North Korean Economy Watch

Michael Rank writes in the Guardian:

If Pyongyang is North Korea’s showpiece city – albeit an empty and forbidding place – then the country’s interior is something else altogether.

In this desolate city [Rason] 800 kilometres from the capital, the main square turns to a sea of mud in the rain, and there are no street lights so it’s impossible to avoid the puddles at night.

Rason is 50km from the border with China, over a twisting dirt track through the mountains, but it could be another planet.

The cities on the Chinese side are frenetic with activity, skyscrapers sprouting like mushrooms in the rain and traffic jams unavoidable. Rason couldn’t be more different, stuck in a Stalinist time warp. Traffic chiefly consists of ox carts and Chinese lorries. Roads are repaired by teams of workers armed with shovels and picks.

Tourists are a rarity, just 20 so far this year and none at all in 2009, according to Simon Cockerell of Beijing-based Koryo Tours, which specialises in travel to North Korea.

Officially this is a “free economic and trade zone”. In practice that special designation doesn’t appear to make much difference.

The overwhelming majority of those who do venture in are Chinese, many of them lured by the area’s only apparent growth industry – a glittering casino and hotel built by a Hong-Kong multimillionaire.

The Emperor casino was supposed to have shut its doors in 2005 after a senior Chinese transport official gambled away more than 3.5 million yuan (£340,000), much of it public money.

But a few dozen Chinese were observed gambling in the smoky windowless rooms on the top floor of the venue on a recent evening.

Near the casino there is a small island that is linked to the mainland by a short causeway where tourists can relax over a seafood lunch consisting of raw sea urchins, chargrilled octopus and squid washed down with Chinese beer.

Not that Rason is awash with produce. In the 1990s, an acute famine killed many thousands. Although the worst is over, millions continue to go hungry and in Rason a British- charity, Love North Korean Children, makes enormous efforts to ensure that children in the area get enough to eat.

The charity feeds 2,500 children a day, and the youngsters in the Hahyeon nursery school looked well nourished when this reporter visited. But George Rhee, the charity’s founder and powerhouse, stressed that without the steamed buns his bakery provides “all these children would go hungry”.

Rason’s remoteness means it is easier to evade the central government’s relentless grip and benefit from trade, legal and illicit, with nearby China.

North Korea officially maintains the fiction that all economic activity is state-run. It therefore bans foreigners from visiting private markets which help to relieve dire shortages of even staple foods.

Yet during our visit, the Guardian was encouraged to shop in the market for crab for supper, which was cooked in a local restaurant. Apart from seafood, the market also sells cigarettes and alcohol imported from China.

For travellers who like to learn about their surroundings from the locals, North Korea is probably not the best destination.

The Guardian was closely manmarked by minders and ignored by locals. Local officials have been hoping to attract more tourists to Rason by building a golf course and racetrack, but it is hard to imagine these ever materialising in such an isolated and impoverished location.

Read the full story here:
North Korea: beyond the capital lies a different world
The Guardian
Michael Rank
9/26/2010

Pictured above: April 25th Sports Club field in Sadong-guyok (사동구역) where the matches were held (Google Maps)

UPDATE 4 (2011-4-25): To mark the ten-year anniversary of DPRK-UK diplomatic relations in September 2010, the British Embassy in Pyongyang and Koryo Tours arranged for the Middlesbrough Ladies Football Club to travel to the DPRK for two friendly matches against the DPRK’s national ladies team.  In addition to the two matches, the ladies team spent an afternoon training children at a local school, and an edited version of the film Bend it like Beckham was shown on North Korean television.  If you can access Facebook, you can see pictures of the visit here and  some videos here.

I managed to get video of one of the matches that was aired on North Korean television, so I edited it and posted it to YouTube:

It is in severn parts.  Part 1 of 7 is here.  The resolution is not great, but I am not a professional video editor!

Koryo Tours now has the ambitious goal of bringing a DPRK women’s football team to Middlesbrough.  According to a recent Koryo Tours newsletter:

We are therefore looking to take a North Korean women’s football team to the UK in 2012.  We also plan to bring a female DPRK film crew to accompany the squad and make a documentary of their time in the UK for both North Korean and international screening.

We do have support from both the British Embassy in Pyongyang and various international institutions but we also need financial support.  It would be extremely useful to have introductions to companies or individuals who you think might be interested in helping us.

Contact Koryo Tours for more information.

UPDATE 3: Sky News has a good summary of the events and a video.

UPDATE 2: According to the BBC, the Middlesbrough FC Ladies lost their second game.

UPDATE 1: According to the AFP, the Middlesbrough FC Ladies lost their first game.

ORIGINAL POST: According to the Guardian:

North Korea, the most secretive country on earth, the nation George Bush located on the Axis of Evil, where the flame of Marxism-Leninism still burns strong, will this week welcome its first British football team: 14 Teesside women players aged from 17 to 23, and their manager, Marrie Wieczorek.

On Thursday, Middlesbrough FC Ladies set off on a football tour with less bar-hopping (it’s illegal to leave your hotel without your guide) and probably more talk about dialectical materialism than usual. “I think it is going to be a bit of a culture shock,” says Wieczorek. “The whole place is shrouded in secrecy.”

At a time of mounting speculation that Kim Jong-il may be stepping down and appointing his son as successor, the team will fly to Beijing and then board an Air Koryo flight to Pyongyang, where they will play two games.

Middlesbrough Ladies will, in their way, be making history. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (as it prefers to be known) has so little contact with the outside world that the tour represents one of the most significant cultural exchanges of recent years. But it is also the latest episode in the entirely unlikely relationship between Middlesbrough and North Korea.

Historical link

Back in 1966, when England hosted the World Cup, North Korea played its three group games in the town, and Dave Allan, Middlesbrough’s media manager, said that a bond had existed ever since.

“It wasn’t that long after the Korean War and there were people in Teesside who’d fought in that, and when the Korean team came they were seen as the enemy,” Allan said. “But people really just took them to their hearts. It helped that they played in red, which was the Middlesbrough team colour. But it really was the people themselves, non-stop smiling, and very friendly and open.”

In 1966, North Korea beat Italy in what is routinely referred to as “one of the greatest upsets in World Cup history”, but the team’s failure to win a single game in this year’s finals – the first time they had qualified since then – led to rumours that the national coach had been sent to be “re-educated” on a building site on his return home.

In 2002, Nick Bonner of the travel company Koryo Tours tracked down the 1966 players and brought them back to Middlesbrough in what is still North Korea’s most important non-political exchange with the outside world.

“You don’t hear much about Middlesbrough in this country. But in North Korea they love us,” said Wieczorek. Even more astonishing, she said, they also love women’s football. The North Korean women’s team is currently fifth in the world, and it is as popular a spectator sport as the men’s game.

“Here, on the other hand, it was a battle to even play it when I started out 34 years ago,” said Wieczorek, “and although we’re supported by Middlesbrough FC we still have to raise our own money for transport.”

Culture shock

In North Korea, visitors are expected to bow before statues of the Supreme Leader. Do the Middlesbrough team have any idea what to expect?

Acting captain Rachael Hine, a mortgage adviser with Santander, said: “We know it’s going to be different. But nobody really knows how different.

“We’re just trying to go there with an open mind.”

This was a philosophy that has already been tested. “I told the girls their mobile phones will be confiscated at the airport,” said Wieczorek. “Their jaws just dropped.”

Read the full story here:
Middlesbrough Ladies’ North Korean football tour guarantees place in history
Guardian
Carole Cadwalladr
9/12/2010

According to an update email from Koryo Tours:

Over the 2010 Oct 1st holiday period Koryo Tours has two group departures to Pyongyang and beyond, one short 2 night trip around the highlights of the North Korean capital city, the other a week long trip around the country, seeing not only the capital but places beyond as well, the itineraries, prices, and other details of these tours can be found at the following links;

Mass Games Mini-Break 2: Sept 30 – Oct 2
http://www.koryogroup.com/travel_NEWItinerary_8.php

China National Day Tour: Sept 30 – Oct 6/7
http://www.koryogroup.com/travel_Itinerary_20a.php

The tour is suitable for all ages and almost all nationalities (US citizens are welcome as well), discounts for children, groups, and those who have travelled with us before.  We guarantee an unforgettable experience that can only be brought to you by Koryo
Tours, the only North Korean travel specialist in the world! See for
yourself this Chinese National Day holiday!

 Contact us on info@koryogroup.com if you have any questions at all and if you’d like to sign up the simple process (we don’t need your passport at all) is explained in full detail at http://www.koryogroup.com/travel_bookingATour.php.

Learn more about Koryo Tours at their web page.

New Trips departing from Pyongayng
Be one fo the firts visitors to the DPRK’s second city – newly opened to Koryo Tours’ tourists- Hamhung, the second largest city in North Korea and a major industrial hub on the East Coast of the Korean peninsula, Previously the only foreigners who had been to this remote and very different part of the country were East Germans who participated in the post-war reconstruction of the area’s industry, NGO staff working on projects in the city, and the occasional diplomat or sailor. In May, however, Koryo Tours’ Simon Cockerell became the first tourist ever to go there since Liberation from Japan in 1945. Koryo Tours is pleased to be able to offer this destination to group and independent tourists staying in the city centre or at the nearby Majon beach. Among the places to visit are the giant Hamhung Grand Theatre (the city’s largest building that dominates the skyline), the Hungnam fertiliser factory (where Kim Il Sung made the remark “fertiliser is rice, and rice is communism”), the home of Ri Song Gye (a notable king of ancient Korea), and much more besides. Find more about our independent tours here

Pyongyang to Hamhung is a few hours by road via the port city of Wonsan, so this is not a daytrip destination; but, for pervious visitors or people staying for more than a few days in the DPRK, this is a very good place to head to – amazing views of the countryside all the way there and back contribute to a feeling that you have visited somewhere very special. An unforgettable addition to any tour.

VISIT OUTER MOUNT KUMGANG – In addition to our opening of Hamhung as a destination for tourists, there are more places on DPRK’s East Coast that are now possible to visit; including – for the first time from North Korea – the Hyundai-run resort of Outer Kumgang. This has been closed to tourists who previously went there in their thousands from the South since an incident in 2008, where a tourist was shot by a soldier in mysterious circumstances. Since then the agreement between the government of North Korea and Hyundai – who had leased the area for tourists – has collapsed and it isnow possible to visit (although not stay overnight) from the North. Some stunning hiking trails, within what is justly considered Korea’s most beautiful mountain range, can be embarked upon. Also a visit to the serene and peaceful Samil Lagoon is a must. A visit here takes the best part of a day for any tour already at the East Coast and is a must for anyone interested in seeing some of the most remarkable natural landscapes in East Asia. Good for getting a bit of exercise after the long drive to the East Coast as well!

New Trips to the DPRK’s North East
RASON INDEPENDENT TOURS AVAILABLE – On the subject of the Rason area of North Korea, we are now offering independent tours to this area and have a new page of our website dedicated to this  soon. Koryo Tours is the only western travel company ever to have been to Rason, so do feel free to ask us any questions at all; very few people have even heard of this place, let alone thought about going so if you want reliable advice and information, you know who to call! Full details and information about all the options we offer are available at the above link. Please have a look and let us know if you fancy it. The tour is unforgettable and very unlike the usual areas of the DPRK that we visit. Also it’s an amazing boast to have been there if you’re looking for a great travel story; the least visited part of the least visited country in the world! info@koryogroup.com for more info!

DPRK’s North East and Russia
THE TUMAN TRIANGLE- CHINA/DPRK/RUSSIA – In July we embarked on a brand new tour available exclusively through Koryo Tours. We call it the Tuman Triangle tour as it includes visits to three different countries in the region of the Tuman River (Tumen in China for all the pedants!). The route that our pioneering group of 18 took was a flight to Yanji in NE China’s Jilin province, then to the North Korean free trade zone of Rason (previously known as Rajin-Sonbong, a place where western tourists are almost unheard of but which Koryo tours have been visiting since 1996). We spent 4 days in the area doing a diverse range of activities such as seeing ports and seafood factories, playing beach football against Russian railway engineers, shopping in a public market – the only place this can be done in North Korea – going to the obligatory revolutionary sites, visiting the doctors (!) and local kindergartens, going to a deserted casino, doing a boat trip around the nearby islands, and more!

From DPRK we became the first tourists ever to cross into Russia by train to the town of Khasan and then spent a couple of days in the Russian countryside relaxing and taking a boat trip to a fascinating island in a nature reserve where abandoned WWII bases now provide nesting places for seagulls, before heading to Vladivostok by ferry and touring that previously-closed city and having free time to experience the delights and sights of the Russian Far East. We even made it to a Russian second division football match (Luch Energiya beat Belograd Salut 2-0 in case you’re interested!) before flying back to Beijing to complete this brand new and utterly unique itinerary.

The tour was a great success and we will be offering this again a couple of times next year. Dates and details will go online in a few weeks but do drop us a line on if you’d like to register an early interest; we aim to expand this tour even more for 2011.

A WILD AND MAGNIFICENT TRIP IN 2011 We will have an optional extension that will go to the remote Russian city of Magadan (infamous for Stalin’s gulags) – from Chollima to Kolyma! – as well as to the volcanic peninsula of Kamchatka. If you like the sound of this, then get in touch now! This tour, exclusively available from Koryo Tours will just get better and better. Join us if you want a completely different kind of holiday, and this sounds like your kind of thing!

4. Last chance to see Turkmenistan before the changes
TURKMENISTAN TOUR NOVEMBER 2010 – With the recent news that the Arch of Neutrality in Central Ashgabat is being torn down and replaced with something yet to be confirmed, the plan to relocate Central Asia’s largest market (the anarchic Tolkuchka Bazaar) to a sterile new location, and President Berdymuhammedov’s statement that he wants the amazing Darvaza gas crater to be extinguished and filled-in, it definitely seems like this is the time to visit, and see Turkmenistan at its weirdest and most unique. It will probably take at least a few months for the gas crater to be removed, (it’s the single most remarkable thing you will ever see; look for videos on YouTube for proof and bear in mind, they do not do it justice!) so  and camp next to the strangest accidentally-formed attraction in the world! Full tour details for this trip can be found at http://www.koryogroup.com/turkmenistan/tours.html and the tour can be started from a variety of destinations.

We have a lot more plans for additions to this November tour so if you’ve been thinking about going to Central Asia’s most enigmatic country, then now may be the time. Drop us a line for more information and we hope you can be there to see it with your own eyes!

According to the Koryo Tours newsletter:

Koryo Tours has been officially informed by the Korea International Travel Company that Arirang Mass Gymnastics (Mass Games) will be performed from August 2nd throughout to October 10th, 2010. Mass Games can basically be described as a synchronized socialist-realist spectacular, featuring over 100,000 participants in a 90 minute display of gymnastics, dance, acrobatics, and dramatic performance, accompanied by music and other effects, all wrapped in a highly politicized package. Literally no other place on Earth has anything comparable and it has to be seen with your own two eyes to truly appreciate the scale on display.

Book your tour here.

See the group tours we offer during Mass Games.

You can choose your dates of travel, methods of entry and exit and also the itinerary can be tailored to suit your requests if you prefer to travel with an independent tour. Find more information here.

Preparations are visible on the streets of Pyongyang well in advance of the Mass Games with tens of thousands of gymnasts preparing their routines in the city’s open spaces and parks. The 2009 performance was entitled ‘Arirang’ based on a historic tragic love story but was adapted to represent the struggle of North Korea during the Japanese occupation and Korean War. Students practiced every day from January onwards. The 90 minute performance is held every evening at 7pm and features the ‘largest picture in the world’ a giant mosaic of individual students each holding a book whose pages links with their neighbours’ to make up one gigantic scene. When the students turn the pages the scene or individual elements of the scene change, up to 170 pages make up one book.

In 2003 we made our film on the Mass Games A State of Mind (Koryo Tours, VeryMuchSo productions and BBC4), The film has been broadcast unedited in both North and South Korea and in 2004 won the Pyongyang Film Festival Special Prize and best film music award as well as various international awards and is currently on worldwide release.

Koryo Tours is offering a unique travel experience:

At long last we are proud to bring you news of our brand new tour, on a route that no other company offers and that Koryo Tours has spent great effort pioneering. From June 30th to July 10th this year we are offering a 3 country, 3 cultures, 3 time zone tour in an area you may well have never heard of before – we’re calling it the “Tuman Triangle” and if you’re interested in learning more then please hit the following links to download our brochure and itinerary for this remarkable journey:

Information Brochure – click here

Full Itinerary – click here

In brief, this tour travels from Beijing up to the North East Chinese city of Yanji from where we enter North Korea’s Rajin-Sonbong free trade zone, we then journey into DPRK-proper and the industrial city of Chongjin and the stunning and remote Chilbo mountains before heading back up the coast and crossing into Russia by train, visiting some remote areas and then heading by boat to Vladivostok from where we fly back to Beijing having seen a vast variety of sites, experienced several distinct cultures and seen places and things that almost no western tourists have ever been anywhere near.

Simon Cockerell will accompany this tour and we have a mere 20 spaces open for this first time trip, if you’d like to know more then please get in contact with us and we hope you can come along with us, this is the first time such a tour has ever been offered by anyone. Be a part of regional tourism history!

Best regards from Beijing,

Koryo Tours

Koryo Tours is distributing the North Korean film Centre Forward–a film which “critics are already hailing as the best North Korean-themed football movie of all time”.

See the trailer you YouTube here.

See the trailer on Youku (PR China) here.

You can order the film directly from Koryo Tours by email: info@KoryoGroup.com

Also, photographer Werner Kranwetvogel worked with Nick Bonner to produce high quality photography of the Mass Games:

See more about his work here.

According to a press release from Koryo Tours:

Koryo Tours has been informed that a more general opening of the DPRK (North Korea) to US tourists is likely to take effect in 2010. It is expected that American citizens, who had previously been restricted to visiting North Korea only during the annual Arirang Mass Games festival which runs from August to October may now be permitted to enter the country year-round. Normal restrictions on American tourists also include staying in North Korea a maximum of 4 nights and only being permitted to enter and exit the country by plane from China, there is also a 4 times weekly train that runs from Pyongyang to Beijing, as yet it is unclear whether these restrictions will also be dropped but a decision is expected before too long.

Koryo Tours has been operating trips to North Korea since 1993 and is universally recognised as the only specialist/expert in this unique area. Unlike the competition, we are also regular visitors; rather than ship our clients off and hope for the best, we work in conjunction with the Korean tour guides as cultural conduits. ensuring everyone has the optimum experience from this journey of a lifetime. Recommended by all the North Korean guidebooks, we consult with international media regarding information and analysis on DPRK tourism and have produced three award winning documentaries on North Korea in association with the BBC (www.koryogroupcom). There’s more to see in North Korea than most people imagine, and with this new policy it seems likely that Americans will now have the opportunity to see more than ever.

I have visited the DPRK twice (though not wth Koryo Tours) and I recommend the trip. Koryo’s tour dates can be found here—although the dates for American tourists will likely be expanded.

From Koryo Tours:

Throughout 2009 we have been raising money for 2 humanitarian projects in the DPRK. We are aiming to complete one of these – a project to buy braille dictionaries which have been previously unavailable in the DPRK – by the end of October.

The total amount needed for for the dictionaries is EUR 2400 and the amount raised so far is EUR 505. We only have 2 more weeks to complete this project so your help is needed. More information about this project can be found here.

If you would like to make a donation to this worthwhile cause please do contact us for details of how to send us the money. Any amount really makes a difference! Surplus funds will be put towards our second project to buy playground equipment for an orphanage in Wonsan. If we can complete both these projects by the end of this year it will be fantastic.

Many thanks to all of you who have already donated money and we will be in touch with the results.

Nick, Simon and Hannah
Koryo Tours Ltd

By Michael Rank

North Korea is spreading its net wider in its quest to attract more tourists from China, and now has its eye on the southern province of Guangdong as well as Shanghai.

A Chinese website (link here) reports that a delegation of North Korean travel agents is expected to travel to Guangzhou next month and that local tour operators in Guangzhou and nearby Shenzhen, on the Hong Kong border, are eager to do business.

Tourists will have a choice of two routes to North Korea – they can either fly to Shenyang or Dalian in northeast China and then take the train to Pyongyang via Dandong, or they can fly to Pyongyang via Shenyang. It puts the price at 5,000 yuan ($730) but doesn’t say how many days the tours last or any further details. It says the main attractions will be the usual ones of Pyongyang, the DMZ at Panmunjom, the Myohyang mountains and the annual Arirang pageant.

As NKEW reported in July, North Korea is also targeting Shanghai as a source of tourism revenue, and there is further talk of charter flights from Qingdao in Shandong province to Pyongyang.

Quite apart from the question of how many Chinese are likely to be tempted to visit a Cultural Revolution-type theme park like North Korea, there are also bureaucratic hurdles to overcome. North Korea does not have “approved destination status” for Chinese tourists, which means in theory at least that travel there is restricted to business groups and official delegations. (Incidentally, South Korea doesn’t seem to be an ADS country either).

As the website notes, “An important issue within ADS is to avoid possible illegal immigration through tourism channels. All tourism groups travelling within the ADS framework are supposed to be monitored by both Chinese and foreign authorities to ensure they return to China. Embassies and consulates apply different methods to monitor the return of the Chinese tourists. Whenever a tourism group member does not return to China, the local travel agency is held responsible and sanctions are applied.” Not that there is much likelihood of Chinese tourists defecting to North Korea.

Furthermore, China is encouraging tourists to counter the world recession by spending their money at home, and although this is China-DPRK year marking the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations, a further obstacle is the fact that Chinese citizens now need a passport to travel there, not just a border pass that was all that was needed previously to cross into the country at Dandong by train.

Nick Bonner of Koryo Tours says: “We have noticed a sharp drop in Chinese tourists visiting DPRK in comparison to this time last year – even though the spectacle of the 100,000 strong performance of the mass games is still going on and has been extended to October 15th.

“I think next year Chinese tourism will be coming back strong – there is a certain ‘busman’s holiday’ attraction for Chinese tourists to visit DPRK.”