Duck, duck, goose

Our table raised this to L, our tour guide, who insisted it was duck. “But it’s beef!” I persisted, showing him the fat lines in a particularly obvious piece of beef.

Like he had done at the bowling alley, L paused. For a few seconds I thought he would get angry. But this time he smiled, put his hand on my shoulder, and looked me deep in the eyes.

“Duck,” he said.

This time, I understood.

“Duck,” I repeated.

He smiled.

Outside, a slight drizzle had started, and the vast empty street glistened in the lone light of a single working streetlamp. Weeks later I would see that street again, on television, as the funeral procession of The Great Leader passed through. Yet, for that fleeting moment, there was peace in the city of unflickering lights. The soju flowed freely, the guides got friendly and the ducks exhausted themselves on the grill of our will. The drizzle outside grew into an angry rain, but what did it matter? All was well, and all is well in Pyongyang, the city on the edge of forever.

The tour brought us to Pyongyang’s War Museum, as well as the captured USS Pueblo. The Americans in the group were faced with the awkward position of listening to the North Korean guide at the War Museum (a pretty young lady) describe how Americans were killed or imprisoned, while showing us the maimed vehicles, helmets and other spoils of war. It was like a lion showing his pet chicken the skeletons of previous chickens he had eaten.

The North Koreans genuinely believe that they won the “moral” war. Their propaganda, the confessions that they forced Americans to write, as well as their repeated reference to their colonial past reveal a part of North Korea that I am not sure many understand: they genuinely feel that they are the good guys. They view themselves as having fought off the imperialist Americans who sought to colonize them, and in so doing maintained their national pride, even at the sacrifice of the “ill-gotten” prosperity that giving in to America could have got them.

Leaving the USS Pueblo, we shook hands with the old, warm Army officer who had been part of the original boarding crew and was now in charge of maintaining the captured ship. Amid the drizzle, he held the hands of the Korean-American man in my tour group with real gratitude, and told him to bring the truth to the people in America.

We visited an elementary school in Pyongyang. One of the attractions was a “science lab” that featured rusted microscopes neatly lined up on lab tables. Each table featured a pencil box with 2 pencils of exactly the same length, and an untouched eraser. On the teacher’s desk were test tubes with broken bottoms, and an overhead projector with broken mirror plate. Dysfunctional details aside, it was similar to the science lab in my primary school, with jars containing preserved animals and other oddities, and charts showing the geographic spread of the different species.

The walls of the school featured either propaganda images, or noticeboards highlighting a model students and alumni.

On a school field devoid of grass, a football practice was in session, with the players taking turns to shoot at a “target” goalpost.

Our tour guide had told us that the children were “excited” to put on a performance for us. In an auditorium with wooden seats a band played, children sang, and young girls danced in traditional clothing. It was really quite impressive. It then got really weird. The young girls fanned out into the audience, each picking a male tourist to be her dance partner. I proceeded to be dragged onto the dance floor by a young girl of about 10 years of age who had every intention of leading me in some sort of folk dance, but zero intention of making eye contact or communicating with me.

As we were boarding the bus to leave, children started lining up in a large column along the road leading to the school gate. Holding flags, signs and streamers, they proceeded to march out of the school into the city, singing patriotic songs. Our tour guide told us the children did it to encourage the citizens of Pyongyang. As our bus travelled around the city later that evening, I observed a few other columns of children making their way around the city. It must have worked, for we encountered no blackouts in our hotel that night.

An escalator ride into the depths of Pyongyang

We got to take a “rush hour” ride on the Pyongyang Metro, that was advertised as allowing us to see “real life” in Pyongyang. It started with us taking the longest escalator I had ever seen into the depths of the city; it was far longer than any of the escalators in Washington D.C. The sheer depth as well as the architecture it was clear that the Metro station was built to serve as a nuclear bomb shelter.

The “real life” aspect, was for once as advertised. We entered a suspiciously empty carriage, and judging from the reactions of the North Koreans, none of them were plants. A slightly bewildered and panicked man stood up to offer us his seat; our tour guide motioned for him to sit back down, but he retreated to the far corner of the carriage. The woman sitting next to me looked genuinely terrified, turning away from the camera when a photo was taken. My guess was that a conductor had emptied most of the carriage out at the previous station, instructing those remaining to stay in their seats and act “normally”.

An interesting sidenote: the German in my group observed that the graffiti on the train windows was in German. The metro trains had likely been imported from East Germany during the Cold War and repainted, but the window glass left untouched.

The Kim Il-Sung Memorial. The travelators/escalators brought us from the photo location, all the way into the building

One of the weirdest parts of the trip was visiting the Kim il Sung Mausoleum. It used to be his official palace till his death, upon which it was sealed and turned into a mausoleum. Upon entering, we surrendered our wallets, cameras, passed through an array of metal scanners, and then covered our shoes with special socks so as to not defile “sacred ground”. We then proceeded to take a series of underground travelators (moving walkways) and escalators, the most impressive of which was a travelator that I estimated had to be at least 200m long.

We were ushered through hall after hall of artifacts of his life, most notably his collection honorary diplomas from various universities around the world. We were treated to a dramatic retelling of his passing (an excerpt: “… the peoples of the world stopped what they were doing, and wept at the passing of the Great Leader…”), and bowed to a huge statue of the elder Kim’s likeness. All of this culminated with us being ushered past a series of air jets, into the center crypt where the embalmed body of the Great Leader lay, flanked by military guards, bathed in red light, with melancholy battle music in the background.

Leaving the memorial via travelators in the opposite direction, we encountered an endless line of North Koreans in full military dress entering. Observing their cleanly cut hair and brand new uniforms, I guessed that a visit to the Great Leaders’ tomb was a once in a lifetime event, with various villages/provinces rostered to visit. It was especially weird on the longest travelator, with 20+ tourists on the travelator out, and an endless line of North Koreans on the travelator in. The opposing travelators gave us the luxury of eye contact; we were human beings living lives of vastly different circumstances, passing by each other like two ships in the night.

Pyongyang Gold Lane

One of the trip’s most “what the f***” moments was visiting a bowling alley. We visited Pyongyang Gold Lane, a full multiple-lane bowling alley that was (according to our guides) one of North Korea’s most popular weekend spots. What we saw was almost like a scene taken out of a 1970s American film: couples laughing, cuddling and kissing between turns, and in general being way too good looking and way too good at bowling to be for real.

It was surreal: everyone acted as if we weren’t there, but as far as I could tell everything was just a show put on for us. There were the arcade machines that powered up when we approached them, at the expense of the slot machines on the other side of the room. There were the North Koreans who tried their utmost to look like they were having the time of their lives, but there were also the more sinister men with earpieces in their ears, watching each of us to make sure no North Korean tried to make contact.

The sign on one of the bathroom doors reads "Only Foreigners"

A few things caught my attention: a group of about ten teenage boys near the entrance who spoke Chinese with a Northern accent, possibly the children of Chinese businessmen. There was also the toilet stall that read “ONLY FOREIGNERS”. Curious, I asked my tour guide whether this bowling alley was only for tourists. He stopped in his tracks, paused, turned to me and said sternly: “this bowling alley is for EVERYBODY”. He then stalked off, unwilling to continue the conversation any further.

Postscript: It was not lost on me the irony of Putnam’s “Bowling Alone”, a little side joke that I enjoyed with a fellow tour member who was pursuing a political science PhD.

Our bus traveled along a wide and empty road, into Pyongyang. Our tour guide ran through the list of do’s and don’ts: no photography without permission, no photography from the bus, no wandering off from the group. The road from the airport to Pyongyang was occasionally punctuated by the rare truck or van; otherwise it was only our bus, its loneliness accentuated only by the sheer empty width of the road. An intermittent but constant stream of people walked or cycled along the far sides of the road, ostensibly headed home from a long day in the fields.

Pyongyang rises on the horizon like a tired city in the faded light of evening. Gray buildings, giant and once mighty, now sag in an aged weariness. Huge architecture towers the sky, dwarfing lesser buildings and the humanity that scuttles beneath their shadow. Yet this is not unlike the cities of Beijing or New York, themselves with towering skyscrapers. Yet what truly differentiates Pyongyang is the sense of eerie emptiness, its streets devoid of the throng, bustle, and chaos of humanity that characterize the Beijings and New Yorks in the evening of day.

It was incredibly weird. I imagined our bus as a big, blue and modern spaceship, navigating an unfamiliar world.

Streets of Pyongyang II

Pyongyang’s 5-star hotels

We checked into our hotel, the Ryanggang hotel. Our tour being of the cheaper variety, we did not stay at the more upscale Koryo Hotel. I had no tap water for the first evening, and the shower spat out a brownish-yellow (but warm) water. Mercifully, the flush worked.

The video above was taken the following morning, where I woke to hear loud singing. Whether it was blasted from a city-wide PA system, or from the voices of thousands of North Koreans was unclear. It was incredibly surreal.

Entering the Ryanggang Hotel Room

Note the old analog telephone + TV

5-star bathroom amenities

The "rotating" hotel on the top floor (doesn't rotate)

Took the opportunity to go to North Korea over Thanksgiving break.  My interest in the hermit kingdom had been piqued over the summer: I met a guy in Boston whose parents had escaped in the mid-80s, and listened to their stories of life there. As a literature student in Junior College I had studied Orwell’s 1984 and Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale; it was incredible hearing their stories of a dystopia in real life, north of the 38^th Parallel.

When the opportunity to go to North Korea materialized, I jumped at it. It has been an unforgettable glimpse into a world so different, and absolutely batshit crazy.

How to get there:

The journey into North Korea (for an ordinary foreigner) goes through travel agencies. There are the Chinese tour agencies, and Western ones. Approximately 30,000 Chinese visit North Korea (ChaoXian) every year, and about 3,000 people of other nationalities. All of them are resellers for the official North Korean state-run travel agency’s packages, though Chinese tours are significantly cheaper and are treated with less suspicion. There is also Geoffrey See’s Choson Exchange, a student exchange and link up with the Kim Il Sung University.

The application for a visa is surprisingly lax, unless you are from certain nationalities (American, South Korea) or have Korean blood. Journalists and photographers have to apply under a different visa that is probably more given out less easily.

Tour guides:

My tour operator (western) went to great pains to tell us what we could or couldn’t do. No photography unless the tour guide told us we could, no wandering away from the group, no leaving the hotel at all costs, and no insulting of the Great Leaders.  Anything stupid that we did, we were told, would be blamed on our Korean tour guides- and could result in punishments for the tour guides (and their families), and even banishment to labor camps.

Flying in:

My tour flew into North Korea from Beijing, via Air Koryo (the state run airline). It was slightly unpleasant to find out (from a fellow passenger) in the departure lounge that it was the world’s only 1 star airline. The Russian built aircraft, however, was surprisingly modern and apart from a few scary moments the flight went well. It was very clear that they were out to impress us: the food was incredibly good.  I could only wonder, with a bit of guilt, whether every grain of rice was at the expense of someone else’s dinner.

We landed at the smallest airport I had ever seen, with an abandoned (bombed?) buildings by the runway. The actual airport terminal was a small building with a baggage carousel, and 2 security checks where our luggage (and persons) received a thorough check. We surrendered our phones and anything with a GPS at the airport. Curiously, we were allowed to keep our laptops. One guy was allowed to keep his iPad, perhaps indicative of how little they knew about technology.

A North Korean customs form

It was interesting who was on that flight: tourists from China, and my tour group of Western people. Beyond that it was very unclear who everyone else was- either North Korean elites, or Chinese businessmen. At the baggage carousel I took the opportunity to observe what was being shipped in: apart from the usual assortment of luggage, there were many of boxes of food (ramen noodles, tidbits from China). The carousel was highlighted by the appearance of seven 46” LCD TVs- each one eliciting a tittering from the waiting crowd, and quickly grabbed and carefully carried off by Korean speaking men.

And here it begins:

After claiming luggages, and going through security we met our Korean tour guides for the first time (2 guys and a girl). We also had a man with a video camera, who was supposedly there to film a commemorative VCD that would be sold to us for 40 Euros at the end of the trip. This seemed to be different from people who had gone for previous tours, who had had two guides and a mysterious “spy” who sat at the back of the bus monitoring the other tour guides. I remained wary for the rest of the trip.

From the airport, we loaded onto a surprisingly modern tour bus- and thus began our journey to the Hermit Kingdom.

In a blink of an eye, 2 years have passed since I made the decision to switch out of Economics as a major. Since then, it has been a long path that has seen me unofficially switch majors 7 times, eventually returning to Computer Science, the major I had initially switched to.

On hindsight, it has been a pretty good decision. A recent New York Times article writes about the ugly job market that has left Harvard graduates unemployed. Yet for a Stanford CS major, there is a ridiculous talent crunch that has companies competing for qualified talent. I receive an email every other day or so from a recruiter looking to hire (though this does not matter, due to my Police contract).

The Journey

The benefits have been sweet. Yet the journey has been like shitting a pineapple. I have had long periods of self-doubt, especially in the early transition phase, where my newfound mediocrity in CS was painfully juxtaposed against my previous achievement studying the humanities in Junior College. It was tempting to think it had all been a fluke, and perhaps I wasn’t that clever after all. It only got worse when I saw people who I had done better than in the humanities excel and get nice jobs in consultancy and banking, while I struggled to get to the baseline standard in Computer Science. Did I mess it all up?

My social life and GPA are going to suffer, but I’m damned well going to learn how to program

It has taken 2 years to turn the corner. Through this time I’ve learnt that given >baseline intelligence, excellence is a function of perspiration. The marginal ease of learning a new concept increases with each concept already learnt. Roughly 1,400 hours into Gladwell’s 10,000 hours threshold, I’ve become able to pick up a new languages and frameworks in days, though getting good takes much longer. I am far from the finished product, but it is getting easier.

It has been a test of my willingness to let go of everything that got me here. I have drawn inspiration from Tiger Woods, who at the top of his game overhauled his golf swing, leading to a decline before paying off in 1999. In the process, the Chinese idiom  破釜沉舟 (to give up possibility of retreat) has been true. It was not till switching back became impossible, that I was able to find the determination to hunker down and get good.

The Next Phase

Programming as a profession… can be a good job, but you could make about the same money and be happier running a fast food joint. You’re much better off using code as your secret weapon in another profession.

People who can code in the world of technology companies are a dime a dozen and get no respect. People who can code in biology, medicine, government, sociology, physics, history, and mathematics are respected and can do amazing things to advance those disciplines.

- Advice from an Old Programmer, Zed Shaw

‘Oh, you’re sure to [get somewhere],’ said the Cat, `if you only walk long enough.’

- Alice speaks to Cheshire Cat, Lewis Carroll

The worst thing that could happen now is for me, ironically, is for me to begin to think I am a CS person. I am not. I am a social scientist who now knows algorithms, machine learning, and how to code. I am a government person who now knows a little bit of technology and human factors design, and can work with engineers. And perhaps the most liberating: I am an idea person who is now able to make things happen.

The challenge for me now is to continue to develop my technical competencies, while beginning to apply it to the areas that I actually care about.  Part of it requires me to learn and pick up various aspects of the social sciences on my own. I will be writing my senior honors thesis in Political Science under Stanford’s CDDRL, and it is likely to center around network analysis and the spread of political opinion. It’ll hopefully be the first of many things to come from the new skills I’ve learnt.