We
cross the Taedong River into east Pyongyang. There, on the banks, we are
greeted with the glass-windowed facade of the large Ryugyong health and
recreational complex, which kind of resembles a middle American corporate
office park. It's a series of buildings that include the Golden Lanes bowling
alley. a hamburger fast-food joint, an upscale espresso bar popular among
expats, indoor and outdoor skating rinks. More recently, a large sauna complex
has been opened for the donju. It boasts ground-floor shops selling foreign
luxury clothing brands, a gym, an indoor swimming pool, and men's and women's
saunas crowned with an expensive restaurant and bar. The first time I visited,
on my way upstairs to the restaurant, I was greeted with an unusual large
framed photograph. In the middle of the frame, what appeared to my eyes was a
stout butch lesbian wearing an ugly apron and sullen frown, dangling a dead
fish over a frying pan. It took a long squint for me to decipher that it was
actually a young Kim Jong Il with his glasses removed, demonstrating his
culinary genius. So unlike the standard propaganda portraits you see of smiling
Kim Jong Il everywhere else you look in North Korea, you have to wonder what
they had in mind by installing it here. Again, I saw proof that they're aware
of the inherent vulnerability of such images; as I raised my phone to take a
photo, a guard who had been seated at a desk partially hidden behind a wall in
the hallway emerged and ordered me to stop.
?
Travis Jeppesen "See You
Again in Pyongyang: A Journey into Kim Jong Un's North Korea" (2018)
