Observing and starking contrasts architectures of different cities and capturing different skylines has always been my favorite travel experience. The same, of course applies to Pyongyang–the capital of the mysterious regime of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
When most of us think of skylines, the first thing that pops up in our mind would be the unique and well-renowned scenaric view of Wan Chai and Central from the Victoria Peak of across the Victoria Harbour. The same applies to Pyongyang, but instead of Victoria Harbour, they have Taedong River; instead of Central, they have Mansuedae District; and instead of having a natural high-rise mountain like Victoria Peak to admire the beauty of the skyline from high above, Pyongyang(which directly translates to flat land) has built the Juche Tower to act as a panoramic skytower for stunning bird-eye-view of the cities buildings.
We can get to know more about the country itself from taking a look at its residential buildings. Residential buildings are the place in which locals really live in and observing them will give us a more realistic and down the earth understanding of a place, sometimes more realistic than what media and travel websites tell us. Residential buildings built under the rule of Kim Il Sung are mostly relatively shorter at 5-8 stories high, with different and bright eye-catching colors painted at each different level, like red, yellow and green. On the good side, this enhances the fairytale-like utopia of happiness and joy the regime was trying to create at the beginning of the Kim’s rule not long after the Korean War in the 1950s. However, they fail to impress me and I only felt dizziness and disturbance due to the abuse and improper organization of colors on their walls. And if you think about it, if the DPRK was really the utopia that they were advertising, happiness and joy should be expressed on the face of citizens, instead of artificially, forcefully and unnaturally painting them on building walls.
This starks great contrast to residential buildings built by Kim Jong Un, the current leader. In his era, residential buildings has caught up with the rest of the world, with innovative designs and modern appearance. Glasswalls and light decorations have already become the norm in the newly built residential buildings. When I was in downtown Pyongyang, I was really shocked by how modern the residential buildings look, resembling any major city like Hong Kong and New York. These buildings are tall, with around 20 stories in height, and at night, light decorations illuminate to create a symphony of lights to dazzle visitors. However, I started to feel everything is not that simple. If you thinking deeply, you will start to doubt: why would residential buildings need light decorations on the outer walls? Why are there only a few flats with lights on in these buildings? You will soon realize, that all these dazzling and bustling scenes are only one of the many ways the regime use to impress foreigners. Residential buildings, would not necessarily need light decorations. This is only a trick the government uses to make visitors how busy and bustle the city is, and they are imitating other major cities like London and Paris, which are often illuminated at night. If a building, especially a residential building in which people really live in, has high occupancy, then lights would be lit at most of the flats at night time, which suggests residential buildings of the city has quite a low occupancy rate. Another thing I spotted is that the flats with lights switched on at night are mostly located lower levels of buildings, which suggests that behind the fabulous cover of the buildings with innovative outlooks, residents would like to live at lower levels, probably due to the lack of elevators.
What I would like to bring out is that by observing even the most subtle details, everyone will be able to know more about a place and its people, and most importantly, the truth. For the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, under the cover of dazzling and eye-catching buildings, it seems to me that they are only trying to hide their secrets of poverty and unstable social environment. Just like any other dictatorships, the regime will soon be overthrown if they only contribute efforts on facades instead of winning the hearts of their people by improving their quality of life from the most fundamental level.