26 February 2008

Don't Eat the Crabs



The Hermit Crab Kingdom of North Korea opened up the airport to accept four hundred-odd Americans yesterday. The New York Philharmonic had been invited to town, part of the bizarre diplomatic game that we play with the leaders in the North.

I can tell you precisely what they saw, since there are only so many things available, besides the scenery. The North is lovely enough, though stark. Many of the man-made sites are best seen from the windshield, since getting too close enables you to see what they actually are.

The North is much better at the show-piece aspect of the thing. It is more than a little bit like the childhood dream that we are supposed to outgrow, the one in which you become convinced that there is no objective reality, and that the world and all in it are props, quickly set up and knocked down as you move, seemingly of your own free will, through the movie.

It is a strikingly universal delusion, I am told, and there are places where it is actually true.

They say this is the largest single contingent of Americans to visit the North since the Korean War, which is technically still in progress. It is certainly much larger than the crew of the USS Pueblo, who stayed for nearly a year in less palatial accommodations, though I would argue that the 8,000 Americans missing in action from the conflict constitute one of the larger non-indigenous populations.

That matter was the ostensible reason for the visit, though it was of course about something else. The North did not care about their missing in the South, and were interested in nuclear issues and additional food aid. In view of the difficulty in searching for the missing, they placed a price tag of about $1 million per set of American remains, which we considered exorbitant.

After all, we had buried many of the lost ourselves, before we were driven south, and most of the rest were starved in captivity. The North knew precisely where they had buried them.

The highlight of the current visit, aside from the obvious cultural benefits to the locals who got to see the event on the television, was the big banquet. There is not a lot of new content on North Korean television otherwise, since they feature mostly imaginary reality shows.

Part of the Potemkin Village aspect of visits to the North is the pretend aspect of fine dining. We stayed at the Presidential Guest Palace when we were there, and the DPRK government was kind enough to have the staff cater a dinner for us each night at the residence, there really being no where else to go.

The food was traditional, for the most part, and quite abundant and tasty.

The Congressman who was leading the delegation had a waggish sense of humor, and he disliked the enforced isolation of the palace. He insisted that we go out to a restaurant, and after some shuffling and disappearance of one of our minders, we were informed that we were going out.

The three Mercedes sedans that were used to transport us around had the German hood-ornament removed and replaced with the star from the North Korean flag, since we were supposed to believe that the cars were built right there.

We were whisked across the broad boulevards of the silent city, and deposited at a small building distinctive by the light that emanated from the door. The place was filled with prosperous-looking family groups seated on Japanese-style tatami mats, and dining from low tables.

We had a fine dinner, with cold Pyongyang noodles and spicy shredded meat. We had a good time, and the soju, a saki-like wine, flowed freely.

I wondered, sitting with Calvin the Congressional Staffer in the back of the red sedan, whether the place had been real, filled with party apparatchiks, or a movie set. There was no way to tell.

The last night in town featured a real banquet at the palace, with the North's Ambassador to the United Nations hosting. It featured crabs, harvested from the fertile coastal plane.

I don't know where they put all the people from the Philharmonic; the impressive hundred-story hotel in the middle of town never opened, since the elevators did not work.

Maybe there are enough rooms in the lower two floors to accommodate the overflow, and the journalists and patrons who paid as much as a $100,000 to accompany the orchestra could have been housed in the country estate where the Congressman had been held the first time he visited.

The reports are that the banquet for the visitors went on endlessly, and featured all manner of delicacies, including quail eggs and plenty of fiery kimchi.

When they choose to serve it, the food is pretty good. The problem had was with the crabs, which filter seawater when they are alive.

I got the worst case of food poisoning from the crabs. It was almost beyond imagination, though I have a fertile one, and hope that the Philharmonic stayed away from the seafood.

It is a long flight back.

Copyright 2008 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

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