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The German magazine Der Spiegel published 3.13 following article about the Geumgangsan ressort, or better one of the S. Korean colonies in the DPRK...

Tourism in North Korea
 
Hyundai's Holiday Gulag

By Wieland Wagner

North Korean wouldn't normally spring to mind as a choice holiday destination. But hundreds of thousands of tourists are flowing into the secretive realm of dictator Kim Jong Il as part of vacations organized by the South Korean conglomerate Hyundai.

As morning sun rises over North Korea's east coast, it bathes Kumgangsan, the Diamond Mountain region, in a fiery red light. Workers emerge from a barracks in the valley, their bodies bundled up against the bitter cold. The only promise of heat comes from a giant propaganda poster that all workers are forced to pass: "Ten thousand lives for General Kim Jong Il, the sun of the 21st century."

A normal day in the realm of the "Dear Leader" begins with strictly adhered to rules that make little sense to outsiders. All workers are permitted to ride their bicycles up to the barracks gate, where they dismount as if on command. After slowly walking past the guard booth, they then push their bikes for another 200 meters along the road -- which has almost no car traffic. Only then do they hop on and begin peddling again.

This odd ritual can be observed from the Kumgang Hotel, a twelve-storey building built decades ago by the Stalinist founder of North Korea Kim Il Sung as a relaxation center for loyal officials. A propaganda painting in front of the building depicting Kim as a benevolent figure surrounded by a swarm of children serves as a reminder that still has a godlike status despite dying twelve years ago. Officially, the father of the country's current leader Kim Jong Il remains president, even in death.

The Kumgang Hotel at first was neglected by the junior dictator. But now it's been restored to its former glory, renovated from the ground up by South Korean firm Hyundai Asan -- to provide adequate accommodation for hordes of tourists from the capitalist south.

Kumgangsan, which Hyundai manages with the permission of the "Dear Leader," has become an extremely popular travel destination for guests from South Korea. 400,000 tourists will arrive this year alone, one-third more than in 2005, says Hyundai executive Kim Young Hyun. Many visitors hope to get a glimpse of the secretive north, a country which still considers the south the enemy. At the same time, the tourists can experience first-hand how quickly the two Koreas are growing together, largely unnoticed by the rest of the world.

Capitalist enclave in the north

What about the small matter of North Korea's controversial nuclear program? Or the economic sanctions imposed by the United States, because the dictator from the north, desperately in need of hard currency, has allegedly been counterfeiting US currency? Judging by the amount of construction going on in Kumgangsan, global concerns over a potential crisis on the Korean peninsula seem to be falling largely on deaf ears here. Indeed, the renovated hotel is only one of many projects with which Hyundai is transforming the region into a blossoming southern enclave.

Behind a green fence, a crane hoists construction materials onto a site destined for a new building that will carry great political symbolism. When completed next year, the building will house a reunification facility for families torn apart by the 1950-1953 Korean War. And in a nearby valley, another project is underway that seems highly out of place in Kim's gulag-like state: Two Buddhist monks from South Korea are supervising the reconstruction of an historic temple that was destroyed in the war.

Hyundai also has plans to open a golf course in Kumgangsan in September. Until now, the bourgeois sport was seen as the height of decadence in this country of workers and farmers. Of course, the Communist proletariat won't exactly visit the facility for fun. Instead, North Korean employees will be mowing the lawns and collecting golf balls for their affluent brothers and sisters from the south. The capitalist enemy can already enjoy an elegant beach hotel, several restaurants and shopping at the local branch of a South Korean supermarket chain.

At first the Kumgangsan tourists were only permitted to pay in US dollars. However, the bankrupt regime in Pyongyang now also accepts the South Korean won. And hard reality has forced Kim to gradually make the once impassible border along the 38th parallel ever more porous. Hyundai operates a second island of capitalism farther to the west, in the Kaesong special industrial zone, an hour's drive from the South Korean capital, Seoul. In Kaesong, 6,000 low-wage North Korean workers assemble basic products -- clothing, cooking pots and cosmetics containers -- for 16 South Korean companies.

Porous border

But the scene at the Goseon border crossing on the east coast illustrates just how much the government in Seoul is betting on reconciliation with the north. Goseon is the port of entry into the north for tourists headed to Kumgangsan. The new processing building, as big as an airport terminal, is clearly designed for growth. Five lanes are already set up for future car traffic between the north and the south, but only one is currently open -- to accommodate Hyundai's tour buses.

Although it takes all of 15 minutes for the South Koreans to reach their destination, the demilitarized zone through which the road passes -- with its mines, electric fences and barbed wire -- makes Kumgangsan seem worlds away. Like cautious vehicles navigating an exotic safari, the South Korean busses roll through this no-man's land on a road bordered by a new railway line. Grim-faced North Korean soldiers are stationed every few hundred meters along the railroad embankment to make sure that the busses don't stray from their prescribed route.

Kumgangsan offers the vacationers a chance to relax in a dreamlike landscape, but also to enjoy a forced respite from the high-tech Western world. When they enter the country, their bags are searched for mobile phones, the evil electronic tools the "Dear Leader" has strictly prohibited. Kim's border guards also relieve the tourists of cameras with powerful zoom lenses, devices for which they would probably have little use, since taking pictures from the busses is also forbidden.

Kumgangsan remains a test zone for North Korea. How far can the first successor to the throne in a Stalinist dynasty open up his country without losing control over what is essentially a giant prison? Kim is unlikely to care much that his paying guests are able to cast curious glances at the miseries of stone-age Communism as they pass through this small slice of North Korea. What they see stands in sharp contrast to life south of the border. Thin oxen pull carts across fields devoid of tractors and farm machinery. Few cars take to roads that Kim's subjects use mainly as footpaths. They are often shared only with the bicycles of the privileged. The windows of many houses are kept sealed against the cold with plastic sheeting, and at night the villages are plunged into darkness for lack of electricity.

The darkness makes the bright lights of Hyundai's vacation paradise -- kept burning by its own power supply -- seem all the more glaring. It's a beacon of South Korean capitalism in the gloomy north. Just over more a thousand carefully chosen North Korean workers have access to the area, which is sealed off like a military facility. But nowhere else in this isolated country, whose citizen inmates are neither permitted to travel freely from one city to the next nor receive foreign television stations, can Koreans of the north and south come into such fascinatingly close contact with one another.

One of the more interesting places where such encounters occur is the karaoke bar on the 12th floor of the Kumgang Hotel. Hwang Sang Yoon, an engineer for a Seoul company that manufactures measuring devices, is sitting with a group of coworkers, clapping enthusiastically to the beat of the music, as one of the young North Korean hostess takes to the microphone. On the back of her red outfit, she wears the obligatory pin displaying a likeness of "eternal" President Kim Il Sung.

As the young entertainer starts singing a politically correct love ballad from the land of the Kims, the excited South Koreans push their way forward and sing along. A lively little party forms, and soon North Koreans and South Koreans are introducing themselves and clinking glasses. But when a few guests begin snapping photos of the waitresses -- that too is strictly prohibited -- the horrified North Korean women step aside to avoid being photographed and the mood suddenly cools down.

Engineer Hwang, undeterred, continues to enjoy the rare rendezvous with the beauties from the north. "We are one Korea," he calls out, raising his glass. The women nod graciously. But Hwang later says that one would be hard-pressed to find South Koreans eager to see a hasty reunification with the bitterly poor north, partly out of concern for their own affluence. It's a sentiment the government of South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun shares. Although Seoul supports Hyundai's projects in the north, it does so mainly to help prevent a collapse of the Kim dynasty.

Development ahead of reunificiation

With a view toward future reunification, the south is developing its Gyeonggi border province and building factories there. Industrial use of the region along the border was practically forbidden for many years, leading to economic decline and depopulation -- a situation not unlike that which once occurred in the former West Germany's border regions with then East Germany. But nowadays new investment is celebrated as a signal of a relaxation of tensions, irrespective of whether the six-nation talks over North Korea's nuclear weapons program will continue or not.

But Seoul is also supporting its ailing neighbor with plenty of direct aid and cooperation. Last year alone, the south shipped 500,000 tons of rice and 350,000 tons of fertilizer to its poor cousin, while generals from the north and south met to avoid border incidents.

South Koreans are finding it more and more difficult to understand that the United States, the country's most important ally, continues to count Kim's realm as part of its so-called "Axis of Evil." The majority of the population no longer has any personal connection to the Korean War and many South Koreans see little reason to hate the still very unpredictable regime in the north these days. According to recent opinion polls, almost half of South Koreans between the ages of 17 and 23 say that their country should stand behind North Korea if the United States were to attack Pyongyang.

All of this encourages Hyundai to continue expanding its vacation enclaves. Kim Young Hyun, manager of the company's Kumgangsan facility, points enthusiastically at the steep cliffs behind the resort: "Our next project is to develop the inland mountains for vacationers." The company plans to attract ambitious hikers and climbers to the resort with a challenging series of mountain hiking trails.

Hyundai's efforts

The people at Hyundai have devoted their plans to the memory of company founder Chung Ju Yung. In 1998, the patriotic Chung, now deceased, crossed the border into North Korea with an aid shipment of 1,001 cows. In spectacular meetings with dictator Kim, Chung's visit then set the stage for joint projects now being realized.

The company also funneled secret payments to the north, money with which former South Korean President Kim Dae Jung essentially bought his way into a legendary June 2000 summit with Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang. When the deal came to light, the head of Hyundai Asan, Chung's son Mong Hun, jumped to his death from the company's Seoul headquarters in August 2003. His widow, Hyun Jeong Eun, has continued her husband's efforts to achieve reconciliation. But although she was given an audience with the "Dear Leader" last July, Hyun soon discovered just how unpredictable doing business with North Korea can be.

When Hyundai fired its key contact to the North Korean regime, a deputy CEO who was accused of embezzling $700,000, the tyrannical Kim took his revenge on the company by temporarily reducing Kumgangsan's daily tourist quota to 600 visitors. He also offered a South Korean competitor the opportunity to take over Hyundai's business, but the company declined. And so Hyundai continues its ventures north of the 38th parallel. According to executive Kim Young Hyun, the company has already turned its first profits with its vacation trips to the north. But, he adds, profits aren't nearly as important as contributing to peace on the divided peninsula.

Hyundai chairwoman Hyun Jeong Eun agrees. When she visited Kumgangsan last year, Hyun's purse was searched by North Korean border guards, who treated her as if she were nothing but an ordinary tourist. But despite this humiliation, Hyun later said, there was only one thing on her mind: "I will not give up."