The Two Koreas_ A Contemporary History - Don Oberdorfer [134]
On a guided tour of the city, we encountered several hundred fourth-grade boys, led by an adult instructor, doing mass exercises with wooden swords or, lacking these, pieces of flat wood cut to the length of swords. The boys slashed, jumped, and shouted with enthusiasm and on cue. This was only one of many manifestations of the collective activities that were being emphasized. People on the streets avoided glancing at us when we approached, and the children in a model school did not even look up from work when their headmaster, two strange Westerners, and guides invaded their classroom-evidently because they had been instructed to take no notice. I found this chilling and dehumanizing.
On the other hand, there were signs that behind the public facade, North Koreans had not lost their individuality and humanity. During a performance at the Pyongyang Circus, a spectacular display of acrobatic talent, children squealed with laughter and uninhibited delight at an act featuring trained dogs. Another evening at the apartment of the sister of one of our guides, we experienced the warmth of Korean family life as a 7-year-old in pigtails played a small piano and her reluctant 5-year-old sister was coaxed into doing a little dance. The apartment, while modest by Western standards, was doubtless better than most, and a special allocation of food had apparently been granted to provide the guests with an abundant home-cooked dinner. Although hardly typical, it was the closest to everyday life that we were permitted to come.
Outside the capital and away from the country's few superhighways, the landscape reminded me of what I had seen in the South in the 1950s and 1960s. The overnight train to Kaesong, the city just north of the demilitarized zone, took six hours to go about 120 miles, with antiquated equipment over a rough roadbed. Along the way, I saw a steam locomotive still in use, no doubt burning coal from North Korean mines. I awoke early in the morning to look out at hills and rice paddies shrouded with the familiar heavy morning mist and small houses with chimney pipes on the side arising from traditional under-the-floor heating. Here and there the landscape was broken by dreary gray buildings that had been thrown up to house members of collective farms.
All this was in startling contrast to the traffic-choked, neon-lit modernity of Seoul and the dramatically improved living conditions of the South Korean countryside I had seen in recent years. While poverty had not been abolished, the wealth and health of most South Korean citizens had undergone revolutionary change for the better since I first observed them in the immediate aftermath of the Korean War, and immense change from the early 1970s when I spent so much time in South Korea as a correspondent. In the 1970s the South had the look and feel of a rawboned, gutsy frontier country with garlic on its breath, where its cities gave rise to a hundred pungent odors and even the newsprint had a peculiar musky smell. By 1991, South Korea had arrived, with high-rise buildings crowding out most of the slanting roofs of traditional houses in Seoul and other cities, and good roads and modern conveniences in the countryside. Nearly 10 million people, close to one in four of South Korea's 43 million citizens, were licensed drivers of the country's 4.2 million motor vehicles. More than 3 million foreign tourists visited the South, and close to 2 million ROK citizens traveled abroad during the year. In Seoul, nearly all white-collar workers now brushed their teeth after each meal, causing the pervasive garlic smell to nearly disappear from the capital's elevators and subway cars. From rock music to high fashion, South Korea was connected to the world.
The nexus between North and South was the Joint Security Area at Panmunjom, the principal destination on our trip from Pyongyang. Approaching from the North through the DPRK's hilltop pavilion, the JSA appeared benign