All Monsters Must Die Read Online Free Page B
Author: Magnus Bärtås
but thereâs one problem.
âHereâs the truth,â he says. âI donât have a single Japanese friend.â He swallows a sip of beer with a quick grimace and looks around. He realizes the room has fallen silent. He quickly reinstates his smile and suggests that we continue talking in the panorama bar.
When we reach the circular restaurant, which is on the forty-seventh floor of the hotel, the American immediately starts flirting with the waitresses. They smile indulgently. The restaurant is supposed to rotate, but you donât notice. Someone places a coin on the floor and, yes, after a while we can see that the coin is farther away.
Twilight has fallen quickly. Now itâs pitch dark. When we look out the window, we donât see a panoramic view. The lights across town are shut off, and the odd single point of light doesnât give the impression that Pyongyang is a big city. It is unknown how many people actually live here, but soon thereâll be a census. At last count, there were 2.7 million inhabitants.
DAY 2
Can You Imagine?
THE WINDOWS IN our hotel room are wide open. We turned off the air conditioner overnight and let the humidity flood in. Pyongyang is cloaked in a dense fog. We can hear voices on loudspeakers in the distance. We stand by the windows, and after a while we start to make out indeterminate movements on the boulevard on the other side of the Taedong River. Details become discernible: we see hundreds of tanks slowly moving forward in a line like a parade of woodlice, while a stream of people, many holding red flags, heads in the opposite direction. The people hurry along, the voices on the loudspeakers urging them on between interludes of revolutionary music.
WE EAT BREAKFAST in Restaurant No. 1. Two omelette chefs crowned with exaggeratedly tall toques have their own table at the far end of the room. Deeply focused, they beat the eggs with slim wooden spoons. Thereâs also a buffet displaying everything from continental breakfast to kimchi. The graphic novelist Guy Delisle had plenty of time to ponder at breakfast. He concluded that the toothpicks on the table must have been hand-carved. We donât see any of these toothpicks, but we do enjoy the omelettes. They are outstanding.
The American turns up, but avoids making eye contact. He sits at another table.
THE BUS TAKES us through the city, where masses of people are performing tasks early this Sunday morning. One woman squats down and scrubs the cobblestones on a traffic island with a root brush and water. Other people are plucking something from the grass-covered viaducts. Members of the Korean Youth Corps wear red kerchiefs and walk in a row, and other groups move in unison too. Every other person seems to be wearing a uniform, and not only the brown Home Guard uniform. In addition to the police, the military police, and the traffic police, even those who maintain the roads wear uniforms.
The roads are wide but there are few bicycles and cars. We notice that some of the cars are Volvo 144s. They have driven here for nearly forty years. They were shipped from Sweden in 1973 together with drilling equipment from Atlas Copco. The North Koreans didnât bother paying the $503,743,731 bill for the drills, the 600 cars, and a number of other things. The Swedish Export Credit Corporation hasnât given up hope yet; theyâve come up with a payment plan. If they make their half-yearly payments, the North Korean government will have paid them back by 2019. But why should North Korea repay the money to Sweden? Theyâve had gigantic debts since the start of the 1970s, when they frantically bought goods from Europe and Japan. When foreign businessmen and diplomats asked when these bills would be paid, they were met with blank looks: shouldnât the rest of the world be grateful to do business with North Korea?
WE PASS A pyramid-like structure in the distance and are amazed at its enormous size.
âHereâs the truth,â he says. âI donât have a single Japanese friend.â He swallows a sip of beer with a quick grimace and looks around. He realizes the room has fallen silent. He quickly reinstates his smile and suggests that we continue talking in the panorama bar.
When we reach the circular restaurant, which is on the forty-seventh floor of the hotel, the American immediately starts flirting with the waitresses. They smile indulgently. The restaurant is supposed to rotate, but you donât notice. Someone places a coin on the floor and, yes, after a while we can see that the coin is farther away.
Twilight has fallen quickly. Now itâs pitch dark. When we look out the window, we donât see a panoramic view. The lights across town are shut off, and the odd single point of light doesnât give the impression that Pyongyang is a big city. It is unknown how many people actually live here, but soon thereâll be a census. At last count, there were 2.7 million inhabitants.
DAY 2
Can You Imagine?
THE WINDOWS IN our hotel room are wide open. We turned off the air conditioner overnight and let the humidity flood in. Pyongyang is cloaked in a dense fog. We can hear voices on loudspeakers in the distance. We stand by the windows, and after a while we start to make out indeterminate movements on the boulevard on the other side of the Taedong River. Details become discernible: we see hundreds of tanks slowly moving forward in a line like a parade of woodlice, while a stream of people, many holding red flags, heads in the opposite direction. The people hurry along, the voices on the loudspeakers urging them on between interludes of revolutionary music.
WE EAT BREAKFAST in Restaurant No. 1. Two omelette chefs crowned with exaggeratedly tall toques have their own table at the far end of the room. Deeply focused, they beat the eggs with slim wooden spoons. Thereâs also a buffet displaying everything from continental breakfast to kimchi. The graphic novelist Guy Delisle had plenty of time to ponder at breakfast. He concluded that the toothpicks on the table must have been hand-carved. We donât see any of these toothpicks, but we do enjoy the omelettes. They are outstanding.
The American turns up, but avoids making eye contact. He sits at another table.
THE BUS TAKES us through the city, where masses of people are performing tasks early this Sunday morning. One woman squats down and scrubs the cobblestones on a traffic island with a root brush and water. Other people are plucking something from the grass-covered viaducts. Members of the Korean Youth Corps wear red kerchiefs and walk in a row, and other groups move in unison too. Every other person seems to be wearing a uniform, and not only the brown Home Guard uniform. In addition to the police, the military police, and the traffic police, even those who maintain the roads wear uniforms.
The roads are wide but there are few bicycles and cars. We notice that some of the cars are Volvo 144s. They have driven here for nearly forty years. They were shipped from Sweden in 1973 together with drilling equipment from Atlas Copco. The North Koreans didnât bother paying the $503,743,731 bill for the drills, the 600 cars, and a number of other things. The Swedish Export Credit Corporation hasnât given up hope yet; theyâve come up with a payment plan. If they make their half-yearly payments, the North Korean government will have paid them back by 2019. But why should North Korea repay the money to Sweden? Theyâve had gigantic debts since the start of the 1970s, when they frantically bought goods from Europe and Japan. When foreign businessmen and diplomats asked when these bills would be paid, they were met with blank looks: shouldnât the rest of the world be grateful to do business with North Korea?
WE PASS A pyramid-like structure in the distance and are amazed at its enormous size.
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