Communist Nation

This is one of my favorite posts, and this should be added again today.

Original Post: As North Korea watchers know, the Kumsusan Memorial Palace is probably the most sacred place in the DPRK next to the Juche Tower and Kim Il Sung’s massive statue. I have seen many pictures of the outside of the palace, and some documentaries show some parts of it on the inside. From what I understand, filming inside the palace is strictly forbidden, but I have seen some glimpses of the Great Leader’s body lie in state.

Looking around Google, little information can be found as to when the palace was built, what is inside and who is allowed in when. From what I gather, citizens are carted from all over the country to see the palace, but where they go or to where they are allowed to go is beyond my knowledge. However, I have gathered some bits and pieces of information regarding it.

This page shows part of the inside, but I do not know if I can reproduce the pictures here because the copyright status is unknown. Therefore, readers are free to look at them. It shows Kim Il Sung’s many awards and gifts, his car and his rail car. The pictures are really small so not a lot of detail can be seen.

Another page gives some detail of what it is like inside the palace:

When in North Korea, foreign visitors will usually be asked to pay homage to the Great Leader President Kim Il Sung. This will usually be done at the Kumsusan Memorial Palace where Kim Il Sung’s body is embalmed in a glass coffin, but many homages are also made at the enormous bronze statue of Kim Il Sung outside the Korean Revolution Museum. As it is not permitted to take pictures inside the palace, I can only post this picture of the statue at the museum. You can see how large the statue is from the group of people walking back after laying a wreath.

Visiting the Kumsusan Memorial Palace to pay homage to Kim Il Sung is quite an experience. Entry is through a long passageway which has the longest travelator [what is that? Answered in the comment. Thanks.] that I have seen in my life. I was advised by my guides that it was installed at the initiative of the Great Leader General Kim Jung Il so that visitors would not get tired when walking to the palace. “The great leader is always thinking of the comfort of his people”, one of my guides said. At the end of the passageway, visitors have to step on a slowly-moving conveyor belt that takes them through an x-ray machine which is like a giant version of the machines that x-ray baggage at airports (heavens know how many millirems of radiation I received) and then through a room where powerful jets of air are directed on your body (maybe that’s to blow the germs off that have been killed by the x-rays). If you are a female visitor, I recommend you do not bother getting your hair done before the visit, because there won’t be anything left of your hairdo when you emerge from the blower room.

A giant X_Ray? A blower? What in the world are those there for? Perhaps security or to ensure sterility as the author suggests? That is very odd indeed.

Then you enter the palace proper, and walk the length of a very large hall, at the end of which there is a statue of Kim Il Sung, a little smaller than the one outside the Revolutionary Museum, against a beautifully lit pastel coloured backdrop, with soft music playing. I was advised that I should pause in front of the statue, and look somber, but not bow at that point. However, my guide said “If you feel it is necessary to wipe a tear from your eye, that is permissible”.

After standing before the statue, visitors are then led into the darkened hall where Kim Il Sung lies in state. The North Koreans have done a great job of embalming their eternal president. He looks like he is just sleeping. As the guards direct the line of visitors to make a complete circuit of the coffin, you are required to bow three times, once on each side and once at the bottom. The hall is very quiet, but you can hear the sounds of some of the women visitors sobbing (not the foreigners, the North Korean women that is) and as you emerge, most of the Korean women will be wiping tears from their eyes.

I have seen a picture of the leader lie in state, but now that I try to find it again, I cannot seem to find it. I know it was a picture of Kim Jong Il and his cronies in front of it. I am sure it was from the funeral.

If anybody has further information on this oddity, let me know, it would be most appreciated.

A comment by Jake:

Thank you for bringing up this wonderful oddity.  I went there on my tour, and was told it was only open Sundays and Thursdays.  We were told to wear a nice shirt and tie with no jeans.  When we arrived, we were told to empty our pockets of absolutely *everything*— even little bits of paper or whatever else would be in our pockets.

http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=1474499424&context=set-72157602244590361&size=l

We were firmly instructed to please be on our best behaviour, as there will be many people watching us, including soldiers.  When we got in we stepped onto the moving “travelator”, that went incredibly slow, yet we weren’t able to walk.  We had to let it take us for what seemed like over 1km.  Out the windows of the building I saw a pond in the distance with swans, but upon inspection I found that they seemed to be fake, as they swam in slow, circular motions but never moved their necks or anything else.  Bizarre.

We went through the X-Ray room which is, like was mentioned, resembling a giant airport security room.  They patted us down and had a wand to look for metal.  Then we went onto a platform that automatically scrubbed the bottoms of our shoes.  Afterward, we went into the giant wind tunnel which we were told was for removing our dandruff.  It seemed to do little more than mess up all of our hair.

We were taken to the room you can see in one of those pictures, where there were photos of Kim Il Sung meeting with every communist dictator you can imagine– Castro, Mao, etc.  There were also literally thousands of awards and honorary doctorates he’d received from various countries.

We were given headphones with automatic English narration for the exhibits– just like the ones at the nice museums.  When we entered the room with the huge statue of KIS, it was pretty amazing the way the walls had this pink and blue gradient hue.  It was very surreal, and with the sad ethereal music and the voice narration telling us that Kim is the son of man, etc. etc.  It was hard not to be amazed, regardless of your level of cynicism.

Then we gave the headphones back and entered the room with the body of KIS.  He looked almost like wax, but I heard it’s his actual body.  We all lined up in groups of 3 and bowed at 3 points of his body, but not at his head for some reason.  Some of us didn’t know and bowed at 4 points.  I’m sure the guards with the machine guns were thinking we were idiots, but everyone was pretty somber.

We then entered the room that showed his car and his train car, as you could see from the pictures in the link.  There was this giant map on the wall with lights showing all the routes the great leader took, with a tally of the amount of  kms he traveled (I didn’t remember the number, but it was quite large).

Finally we took the travelator back to the exit, for another 20 or so minutes of slow moving.  I imagine this is a time for the Koreans to reflect on how great the perception of the leader is.  The whole way on the travelator we saw hundreds of soldiers and women all done up in their Sunday best passing us by.  Little to none of them made eye contact with us, which is not unusual for the North Koreans.

I would have done *anything* to be able to sneak a camera in there.  It’s really very remarkable and bizarre, and one can only see the full weirdness of it when they go in person.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Tags: North Korean Oddities