As Kim Jong-un might blow up the world next year, if not this, and people are forever trying to work out what is going on in his country, perhaps it is worth describing a military parade I attended in Pyongyang a few years back.
The occasion was the centenary of the birth of the current Kim’s grandfather, Kim Il-sung, the founder of the Marxist monarchy who, despite his death more than two decades ago, remains Eternal Leader of the nation. Other attendees included some flotsam and jetsam of the Cold War, a reunion of the Axis of Evil and representatives from various other rogue states and immiserated nations.
Presuming it to be one of the better covers under which to pass as an admirer of the regime, I claimed to be a schoolteacher from England. A friend who travelled with me claimed to be an ‘agricultural adviser’ (a choice that seemed more unwise with every North Korean field we saw).
On the day, it was clear something was happening in the city because our group was bussed away far into the countryside. Eventually we arrived in a remote field where ostentatiously happy Koreans were playing a variety of intricately impromptu games involving running on a marked pitch, catching balls in a bucket and hopping. At one stage — by way of intermission — there was a dance by children dressed as pandas. Glumly sitting through this under an awning, cracking his way through a small plate of nuts provided for his pleasure, was the guest of honour, a deputy mayor of Vladivostok.
Eventually, growing ill-will made itself known both to our minder and our minder’s minder. It was made clear that we had not come to North Korea only to see ball games and a panda dance.
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