E-Filler Archives

Just to let everyone know, Sae and I are moving to Korea (the South, not the North) in just under three weeks time.

We'll be teaching English in Seoul (just 50 kilometers south of the DMZ) so I can post some first-hands accounts of any nuclear (or conventional) war we might participate in.

Apparently North Korean soldiers attempted to dig a number of tunnels in the effort to escape the north, and the smudged coal along the walls of the tunnel to make it appear as a coal mine. When they were discovered their strategy failed.

Here is a picture of the place we'll be living, called Sanbon, a satellite city of Seoul located about 30 minutes from the center of the city:

Sorry for the lack up updates...I've been lazy.

Today we're going to take a closer look at Propaganda Village in the DPRK. As I mentioned in a previous post, Kijungdong is situated inside the DMZ. This is the North's only village inside the DMZ (the south has one too) and I think it was constructed after the DMZ was established.

The wierd thing about this village is that it serves no purpose except to look good, and it doesn't even do a good job at that. It only has a care-taker population (that is: people live there, possibly only soldiers, so it looks like people live there). The lights come on and go off at the same time each night and the windows in the buildings do not have glass.

So, you live in Pyongyang; how are you getting to work today? Car? No…there are no cars. Bus? Maybe. How about a bicycle (now that they’re legal within the city)? It’s possible. But most likely you’re going to take The Pyongyang Metro.

But you don’t take just any metro. You’re a government official, you take the secret metro.



While not confirmed (hey, it’s a secret) there is strong evidence to suggest that Pyongyang has a secret metro that’s as long, if not longer that the public one. It’s straight out of a James Bond movie. (Long story short, the basically bought some used subway cars from Germany and the number they bought brings their total to more than double the number required to subway.)

All the subway stations are buried deep under ground (from 22 to 100 meters). Far deeper than what we’re used to in North America. Some connect military installations and it’s though that the tunnels are designed to withstand nuclear strikes (the stations have multiple blast-doors).

One quote from someone who visited the metro:
The fact that the Korean passengers are all very smartly dressed suggests that foreigners’ visits to the Metro are carefully organized.

The following is copy and pasted directly from: http://www.pyongyang-metro.com/

Mammoth Underground Square and Road in Pyongyang

The Pyongyang subway has two generally unknown facilities: a mammoth “underground square” in preparation against war, and an “underground road” between the subway stations, linking the Mount Kumsu Memorial Palace and the Sunan Airport in the suburbs of Pyongyang.

The underground square, built as a bunker command post for the Supreme Command of the People’s Armed Forces and a space for storing manpower and equipment during a war, is located in Anhak-dong, near the Rakwon Subway Station, famous for the Central Zoo at the foot of Mount Taesong. The square is said to be comparable in area to the Kim Il Sung Square, which can accommodate a rally of over 100,000 people.

The underground square is learned to have been constructed by the General Military Engineer Corps of the People’s Armed Forces in the 1970s when the second phase of the Pyongyang subway was built, linking the five stations of Hyoksin, Chonsung, Samhung, Kwangmyong and Rakwon. The command post in the underground square is said to be replete with state-of-the-art communications equipment and billeting facilities, and a host of 10-ton trucks including Soviet-made Zils and Japanese Isuzus are kept in the square to transport troops and arms to be shipped by the subway under an emergency.

The underground road between subway stations connects the late national founder and president Kim Il Sung’s palace and the current Mount Kumsu Memorial Palace, with the Sunan Airport. It was said to have been built in case Kim Il Sung had to be evacuated by plane. The Mount Kumsu Memorial Palace is connected to the Kwangmyong Subway Station. The underground road is said to have been maintained even after the death of president Kim Il Sung in 1994 under the judgment that it can be of use in the event the North Korean military leadership, headed by Kim Jong Il, should need to move to Sunan Airport from the underground square in the case of a war.

In spirit with Dan's "What's wierd about North Korea" series, I thought I'd contribute to the North Korean theme to bring up something often overlooked.

This past winter I saw a film "Dear Pyongyang" at the Hotdocs documentary film festival in Toronto, which was filmed entirely from home footage. Here's a short summary:

"Leaders in the pro-Communist "Zainichi" movement of Korean-born residents in postwar Japan, the Yangs' belief in a unified, socialist Korea remained solid into the 1970s, when they agreed to send their three sons to the North as so-called "returnees" to the homeland. Two of the filmmaker's visits to her brothers are shown here, revealing a happy home life, but a truly dreary Pyongyang. The daughter makes clear that the distant kin have avoided hunger and illness thanks only to Mrs. Yang's generous, regular care packages."


This is a picture of the state liner the Yang family took to North Korea. (Japan no longers allow such passages as part of the new sanctions against the North.)

The recurring theme of the movie was the family's simple inability to legally see one another, despite the three brothers being seperated from their sister and parents. This brought me to recall, at my girlfriends urging that her family too is seperated by the "DMZ", that hundreds of thousands of Koreans have families on each side of the border, unable to see or talk to each other.

Enter Kim Jong-Il.

Becuase of his insanity the international community characterizes North Korea as a "backward" state with some pretty "wierd" public works projects.

When sanctions are applied to North Korea, they will result in the suffering of North Korean people (who incidentally are not backwards or wierd) despite already being forced to live in a state where they are unpaid and starving, and are unable to do a single thing about it.


The film maker and her father.

In today's installment of "What's weird about North Korea" I'll be looking at the petty rivaly going on between the North and the South.

How many times have you asked yourself "I wonder where the world's tallest flag pole is? I mean, that flag pole off the 401, East of London, is pretty big...". It turns out that the flag pole off the 401 is NOT the tallest. The tallest is in...yep, North Korea.


This crown jewel lies in "Propaganda Village" (Kijong-dong) inside the DMZ (both the North and South each have one village inside the DMZ, more on that another day). In the 1980s the South built a 100m flag pole in their DMZ village (Daeseong-dong). Not to be out done, the North quickly built a 160m tall mast and put a bad-ass flag at the top.

Reports about the weight of the flag are conflicting, some say it weighs 300lbs, others say 270kgs. One thing is clear: As soon as it starts to rain the flag comes down. The mast cannot support the weight of the flag when wet.

I'm going to start a series of articles called "What's Weird about North Korea". Each day I'll post a link to something unusual/sketchy/just-plain-Orwellian about everyone's favorite socialist republic...North Korea.

Today's oddity is the Ryugyong Hotel. They began construction in 1987 and gave up in 1992. It's the 7th largest building in the world, though only the concrete structure is built (no windows, lights, fixtures, etc.).

Fun Facts:
• It was added to maps and North Korean postage stamps before it was half-finished.
• Official pictures of Pyongyang often show the building illuminated at night, but this is due to photo manipulation.
• North Korea has since removed the Ryugyong from maps and stamps.

I just found this story linked from Digg. Check out this exerpt:

"Can you imagine? The camel's shoulders stood three metres (yards) high and it was around four metres tall, as big as a giraffe or an elephant. Nobody knew that such a species had existed."

A metre is not a yard people!

The nerds among us are probably all aware of Google's new code search dealy (with Regular Expressions to boot). Well, this blog makes a great point about it...doh! (I like the second comment...ha ha)

I was reading this story because, well, let's be honest: the phrase "gold digger" in the headline attracted me. It's about a veteran who wants his widow to get money after he dies, so he's challenging the "gold diggers clause" in the pension act.

That by itself isn't very interesting, but the fact that he can't challenge it under a human rights complaint because "the federal government cut a program that funds human rights court challenges" piqued my interest for sure. Has anyone heard about this?? All I was able to ascertain was that this cut was buried in this story from a few days ago.

Seriously, WTF?