Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Report from the Yalu River
North Korean mainland.
I am currently in China right now. I visited Dandong yesterday which sits at the border of China and North Korea on the Yalu River. There I went on a tourist attraction where you take a boat on the Yalu river and get to see a close up of the North Korean shoreline. The section of river where we were at was in-between the North Korean mainland and an island that is owned by NK. So at some point on the boat journey the shore on my right was North Korea, and the shore on my left was North Korea. I was just a little squeamish given that I was only the non-Chinese on the boat and a US passport holder at that.
As the tourist guide announced something overhead in Mandarin everyone laughed on the boat. A Chinese friend said they laughed because the tourist guide pointed out a North Korean girl riding a bike must be “rich” because most people in North Korea cannot afford a bike. On the North Korean mainland I saw a line of people walking past a guard and showing him some kind of document, most of these people were on foot but some were walking with their bikes.
Border guard post.
All throughout the North Korean border were little teal-colored guard posts that according to the tourist guide had at least seven soldiers in them each. There were several smaller Chinese speed boats zipping around us also full of tourist wearing bright orange life jackets — almost all Chinese. The North Korean boats were rusted and moved much slower, the people in them wore the expected drab colors and visibly appeared less chubby then the Chinese even from a distance.
I later got to walk up a carefully reconstructed portion of the Great Wall of China that sits next to the Yalu river and very close to North Korea. Walking up the Great Wall you could see much further into North Korea. When you got to the top there was a man in military fatigues who would let you look into very large pair binoculars into North Korea. At this point the sun was shining brighter and the visibility was better. I saw a smoke stack in the distance, people working in the fields who always seemed to be picking at something on the ground with their bare hands.
North Korea, just across the water.
As we descended down the Great Wall there was an area where one could take a side path that apparently led very close to the North Korean line. It lead down a rocky trail that contained a metal rail which kept you falling down the hill side and into the Yalu River. As we descended the Yalu river became very narrow and very close. I could see the border guard just across the river (now more like a stream) looking at me with his binoculars. I joked about pretending to act like I was a Russian. We continued to walk down the trail until we made it onto flatter ground where we could sit in a nice patio area facing the Yalu River. We saw some people on the North Korean side drive by on motorcycles, I started waving and one of the ladies on the back of the motorcycle waved back.
The trail then finally led to gift shop that sold a number of North Korean items, including a little North Korean dress that I bought for my daughter. There were actually several such shops all throughout the border area.
The main thing that struck me about the trip was how strange the Chinese also see North Korea. People in the West often gawk at North Korea like it’s some kind of strange, exotic prison kingdom, and it seemed to me that, if they were being honest, the Chinese people’s opinion of North Korea is not far from that.
Published in Foreign Policy
That happens. But it’s also true that they get enough food to make babies, and have a population that is over five times as large as Ireland’s and growing faster (though only slightly faster than South Korea’s). It would be nice to know what people in different parts of the society are really thinking, but it’s very difficult to find out. I like hearing the stories of those who escape, but if the American university left fashions our own society to be like North Korea’s we may do well to find out how the people left behind cope with it.
There are some places in this world I would not go without 150 of my best friends with machine guns and mortars. This is one of those places.
Thanks for sharing but I think I’d have trouble doing what you’re doing. I’d burst into tears. Aren’t you just consumed with pity for the poor souls you’re looking at?
I’d think those poor souls would be glad that attention is being paid to them rather than their being ignored. The Soviet Empire fell in large part because people in the west were willing to pay attention. But I’m not sure what NK people actually think about it, and none of them would dare tell you.
A dear friend from SK has been involved with efforts to help refugees from NK here in the US and in SK. At least according to her there is a great deal of compassion for the northerners among the the southerners, at least among the Christian ranks. Their is a strong desire for unification. She has told me stories of how NK agents in China and in SK hunt down and murder escapees and those that help them. According to her, almost none of those living in NK are very aware of their plight. They are brain washed and/or totally deceived. She shared the account of an escapee who wept when she saw how the Chinese lived and wept even harder as she slowly realized that Americans didn’t eat their own babies and the like. Many other countries don’t like these refugees because they are often mentally, physically and emotionally retarded. It is all so disturbing.
Yes. Through some of the mission organisations we have contact with, we periodically hear reports of this nature and worse.
While in Dandong there are remnants of wooden bridge that the Chinese made when they entered into the Korean war. There were monuments commemorating the event. It made me think of Chosin Reservoir and the marines that were attacked. I wondered if now, secretly, the Chinese wish they would have let the U.S. have total victory.
no. They absolutely do not.
Dear Should-Be-Studying,
Take care of your security. See this from Fox News: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/04/17/north-korean-commandos-ready-to-kidnap-americans-says-defector.html
And remember that, like in South America, kidnappings are not restricted to a border area. Watch yourself.
AC Falk
Thats a scary article. Luckily I am no longer in Dandong or close to the border. But you have raised my paranoia level.
The documentary Inside Undercover in North Korea shows the extent to which that is true. A foreign doctor visited NK to perform sight-restoring surgery to several hundred people. (The surgery is routine in all but the most wretchedly poor places in the world.) When they removed their bandages, each and every patient rushed to the front of the room to bow down and thank the Great Leader. The doctors were ignored. That’s how I found out just how literally true it is that the leader is “worshiped like a god.”
That documentary is on YouTube. Go watch it.
I have that one on DVD from back when dvd’s were cool. It’s horrifying. The people meet in church-like rooms with portraits of the dear leader where the cross would otherwise go. No one thanks the doctor, they only thank the dear leader.
Sickening. Absolutely sickening.