See You Again in Pyongyang by Travis Jeppesen

Author:Travis Jeppesen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hachette Books
Published: 2018-06-19T04:00:00+00:00

Word quickly spreads in the tiny expat community as to our presence in Pyongyang. When we bump into a Western stranger at a coffee shop or restaurant, we’re usually met with something along the lines of: “Oh yes, you’re the ones studying Korean at Kim Hyong Jik University. Now are you the Australian, the French, or the American?” Gossip travels fast when there are so few competing distractions. For as exciting as this all is for us the first couple weeks, as we settle in, I begin to realize that for long-term foreign residents, boredom is more or less the unifying force.

The following week, we are invited to a Stammtisch organized by the German Embassy in the communal dining area of the building shared by Germany, Sweden, and the UK. The atmosphere is markedly different from the Friendship Club; for one thing, no Koreans are present. The spouses of the embassy employees take turns tending bar, spooning out potato salad, and distributing sausages and slices of brown bread.

Alexandre and I arrive alone at the Stammtisch. Our attendance at these events clearly makes Min and Roe somewhat uncomfortable—or perhaps envious, since Munsu-dong is one of the few places we can go where they’re not allowed. Alex elects to stay behind to have dinner with them and Comrade Kim. They need to talk business anyway; Tongil Tours has several more tours planned in the coming months.

Because of the lack of Korean faces, the Stammtisch attendees feel free to let their guard down and speak a bit more openly—though there’s no doubt the place is bugged. Still, the buzz of the crowd would presumably make it difficult to pick up on any one conversation, particularly given the plurality of languages being spoken.

Seven European countries have diplomatic missions in the DPRK, while two more have “cooperation offices.” I fall into conversation with one weathered ambassador. “In my experience,” he says, “the embassy people working here tend to go through three phases. The first is where you think you finally get it and understand how this country really operates. The second, where you get frustrated and realize you don’t understand anything. And the last is when you realize you don’t understand anything and no longer care because you’ll be out of here soon.”

I ask if he’s personally experienced all three phases. He has, after all, been in Pyongyang for more than a year now.

The ambassador shakes his head. “I’m at stage two. I know I’ll eventually get to stage three, but I want it to last as shortly as possible. Because that’s where cynicism sets in, and that gets you nowhere—nor does it do any good for the people you’re ostensibly here to help.”

In the near absence of anything that could be deemed normal diplomatic relations, most of the foreign embassies work very closely with the NGOs stationed here. As these aid organizations tend to be staffed with people from the represented countries, the dividing line is very thin. The feeling of mutual belonging, of quasi-familial community among these outsiders, is apparent.

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