West Sea Barrage

The propaganda music and long speeches could still be heard in the distance that morning as we made our way to the main building for breakfast. We walked through the trees and approached the wall that surrounds the hotel area. We’re not allowed to cross this wall. Jan lifted himself up on his arms to peek over the wall—many people were gathered, but we couldn’t see what they were doing. Our guides explained that it’s a government radio station broadcasting loudly to encourage farmers to work. Propaganda music and speeches play every day during all the hours they work. There’s a government radio in every small town, constantly motivating people to work hard for the Great Leader. Locals can also visit this spa hotel if they can afford it. Many farmers prefer to save their money instead of spending it on spa experiences, our guide told us. It’s mostly city dwellers who want to spend a weekend in the countryside that visit this place. Our guides keep insisting that everyone can afford to visit, it just depends on how they choose to spend their money. We drove along small gravel roads to the port city of Nampo. It seems like the only major paved road in this country is the wide, deserted highway with ten lanes. It’s Sunday, a day of rest, but many farmers are once again choosing to work “voluntarily.” Today, they’re spreading fertilizer on the fields—cow dung—by hand. They stand with small shovels trying to distribute the piles across the fields. We can see military personnel standing around, which makes you question how voluntary it really is for them to choose to work on their day off... Nampo city is world-famous for its dam, the West Sea Barrage, our guides told us. Several state leaders have visited to see this new construction that the people completed in a remarkably short time. It took five years to build an 8 km dam that separates the river from the sea. This way, they can better control the water level in the river, ensuring that water reaches far inland to the people’s fields and provides them with drinking water. In the past, most of the river water just flowed out to sea. We watched a short film about the leader’s visit, how he and the people planned the construction process, and how quickly and efficiently the work was done—yes, even in a very short time. The people cheered for the construction, waving and shouting joyfully when it was finally completed. North Korea loves to tell stories about the great challenges the leader has solved for the country. No one questions anything at all. Everything the government says is taken at face value by the population. Whenever the two state leaders visit or the people build something, a statue or monument is usually erected in their honor. At the entrance to Nampo city, a monument has been built to honor the people who participated in the construction of the dam. Generally, we’ve never been to a country before where there are so many monuments and statues. They tower over the landscape everywhere you look. It’s quite a contrast to see a grand monument next to poor houses in the countryside. Enormous amounts of energy and money are spent on building monuments and statues all over the country. We’ve had a tight schedule for the first four days due to Kim Il Sung’s birthday and holidays, which meant many places were closed. So now we had some flexibility in our itinerary to see a few extra things. It takes a lot of persuasion to get our guides to include extra activities in the program. We managed to convince them to take us to the beach in Nampo city, which many locals use during the summer months. The beach wasn’t impressive—it was small with coarse sand—but the water looked clean. It was nice to see something “real” that wasn’t staged for tourists or for show. Back in Pyongyang, we checked into the same hotel as before—Yanggakdo International. We had lunch at the Korean restaurant. The first activity of the afternoon wasn’t on the guides’ agenda. We had plenty of time today, so we persuaded them to take us to another activity that wasn’t planned in advance—the city’s largest amusement park. To our great disappointment, the place was unfortunately closed today. Instead, we headed to Moranbong Park, which was part of our original agenda. It’s a popular outing spot for many North Koreans when they have time off. On the outskirts of the park, tennis was being played. We got to play against the locals. The ball was flat and unpredictable, bouncing in all directions. But it was fun to play against the locals—a totally spontaneous and very un-touristy activity. Further into the park, people had set up picnics. There weren’t many bottles on the ground, but still, they were jumping, dancing, and singing at the top of their lungs. They were super drunk, which perhaps made them even more welcoming to us as they pulled us to dance. It was a different and fun experience to dance among the trees with a drunken North Korean—also quite surreal that these people are so happy