Falling Off the Map Read Online Free Page A

completed in honor of the “sun of the nation’s” eightieth birthday in 1992. It fell, appropriately enough, on Income Tax Day. That might also be the occasion when he handed over power to his son, Dear Comrade Kim Jong Il (or One Right Way Kim, as my guide translated). “Enemy propagandists say that this is a family dynasty,” he explained. “But we need a leader just like Kim Il Sung. Who better than his son?”
    Occasionally, as we drove, we saw people, always in groups, marching in regimental ranks to work, to the sound of exhortatory loudspeakers, or gathered in long lines at bus stops. By nine-thirty on this Sunday morning, enormous color-coordinated crowds were already practicing “mass card games” in Kim Il Sung Stadium (the Koreans are world champions of “mass games”; they have “mass games” majors in college and practice card patterns every day in school). The enormous expanse of Kim Il Sung Square was filled with children standing in the rain, “dancing hand in hand to the tune of the light melodies of ‘Pyongyang Shining under the Rays of the Lodestar.’ ” Everywhere I looked, people were filing along in groups, two by two, in Indian file, with a leader at their head, like kindergartners on a field trip. “People are the most valuable thing in the world,” my guide informed me, making them sound like subway tokens.
    Making contact with these valuable things, however, was no easy matter. For though every child who passed me in the street gave me a “Welcome” salute, and though certain citizens hadbeen designated to wave to foreigners, conversation did not seem imminent. For one thing, the hotel was sequestered in the western suburbs, within walking distance of almost nothing; for another, no taxis were available, and foreigners were not allowed to carry Korean money. This was a little disappointing. “Visitors are bound to make many friends in Korea,” the brochures had promised, going on to point out, “There are no extremes of hot or cold” (the average temperature in January, it explained, was -8° Celsius).
    For lunch, the two of us went for a banquet at a traditional Korean-style restaurant. Again our room was utterly bare, even of paintings or scrolls. The brochures, I remembered wistfully, had promised a chafing dish, gray mullet soup, and viper wines. Afterwards, I was taken to the humble thatched cottage at Mangyongdae, or “All Seeing Hill,” where the “all-triumphant, resolute and incomparable leader” had spent his childhood, “nursing his great revolutionary will.” I had already—in my first few hours in the country—seen his first wife’s tomb, his uncle’s grave, his cousin’s headstone. Now I was able to enjoy his grandmother’s broken kimchi jar and his great-grandfather’s tiny study (though here there was some ambiguity: was it his
great
grandfather, as in “great man and father of the people,” or merely his great-grandfather?). Hundreds of devotees lined up in the drizzle to have their pictures taken in the cradle of the revolution as hymnlike organ music was piped in through the extravagantly landscaped grounds; my guide pointed out the “many beautiful trees and marvelous pebbles contributed by the people.” In the bushes, scores of workers labored silently to keep the gardens perfect.
    “Our leader began his Communist struggle in 1925,” the guide told me.
    “But he was only thirteen then!”
    My guide nodded sagely.
    Nearby was the famous Mangyongdae Fun Fair, built to “cater for over 100,000 visitors a day.” On this day, however, I counted fifteen, or roughly three for every functioning ride. I began to fear that mad mouse might not make me rhythmical and buoyant.
    “Did your president come here?”
    “Oh, yes,” said the guide, his face flushed with the seemingly genuine joy he reserved for such moments. “And he was surrounded by hundreds of children.”
    It was silly of me to have asked, I suppose: soon enough I was seeing the