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  Wednesday 2006-09-06 - P’yŏngyang, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea

Greeting the great leader

In Korea, people believe everything starts again after 60 years so at your 60th birthday there is normally a big party. When president Kim Il Sung turned 60 in 1972, obviously there was an extra-big party: for the occasion the Mansudae Grand Monument was erected in P'yŏngyang; it consists of a big copper-colored statue of the president, flanked on on either side by two 50-meter long memorials celebrating the liberation from the nearly 40-year long Japanese occupation. The sculpture is remarkable - not just the stark realism most of us associate with art from communist countries but with an inspired simplicity added to it, especially in the statue of president Kim Il Sung. I'm impressed.

As all tourists here (including North Korean tourists) do, we visit the monument to deposit a bunch of flowers as a tribute from our “delegation” at the Great leader’s feet, stand in a row, and bow. We’re “required” to do this of course, but when in Rome…

posted: Tuesday 2006-09-19 13:16 UTC local customs, monuments