The Monsoon Diaries assumes ZERO and NO responsibility for you, your well-being and/or your safety if you attempt any of what we did below when visiting North Korea. The rules and oversight have changed since we visited, so the consequences of your actions may differ from what happened to us.
Therefore, the risks that you choose to take while in North Korea are of your own accord and we thus take no responsibility for whatever consequences that befall you if you are to be caught and persecuted by the government of the Democratic People’s Republic Of Korea.
Welcome To The 5th Floor (shot by Justin Bussies):
That said, when we noticed that elevator buttons skipped the 5th floor of our North Korean hotel in Pyongyang, or that if you google “Yanggakdo Hotel” it auto-fills it to “Yanggakdo Hotel Floor 5”, we knew something was up.
So we went there.
What's missing in this picture?
On the last night of the trip with nothing else to do but sit around, drink, or go to sleep, we decided to explore the entirety of the hotel given that we had called it home the past week.
I remember this photo was taken in between our countless trips that night, where we reconvened in my room, had a drink, and debated whether to go for another round.
So whether from the basement casino to the rooftop restaurant, we explored in groups and never alone. On one of those trips we decided to check out each of the hotel’s floor starting from the bottom by way of stairwell.
From the 4th floor one of us thought he had heard some screaming as we approached the stairs to the 5th floor…err…yeahh….so we decided to skip that and head down from the 6th floor instead.
Either way you do it, you can count and you’ll get to where ever you’re supposed to go.
For the record, there is NO sign anywhere that even suggests you are trespassing, let alone some kind of lock contraption or mechanism that suggests this was an area where a random person shouldn’t not be allowed to wander. We saw an open door, and we walked in.
Reaching the 5th floor
Most doors are locked, but only one we supposed had any real significance as it looked like a “communications room.”
We saw a pair of shoes outside.
And then there are the weird propaganda posters that adorn the walls. Because the floor is dark and empty, the posters seemed to be screaming at us to listen.
Too bad none of us could read Korean.
Translation: "Our General is the best."
Translation: "We miss our Father, the General."
Translation on the left side: “military first politics” Bottom two words: “leadership.” Right side: “powerful nation”
Translation: "The 21st century is the age of information (communications) industry"
Umm...
Translation: "Let’s prepare thoroughly in order to defeat the invaders" (Red); "“The Japanese invaders slaughtered innocent, law-abiding citizens” (blue); "1,000,000 slaughtered/killed; 6,000,000 forced arrests; 2,000,000 sex slaves"
This one was the creepiest. Translation: "This bomb is the product of the Americans. Every product of the Americans is our enemy. Get revenge a thousand hundred times against the Americans."
We reached the end here.
Getting Caught?
Nobody got in trouble because whomever gets “caught” is assumed to be lost and shown to the elevators. Not a single person in our group who was approached by local staff was escorted back to their room; they were simply just shown where the elevators were.
Besides, we had been informed that any sort of actual action against you would infer the admission that the 5th floor exists. And nobody wants that, right? So some others in the group returned 5 more times to check out more, hoping that a door would be unlocked and another staircase could be revealed.
And for the record nobody in our group had to write letters of apology to the government, give up their cameras for inspection, or had their photos reviewed/deleted upon leaving North Korea the next morning. In fact they shook our hands and some tried to awkwardly give us a hug goodbye.
Other Accounts
Here are eyewitness accounts from other excursions in my group who ventured the next day:
. . . We decided to check out the missing floor by the stairs as there simply had to be something to it. Esshie was somewhat concerned that we might be caught and then permitted by the authorities to make true our dreams of staying permanently in the DPRK. No such luck though—we made it back without incident. Well, that’s to say we weren’t caught. What we did find was very interesting indeed.
First, the 5th floor is unlike any floor of the hotel, it is all concrete, like a bunker, complete with steel doors. There are no decorations of any kind; instead there are propaganda posters. At that time all the strange doors were shut tight, but we were still able to stumble upon the most intriguing of all: in a corner there was a large pile of what appeared to be miniature cameras, as if awaiting repair. We saw desks with screens and monitoring equipment, the space was still in the Cold War when tensions were higher.
Another account by another travel blogger:
Cameras, lots of them, and well enough for each room of the hotel. I don’t think I need to spell it out for you, word for word anyway. Oh, and another member of our group reported that when he went at a different time one door was open and there appeared to be official-looking men before computers or machines of some kind and listening to something with headphones. Add it up and its chills down the spine. – Another Travel Blog
Here’s another account by a few friends in my group who went with us and then attempted another run on the 5th floor a few days later, this time trying to find the hidden “floor within a floor.”
Yes, there is now evidence of a second floor within the 5th floor, which explains for the very very low ceilings when we explored the 5th floor 2 weeks ago.
[Friend 1] asked [Friend 2] to show the door that would lead up to the second floor of the fifth floor, so that we could try to go up there eventually. So they both went up and [Friend 2] tried to open it bit it seemed like it was locked. Suddenly they heard footsteps from behind the door.
They made a run for the normal stairs and decided to split, one going up one going down. The guard followed [Friend 2] upstairs but decided not to get him in the end. So it’s still a cliffhanger, but the hidden floor on the fifth floor is more or less confirmed.
Another account:
There was one door that opened up into a concrete wall. You could go left or right, but not ahead. Another door was simply walled off. I then went up a hidden flight of stairs behind a third door to reach another floor.
On that floor, there was a room with a sign above it that read: “The Tailors.” I also peeked inside a giant “Paintings Room” filled from floor to ceiling with propaganda paintings about Kim Il-Sung and North Korea.
One of the theories of what the 5th floor is:
The North Koreans have this contingency plan where if war ever broke out, they would move all their art, posters, paintings, and sculptures into a safe area and lock it away until the end of the war.
That way, the ideology of Kim Il-Sung would be preserved in places like the 5th floor.
Another analysis:
So the only poster I saw that specifically mentioned America was the last poster with the white haired person in it. That poster refers to Americans as “승냥,” which different Koreans have said describes kind of a man eating wolf or a puma-like creature. Whatever a “seung nyang” (romanized pronunciation) actually is, the word is not your typical insult or cuss word. It’s used to express a deep hatred, fear, and mistrust of whoever it is directed to.
I did a little bit of research on that particular poster, and apparently the white haired figure has been used in other locations as well, and the revenge that the poster wants is apparently for a bombing by Americans of innocent men, women and children of North Korea. I’m not sure what bombing they are talking about, or whether it is a specific attack or just atrocities by American in general, or even if what they are talking about is true or not. But clearly, the poster is informing the viewer that America is evil, not to be trusted, and that a “hundred, thousand times” revenge against Americans is not only justified, but necessary.
As to what the fifth floor might really mean, I read the updated entry and “secret hiding spot” sounds like a good guess. I’m pretty sure without even having been there that it is a “communications” floor aka where they listen to your phone conversations and walls, etc. In all honesty, I’m not surprised that there are propaganda posters on the fifth floor, because if it’s where people “employed” by the North Korean government are working, then it only makes sense that they would be given reminders of what they are working for. What I am a little bit surprised about is how easy it was to get in and see things and how obvious it was.
Secrecy in North Korea seems to mean more “don’t talk about it, pretend its not there” than actually trying to hide it. The idea seems to be more that the government doesn’t care if people know, as long as they are too scared to say anything. If I was running a dictatorship based on lies and fear, I would probably build narrow hallways and offices between the outer walls and the rooms, rather than devote an entire floor to it.
I guess this was a subconscious response for assigning two spies in our group during our trip (they were posing as 2 out of 4 of our guides), who inadvertently admitted their identities when we watched them get drunk on our last night together. It was also made obvious when they kept asking the Americans very misplaced and inappropriately pointed questions during the whole trip (“Michael Jackson died of AIDS didn’t he? Is everything in America burning to the ground like in the TV Show COPS?”).
My friend and I did beat both of them at a game of pool (they had challenged us first: “Let’s play pool! We Koreans vs. the world!”) on our last night together, but this is different.
And there you have it: our trip being so over the top, it reaches another kind of alternate reality on the 5th floor. I can’t imagine a better way to end my trip, let alone do it with a cadre of a great group of friends. But if anybody can read Korean, please tell me what all the posters are saying.
Thanks for the memories, Pyongyang:
Pyongyang at night.
Team Awesome and friends.
Update – 3 Days Later
So 3 days later and I’m still alive back in NYC. Whether it’s because they’ve decided that I wouldn’t be too much of a threat or because they actually might have liked me, I’m still breathing.
Since being back, I’ve been asked by a lot of friends how the North Koreans took to me identifying myself as an American but having Chinese blood. When I think back on it, I feel like my North Korean guides considered me as one of their Chinese allies/brothers who had been “brainwashed by the imperialist Americans.” Therefore, I was given a somewhat higher advantage in establishing a sort of camaraderie with the North Koreans. Whether my life has been spared (for now) has anything to do with this despite the stunts I’ve pulled, I can only wonder.
Want to travel with us on another adventure? Join us on our trips! It’s now been over 10 years since this was first posted and we’re now at 190 countries & territories!
The Reunification Arch just got served.
- At time of posting in Pyongyang, it was 26 °C -
Humidity: 65% | Wind Speed: 3km/hr | Cloud Cover: cloudy
They must really have something against us foreigners. Possible evidence of phone tapping in our hotel room:
Do you really need these many wires to work 1 analog phone?
But really, the level of self-love North Korea displays is greater than the more subtle aspects of the Burmese newspaper. Where in Myanmar I only saw it in its printed press, in North Korea it’s everywhere (and shameless), including its calendars:
"Welcome home, comrade."
"Freedom of the press!"
Its weekly magazines are filled with praise for its leaders and pictures of its “invincible army” (according to its captions).
There is also heaps of praise for the working people, especially this article which profiles a mine where all its workers happened to be born in 1975. It suggests that such boundless luck certainly signals good auspices for the future of the North Korean economy. I suppose this stuff could be inspiring.
There’s also the bookstores, which instead of sections like “Fiction”, “Nonfiction”, “Sci-Fi/Fantasy”, “Travel”, you’ll get “Kim-Il Sung” and “everything else.”
To give them credit, the zeal required to maintain such love for country can produce pretty impressive metalwork and sculptures:
There’s also the “War Museum” which nickname is “everything that’s awesome about our army, and how we’re better than the USA.”
I have big issues with revisionist history. There are at least 2 sides to every story and us Americans have our fair share of owning up to the many mistakes our military has made in previous wars. However, at the same time we aren’t shy at making at least some of that information public. If NATO or the U.S. accidentally misses its target and bombs an innocent family, it’s on our newsfeed. If American bad apples screw up at Guantanamo Bay or Abu Gharib, it’s scandal that’s all over our consciousness. But according to North Korea, they never have done or will do anything wrong. But really? I believe there is no such thing as a perfect human being, a perfect army, or perfect country. So if you really want us to believe your superiority, then you can start by also admitting your mistakes.
At their museums, South Korea claims they were invaded first by the North Koreans in the Korean War. At a very very similar counterpart DPRK museum, however, North Korea claims that the war started when the DPRK was invaded by the United States, after which they “annihilated the invaders” and repelled them as far as the Pusan Perimeter (a small stretch of land in Southern Korea). However, the story continues when they were counter-attacked and therefore had to retreat to the 38th parallel to help save themselves and other innocent Koreans. Nowhere once do they mention that they were helped by the Chinese or the Soviets, or that the counter-attack was in the interests of the United Nations. It was simply: “The war started because the imperialist United States invaded us first and we repelled them to as far as the Pusan perimeter. Had they not gotten their crony Western mercenaries from other countries to help them after, we would’ve annihilated all of them. Oh, and China and the USSR? Who are they?”
And the fact that many North Korean soldiers defected to/wanted to stay in South Korea after the Korean war? Definitely no mention of that at the museum.
Dramatic portrayal of captured USA military equipment
"The defeat of the USA."
Captured US warplane.
The confession letter of the captain of the captured U.S.S. Pueblo
Confession Letter of a captured American pilot
But then again, what did you really expect?
- At time of posting in NYC, it was 23 °C -
Humidity: 83% | Wind Speed: 11km/hr | Cloud Cover: Mostly cloudy
Live in a gray city for long enough, and it shows on your face.
They are unaccustomed to your presence. Their heads hang low, and smiles are rare. They walk around you without making eye contact, but every now and then you may catch someone sneaking a look. You can feel them asking silent questions, but not enough confidence exist for those questions to materialize. You are left wondering at what they could be thinking, but you know that even an attempt to converse with them would be met with embarrassed silence. Only the children retain any sort of innocent curiosity to say a few words or wave hello. Otherwise, you are left with only your tour guides to get any sense of what the people are like.
There is a rule in North Korea that you are not allowed to talk to the locals. This rule was never enforced on our trip, but that’s because the people in charge know that the locals won’t bother talking to foreigners in the first place.
Compare Bengali curiosity:
Bangladesh.
…with North Korea’s (notice the color differences too):
North Korea.
Children aiming slingshots at us.
- At time of posting in NYC, it was 23 °C -
Humidity: 83% | Wind Speed: 11km/hr | Cloud Cover: Mostly cloudy
The DMZ. Former president Bill Clinton had named it the “scariest place on Earth.” It is the most heavily militarized border in the world, with over a million soldiers ready to go to war at a moment’s notice if either side dared to cross the 38th parallel.
While you’ll probably see many of your friends’ photos from the South Korean side of the DMZ (South Korea is about as easy to get in for Americans as it is to check into London), the opposite isn’t as true. If only a few hundred foreign tourists are allowed to see Arirang each year, even fewer get the “privilege” of visiting the De-Militarized Zone.
But to get there, you’ll have to stop by eeriely deserted Kaesong, which is about the closest to civilization you can get from the North Korean side of the DMZ. Kaesong, where you’re living literally at the doorstep of war.
About a few km drive south of Kaesong (about a 20min driver), you’ll reach the edges of Panmunjom, which is an abandoned village located in the DMZ. Soldiers will stop your vehicle and force you to get out.
The actual de-militarized zone: farmland where a few villagers actually have rights to live on.
They’ll take you inside a gift shop, which happens to double as a tourist briefing room. There the North Koreans give their own account of how the DMZ came to be. We got assigned to a unsmiling DPRK army officer, who spoke on behalf of the military in expressing his desire for reunification. However, he would blame “foreign powers” (namely the United States) for causing the schism between the two regions.
The Korean pennisula.
Map of the Joint Security Area
Then you line up in rows of 2 and begin your walk into No Man’s Land.
At the edge of the joint security area
Walking through no-man's land.
They’ll take you inside two buildings: the first was the meeting place between the United Nations and North Korea where our officer would describe how “angry” the Americans were when they agreed to the terms of the “armistice of surrender” to the North Koreans. The second is where the actual signing ceremony took place; where (again, according to the North Koreans) the Americans were so “shamed” that they brought a United Nations flag instead of an American flag and left it there in haste after signing.
Where the armistice of the Korean War was signed.
Then we were marched once again, this time to the actual Joint Security Area of the DMZ.
The South Koreans
The North Koreans
Changing of the guards
Then something sketchy occurred; with not even 10 minutes at the JSA, our North Korean tour group quickly rushed us to the exit saying that “the Americans locked the doors to the building on the other side. You must leave.” This cut part of our tour short and we wondered what kind of B.S. was causing the North Koreans to be so uppity about our being there. We then saw some of our North Korean guides giggling as this was happening. We still don’t know what was going on.
So I ran in and did what I had to do.
- At time of posting in NYC, it was 22 °C -
Humidity: 85% | Wind Speed: 21km/hr | Cloud Cover: cloudy
As I said in the last entry, this is the greatest show on earth. Not only does it hold the Guinness Book of World Records title for world’s largest show, but it is also performed in the world’s largest stadium and features 100,000 performers who have all committed their lives to Arirang. Performers are recruited as early as 5 years old.
In comparison, the already impressive Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics opening ceremony featured a “mere” 15,000 performers. So think of Arirang as the Beijing 2008 Olympics Opening Ceremony on acid/crack/steroids/[insert stimulant drug of choice here].
The shows began in 2002, and only since 2008 has it allowed foreign tourists to attend. Consider yourself one of the lucky .0001% of the foreign world if you ever have the privilege of seeing this with your own bare eyes. Only a few hundred non-Chinese foreigners are allowed to see Arirang each year.
The world's largest stadium
Got my golden ticket for 80 euros!
Outdoor commotion
Approaching the entrance.
100,000 performers assemble in formation
The performance begins with a rousing rally seemingly meant to intimidate: the famous North Korean card stunt performed by 30,000 highly disciplined schoolchildren holding colored cards. Crazy. Ridiculous. and again: Intimidating.
A closer look
In the middle of a card change.
We begin with the first act:
The rising sun is meant to symbolize Kim Il-Sung, the Eternal President of North Korea:
Conflict.
Ridiculous choreography with red flags:
We then enter the winter portion of the act, which usually represents difficult times for North Korea. For me it was when everything was blue and beautiful:
Winter blues
Little kids join the fray. No age is too young to be apart of Arirang:
Afterwards, the older, more experienced gymnasts take the stage:
We head into the bizarre animal kingdom act:
Then the older, creme de la creme of the gymnasts arrive:
It's winter again. The warm house is North Korea, of course.
One of the few moments of the show where the act focuses on a single person.
An act on the DRPK's support for North Korea & South Korea reunification.
And then an act on China & North Korea being BFFs
And finally, the final act:
And the most curious photo I took of Arirang was of this:
30,000 schoolchildren from ages 5-13 holding up cards to create a picture of a nuclear explosion. I wonder then, what stance are they taking on nuclear power?
So there you have it, my best photos and videos I took of Arirang. There are hundreds more, but you can take your leisure with them on my photo album and see the rest. If you’re still not convinced, then I’d say you have high standards. Or that you come from another planet.
- At time of posting in New York City, Central Park, it was 20 °C -
Humidity: 92% | Wind Speed: n/a | Cloud Cover: cloudy
The cult of personality. That’s the term giving to folks like Mao, Stalin, Ho Chi Minh, Mussolini, Castro, and Kim Il-Sung. It’s the idea of using mass media and propaganda to fuel the notion that a single human being is a god-like hero, a savior of the nation, and ultimately infallible. Detractors are not taken kindly to.
I would say that given North Korea is still virtually blocked from the outside world, there’s no better retained cult of personality left in the world than that of Kim Il-Sung, the first and “eternal president” of the DPRK.
Kim Il-Sung Palace, outside of the mausoleum.
Imagine walking in a row of 4 people, down a long, giant, empty hall for about a minute towards an immense, over-the-top 20m high statue of Kim Il-Sung. Nationalistic music is triumphantly playing in the background; you feel like you’ve left the alternate universe of North Korea and entered another alternate dimension of Kim Il-Sung Land. Once you reach the very front of the hall, about 3m away from the statue, a North Korean army officer commands you to stare at Kim Il-Sung, give pause for a few seconds and then bow. If your hands are behind your back or inappropriately placed, someone (like your tour guide) will forcibly move them so that they’re properly at your sides.
Afterwards, you make your way to the right where you’re given handsets that is supposed to be an audio guide but rather is a narrated dramatization of the outpouring of grief the North Korean people suffered as you’re forced to look at bronze reliefs that span an entire wall depicting sad people. How they managed to get a chap with a British accent to narrate the dramatization is beyond my understanding.
Then you enter a chamber where giant suction cups on both sides create an inverse wind tunnel so that all the lint and dust are sucked away from your clothes. And at your feet, there are mechanically rolling brushes that scrap away the bottom of your shoes clean.
Finally you enter the mausoleum chamber where you see an embalmed, pickled Kim Il-Sung lying in rest on a pillow, draped with the flag of the Korean Workers Party. You are commanded to stand in rows of 4 to look at Kim Il Sung from all 4 sides and required to bow those 4 separate times before leaving the chamber. Failure to comply may cause an international incident.
No cameras, no laughing, no talking, no smiling and you must dress up. This isn’t Kansas anymore.
The big man on campus.
I will postpone my entry on the Arirang mass games for tomorrow when I return home as there’s a lot of stuff on there that requires more uploading (videos, pictures, etc.). I will give a heads up though, the Arirang Mass Games is quite simply, the greatest show on Earth.
In the meantime, I present to you what I call “lo-fat Arirang”, which is when we were taken to the Children’s Palace.
The Children's Palace
It’s a performing arts school where after morning classes, gifted students head here to perfect their respective artistic talents whether it be various forms of performing arts (drums, violin, ballet, gymnastics, voice, accordions, xylophone, ho-heup, etc.) or visual arts. We visited classroom to classroom where we were given brief performances during their “practice times.”
COMPUTERS?!
After this tour, we were treated to a formal grand finale performance in their main auditorium. Although not quite on the level as Arirang, the performance left us wondering whether these young children were being fed steroids. Every single performer was beyond gifted; they exuded such unreal expressions on their faces that I didn’t know whether to be scared, mesmerized, or both.
This young genius percussionist started rocking the ho-heup drums, then ran to destroy the xylophone, then ran to annihilate the drums.
Consider the above my little preview to the Arirang Mass Games. If you don’t know what Arirang is yet, ponder this: 100,000 performers in the largest stadium in the world, where giant HD-quality pictures you’d find on a giant LED display in the United States are instead replicated by 30,000 children each holding a colored card (what we would call a “card stunt” but more elaborate).
On the floor, 70,000 performers go nuts on some of the craziest and most physical choreography you probably will ever see in your life. You can think of it as the Beijing 2008 Olympics Opening Ceremony on acid. Or you can read more about it here.
My entry on the Arirang Mass Games will go up sometime tomorrow. You wouldn’t want to miss it.
- At time of posting in Abu Dhabi Bateen Airportyang, it was 34 °C -
Humidity: 75% | Wind Speed: 4km/hr | Cloud Cover: n/a
