In The Dark
Entry by: Desmond Kon
12th December 2014
Surrealist in Pyongyang
I.
I sat up in bed, and looked at Fehrenbech’s book by my side. It was still open to the page where I’d stopped reading, and plainly nodded off. My nightmare was out of the ordinary. My dreams are usually realist, not tipping into the surreal like this. I was on the platform in a train station in North Korea. I didn’t even know there was a subway system there, but there are two stations where foreigners can alight. They’re Puhung and Yonggwang. I couldn’t tell which one I was at, which made me feel like Winston Smith in that Orwellian novel. Strange how it’s 30 years after 1984, and the world is no less filled with its share of Oceanias. With Facebook and the Net, it only seems more apparent, these closed regimes that think isolationism is still a viable way of keeping out the larger world.
II.
I was standing on marble. It was green, a dull green like moulted snakeskin. I wanted it to be emerald, to have that shimmer. There were locals thronging by me, but they never nudged me – we never came into contact. They moved by, massive, like a wave. Their eyes were downcast, as if they were looking at their feet or the ground which carried them from one place to another. It was as if they had no legs, or their legs had a mind of their own, did the walking by themselves. And no one was talking. The few that did, only spoke in a whisper, and the talk seemed truncated, punctuated with a look around to see if anyone was listening in.
III.
The escalator was the largest I’d ever seen, so much so it seemed to disappear into the depths of the station, where the light dimmed into the tunnel. There were chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. One was enormous, heavy enough to form cracks around the top where it was bolted into the concrete, this concrete another shade of green, a kind of khaki purple. These are old trains, one man in a green uniform, said to another, as we stepped onto the escalator. Discards from the Berlin U-Bahn, which seemed exotic enough, unlike the simpler carriages from China. Across the great divide, as they say. Even the lights in the trains were low, as if everyone was saving electricity, or there wasn’t even electricity to power up everything all at once.
IV.
All of a sudden, the conversation took a turn, and Dae-Jung mentioned how the news was rife with reports of Kim Jong-un’s uncle being executed. Jang Song Thaek was stripped down, and fed to 120 dogs. Same thing with his aides. They’d been starved for days, so the dogs – they were hounds, so you can imagine what hunger did to those hunters – went for him like a pack of wolves. They ate all of him – skin, flesh, down to nothing but bone. “Must have been only knuckles left. Did they like his marrow?†Serena chipped in – in bad taste – as she hooked her arm underneath Dae-Jung’s as if she approved of his conversation topic. He shrugged his shoulders to loose his arm from hers, and got up from the couch to pour himself a glass of water from the tap.
V.
It was three in the morning. On the patio there was a huge piano, its shiny black gleaming in the evening light. It wasn’t a romantic sheen that was given off. It was the kind of statement that said it needed polishing everyday, and it got that fine, first-class treatment it deserved. On top of it was a life-sized bust of Stalin or Joseph Brodsky or Han Yong-un. You wouldn’t have thought Han looked Russian, but from that angle he did have those blunt angles. And that look of remoteness. I couldn’t tell who it was, but who it was would have made a big difference. Dae-Jung said Han had another name. It was Manhae, a Buddhist name. At 17, he became a recluse. That seemed impressive. I guess he found respite from the outside in Baekdam Temple in Ose-am. That was his abode of choice, free from the vagaries of our world, this world of the mundane.
VI.
“No one knows if the story is true,†he said, looking back, at me in particular as if the topic would and should interest me. “They say the story hasn’t been verified. North Korea did call Jang ‘despicable human scum’. No better than a mongrel. They didn’t seem bothered by the scandal. They probably enjoyed the newspapers having a field day with how he died, or could have died. The reports say it lasted a whole hour, like a public lynching. And people watched, people actually watched the spectacle – the way people watched Roman gladiators get mauled to death by rabid lions. It’s all too violent, too sadistic, if you ask me.†Serena rolled her eyes, and leaned forward to grab a pillow. It was as if she had tired of the talk. But she did look up at Dae-Jung as if she was still listening.
VII.
How do I grapple with such a foreign culture, and accept it as something of my own? Whatever I think of might come across ridiculous – something naively politicizing or misguided. Or worse, insufficient in worth. The Armistice was a meaningful historical moment, the whole idea of an on-going truce that only reminds everyone how the War isn’t over until there’s reunification. What does it mean to be the guinea-pig nation of two superpowers, and be carved up like a turkey and then apportioned like rations? I don’t know how all this history will help me navigate this whole confused backstory of mine. This is the backstory of my life. If I can’t square this away, how will I ever come to understand people, and their psychology, and the way people run their lives almost as if to compensate for everything that happened in their past?
VIII.
It was as dark outside as it was indoors. We looked at Fehrenbech’s book on my bed. It was still open to that same page. In it, Dae-Jung said he saw pictures of people walking across the DMZ. It runs along the 38th Parallel. It’s more than 200km long, and 4km wide. That’s a trek for anyone. Someone asked if anyone lived in that space. It’s a liminal space but I guess someone brave enough could set up home there, as if neutral to the country’s history. “That’s one way to be apolitical,†Dae-Jung said, letting out a rare laugh. “It would be small and inconspicuous. Like a hut made of straw, so it’d blend in with the tall grass. It would be one man living in it, like a hermit. Like Han Yong-un meditating in his temple at Ose-am. Manhae, I mean. Manhae.†Dae-Jung corrected himself and said Manhae, as if a name meant everything. That it was sutured to the identity of a person, of someone he didn’t even know.
I.
I sat up in bed, and looked at Fehrenbech’s book by my side. It was still open to the page where I’d stopped reading, and plainly nodded off. My nightmare was out of the ordinary. My dreams are usually realist, not tipping into the surreal like this. I was on the platform in a train station in North Korea. I didn’t even know there was a subway system there, but there are two stations where foreigners can alight. They’re Puhung and Yonggwang. I couldn’t tell which one I was at, which made me feel like Winston Smith in that Orwellian novel. Strange how it’s 30 years after 1984, and the world is no less filled with its share of Oceanias. With Facebook and the Net, it only seems more apparent, these closed regimes that think isolationism is still a viable way of keeping out the larger world.
II.
I was standing on marble. It was green, a dull green like moulted snakeskin. I wanted it to be emerald, to have that shimmer. There were locals thronging by me, but they never nudged me – we never came into contact. They moved by, massive, like a wave. Their eyes were downcast, as if they were looking at their feet or the ground which carried them from one place to another. It was as if they had no legs, or their legs had a mind of their own, did the walking by themselves. And no one was talking. The few that did, only spoke in a whisper, and the talk seemed truncated, punctuated with a look around to see if anyone was listening in.
III.
The escalator was the largest I’d ever seen, so much so it seemed to disappear into the depths of the station, where the light dimmed into the tunnel. There were chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. One was enormous, heavy enough to form cracks around the top where it was bolted into the concrete, this concrete another shade of green, a kind of khaki purple. These are old trains, one man in a green uniform, said to another, as we stepped onto the escalator. Discards from the Berlin U-Bahn, which seemed exotic enough, unlike the simpler carriages from China. Across the great divide, as they say. Even the lights in the trains were low, as if everyone was saving electricity, or there wasn’t even electricity to power up everything all at once.
IV.
All of a sudden, the conversation took a turn, and Dae-Jung mentioned how the news was rife with reports of Kim Jong-un’s uncle being executed. Jang Song Thaek was stripped down, and fed to 120 dogs. Same thing with his aides. They’d been starved for days, so the dogs – they were hounds, so you can imagine what hunger did to those hunters – went for him like a pack of wolves. They ate all of him – skin, flesh, down to nothing but bone. “Must have been only knuckles left. Did they like his marrow?†Serena chipped in – in bad taste – as she hooked her arm underneath Dae-Jung’s as if she approved of his conversation topic. He shrugged his shoulders to loose his arm from hers, and got up from the couch to pour himself a glass of water from the tap.
V.
It was three in the morning. On the patio there was a huge piano, its shiny black gleaming in the evening light. It wasn’t a romantic sheen that was given off. It was the kind of statement that said it needed polishing everyday, and it got that fine, first-class treatment it deserved. On top of it was a life-sized bust of Stalin or Joseph Brodsky or Han Yong-un. You wouldn’t have thought Han looked Russian, but from that angle he did have those blunt angles. And that look of remoteness. I couldn’t tell who it was, but who it was would have made a big difference. Dae-Jung said Han had another name. It was Manhae, a Buddhist name. At 17, he became a recluse. That seemed impressive. I guess he found respite from the outside in Baekdam Temple in Ose-am. That was his abode of choice, free from the vagaries of our world, this world of the mundane.
VI.
“No one knows if the story is true,†he said, looking back, at me in particular as if the topic would and should interest me. “They say the story hasn’t been verified. North Korea did call Jang ‘despicable human scum’. No better than a mongrel. They didn’t seem bothered by the scandal. They probably enjoyed the newspapers having a field day with how he died, or could have died. The reports say it lasted a whole hour, like a public lynching. And people watched, people actually watched the spectacle – the way people watched Roman gladiators get mauled to death by rabid lions. It’s all too violent, too sadistic, if you ask me.†Serena rolled her eyes, and leaned forward to grab a pillow. It was as if she had tired of the talk. But she did look up at Dae-Jung as if she was still listening.
VII.
How do I grapple with such a foreign culture, and accept it as something of my own? Whatever I think of might come across ridiculous – something naively politicizing or misguided. Or worse, insufficient in worth. The Armistice was a meaningful historical moment, the whole idea of an on-going truce that only reminds everyone how the War isn’t over until there’s reunification. What does it mean to be the guinea-pig nation of two superpowers, and be carved up like a turkey and then apportioned like rations? I don’t know how all this history will help me navigate this whole confused backstory of mine. This is the backstory of my life. If I can’t square this away, how will I ever come to understand people, and their psychology, and the way people run their lives almost as if to compensate for everything that happened in their past?
VIII.
It was as dark outside as it was indoors. We looked at Fehrenbech’s book on my bed. It was still open to that same page. In it, Dae-Jung said he saw pictures of people walking across the DMZ. It runs along the 38th Parallel. It’s more than 200km long, and 4km wide. That’s a trek for anyone. Someone asked if anyone lived in that space. It’s a liminal space but I guess someone brave enough could set up home there, as if neutral to the country’s history. “That’s one way to be apolitical,†Dae-Jung said, letting out a rare laugh. “It would be small and inconspicuous. Like a hut made of straw, so it’d blend in with the tall grass. It would be one man living in it, like a hermit. Like Han Yong-un meditating in his temple at Ose-am. Manhae, I mean. Manhae.†Dae-Jung corrected himself and said Manhae, as if a name meant everything. That it was sutured to the identity of a person, of someone he didn’t even know.
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