The “hermit kingdom” of North Korea, which is essentially a cult masquerading as a country, is one of the creepiest and most inhumane places on Earth. Wendy Simmons chose to go there, though, and shares her frustrating, confusing, and soul-troubling observations here. The Kim-cult is not an area where tourists can go around willy-nilly: instead, they are assigned handlers who schedule every moment of their day except those hours they’re in their dingy hotel rooms. This is less of a tourist experience, then, and more of a show conducted for a captive audience, presenting a very specific version of the country to outside visitors — one that fails to impress Simmons on any account, aside from being deeply weird.
My Holiday is Simmons memoir of her week spent in “NoKo” as she styles it, being shephereded from place to place and given either strange and prolonged lectures on the Greatness of the Dear Leader (who is still in charge of the country despite being dead), or the evils inflicted upon NoKo by The American Imperialists. (Simmons reports that some guides smiled apologetically after referring to her as an American Imperialist, but not many.) She’s taken to various museums or exhibit halls where the featured items often baffle her, especially a museum displaying gifts given to the Korean dictators from other dictators or global potentates. Some of is random crap, others artifacts like elephant tusks that horrify her. As with James Franco’s character in The Interview, she’s being shown a specific version of the country, but despite NoKo trying to put on its best foot to awe visitors, Simmons is usually underwhelmed. A library that supposedly has all the world’s records in it, for instance, has a viewing room that consisted of 1980s boomboxes and bootleg cassette tapes. (Amusingly, the Interview shenanigans break out while Simmons is in-country.) What is impressive is how creepy NoKo is at putting on displays: when a trip to a factory is cancelled, the guides announce that there is now time to watch a football game: as Simmons endures the match, she’s creeped out to see crowds of Koreans marching in and then suddenly becoming rowdy spectators at the match, like it was a part they were playing: some vast performance being put on for the benefit of Simmons and a few other visitors.The marching Koreans becomes something Simmons gets used to: performance and pretense are a huge part of the experience, from schools to factories.
Although this is a constantly funny book — with humor coming from both the NoKo’s absurd behavior and Simmons’ bafflement — there’s also sadness and anger here. Simmons is more than ready to escape North Korea, worn down by the frustration of dealing with its weirdness and its guides whose humanity keeps trying to break through the programming but is always pushed back down into robot-land.
Related:
Korea Reborn, a history of the Korean War and a celebration of the friendship between Seoul and DC.
Reading Freely 
I’ve never quite understood the West’s obsession with North Korea. Is it because Soviet Russia isn’t around any more?
Bozhe moi! Soviet Russia isn’t around any more? Why are we spending even more money to ‘modernize’ our ability to destroy the world multiple times?
….seriously, DC, why? We can commit planetcide just fine with 1970s tech.
If I had to guess, DC’s obsession with North Korea is wrapped up with its desire to keep South Korea and Japan happy — same reason DC and Iran exist in enmity, only there it’s keeping the Israelis and Sauds happy.
The NK thing does seem to much more of an American phenomena than anyone else’s Maybe its a lingering hangover from the Korean War?
The US stance on Iran definitely seems to be driven by the Israeli agenda more than anything else. Where is the US interest in a destabilised Middle East? Israel’s interests are *obvious*… but America’s….??
America has no interests there. DC is different. DC has been involved in central Asia since at least WW2. I’m guessing it has to do with control (or the idea of control) over vital resources like oil. Israel, despite its perfidy as an ally (it’s better than Pakistan, but…that’s not a high mark), is viewed as a way to project DC’s force when “needed” in the region. Nevermind that its intrusions have created more problems (i.e. ISIS) than they’ve solved. The amusing thing is that until the collapse of Syria to non-Iran aligned forces, DC’s “war on terror” had been tremendously helpful to Iran’s mullahs in disposing of its chief Sunni rivals (Saddam & the Taliban). 2025 will be an interesting year in the region.
‘DC’ is just your capital. Its still America. Treating it as ‘different’ doesn’t help understanding why things happen the way they do. ‘DC’ is populated by Americans who have been elected by Americans. If ‘DC’ was constantly doing things that most Americans disapproved of then those politicians who were obviously acting against the wishes of their electorate would be out on their ears wouldn’t they? Especially if this opposition to what Americans wanted them to do has been going on for decades or longer… To say that ‘DC’ is operating against American interests or even independently of American interests makes very little sense to me….
I understand the control of oil concept for American and Western activities in the Middle East. Ironically (or maybe not) such activities haven’t exactly made the extraction of oil that much easier. Maybe the West should have just done what the Chinese are doing with their Belt & Road programme and built up the Middle East’s infrastructure etc in return for oil access. Would’ve been a LOT cheaper in many ways.
I really think that Israel is the tail wagging the dog here. They want (and have all too often achieved) America to fight their wars for them, or at the very least *fund* them! How much US money is POURED into Israeli coffers on a yearly basis? Its Israel who wants the US to attack Iran to removed another ‘enemy’ from the board. Attacking Iran doesn’t serve American interests so why do it? As to Israel being an ally… Why? Where is the advantage? I don’t understand it….
DC is not a capital: it is the beast, the machine, the savage state that wears the skin of the old republic like some deranged cannibal. Congress has had dismal approval ratings most of the last 20 years, but most of them get elected time and again. Politicians run on issues the voters say are important to them, but once in office do something different, even directly contradictory. By election time, this is forgotten about because the Other Guy is sold as so much worse, OR because the voters are cozened on some other issue. I voted straight-line Democrat in 2006 because I believed they were the anti-war party, only to see Obama voting FOR the patriot act as soon as he became the junior senator. I was so disgusted I refused to vote for him in ’08, realizing there was no real backbone to his stance against the military-police-surveillance state. Sure enough, he was consistent in his hypocrisy — adding three new interventions while continuing in Bush’s, and what happened to the antiwar left? It was like they never existed, and today the dems are MORE bellicose than the Republicans! (There is a reason I harbor a particular bitterness towards them, whereas I EXPECT the neocons to be rotten and stupid on war.)
As far as belt and road – authoritarian China has the advantage of not being accountable to anyone, so they can engage in decades-long enterprises across the world without fear of funding being removed by subsequent congresses, new executives, etc. Look at what happened with the Iran deal – Obama signs it, Trump cancels it, and why would Tehran sign another one if another Iran hawk can go into office and disrupt it unilaterally and immediately? There’s also the fact that the military-industrial complex is now baked in to American politics. War industry creates jobs, and voters want jobs, and the consequences are usually fast enough that the vote-chasing politicians can benefit from them.
Israel is an absurd albatross about DC’s neck. Not only does it give them money, but it gives Eypt and other countries money to be nice to Israel. At this point I’m rooting for the entire region to be swallowed up by the Med.
I just finished yersterday a memoir in graphic-novel format, and I find so many similar elements as what you descrie here. I guess any all foreigners are taken to the same place. And yes, humor and sadness.
The book I finished is called Pyonguang: A Journey in North Korea, by Guy Delisle.
He stayed there for two months on a work visa for a French film animation company. Really good too