruminating over the likelihood of an actual, real ice cream stand existing in the barren retail wasteland that is North Korea (probability: zero).

  She was not having it. “You said you feel like you are in prison. Eat the ice cream!”

  Her feelings, I guess, were hurt. I ate the ice cream, which tasted kind of like an orange Creamsicle, but without the cream, or the orange.

  Depositing me back at the hotel at 7:05 p.m. on the dot, she turned and said to me, “There. Now you feel better,” like I was some kind of child who had been granted a magical five-minute ice cream mind-eraser furlough.

  Yup, all better.

  I asked (again) why the main hotel for foreigners couldn’t just put a bench right outside the front door—right by all the guards and doormen—that tourists could sit on for fresh air and not be stuck inside the hotel all the time.

  She responded in typical North Korean fashion (read: insane), “To be honest, because naughty Americans—but not you—are using this information to create false stories about our country to make it look bad, so not until the reunification of our country.”

  Right, got it.

  Coincidentally, we spent the next two days in the countryside at hotels that had benches outside in small courtyards inside the hotel grounds. Older Handler was very quick to emphatically point out the benches to me, repeatedly letting me know I should sit there so I “wouldn’t have to feel like [I] was in prison.” By this point in the trip, I couldn’t tell whether she was trying to be helpful or just spiteful. I think it was a little of both.

  I am and have always been a traveler. Exploring the world, meeting its people, experiencing their lives, and sharing what I see are my greatest passions. I’ve traveled to more than eighty-five countries—including

  territories and colonies—many of which I’ve been to multiple times, and I’m struck more and more not by our differences but by our similarities. Beneath all the trappings of politics and religion, and apart from variations in the way we live our daily lives, I have come to understand how fundamentally the same we all are as human beings.

  Then I went on holiday to North Korea. And like Alice in Wonderland, I fell through the rabbit hole.

  This is my tale.

  How do you know I’m mad? said Alice. You must be, said the Cat, or you wouldn’t have come here.

  —Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

  Chapter 1

  Arrival

  It was June 25, 2014. China Air Flight 121 touched down at Pyongyang’s Sunan International Airport and taxied to a stop on the tarmac. The cabin door opened. I disembarked the airplane and descended the passenger boarding stairs. I was alone, a tourist in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, unaccompanied by an organized tour group or international liaison (unlike most other visitors to the country).

  I had never been more excited.

  Aside from our plane, twelve or so fellow passengers, the half-dozen soldiers and airline employees who’d met us at the bottom of the stairs, and a giant smiling portrait of Kim Il-sung affixed to the side of the terminal building, the area was completely empty. There were no baggage trains, no food or fuel trucks, no conveyor-belt vehicles, or vehicles of any kind for that matter. There were no ground crews doing their jobs. There were no other planes. We were it.

  One of the soldiers pointed me in the direction of the terminal building. I walked to the entrance and went inside. That twenty-foot walk to the terminal’s entrance would mark the last time I was allowed outside alone for the next ten days.

  The inside of the terminal was as devoid of normal airport activity as the outside was—something I would have expected had we just landed on a small island in the Philippines or a dirt runway in Uganda but not in the capital of North Korea.

  There were three booths for immigration: two for “regular” people and a third for diplomats and other government officials. As if it was inconceivable that a foreign woman would travel alone to North Korea and not be a diplomat, my fellow passengers kept urging me to join the diplomatic line. I stayed put. I didn’t want to risk deportation trying to impersonate a diplomat when I hadn’t even been imported yet.

  When it was my turn, I walked up to the counter, laid my papers and passport down, smiled, and chirped, “Hello!”

  The agent grunted back without making eye contact.

  He took one paper from me, stamped another, and handed it back with my passport, and I was in.

  I was euphoric. The most exciting moments in my life, when I feel most alive, happen when I’m touching down anywhere in the world I’ve never been. I am reborn into a new world, where everything is a curiosity to wonder at, and even the smallest accomplishment is a victory. There was nothing but discovery and learning ahead of me. And I was in North Korea—the most reclusive country on Earth. This was going to be amazing.

  Even though I’d done research to make sure the size and type of camera and lens I’d brought would be acceptable, cleared my iPhone of any applications I thought might be questionable, and had declared all of my other electronic devices and cash on my immigration forms, I still felt trepidation as I approached security.

  “Cell phone!” demanded a guard.

  I’d read online that North Korean officials take your cell phone and examine it but give it back nowadays, so I handed it over without argument. I put my bags on the baggage scanner, which looked about a hundred years old, and walked through the also-ancient metal detector.

  After being patted down, I stood watching as a gaggle of guards (soldiers?) huddled in a semicircle around my phone. I couldn’t imagine what they were doing with it, since it was locked. Installing a listening or recording device? They were probably just trying to unlock it.

  After a few minutes, a guard returned my phone and pointed to a set of doors, indicating I was free to go. But my luggage was still inside the baggage-screening machine. I pointed to the machine and politely said, “Bags?” hoping my luggage was merely trapped in the scanner’s inner sanctum, not confiscated. When the guard realized what I was saying, he began shouting at the other guards, who in turn began shouting at one another as another guard worked to dislodge my bags. To slake the mounting chao
s, I smiled and jokingly said, “Don’t worry! Happens all the time!” I was summarily ignored.

  Reunited with my bags a few minutes later, I emerged from security and was greeted by my two smiling, seemingly blissful North Korean handlers—the people who would be my near constant companions until I returned to the airport ten days later.

  Older Handler stepped forward and introduced herself first. She was prim, wearing decades-old clothes that looked part Star Trek, part 1960s air-hostess uniform, only not stylish and in ugly colors. If we were the cast of a TV show, Older Handler would be the neighbor lady who always tries so hard to look put together just so but can’t quite pull it off.

  Older Handler then introduced me to her subordinate, Fresh Handler. Older Hander told me she was “fresh” at her job—that is, she’d only been a guide a short time. Fresh Handler was young and diffident, and something about her shaggy-punk haircut and sweet demeanor told me I’d like her best.

  As Fresh Handler said hello, Older Handler unabashedly looked me up and down, sizing up—as I would be called throughout my trip—the American Imperialist. Then, without taking a breath, in a tone slightly less than suspicious:

  You first time come Korea? You been South Korea? You been Japan? You speak Korean?

  ME: Yes. Yes. Yes. No.

  North Koreans’ antipathy for Americans cannot be overstated. They are taught aggressively from birth that the United States is their number-one enemy, that Americans are imperialist pigs hell-bent on occupying North Korea, and that we may attack North Korea at any time. The Party espouses this rhetoric to maintain its absolute power over the North Korean people. If there is an enemy from which the people need protecting, the Party can be their protector.