Note: photographs in this entry are taken from the International Friendship Exhibition tourist leaflet that I picked up at the hotel. Photography is strictly forbidden.
Less phony, though a good deal more disturbing was the Friendship Exhibition. This too has been built in the Mt Myohyang region, apparently because it was a favourite area for the Great Leader to spend time. As you approach by road you see what looks like two very traditional Korean buildings. They are no such things. They are a decorative front for an extravagant exhibition of gifts received by Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. As befits his higher status we visited the Great Leader's bit first. Once we had passed the smart, unsmiling, armed guards on the door we handed in our coats and cameras (no photography is permitted), put cotton outer covers over our shoes and proceeded into somewhere that was every bit as overblown and bizarre as the Memorial Palace had been. Room after marble-lined room has been built into the side of the mountain, joined by marble lined corridors. In every room there are display cases containing the gifts. It's a bizarrely eclectic selection. There are statues made of every conceivable material from wood, to metal, to stone, to ivory, horn, Bakelite, plastic, glass. They are of every conceivable subject from revolutionary scenes to animals to abstracts to sports figures. There is furniture and there are costumes. There are cars and a train. There is a drinks tray made from a dead crocodile. There silver bowls and golden tea services. There are precious jewels set into ornate objects and precious jewels presented as if dug from the ground yesterday.
Less phony, though a good deal more disturbing was the Friendship Exhibition. This too has been built in the Mt Myohyang region, apparently because it was a favourite area for the Great Leader to spend time. As you approach by road you see what looks like two very traditional Korean buildings. They are no such things. They are a decorative front for an extravagant exhibition of gifts received by Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. As befits his higher status we visited the Great Leader's bit first. Once we had passed the smart, unsmiling, armed guards on the door we handed in our coats and cameras (no photography is permitted), put cotton outer covers over our shoes and proceeded into somewhere that was every bit as overblown and bizarre as the Memorial Palace had been. Room after marble-lined room has been built into the side of the mountain, joined by marble lined corridors. In every room there are display cases containing the gifts. It's a bizarrely eclectic selection. There are statues made of every conceivable material from wood, to metal, to stone, to ivory, horn, Bakelite, plastic, glass. They are of every conceivable subject from revolutionary scenes to animals to abstracts to sports figures. There is furniture and there are costumes. There are cars and a train. There is a drinks tray made from a dead crocodile. There silver bowls and golden tea services. There are precious jewels set into ornate objects and precious jewels presented as if dug from the ground yesterday.
As you read the captions or listen to the guide certain things become obvious. As with the awards room at the Mausoleum, the greater and more elaborate the gift the dodgier the country it came from. Valuable gem-studded artefacts often turned out to be from the countries, communist or otherwise, with human rights records of the most appalling kind. There were, for example, several very large (not to mention illegally modern) ivory carvings presented by Robert Mugabe. Gifts from European nations tended to be not from Governments or Government figures but from individuals, business organisations or fringe left-wing political groups with tiny memberships. Official state gifts from western nations tended to carry an apparently unnoticed level of ironic comment. Gifts from the UK for example filled a single small cabinet and included the kind of "Present from London" souvenir rubbish that you'd be ashamed to give to your least favourite auntie, and a present labelled as being from "Ex-President and Mrs Jimmy Carter" was a cheap and nasty glass ash-tray.
Part of the way round there was another compulsory opportunity to bow to a wax effigy of the Great Leader. It was surreal. The lifelike effigy was at the end of a long room. It had been placed in a setting of artificial trees on a footpath that merged into the painting of the mountains on the wall behind. There was more of that vaguely stirring music playing, this time rather softly, accompanied by the noises of birdsong. Fans ruffled the faux-foliage with a semblance of a summer breeze. We duly lined up in front of this figure and bowed though, as one wit commented later, it was really more of a Mexican wave than a bow as such.
The tour was briefly interrupted for a cup of tea on the terrace where we could sit and contemplate what is said to have been one of the Great Leader's favourite views. We could also read one of his poems but either he was a rotten poet or he had a rotten translator because it was something most people would be ashamed to put their names to, full of clichéd, pompous phrases about the revolutionary spirit of the people.
More rooms full of more gifts followed until we were led back outside, across the car park and into the second building. Smaller, but similar it was devoted not to the Great Leader but to the Dear Leader. If anything his gifts were a weirder selection than his dad's. In addition to the statues and paintings and tapestries, the exhibition had more furniture than a branch of Ikea. There were radios and computers, cameras and telescopes. There was a Basketball signed by Michael Jordan and apparently presented by Madeleine Albright.
We rather rushed this second experience as time was moving on and we needed to get to lunch before taking that dull drive back to Pyongyang for our visit to the circus. We were hurried around it by our guides and were soon on our way.
Part of the way round there was another compulsory opportunity to bow to a wax effigy of the Great Leader. It was surreal. The lifelike effigy was at the end of a long room. It had been placed in a setting of artificial trees on a footpath that merged into the painting of the mountains on the wall behind. There was more of that vaguely stirring music playing, this time rather softly, accompanied by the noises of birdsong. Fans ruffled the faux-foliage with a semblance of a summer breeze. We duly lined up in front of this figure and bowed though, as one wit commented later, it was really more of a Mexican wave than a bow as such.
The tour was briefly interrupted for a cup of tea on the terrace where we could sit and contemplate what is said to have been one of the Great Leader's favourite views. We could also read one of his poems but either he was a rotten poet or he had a rotten translator because it was something most people would be ashamed to put their names to, full of clichéd, pompous phrases about the revolutionary spirit of the people.
More rooms full of more gifts followed until we were led back outside, across the car park and into the second building. Smaller, but similar it was devoted not to the Great Leader but to the Dear Leader. If anything his gifts were a weirder selection than his dad's. In addition to the statues and paintings and tapestries, the exhibition had more furniture than a branch of Ikea. There were radios and computers, cameras and telescopes. There was a Basketball signed by Michael Jordan and apparently presented by Madeleine Albright.
We rather rushed this second experience as time was moving on and we needed to get to lunch before taking that dull drive back to Pyongyang for our visit to the circus. We were hurried around it by our guides and were soon on our way.
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