The trip to North Korea, which had been brewing in my heart for 10 years, finally became a reality with great expectations. Before I set off, I read a lot of information and thought I knew a lot about it. When I set foot on this land, the impact and shock of North Korea far exceeded my expectations, although it cost more than 5,000 yuan to go to this trip, but I deeply felt that this trip was extraordinary! So I have been to North Korea twice so far!
Let's talk about the North Korea travel experience
1. Traveling to North Korea is different from the free travel we are familiar with, and we can only choose to travel with a group! Every step of the group tour here is carefully designed, from every route we have walked, to every natural and cultural landscape we see, all of which have been carefully planned. In the evening, once we stepped through the hotel doors, we couldn't go out anymore.
2. There are two ways to get to North Korea: plane and train. Personally, I prefer the gradual travel experience of the train. Taking advantage of the opportunity to experience the cross-border train, I naturally did not miss it. The train departed from Dandong, crossed the Yalu River, crossed the national border, and arrived at Sinuiju Station in North Korea shortly after. Here, the mobile phone can also capture Dandong's signal and can receive messages, but cannot reply.
3. Sinuiju Station is the first stop of our trip to North Korea and our first "attraction" ~ border inspection. Here we had a two-hour "special experience"!
We were asked to hand in our passports and visas, and everyone was careful to comply. As first-time visitors to this land, we have heard of the atmosphere in North Korea, so we dare not do anything beyond the regulations. Then we were checked in by an uncle with a typical North Korean face and a not very fluent Mandarin man.
Here, I would like to remind future travelers that there are some items that cannot be brought into the country: any promotional materials that are unfavorable to the DPRK are prohibited, cosmetics for personal use are allowed, but some cosmetics, especially those made in Korea, are not allowed, and all paper with words needs to be carefully checked to avoid unnecessary trouble.
4. Two hours later, our train finally departed. The scene outside the window began to change, and North Korea's fields and scattered farmhouses came into view. Three main crops are grown in the fields: rice, beans and corn, which are the main sources of food for North Korea. Farmers work in groups, and farming methods in rural areas are still primitive, with few traces of mechanization. Oxen plough the fields, carry water with buckets, apply farm manure, and hoes and sickles are their main agricultural tools.
It is worth mentioning that most of the tours on our train are elderly. As soon as they entered North Korea, they began to feel nostalgic, looking out the window at the farmland and people's clothes, and excitedly discussing the past of the "people's commune" and the "big pot rice". Perhaps for them, North Korea is not only a tourist destination, but also a historical memory and emotional sustenance.
Traveling through the mountains of North Korea, we experienced the passage of a tunnel for the first time. It was pitch black in the tunnel, "Why don't you turn on the lights?" It turned out that although the North Korean train was equipped with lamps, it was not electrified, and there were no lights in the tunnel.
Even Pyongyang's most luxurious railway station in North Korea has only two tiny yellow lights underneath the passageway, barely illuminating the entire passageway. Pedestrians can only use the flash of their mobile phones to guide their way. North Korea has limited power resources, which is unimaginable in our daily lives.
The Pyongyang railway station, rebuilt in the 50s of the last century, is small in scale, but it looks clean and exquisite. Above the main entrance of the station, huge portraits of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il hang in every corner of North Korea.
5. In Pyongyang, we stayed at the Giethoorn Hotel, which is currently one of the most luxurious hotels in Pyongyang. The hotel is located on a small island shaped like a sheep's horn, and the towering 47-storey building is the perfect place to enjoy the scenery of the Datong River!
The lobby of the hotel is luxuriously decorated, just like that of a high-end hotel in China, but once you step into the room, you can feel a noticeable difference.
The facilities of the room are simple, the hair dryer is weak, the refrigerator has no electricity, and the hardware facilities are comparable to that of a guest house. However, the cleanliness of the room is amazing, dust-free and the bedding is soft and comfortable.
As tourists, we are treated like foreign guests. While there was no shortage of performances in this trip, I believe that the North Koreans have done their best to bring out the best in them. In the phone hall in the hotel lobby, we can pay for international calls in RMB. A one-minute call costs about 16 RMB. If you want to surf the Internet, you can also buy a mobile phone card for foreigners, which costs 1,700 RMB. During the few days in North Korea, we were completely cut off from the outside world, without the interference of mobile phones, and the communication between people became more pure!
6. Our two tour guides, one of whom is surnamed Jin, is a senior majoring in tourism, about the age of 20. She has a crisp hairstyle, permed medium hair, a light blue chiffon shirt with a dark blue skirt, and a pair of silver sandals on her feet. If you look closely, you can see that she has a chic pearl buckle pinned to her neckline and wears a delicate watch in her right hand. Although her face is still a little childish, her gestures reveal an elegant temperament!
North Korea's foreigners, especially women, are generally beautiful and moving, and as more and more tourist groups go to North Korea, tour guides have become a profession in short supply. I think that tourism must be very popular in North Korea, because it provides young people with opportunities to get in touch with the outside world.
Someone curiously asked me if I could marry a North Korean woman? In North Korea, women don't usually marry foreigners, but it's not absolutely impossible. As long as two conditions are met: one is that both parties are in agreement, and the other is to prepare 4.5 million.
The next day, the tour guide began his familiar introduction: "Welcome to North Korea!"
In our country, there are three things that are free: housing, health care, and education. Tell us: "Houses are allocated by the state according to the size of the family. Newlyweds receive a 60-square-meter house, and North Korea encourages childbearing, with families with multiple children receiving state rewards such as gold rings and honorary titles. ”
7. In the modern apartments in Pyongyang, the furniture and decoration are arranged by the state, and the fine decoration is carried out with bags. As a result, residents are unable to renovate themselves, which is somewhat of a pity. When moving, only personal belongings can be taken with you, while public goods must be left behind. When North Koreans move, they also take a box of matches with them, which symbolizes good luck in the future.
8. In North Korea, medical care and education are free, which is what I learned during my travels.
Although the DPRK's medical system does not require out-of-pocket expenses, it is still striving to improve its medical conditions and standards due to the level of economic development. In terms of education, the DPRK has a 12-year compulsory education system, including elementary, junior high and high school. After graduating from high school, students are admitted to different universities based on their grades, and university education is also free.
For young people who fail to get into college, there are two main options: boys tend to choose to join the military, while girls tend to choose men who have already served in the military when looking for a partner, because service experience means basic life skills such as cooking. Others go directly to the workforce, which is assigned by the state.
The tour guide said that North Korea works six hours a day, with one day off a week. For women with small children, they only have to work four hours a day to have more time to care for their families.
On the streets of Pyongyang, I saw a group of women playing drums and dancing in the square, and at first I was very curious, until the guide explained that these women were trying to boost the morale of office workers. Their performances take place during working hours, usually near subway stations.
9. North Korea's economic history is also quite tortuous.
Before the 80s of the last century, the economic level of the DPRK was even higher than that of the ROK, and the rural areas were fully electrified, and the power generation and urbanization rate were ahead. In the late eighties, due to the reduction of external aid, many industrial equipment and agricultural machinery were turned into scrap metal, there was a shortage of fertilizers, and the economy and agro-industrial development were seriously affected.
Until now, North Korea still has shortages of oil, fertilizer, equipment, power and technology, and its food production is not high, and it is dependent on imports and outside aid. Despite this, the DPRK is trying to achieve its food production goals and establish economic development zones, and the living standards of its residents have improved.
The average salary in North Korea is about 400 yuan. However, scientists, teachers, doctors, and foreign-related workers earn relatively well, such as tour guides, who claim to earn 600 yuan a month. In Pyongyang, the word "living expenses" is usually used instead of "salary". Every month, people receive regular living expenses to cover basic needs such as food, transportation and clothing, as well as some food stamps and cloth stamps. Therefore, although the real prices in North Korea are not high, the prices of goods sold to foreign tourists are similar to those in the country, if not more expensive.
10. In North Korea, the use of currency has its own specific rules for tourists. In places where foreign tourists are allowed to shop, the renminbi is the universal currency, so it is enough to bring renminbi cash. In North Korea, foreigners are not allowed to buy goods with North Korean currency at roadside stalls or local shops.
In addition, North Korea does not support credit cards and mobile payments, and only accepts cash. For example, to see a performance like "The People's Country", visitors must pay in cash on the spot, 800 yuan per person. The show is a big name for North Korea, with more than 100,000 performers participating in each performance. Each actor's movements are neat and precise, like living electronic pixels, creating a stunning visual effect!
On the streets of Pyongyang, people rehearse under the scorching sun in almost every open venue, dressed uniformly, wearing white clothes, black pants, and white hats. These rehearsals include both secondary school students and young people. In the evenings, when the temperature is a little cooler, elementary school students also join in rehearsals.
11. As the capital of North Korea, Pyongyang has at least the appearance of a modern city. The city center is home to many characteristic buildings, ranging from sprawling landmarks to colorful residences with clean streets and wide squares. I was curious and asked the guide why the streets were so clean.
The tour guide explained that in North Korea, every street is cleaned by a fixed resident, who is the first thing they do every morning to clean the street they are responsible for. In addition, the North Korean people are generally well-educated and of high quality, and few people litter on the roads.
Since there are no private companies in North Korea, there is no problem of fakes, and there are no advertisements, including bus stop signs and posters in subway stations.
12. Outside of Pyongyang, there are significant differences from the capital.
Pyongyang is a special existence! Residents of rural areas cannot travel to Pyongyang without a letter of introduction. We passed the brand-new Future Scientist Street, which is lined with high-rise houses and is home to North Korean university professors, scientists, and researchers.
Kaesong, the second largest city in North Korea, feels like the county seat when I was a child. The roads are sparsely populated and sparsely populated with vehicles, but the streets remain clean and tidy.
The architecture is more modest and fresher than in Pyongyang. The residents of Kaesong love to plant flowers on their balconies, but to my surprise, many of them are fake.
In North Korea, ordinary people live mainly on the distribution of food stamps and cloth stamps, and the food problem is far from being solved. The life of the citizens in the center of Pyongyang is not representative of the standard of living of the entire North Korean people.
In rural areas, life is a system of collective labor and material distribution, which simply means "more work and more reward". The more food farmers grow, the more work they receive, which in turn allows them to earn more supplies.
The tour guide told us that in addition to not raising cattle and sheep privately (cattle are an important tool for collective agricultural production, and sheep are mainly used for milk production), farmers can raise poultry and livestock such as chickens, ducks, geese, pigs, etc., and have their own land. After the collective work is completed, they can also work for their own family.
I asked curiously, what should I do if the supplies allocated are not enough or what I want is not distributed? The female guide confidently replied that the food was definitely enough to eat and very nutritious. If you need something else, you can go to the supply and marketing cooperatives to buy it, where you have everything. She also told us that each family gets 15 catties of meat every month.
13. North Koreans dress plainly and neatly. Men usually wear shirts, belts, and dark trousers, while young men mostly wear white shirts with black pants and carry a briefcase on their backs. Women in Pyongyang dress in a more colourful way, with most wearing dresses, either dresses or slip-ons, sandals with heels, and stylish bags over their shoulders. Women in North Korea generally perm their hair and comb it neatly, and it is rare to see people with long hair draped loosely.
14. In terms of transportation, the Pyongyang subway is one of the deepest railway systems in the world, and I thought that there would be a lot of advertisements in the subway, but in fact they were mainly newspapers and posters, and the same is true for bus stops, which are mostly landscape paintings. North Koreans pay 5 won to ride the subway, and office workers ride it for free, but they will have to pay for it after retirement. For foreign tourists, the metro is free. On the subway, most North Koreans ignored, bowed their heads, avoided or threw defensive glances at my camera, while the students appeared shy or scared.
Interestingly, when getting off the bus, it was originally crowded with people who were about to get on the bus, and the tour guide yelled (I guess it was to remind them to get out of the way, it was a foreign guest), and the crowd quickly parted to form a passageway. Pyongyang residents use a variety of means of transportation to get to work, some wait in line for buses, some take the subway, and some ride bicycles. Taxis are very expensive in North Korea, starting at 14 yuan for 3 kilometers, and only a few people can afford them. Foreign tourists are not able to take a taxi. Both Pyongyang and Kaesong have bike-only lanes, which the tour guide says makes it easier for cyclists.
The journey from Pyongyang to Mount Kumgang was less than 300 kilometers, but we had a full day. North Korea's roads are in poor condition, most of them were built in the 80s of the last century and are now dilapidated. Along the way, you can see some small-scale road repair work, and the speed is about 40km/h, which is bumpy.
15. During the trip to North Korea, the tour guide took us to taste a variety of North Korean specialties. From copper bowl rice to Korean barbecue, to Korean hot pot and ginseng chicken soup.
Copper bowl rice, also known as rice bed set, is a famous food in Kaesong. It looks very good, but when you open it, it's mostly vegetarian and pickled meat. North Korea was short of supplies, and I was worried that I wouldn't have enough to eat, so I ordered an extra bowl of ginseng chicken soup. This bowl of soup tastes good, but the price is slightly more expensive, 260 yuan per bowl.
The Korean roast duck was one of my favorite meals of the trip. Unlike the usual grilled pork belly, North Korea's roast duck meat is tender and delicious, and it comes on a plate per person. The side dishes include rice cakes and small fish, etc., and they are actually quite filling. But in order to try the special Pyongyang cold noodles here, I couldn't help but taste it, the taste is average, not particularly amazing.
Korean hot pot is a small hot pot for each person, and the dishes are prepared in advance, presenting a clear soup. This is different from the hot pot we usually eat, more like a pot of freshly cooked soup. Even though it was a hot pot, there was no shortage of kinds of food on the table, which made me even more convinced that in North Korea, hot pot is more like a soup.
epilogue
While photographing the residents, I noticed that most of them were very vigilant. As long as we don't deliberately shoot negative content, the normal shooting needs are not hindered. Our tour guide said that she thinks that the life of the North Korean people is very good now, everything is there, life does not need to be too complicated, and there is no desire to change or be changed.