Holiday in Pyongyang

Travel Blog • Jim Benning • 01.27.03 | 10:56 AM ET

New York fiction writer Suki Kim traveled to North Korea last year during celebrations marking the 60th birthday of Great Leader Kim Jong Il, and she offers a fascinating account in the Feb. 13 New York Review of Books. Her story covers a lot of ground, including the not-so-festive flight from Beijing to Pyongyang aboard North Korea’s national airline.
“Upon boarding the aircraft, I was immediately struck by the martial music, the sort that would be played at a military procession,” she writes. “It soon drifted into a melodic song about the Great Leader, Kim Jong Il. The stewardesses in navy-blue suits and white blouses and gloves were in their early twenties and uniformly pleasant-looking. What struck me about them, other than the Kim Il Sung badges across their chests, was that they did not smile.”