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Wednesday 2006-09-06 - Mangyongdae, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea
A little farm house
On the way to Namp'o city, 50km from P'yŏngyang, we pay a visit to a small, restored farmhouse in Mangyongdae. When we enter the landscaped grounds, there is soft background music. The house itself is actually more like a little museum: this house is the place where Great Leader Kim Il Sung was born in 1912. In one of the rooms there is a photograph of him at 19 years old, together with his parents, both of which died young while in exile in China, during the Japanese occupation of Korea. Also interesting are the various tools and implements used on a small farm at that time.
After our visit to the birth house, we make a little walk through the park. From the highest point we have a nice view of P’yŏngyang city; directly below us we see Turu island in the middle of the Taedong river and almost in the middle of the city, where vegetables for the city are grown: we see a small village in the middle of the fields, and small groups of houses, each for a work team, the smallest unit of a cooperative.
Wednesday 2006-09-06 - Namp’o, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea
Three sets of slippers
Unfortunately, we don’t stop in Namp'o city on the way to our Ryonggang Hot Spring Hotel. First, we're on an enormous 10-lane highway (with very little traffic, and we note it's easily wide and straight enough to serve as a landing strip fro a large plane -- only half joking) but soon we turn off and drive through the countryside. Most of the landscape is very flat but with rather "pointy" hills sticking up from the flat base. The main crops I note are rice and maize. I ask Mr. Pak but unfortunately we can't stop for a picture of this typical landscape.
With all the rice paddies, there are obviously a lot of wetlands here, and when we arrive at the hotel grounds, large flights of Great white herons fly over.
The hotel is actually a kind of resort, with a central “recreation center” that also houses the reception and a dinner hall, and a number of houses scattered over the nicely landscaped grounds. When we (my room mate Thekla and I) arrive at “our” house, a lady welcomes us and shows us the ropes: downstairs, just inside the door, you take off your shoes and don a pair of slippers to walk over the marble floors and stairways. Our room is upstairs, and inside the door we find a set of regular discardable “hotel slippers” for walking about in the room (leaving the first set of slippers at the door); just inside the bathroom door is a third pair of slippers for each of us (one blue, one pink), and we’re to wear these plastic slippers inside the bathroom. It all sort of makes sense, but it’s a little elaborate…
The lady immediately opens the lower tap above the enormous blue-tiled bathtub, out of which comes hot, salty spring water, supposed to have healing qualities. Thekla and I opt for the most practical solution: we share the bath (easy since there are two seats sculpted in the bath tub).
Dinner is in the big, brightly-lit dinner room in the recreation center, where we are served by ladies in traditional costume; apart from the big slices of white bread (which I don’t touch), the foods is Korean — and delicious.
Friday 2006-09-08 - P’yŏngyang, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea
King Tongmyong
Our first stop on the way from P’yŏngyang to Wŏnsan today is the (reconstructed) tomb of King Tongmyong who founded the Koguryo kingdom (lasting from 277 BC to 668 AD) and the Tongmyong dynasty. King Tongmyong was the most powerful and most worshiped king of Korea. In this area, only some 22km south of P’yŏngyang, there are actually 15 tombs in all, made for the burial of kings, members of the royal family and the aristocracy, but this tomb is is the largest, and obviously most important one. The site has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2004; the listing includes more similar tombs near Namp’o.
We visit a small museum on the grounds where a series of beautifully done murals depict the life story of King Tongmyong and Korean life and culture at the time showing games and contests at celebrations but also scenes of village life. Our (inevitable) local guide tells us these paintings are based on murals found in the tombs — that seems a bit of a stretch to us, the style looking too modern, but we reason it is of course possible that the actual themes of the paintings were indeed depicted in the original murals. However, the UNESCO justification for listing the site specifically mentions the “beautiful wall paintings” and the description states:
“These paintings offer a unique testimony to daily life of this period.”
One rather moving story depicted in one of the paintings is that of the reunification of the king with his son: the king had been married, but divorced; many years later, a young man came to visit the king and presented him with the tip of his broken sword, thus proving he was the king’s son. When the king died at the early age of 40, his son, just 19 then, succeeded him.
