DPRK

The Great Leader

The visit to Kim Il Sung's mausoleum was memorable for the shoe cleaning machinery and air blowers that are used to keep dirt out of the sacred tomb. All visitors are expected to show their respect alongside the locals who wear their best clothing / uniform for the occasion. The link provides pictures of people queuing outside having just arrived at the dedicated tram stop. The mausoleum is spooky and the snaking queues provide a greater sense of anticipation than in Red Square, Moscow or at Mao's mausoleum in Beijing. It's all a bit tedious really but visitors have no choice in the matter and a shirt and tie is insisted upon. The Kim Il Sung song plays in a loop to provide suitable background martial music. Notable were the genuine tears among many North Korean visitors (worshippers?).

The guides boasted that Pyongyang's Triumph Arch is bigger than the one in Paris and is built of more bricks. And what triumphs does it celebrate? In the west we are not taught that it was Kim Il Sung (and not the Americans or even the Russians, let alone the Chinese) who led the Korean people to liberation from the Japanese in 1945 and then defeated the US imperialists in 1953. The facts that North Korea was flattened in the Korean War and its borders remained much the same as they were in 1950 and that China came to Kim's rescue are irrelevant. And don't ever believe the lie that it was the communists who started the war – the guides know better. (Besides, we were told that the only liers in North Korea are the weathermen.)

The monument to the founding of the ruling Korean Workers' Party. The symbols of the party are a hammer, a sickle and a writing brush representing the workers, peasants and the intellectuals. As you would expect it is an imposing structure.

There are numerous statues of the Great Leader in North Korea. Tourists are advised that photographs not including the statue in full (ie by chopping off its feet) or at an angle are unacceptable. Children can be seen sweeping the steps of the main Kim Il Sung monument in Pyongyang.