Amy Goodhew
I'm an ordinary Western girl, addicted to a 24-hour news cycle, facebook on my mobile, and twitter. All these things were forbidden when I accepted an invitation to North Korea.
Unpack the issues...
My visit to North Korea — or properly, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) — was to visit the projects supported by my employer, UnitingWorld.
I thought carefully before accepting this invitation. After all, the country was supposed to be part of George Bush’s ‘Axis of Evil’. 
I was assured we would be completely safe. However, in the week leading up to my visit, some extraordinary events caused a minor nervous breakdown about my travel plans.
You may have seen the headlines — the sentencing of two American journalists accused of illegally crossing into North Korea to 12 years' ‘hard labour’; the nuclear weapon test; the short range missile test; the announcement that the North was abandoning the Armistice with the South and the apparent intention of testing an Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile.
I am not a seasoned traveller, I am not a war correspondent and I do not own a flak jacket. Regardless, it was decided amid this general escalation of hostilities that we would continue with our plans to spend three days separated from everything I knew and loved.
A long bridge over the Tumen river separates Chinese and DPRK immigration buildings. The DPRK building stands alone on the side of a barren hill, with a dirt road snaking over the crest.
Stepping tentatively inside, pictures of the Eternal President, Kim Il Sung, and the Dear Leader, Kim Jong Il, looked down from the wall at proceedings. The room is seemingly untouched from the 1950s and reminded me of a Scout Hall. It was filled with people wearing the uniform Kim Jong Il has made famous. Every chest bears a badge of the President’s face over the flag of the DPRK.
Eager to demonstrate my compliance, I sat meekly to the side with my travelling companions — Rev John Barr, UnitingWorld’s associate director for Church Solidarity Asia, and Mr Hong, who heads up UnitingWorld’s projects in North Korea — while our assigned intelligence officer strode around purposefully with our passports.
Eventually, we were given the nod to proceed through security and into an old Toyota moonlighting as a taxi. We all piled in and started the long, winding drive over mountains and into valleys filled with rice fields and vegetable gardens towards Rason city, the port town where our projects are located.
Rason city is a loose collection of large concrete buildings hung with red political slogans, each ending in an exclamation mark. Two Government officers accompanied us 24 hours a day and had to approve all our photos and meetings. There was one TV channel and we were told we would be watched at all times.
We arrived in planting season: a time where everyone, from office workers to farmers to high school students, was in the rice paddies hard at work.
We were shown to the special hotel for foreigners to deposit our bags, before heading to the orphanage to oversee the deposit of forty tons of rice we brought in with us. This rice will be distributed to workers associated with our projects. Food is scarce in North Korea, particularly at the end of a long and difficult winter which reaches lows of -15ºC.
Like everybody else in the country, the children at the orphanage get up early and work hard throughout the day. These kids rise at dawn to eat and dress before their hour-long walk to the local primary school. They return to the orphanage for lunch, so four hours of their day is spent walking.
The next day, John and I joined Mr Hong, who also rises early, and we power-walked to the orphanage to see the children off before school. At 6am the streets were already busy, being swept clean by conscientious citizens.
Mr Hong and his wife come from the Korean Church of Melbourne — a Uniting Church congregation — and have been working in North Korea since 2002. They have achieved absolutely incredible things. They work with the permission of the Government in the north-eastern corner of the country, which has been designated a special economic zone. This means foreigners have been allowed to work in the region.
Rason is a warm water port (a port that will not freeze over in winter) which has enormous economic potential for the region. Unfortunately, this potential is yet to be realised and most of the inhabitants of the region are still poor.
The Hongs work with local people in their projects — the orphanage, computer skills training school and a tuberculosis (TB) clinic. They also have projects under construction, including a nurses’ school and a larger TB clinic. It is a constant struggle to find funds for these projects and there is a lot of work to be done.
Our visits to the TB clinics were not pretty. Within Rason we visited the testing centre and saw the long line of people waiting for their turn in the x-ray machine. Outside Rason is another centre where they send the patients who have little hope, on the side of a lonely mountain. One patient had died during the morning and another wasn’t expected to make it through the day. We struggled to find something appropriate to say to such easily preventable suffering.
I had complained in Australia about the ten injections I had endured to make the trip possible. Now I felt like an ungrateful brat.
However, in the midst of these struggles I found myself feeling pleased and lucky to be experiencing the generosity and kindness of the North Korean people. Everywhere we went, we were met with smiles, hospitality and warmth.
I had worried about the food shortages in the country and had packed about 3,000 muesli bars to sustain me, but I have never been so well fed in my life.
I had worried about a hostile reception after everything the people had suffered in the Korean War at the hands of Westerners, but instead I found lavish praise for my skills with chopsticks, useless attempts at speaking the language and general awkwardness.
As we left the country in the driving rain (very good news for the farmers), I bowed to our Government escort and said, “Kam-sa-ham-ni-da. Chosun cho-sum-ni-da, Donji,” ("Thank you very much. Korea is good, my friend") in my dreadful Korean.
While my language skills were woefully inadequate, I think he appreciated my sincerity. He replied that I would be welcome back again. I really hope to take him up on that offer some day.
Now back in my cosy house filled with everything that was forbidden to me in North Korea, I can’t get the people there out of my head.
I think about our government escorts, one with three children under the age of five, the other with teenagers; the doctor at the TB clinic who used her own mouth to draw out fluid causing lung blockages because she lacks the proper equipment; the children who walk four hours every day just to get to school; and the nameless people who smiled and bowed as we passed them in the street.
These are the people I wish we thought of in the West when we hear talk of tougher sanctions and nuclear programs and we shake our heads before getting on with our lives.
The DPRK may have once been called part of the ‘Axis of Evil’ but the North Koreans are ordinary people just trying to survive. They will be the real victims in any conflict and I hope world leaders think of them too, before these current troubles escalate further.
Unpack the issues...
- Take some time to give thanks for the freedom you enjoy.
Please help UnitingWorld stand in solidarity with the people of North Korea. We can make a difference to lives of ordinary people. To learn more, visit the UnitingWorld website or call 02 8267 4269.
TrackBack URI for this entry
Subscribe to this comment's feed
written by nicholas partridge , June 24, 2009
Amy Goodhouse's article was a very gentle article that gently lifted the curtain on a terrible reality.The question that needs to be asked is why is Noth Korea in the shape that it is? Just as many opposed economic sanctions against South Africa,thought the Uniting Church did not,so too should economic sanctions against North be opposed. The suffering of the people is already unconscionable,and to make things worse is immoral,and dare one say it-unchristian!Keep up the good work Emma.You will never know whose life you have saved, but you will have done just that.
written by Victor Hsu , June 24, 2009
I find Amy's article a rare treasure in a world of cacophanous nonsense about North Korea. Her story moves me immensely in its simplicity of observation and open attitude in accepting people as they are uncomplicated by media speculation about war. To treat people as they are with dignity and respect remains the best route to world peace.
written by Amy Goodhew , June 30, 2009
Thank you for your kind comments.
While I can't pretend to understand all the complexities which govern the world's response to North Korea, I can't help feeling that a new approach is needed. I feel real empathy for the North Koreans who suffered under Japanese rule, then again in the Korean war. After these experiences, they crave dignity and respect.
I believe North Korea is a painful example of war begetting war. The West urgently needs to reassess the success of our our approach and reopen dialogue with North Korea. At the moment, there are no winners in this struggle.
Show/Hide comment form
