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[ Music ] >> "If you have a newspaper, with a picture of our leader, General Kim Jong Ill or his father, the great leader, Kim Ill Sun, you may not fold the paper across the picture.

You may not sit on the paper and you may not crumble the paper.

Also, you may not make any negative comments about either of these leaders, nor joke about them at all, at any time.

If you do so, it will be very bad for all of us."

These were the first words spoken to me upon entering North Korea for a five day tour that would often feel surreal.

A writer once noted that going to North Korea was like, quote, "a visit to another planet," unquote.

And that seems a very accurate description of what it's like to peek behind the dark curtain surrounding North Korea.

Unlike most people, I had long wanted to visit North Korea.

I teach university courses on comparative political systems, a subject which necessarily includes a country with features of a dynastic, one party, communist dictatorship, closed off from the rest of the world.

Getting there was a little more problematic, but not impossible.

In 2009, the U.S. government did not bar American citizens from visiting North Korea.

But maneuvering around the restrictions imposed by the North Koreans was tricky.

Americans were allowed to enter during a limited, two month period and could only stay for a few days.

Me and four other American tourists arrived in Pyongyang from Beijing on the first and only incoming flight that day.

There were a few other Americans and some Europeans on the 1960's style, Russian-made jet we flew on, but the flight was not full.

The tourism industry is not exactly booming in North Korea.

Upon arrival at the Pyongyang Airport, we immediately noticed a giant painting of Kim Ill Sun, North Korea's leader from 1948 to his death in 1994.

It was on the back of the terminal building.

This was a harbinger of things to come.

There are over 800 statues, murals and monuments to Kim Ill Sun throughout the country, and we were to see many of them during our five day visit.

[ Music ] We were met at the airport by two guides, who delivered the instructions on how to act while in North Korea.

We were also told not to take photos from the bus unless advanced permission was granted.

This rule was only loosely enforced until one of our group was visited at the hotel and made to delete six photos he had taken near the North-South border.

Somebody on the street had noticed the flash of a photo being taken from the bus, and reported him.

From then on, we were sternly admonished to not snap pictures of street scenes Pyongyang is a city reminiscent of 1950's Moscow or Beijing -- wide, spotless boulevards, but with few to no cars.

The lonely expanse is broken only by buses and some pedestrians.

It was very quiet, and at night, very dark.

Black-outs do occur and electricity is a precious commodity.

[ Music ] Although there are few in sight, pedestrians assiduously obey the traffic signals at the crosswalks, even when there are no cars in sight.

With such little traffic, the traffic lights are turned off.

So for traffic control at major intersections, there are young ladies in dazzling uniforms, directing the traffic with military-style pirouettes.

These traffic mavens seem to love their job, and many readily smiled back, upon receiving waves from the five Americans in the tour bus.

[ Music ] Due to the rather eerie quiet of Pyongyang, the sights and sounds from a somewhat discordant marching band was jarring to our senses.

What was this?

Our guides explained that North Korea is in the midst of a special 150 days of hard work period, in which all North Koreans are expected to work feverishly, to push their country to further greatness.

People needed morale-boosting during this period of hard work.

So, groups of schoolchildren are sent out into the streets to sing or play music.

Many of the bands were led by student conductors as young as 12-years-old.

It was fascinating, to see groups of schoolchildren dressed in blue and white uniforms, chanting propaganda slogans or blasting trumpets, clarinets and tubas, as we drove through Pyongyang.

We were also told that during this special campaign, every Friday, all office workers nationwide are instructed to leave their offices and engage in manual labor, such as cleaning up their streets, painting buildings and repairing roads.

Fortunately for them, they have music to accompany their work.

Pyongyang is a city of monuments, billboards, plazas, buildings, murals and banners, all dedicated to upholding the independence of North Korea and to venerating the leadership and wisdom of Kim Ill Sun, Kim Jong Ill and the Korean Worker's Party.

There is the Arch of Triumph, based on the Parisian version but even bigger, dedicated to Kim Ill Sun's quote, "victory," unquote, over the Japanese in 1945.

There is a Tower of the Juche idea, which honors the cornerstone of North Korean philosophy, the idea of self-reliance and independence.

More broadly, Juche is the idea of North Korea maintaining a system -- economic, political and cultural -- that is largely at odds with world trends toward market or quasi-market economies and freer information flows, which are transforming countries, such as Vietnam and China.

Pyongyang also features the statue of all statues, a towering 65 foot bronze depiction of the great leader, Kim Ill Sun.

When we visited the statue, we were instructed to be serious and to note the groups of North Koreans bowing, laying flowers and paying tribute.

Built in 1982 upon orders of Kim Il Sun himself, it is the largest statue of a modern political leader in the world.

Displays of reverence for the great leader are everywhere -- everywhere.

At every single site we visited, the guide would tell us breathlessly when the great leader had visited, where he had walked and what he had said to help the people there become better citizens.

Then, the guide would show us pictures of the great leader visiting the same site, and the words he had uttered were now inscribed on the wall.

North Koreans themselves realistically cannot escape the gaze of Kim Ill Sun.

Not only does his visage adorn every apartment, but all citizens daily wear a button with his picture on it.

Despite the countless public tributes to Kim Ill Sun, nothing prepared us for the spectacle of visiting the great leader himself.

It is rare for Americans to be invited to visit Kumsusan Memorial Palace, where he permanently lies in state.

And it is simply one of the singular political experiences one can have.

Kumsusan is massive.

It makes the mausoleums of Mao, Lenin and Ho Chi Minh look like backyard sheds.

All men are required to wear mourning type clothes, and most women wear traditional Korean dresses.

After checking our bags and cameras, we walked four abreast unto a moving walkway, similar to those in airports.

It is the longest continuous moving walkway in the world, at over half a mile.

We then walked over automatic shoe cleaning machines into a cavernous room, housing a 15 foot gold statue of the great leader.

Visitors stood at a red line in front of the statue and bowed, while dreamy music wafted through the room.

Then we proceeded to the sublime experience of the Hall of Lamentations, which featured walls covered with murals of people throwing themselves on the ground, in painful mourning over the death of Kim Ill Sun, prostrate with emotion.

Over loudspeakers, and in our ears, in English, via an audio guide, came the grief-filled voice of a man who described the pain felt deep into humankind's core, as he said it, at the death of the man who he said provided light, guidance, hope, wisdom and strength to all of humanity.

As the voice intoned that the flow of their tears is etched into the earth, I looked down at my feet and indeed, thousands of tear-shaped designs dotted across the expanse of the floor.

After this exhausting experience, we would led through a portal consisting of massive blowers that hit us from both sides, like walking through a hurricane for a few seconds, meant to remove any dust particles from our bodies, in order to view the body of the great leader.

We formed up into lines of four and entered the room in which the eternal President of the DPRK lies in a glass-domed sarcophagus.

The Koreans around us looked as if in a daze, with many of the women overcome with grief, dabbing their eyes to wipe away the tears.

They bow at the head, feet and both sides of the great leader.

We leave and retrace our long journey back to the entrance.

On the way back, I notice something I hadn't before.

On the moving walkways opposite our group, every signal North Korean is staring at us, no doubt in shock that Americans are in the hallowed halls of the final resting place of the great leader.

With those silent, grim face -- judgmental faces slowly gliding by, I realized that I'd step right into a Fellini film.

[ Music ] North Koreans' attitude toward the United States is straightforward.

As our North Korean guide told me, "You are the enemy."

"But why," I asked.

"Two reasons," he said, "First, you want to destroy our system and impose your system on us.

Second," he said, "You occupy the South and prevent Korean unification."

Now, considering President Bush labeled North Korea an axis of evil some years ago and promoted regime change in North Korea, there actually was no arguing with the first point.

In terms of the second point, the U.S., indeed, is preventing a certain kind of Korean unification, the kind that would occur if the U.S. wasn't in South Korea and the North invaded, like they did in 1950.

More than the anti-U.S. attitudes, however, my visit did impress upon me how strongly the idea of Juche and belief in their system permeated North Korean society and the encompassing level of state control over individual lives by the government.

For example, there's only one full-time TV station for a country of 24 million people, which only shows news and films touting the state.

Watching South Korean television or videos is against the law.

There is no internet as we know it, but instead an intranet system, controlled by the government.

To the North Koreans, what we would see as failures of the government, such as the famines that hit in the 1990's, are, to them, caused by U.S. policies and are used as tools by the government to strengthen the people's resolve to, quote, "defend their independence," unquote, rather than reasons to question policies.

It is this rather unique blend of a closed society, respect for the Kim family, state police control and focus on the United States as the enemy that allowed North Korea to survive the world democratization wave that occurred after the fall of the Soviet Union in the 1990's and other world trends since.

With the great leader's death in 1994, his son, Kim Jong Ill, took on the mantle of leadership and then, he too, received a great deal of hero worship.

[ Music ] It was obvious from our short trip that Kim Jong Ill understood that one key to a smooth running, dynastic dictatorship is hands-on supervision.

So, the North Korean newspapers, magazines and sign boards are full of pictures of the General, Kim Jong Ill, touring factories, [ Music ] Farms, [ Music ] Military facilities, [ Music ] His public buildings and construction sites.

[ Music ] Like his father, when he does so, he offers up what he calls field guidance, or on the spot consultation, pearls of advice and wisdom, that are immediately reported in the news but eventually make their way onto the walls near where he gave the advice.

[ Music ] The extensible reason for allowing Americans to visit North Korea was to see Arirang, the mass performance of song, dance and gymnastics put on in the national stadium every night for six weeks in the summer for many years in North Korea, with over 100,000 performers.

The closest parallel to the Arirang is the opening ceremonies to the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

>> Arirang, a breath-taking mystery.

Leading to admiration and wonder, it is an original show.

[ Music ] The vast space inside a 150,000 civic stadium is its stage, and presented in its size, content and form, the masterpiece extravaganza and [inaudible] to honor the nation's history of the last century in tears, [inaudible], for the future.

[ Music ] >> Arirang involves over 30 different performances, or chapters, detailing the tale of Korea from ancient roots, to Japanese invasion, to the rise of the great leader, to the building of the current Juche-based society, to a future of reunification and happiness.

[ Music ] Each chapter involves several thousand dancers and or rhythmic gymnasts, performing highly choreographed routines, framed by a backdrop of massive mosaic pictures, created by 18,000 very well-trained schoolchildren holding colored cards.

The speed at which the children change the cards can be breathtaking.

The point of Arirang is really a summation of the point of the whole country, a demonstration that the North Korean people are of one mind, striving together, for what they believe to be the strength and happiness of the whole country, under their unique system.

In a country that is so closed to outsiders, how deep that feeling exists among the population is impossible to know.

But if the 100,000 Arirang performers were faking it, then they not only were great dancers, but also, great actors.

>> Arirang, [inaudible], an artistic depiction of the history [inaudible] wisdom of the Korean nation.

[ Music ] [ Speaking Foreign Language ] >> On December 17, 2011, Kim Jong Ill died.

[ Speaking Foreign Language ] Like his father before him, Kim Jong Ill's death and funeral procession were met with scenes of North Koreans wailing and sobbing and throwing themselves on the ground.

[ Background Sounds ] [ Music ] Kim was named the Eternal Leader and his body is preserved and displayed with Kim Ill Sun's at Pyongyang's Kumsusan Memorial Palace, now called Kumsusan Palace of the Sun.

[ Music ] North Korea has installed more statues and portraits of Kim Jong Ill in what they call "Towers to his Immortality" across the country.

At the Grand Monument on Mansu Hill in Pyongyang, a 65 foot statue of Kim was placed alongside his father's.

Visitors who take photos of the statues are required to frame both leaders, in their entirety, in their pictures.

His birthday, on the 16th of February, was declared the Greatest Auspicious Holiday of the Nation and was named the Day of the Shining Star.

[ Music ] Kim Jong Ill was succeeded by his youngest son, Kim Jong Un, who is hailed by the Korean Central News Agency as the quote, "Great Successor."

Kim Jong Un, who bears a striking resemblance to Kim Ill Sun, is Kim Jong Ill's youngest son and took power at the age of 28.

Those who hoped for a change in North Korea were soon disappointed.

Kim Jong Un, in the grand tradition of his father and grandfather, continued to rule the country as a dictator and to cultivate Juche and to cultivate the cult of personality, in a sense of victimhood and promote an antagonism to all outsiders.

Kim Jong Un consolidated his power.

Within a few years, he had killed numerous generals that he considered threats and also, had his uncle, Jang Song-thaek, executed and on February 13, 2017, Kim Jong-nam, the exiled half brother of Kim Jong Un, was assassinated with a nerve agent, VX, while walking through terminal two at an airport in Indonesia.

Under Kim Jong Un, North Korea has continued to develop nuclear weapons and is working on technology that would allow it to deliver those missiles to Japan and even as far as the United States.

Sanctions by the United Nations and the United States against North Korea for its nuclear weapons program are basically as tight as they can be.

North Korea played this game under Kim Jong Un's father and grandfather, with nuclear weapons being used as foreign policy bludgeons against the world, to cause crisis and arouse nationalism and support among his people when the world reacts.

In short, the North Korea of today is the North Korea of Kim Ill Sun and Kim Jong Ill, a hermit kingdom existing in its own surreal world.

Kim Jong Un has even continued in the tradition of his father in dabbling in a fascination with American basketball, taking it to bizarre levels by his so-called friendship with cross-dressing former NBA Star, Dennis Rodman.

>> He sang a song, representing his reverence for respected [inaudible] Kim Jong Un, moving the spectators.

>> [singing]Happy birthday to you.

Happy birthday to you.

Happy birthday, dear [inaudible], happy birthday to you.

[ Applause ] [ Music ] >> While the Rodman visit and so many aspects of North Korea seem to be silly and even funny, the political scientist Daniel Shurow [phonetic] writes the following, "If one is only a visitor in such a place, it is possible to see the grotesque humor of this kind of personification of the leader, as the incarnation of all the national and revolutionary virtues.

The lies become so preposterous that it's hard to believe anyone takes them seriously.

[ Music ] Yet, their consequences are anything but funny for the inhabitants of country's rule by such megalomaniacs."

[ Music ] Leaving North Korea after my short trip, I realized that what the North Koreans have accomplished is both impressive and frightening.

[ Music ] The degree to which they have closed off information from the outside world and forged a society dedicated to a unified national purpose has allowed them to survive the shattering forces of economic and political liberalization that transformed, and is still transforming, the world.

Communist North Korea and the Kim dynasty has withstood war, international sanctions and famine.

And yet, survives.

The cost, however, has been high.

For in the worship of the Kim family and abandonment of the individual right to possess critical thinking skills, the North Koreans have traded away one of the most important qualities of being human.

[ Music ] >> You may find more information about this topic by visiting our website at washburn.edu/hermitkingdom.

>> North Korea, Inside the Hermit Kingdom is funded by... >> Washburn University, committed to excellence in teaching and academic programs designed to enrich the lives of students, leading them to become productive and responsible citizens in communities around the world.

[ Music ] [ Silence ] [ Music ]