Totalitarianism Tourism
02.25.2008 - 10:20 AMAll it costs is $5895 for “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to witness a planned society.”
Our journey to North and South Korea begins with a “briefing” in Beijing’s Mao-inspired Red Capital Club nestled deep inside a historic hutong. Then it’s off to isolated Pyongyang — eerie yet appealing like East Berlin of the 1980’s — where you’ll witness North Korea’s most exuberant festival alongside 150,000 spectators in May Day Stadium. Several statues of Kim Il Sung later, you peer across the world’s most heavily armed border (the Demilitarized Zone).
Hmmm: “eerie yet appealing like East Berlin of the 1980’s.” I’ve been to both North Korea and Berlin in the 1980’s, and I can confirm that both were “eerie.” But “appealing”? Different folks, different strokes.
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February 25th, 2008 at 12:24 PM
The beleaguered citizens of North Korea (those who still live) could certainly be pardoned for thinking themselves utterly bereft of human compassion. An expedition like this one will enrich Kim Jong-Il, plant paying Westerners at one of his regime’s big ceremonies, and further his objective of repressing his people.
All the repressed people represent to the visiting Westerners is a photo op. I would bet many of the Snow Lion tourists would get more agitated over the “rights” of game animals in Africa — indeed, of microscopic “endangered species” in California — than the rights of the humans enslaved and starved in North Korea.
What a travesty. The question “What’s Korean for ‘Potemkin’?” is too obvious. The better question is, what is the “enlightened” Judeo-Christian West doing, paying to entertain itself with glimpses of slavery and cruelty?
February 25th, 2008 at 12:27 PM
Easy to use words like ‘appealing’ when you’re living in the West, enjoying freedom and food and creature comforts. Especially when you’re selling $6k travel packages.
Reminds me of the old joke–
Two Soviets waiting in a long line to get into the food shop… after an hour, one says “I’m sick of these lines, shortages, this life.. I’m going to kill Gorbachev!!” He stomps off.
An hour later he comes back and says sheepishly to his friend, “that line was longer than this one.”
I have a nighttime full-globe photo map, one that deliberately shows where the heaviest populations are by how much of a glow from lights you can see from space.
Korea is incredible. The south is lit vibrantly, but cross that DMZ and the photo-map shows almost total darkness. Even the cities are almost dark.
NOT appealing. Appalling.
February 26th, 2008 at 9:17 PM
East Berlin in the 1980s had plenty of sex, drugs and rock and roll in its underground music club scene. A lot of people found that appealing. David Bowie’s work was heavily influenced by the German music scene. I seriously doubt North Korea has anything similar, unless wecount underground bunkers and Lil’ Kim’s pleasure palaces.
Totalitarian tourism? How sick does a person have to be to indulge in that level of decadence? I’m surprised a trip to the human zoos in Burma/Myanmar isn’t on the itinerary.
February 29th, 2008 at 8:57 PM
The word “underground” explains it all, Z.
North Korea is is simply more detail-oriented than the commies were in East Berlin, and hence nobody gets away with anything, even ‘underground’.
Or else that is where they end up.