How to survive 3 years in North Korea as a foreigner is indeed a good question. 3 years is a long time!
Some time ago, I was asked about life in North Korea. Who had I upset to have been banished to the “Hermit Kingdom” for 3 years. I imagine they were slightly taken aback when I told them I had volunteered. They then sent me a series of questions. They asked for a snapshot of what it was really like living, working and surviving there for so long. This I was happy to do.
Background
North Korea, officially the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korean Peninsula and borders China and Russia to the north at the Yalu (Amnok) and Tumen rivers, and South Korea to the south at the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). North Korea’s border with South Korea is a disputed border as both countries claim the entirety of the Korean Peninsula. The country’s western border is formed by the Yellow Sea, while its eastern border is defined by the Sea of Japan.
North Korea is a totalitarian dictatorship with a comprehensive cult of personality around the Kim family. The country is widely considered to have the worst human rights record in the world. North Korea is also one of the poorest countries in the world, with a large portion of the population suffering from malnutrition and food insecurity.
Despite its economic and political challenges, North Korea has made significant progress in certain areas, such as education and healthcare. The country has a literacy rate of over 99%, and its healthcare system is universal. However, the quality of education and healthcare is still relatively low compared to other countries in the region.
North Korea is also known for its isolationist policies. The country has few diplomatic relations with other countries and maintains tight restrictions on the movement of its citizens. This isolation has made it difficult for North Korea to develop its economy and improve the lives of its people.
In recent years, North Korea has made some efforts to open up to the outside world. The country has held talks with South Korea and the United States, and it has allowed some foreign businesses to operate in the country. However, North Korea has also continued to develop its nuclear weapons and missile programs, which has raised concerns about the stability of the region.
Overall, North Korea is a complex and contradictory country. It is a country with a rich history and culture, but it is also a country that is struggling to overcome its economic and political challenges. The future of North Korea is uncertain, but the country is likely to remain a major player in Northeast Asia for many years to come.
Overview of Life in North Korea
It was a strange existence. North Korea was labelled the “Hermit Kingdom” and for good reason. You were in a country that really was sealed off from the rest of the world. No internet or social media. All press and TV (one channel) dedicated not for news but solely for the glorification of the Leader. That is the Kim dynasty and the regime.
The British embassy was housed in the old East German embassy. This had now been taken over by the now unified Germans who had quite a sizeable staff. Therefore this being their building and compound, they were in effect our landlords.
They were a curious mixture. Former East German diplomats and West German diplomats. All very formal in their approach even to each other. It was “Herr” this and “Frau” that, very rarely first names. They were aghast at us Brits and our informality. When working in our embassy and socially we called each other by our first names. Even the Ambassador was called by his first name (although never in more formal or diplomatic settings).
Our embassy was a top floor landing on the west side of the building. Initially there were only two of us at the start. This increased slowly to a total of four by the end of my tour. Also situated in the same building was the Swedish embassy (with one diplomat). Finally rounding out the international presence was an Italian who acted as some form of Consul.
As well as working on the compound, we also all lived on the compound. Needless to say, space was at a premium. Apart from the German Ambassador who had a small, detached residence, we all lived in flats.
All the British flats had been modernised by a team of Australian building contractors. They were directly employed by the FCO. They were always in conflict with the DPRK officials. Lots of wrangling over their visas and importation of building materials into the country. Despite the obstructions, they did a fantastic job of converting dilapidated soviet style accommodation into modern, bright, fully equipped apartments. This went some way to making our life in North Korea a tad more bearable.
These apartments were all fully furnished by the FCO. Everything was shipped into North Korea in diplomatic containers direct from the UK. In addition we shipped in a huge generator which was a vital necessity given the frequent power cuts even in the capital city of Pyongyang which made life so much more bearable.
So a pretty eclectic assembly in such a small place, each with a different way of working and living. Needless to say, butting heads with our German landlords (especially their Admin Officer who ran the compound) was quite a regular occurrence.
But it was not too bad. The compound had a small swimming pool which was much used in the summer months, swimming, barbecues, parties etc, plus a much used tennis court…that is until I put a huge satellite dish on the court as this was the only line of sight location suitable to enable us to have our diplomatic communications.
This was a hugely unpopular decision that the Germans locally strongly objected to and the final go-ahead decision for location was reached only after agreement between the powers that be in London and Berlin. But that aside, we all lived and worked in relative harmony for the most part.
Note: A year later when the Germans decided to upgrade their communications, they imported their own dish and guess where they sited theirs? Next to ours on the tennis court!
As one of the few foreigners in the country, you had virtually no opportunity to have contact with the locals. We had English speaking North Koreans who worked at the embassy (supplied by the authorities) and apart from these and the North Korean officials we dealt with in our work that was about the sum content of local social interaction.
There were a handful of shops that catered for foreigners. All transactions had to be in Euros as possession of local currency by foreigners was forbidden. A lot of the items were imported from China and from time to time, local fresh produce would make a rare appearance. Meat was always in short supply.
There was one bright spot however and that was our regular diplomatic courier trips to Beijing where we would stock up with goodies from local supermarkets and embassy shops.
Every 3 or 4 months, all the foreigners would get together and order food and other items from Justesen, a Danish mail order company that specialised in the sale of Scandinavian foodstuffs, who would then despatch the ordered goods in a container that was shipped to the port of Nampo where we would collect it. This was always an occasion for much feasting and merriment.
Socially out and about, there were a small number of restaurants that foreigners were allowed to use. The range and quality that was on offer on the menu was very limited and some of the meat dishes (meat was extremely hard to come by at that time) were definitely suspect. As for bars, apart from the small number of hotels that catered for foreigners, there were none.
Therefore, because of this lack, the social life of an foreigner was pretty much home made, dinner parties, games nights and so forth. The World Food Programme (whose Head at the time was an American called Reagan!) had a makeshift club for foreigners which they called the Random Access Club that opened up every Friday night. It had a bar and a music sound system, so it was a regular weekly haunt to let your hair down.
Q. What was there to do for fun?
Not much! This is not an exaggeration. Apart from the small number of examples mentioned above, strangely enough, North Korea was the place where I learned to play golf. The Yanggakdo hotel, one of the hotels approved for foreigner use had a small 9-hole course attached to it that we were allowed to use.
In addition, just outside Pyongyang on the road to Nampo was a full, beautifully maintained 18-hole course (why this course was here, nobody knew) that we were also allowed to use. Needless to say, because there were so few leisure opportunities, we all had ample time to learn, develop and become quite proficient at the game.
As usual with North Korea, nothing was simple and straightforward. You were not allowed to play a round of golf without having (and paying outrageously) for a caddy. Your caddies were always very polite, well groomed young ladies who had a smattering of English and who were all surprisingly knowledgeable and well versed in the rules and excellent golfers in their own right when given the opportunity to display their skills.
As a lifelong compulsive buyer (even in North Korea where there was nothing to buy!) I could not resist it one day when a friend who worked for the World Food Programme was packing up prior to being posted out of the country. It was the only western owned motorbike in the whole country. Somehow he had managed to buy it in Beijing and get it shipped into the DPRK, he never told me how he managed this rare feat. He could not take it with him, so he decided to sell it…I bought it.
It was a complete rip off of a Harley Davison, it even had hand tooled leather saddlebags of all things draped behind the seat. I called it my Chinese Chopper and it was totally inappropriate on so many levels. It became the only diplomatic motorbike I ever came across in all my travels. Petrol was obtained from the one filling station we were allowed to use to fill up our official diplomatic cars.
I only used it during the summer months to beetle around Pyongyang, which raised a lot of eyebrows amongst the locals. Every so often, I would take it on a burn up along the vast wide and always virtually deserted highway that ran from Pyongyang to the port city of Nampo which was about 55 Kms from Pyongyang. Unfortunately, it may have looked like a Harley Davidson, but it was no Harley when it came to speed. It could never top 60 mph but at least it never conked out once the whole time I had it. When I left Pyongyang for good on posting, I sold it to a newly arrived German diplomat.
In the centre of Pyongyang, there was a surprisingly modern ten pin bowling alley, we were allowed to use this facility which was stange as the locals were avid bowlers and we met many on our regular trips to the facility.
In addition to this we also got permission to shoot regularly at an indoor shooting range. Thsi was relatively expensive as I suppose the provision of ammunition was not cheap. For these shooting visits, we had to take one of our local North Korean embassy staff with us who I presume reported back to their bosses on our prowess on the ranges no doubt. Diplomats who were good shots…mmmm!!
However, our main stress buster was the regular trips to Beijing to take and bring back diplomatic bags. You would fly out on a Saturday morning from Pyongyang, deliver the bag to our Beijing embassy and return Monday afternoon with a return bag. Therefore you had a wonderful long weekend in a plush hotel and plenty of bars and restaurants to explore. It was a great morale booster.
Q. Did you ever fly with Air Koryo?
Yes. At that time, Air Koryo was rated the worst and most dangerous airline in the world. But as it was the only approved route , again at that time, for foreigners to enter and leave North Korea, you had no option but to use it.
Well, I can honestly say that over the next three years flying them regularly for courier, work and leave related trips, I never had one bad flight. Yes the planes were old and had probably seen better days and the in-flight catering was quite frankly rubbish but the flights themselves were always on time, smooth and we always reached out destination safely in one piece! So, no complaints from me.
I must mention here that towards the end of my 3 year tour, I managed to get official permission to do a courier trip by train from Pyongyang to Beijing. This was an experience and worthy of a separate post in itself.
Q. Could you go out on your own for a walk?
Surprisingly yes. We could walk and drive quite freely throughout Pyongyang by ourselves without an official escort. Obviously we were conspicuous as Westerners but we had no problems going into shops or just strolling around the city taking photographs
Q. Were you followed everywhere?
There is no doubt that we were probably followed, although to what extent and how often remains unknown. Our local embassy staff were all Government supplied and there was never any doubt that they were there to keep an eye on us and report on what we were doing.
Also we had to be careful when using the telephone. You would pick up the receiver to call a contact at one of the NGO’s or another embassy and you would hear all these strange whistling and echo-like noises in the background. Obviously at that time, our North Korean eavesdropping chums had not quite managed to master the art of subtle, covert electronic surveillance.
Q. How did you keep sane?
Bacardi and Coke!
No, seriously, once you reconciled yourself to life in North Korea, most people immersed themselves in their work. Part of my job was to get the embassy established and fully up and running and able to carry out normal (as far as possible) diplomatic functions.
Q. Were there any quirky customs or cultures?
There were many. Perhaps the strangest was Kimchi week. Because all our local staff were supplied to us by the North Korean Government, we had to abide by their labour rules. Once a year, we had to release our local staff for a week so that they could go out into the fields to harvest kimchi (cabbages), a vital staple in all North Korean diets. They would then take the kimchi home and pickle it in vast quantities and store it there.
This kimchi supply would then hopefully get them and their families through the long, bitter winter months.
Another strange custom we as an embassy had to observe was presenting a basket of Kimilsungia flowers (named in honour of “The Great Leader “Kim Il Sung) once a year at the statue of the great man. All the UK and local staff had to attend for this ritual.
I only managed one of these annual ceremonies as the other two times I was either on leave or on a courier trip. Which is probably just as well as I got into trouble for not bowing sufficiently when paying my respects. Not intentional, I just missed the “bow head cue”
Of course, we in the British Embassy had our own custom which was the celebration each year of the Queens official birthday – usually the fist week in June. This was a major thing for us. Because I had organised such an even before in Albania and Kosovo, it usually fell to me to organise the event.
I always tried to think outside the box when arranging this function and in Pyongyang for two years running we held the event on a boat that crusied up and down the Taedong river.
What was the biggest personal challenge from living there?
My biggest challenge was keeping focussed. My initial and main job upon arrival in this strange place was to get a fully operating embassy up and running from scratch, everything from paper clips to vehicles to staff accommodation to communications equipment etc. This eventually took me the best part of a year, using unreliable supply lines, dealing and haggling with mind numbingly officious North Korean bureaucrats.
However, I soon found that a bottle of Johnie Walker Black Label handed out at particularly frustrating moments made things miraculously happen a lot quicker. Oh how the North Koreans loved their whiskey.
Q. So what was the main reason for establishing a British embassy?
In reality, the embassy’s main mission in North Korea was basically to have a presence.
By giving us permission to have an embassy in the capital, the North Koreans enabled us (the UK) to have channels for direct real time dialogue and diplomatic exchanges that previously were impossible. The actual operation was of course limited.
There was no trade because of sanctions (although the North Koreans were desperate for trade deals), virtually no consular cover because very few, if any, Brits were allowed to visit the country, obviously no military cooperation, therefore that was why the number of UK staff at the embassy remained small at only 4 UK diplomats.
Q. Did you manage to get any visitors?
On rare occasions we did get the odd visitor or two. When free time allowed and after the usual photo opportunities visiting Pyongyang’s monuments and statues, we usually managed to arrange a final, special trip for our visitors to make their time in North Korea more memorable.
This was to arrange a trip for them down to the border at Panmunjon to see and experience what was then at the time termed “the most dangerous border on earth”
On these trips, our North Korean military hosts were extremely polite and were open to taking questions. I am glad (relieved!) to say that most of our visitors restrained themselves from asking too many questions about opposing political systems or life in North Korea in general and kept their questions to generalities about serving at Panmunjon.
Visitors were allowed to take as many photographs as they wished at the border point.
When standing on the North Korean side of the border, I am sure that the American and South Korean military standing just a few tantalising feet away on their side in the South were more than a little mystified as to who these foreigners were hobnobbing with the dastardly North Koreans and no doubt their telescopic cameras were working overtime capturing us all on film.
Q. Did you get many opportunities to travel within the country?
Surprisingly yes.
Working with the North Korean and Chinese authorities, I managed to obtain permission to take our embassy vehicles from Pyongyang up the west coast by road to Sinuiju on the DPRK/Chinese border, drop off our North Korean minder then cross the Yalu river bridge into the Chinese city of Dandong where the Chinese authorities arranged for our vehicles to be serviced.
This gave us the opportunity to overnight in Dandong, sightsee and food shop before picking up our serviced vehicle the next day and heading back into North Korea. We managed to get this servicing trip firmed up on a regular basis to 4 or 5 times a year and each UK member of staff had the opportunity of taking part.
By far my biggest coup was a week long trip across the country then up along the mysterious east coast visiting mining facilities with two mining engineers from Derbyshire! This is a fascinating story (and trip) which I will expand upon in a future post.
Q. How did the experience compare to working in the other axis of evil states?
When serving in Iraq or Iran, my biggest fear in those places was always the threat of physical harm, be it ambushes on our person or vehicles, being kidnapped, rocket or mortar attacks on our embassy or accommodation. There were close shaves and the threat and the fear never left you in all of these places.
But as far as life in North Korea was concerned, there were none of these fears. Serving in North Korea gave you this strange feeling of being cut off, isolated and very insular and perversely at the same time “safe.”
Very strange I know.