Lost on Planet China - J. Maarten Troost [145]
It’s probably bugged.
It has to be bugged. Things were afoot in North Korea. Spies would stay in this room. And this is China. There are no legal hassles here to prevent the government from bugging hotel rooms. So this room was most certainly bugged.
I resisted the temptation to speak to the lamps.
Should I speak to the lamps? What would happen if I spoke to them? No, I shouldn’t speak to the lamps. And then I spoke to them anyway.
I turned to the lamp shade. “Alpha, Charlie, Delta. This is Renegade One. Repeat. Renegade One. The package has left the building. Repeat. The package has left the building.”
And I spent the rest of the night waiting for my door to be kicked in.
I had come to Dandong because it seemed like an interesting place to ponder choices. Here was a vivid display of roads taken and not taken, of destinies forged by choices and the consequences of those choices. Once China and North Korea had been brothers. I saw vivid examples of this brotherhood in Dandong inside the Museum to Commemorate U.S. Aggression. They are not subtle, the Chinese, when it comes to naming museums. We call it the Korean War, while the Chinese call it The War To Resist America and Assist Korea, which is interesting, to see this war where the United States is portrayed as the bad guy, the imperialist thug, because one gets used to seeing America as the one wearing the white hat. In 1950, there was a civil war on the Korean peninsula. The Americans took one side and the Chinese the other, and when China saw General MacArthur marching up toward the Yalu River and the Chinese border, Mao sent his People’s Liberation Army into the fray. And then they did that war thing, and after three years of doing it, they called it a tie and everyone went home. China and North Korea pledged to be Best Friends Forever, and for several decades they were, happily being evil Communists together behind their walls.
But then China started to take down those walls, and today there is light and laser shows and dancing and money and films and energy, so much energy, in China. There is everything in China. Not everyone can have everything in China, not yet, but every day there are more who do. If you ignore the environment—and you can’t because the damage is utterly overwhelming—the future looks sunny for China—okay, smoggy—and I suspected that China would find a way to manage all its fissures and problems and perhaps Chinese society would indeed become harmonious—barring a complete societal collapse as the environmental degradation undergoes devastating feedback loops. It’s a complex country, not easily summed up. It could still go in so many directions.
But once, not so long ago, China had been like that place across the river. When the sun came up, to my great surprise, I found myself facing the city of Sinuiju, a Potemkin village complete with a Ferris wheel. Of course, the Ferris wheel wasn’t turning; there is no electricity in Sinuiju. That is why I couldn’t see this city at night. There are only the rusting carcasses of old boats on the shores. And there were people.
There are, in fact, two bridges across the Yalu River. Or rather, one and a half. The Americans shot one up during the war, and today it extends only as far as midriver, since the North Koreans have dismantled the remainder. I wanted to get a little closer to North Korea, and so after breakfast I walked along this blasted bridge past a few lonely vendors selling North Korean trinkets, which I strongly suspected were made in China.
It’s a dreary-looking city, Sinuiji, and if this is the best the North Koreans could do in terms of its face to the outside world, it must be bleak indeed. I came back to the Chinese side and walked along the river path, where soon a man offered to take me in his little speedboat for a closer look at North Korea. Cool, I thought. I didn’t hesitate a minute and soon I was speeding across the murky waters of the Yalu River. We careened around the remains of the old bridge and suddenly we were in North Korean waters. Well, okay, I