Reflections 2008
Series 5
March 16
Guest Essayist Carter Brey: Pyongyang Diary

 

Readers are probably aware of the recent February trip by the New York Philharmonic to Asia, most notably their stop in North Korea, which was widely reported.

 
 

I have also mentioned, most recently last month (2008/1 “Website Contacts” ¶ 5) that I’ve known Carter Brey, now Principal Cellist with the New York Philharmonic, since he was in my German class in the 1970’s, and that we’ve recently been in touch again. Click on this link for his profile with the orchestra:

 
 
 
Carter Brey: New York Philharmonic Profile
 
 

I’ve also lately been quite pleased and flattered with comments received about the website, some of which are now posted as “reviews” on its home page; about positive comments from travel professionals; about the willingness of new people I meet to find out about the website, and perhaps to even write in about it. However, I was particularly pleased when Carter sent me the following essay about the trip to North Korea, and also that he acceded to my request to allow me to publish it here.

 
 




Pyongyang Diary

Carter Brey
Guest Essayist


 
 

February 25, 4pm   Asiana charter flight 7777 from Beijing touches down at Sunan International Airport, Pyongyang, Democratic Peoples' Republic of Korea. The thump of the main gear hitting the runway sounds like the slamming of a prison door; instead of the usual scattered applause from the passengers, there is dead silence. As the 747 slows, we peer outside at a desolate winter landscape deprived of the usual visual airport cues; no bustling access highways, no imposing steel-and-glass business hotels. Just a gently rolling brown and white landscape of fields dotted with clumps of trees.

 
 

The aircraft taxis to a stop a few hundred meters in front of the terminal. We gaze transfixed at the giant idealized portrait of Kim Il Sung, founder and patron saint of the DPRK, that sits atop the building. He seems to be turning to listen to a rousing good story, his paternalistic smile dazzling with flawless socialist dentition. The interior of the terminal is dark, and we can make out a couple dozen shadowy figures lined up at the windows, watching us. The only other aircraft visible are Soviet-era Ilyushins and Tupolevs bearing the Air Koryo livery.

 
 

The door opens and we are met at the top of the rolling stairway by two uniformed guards who collect our landing documents and passports with barely a glance. Once on the runway we are herded together for two group portraits, one in front of the aircraft, the other in front of the terminal. The press corps facing us, and which arrived on the same flight, is huge, nearly as numerous as the musicians. Film drives whir, shutters click and video cameras are hoisted to shoulders as we wave gamely to an unseen audience. Hi, Mom. We're still okay.

 
 

A light, damp snow blows across the asphalt, the cold penetrating the soles of our shoes.

 
 

Several buses arrive and are coralled to receive us and whisk us to our hotel. The seats are, even to people used to Asian ergonomics, unbelievably narrow. They clutch our pelvises in a death grip as we exit the airport and swing onto the main road into town.

 
 

Condensation fogs the windows and obscures our first close-up look at the Axis of Evil. We rub our coat sleeves across the glass and peer out at a continuation of the wintry dun-colored landscape we had seen on landing. There are pedestrians, presumably on their way home from work, dark figures winding along paths and sidewalks, the buildings in the background a uniform grey concrete, most of them in various stages of dilapidation. Dusk is falling but lights, both on the street and inside rooms, are few. Heads swivel to watch our buses pass. An occasional bicycle goes by, but there are absolutely no cars on the four-lane highway, and no traffic lights at the intersections. Uniformed traffic wardens wielding lighted wands indicate turns with military precision.

 
 

The first propaganda billboards make their appearance. They reproduce perfectly the visual language of communist propaganda familiar since the time of Lenin: idealized, handsome young men and women dressed in work clothes and military uniforms, faces set in expressions conveying purpose and calm determination, their bodies arranged in a diagonal geometry across the picture plane, seeming to advance toward a bright socialist future as they hold aloft the tools of the new order: a rifle, a hammer, a sword, a scythe. The colors are cartoonish and flat, the outlines of the figures strong and black. Korean characters in red urge concerted effort to implement the wisdom of the Dear Leader, Kim Jong-Il.

 
 

Only a society unhobbled by irony and self-consciousness could take these images seriously. We clearly are arrived in a country unsullied by smirking late night television comics and unembarrassed by displays of powerful primary sentiments.

 
 

We approach the center of Pyongyang and drive down a broad street lined on both sides with larger buildings, the more ordinary ones losing patches of concrete here and there, the windows largely empty and dark, the more monumental ones well-maintained and invariably decorated with the same portrait of the Founding Father that we had seen at the airport, sometimes in tandem with an equally idealized portrait of the son. At Kim Il Sung Plaza we pass a palace-like structure with prominent portraits of Karl Marx and Vladimir Ilyich Lenin at the corners. There are frequently clusters of propaganda billboards at street corners, the usual images and political slogans on display.

 
 

Startled, we notice an ad for a pricey-looking SUV. It is remarkable for its incongruity, given the fact that nobody here drives a car. We also notice that the occasional billboard is devoted to an innocuous picture of flowers. Later we come to understand that these images are meant, respectively, to convey an impression of economic well-being and to cover up the more vitriolic anti-American messages. Of the latter, we are soon treated to an example, the only one we see during our stay: a huge fist smashes down upon a hapless soldier, the letters "USA" clearly visible on his helmet. A nervous titter of amusement and alarm ripples through the bus full of war-mongering imperialist musicians.

 
 

The imposing bulk of the Yanggakdo International Hotel appears ahead, a grim 50-story glass monolith nearly alone on its island in the middle of a river. The golf course in front of it and the revolving restaurant on top seem in context like slightly grotesque concessions to a frivolous society of sybarites visiting from another planet.

 
 

Arriving at my room on the 32nd floor, I find a two-room suite consisting of a front sitting room furnished with an L-shaped sofa, a table, a small refrigerator and a sideboard, and a bedroom furnished with double bed, armchair, table and television. An open closet abuts the bathroom. Everything is perfectly clean despite the general air of slight dilapidation and the stale odor hanging in the air. The animating aesthetic of the accommodations could be described as late Spartan. Strangely, the heat has been turned up to a stifling level and cannot be moderated. Now I understand why the camera crew from Fox News across the corridor has left their door ajar.

 
 

I stand at the window for a minute taking in the view. Not only the river but the entire city surrounding us seem locked in permafrost. There is a white-blue motionlessness that makes me, a native of messy, noisy, multihued New York City, turn away disconcerted. Turning on the television, I watch a biography of the Great Leader, Kim Il-Sung. Archival silent footage is accompanied by a Korean voiceover spoken by an actress in a hyperemotional singsong.

 
 

There is a dance program scheduled for our entertainment this evening, followed by a dinner. I lie down to rest and await the arrival of my suitcase, but the luggage does not arrive before our departure time of 6:30 and I am forced, like my colleagues, to attend the events dressed in jeans. Acutely aware of our role as representatives of our country, we are disappointed not to be able to dress appropriately, but there is nothing to be done.

 
 

6:30pm   The buses take us to a theater with a monumental entrance of marble polished to a mirror finish. We take our seats along with perhaps one or two hundred Koreans, the men dressed in what will become familiar as standard attire, dark navy blue suits with rectangular red enamel lapel pins depicting the face of Kim Il Sung. The women, hosts and guests alike, are dressed in traditional Korean silk frocks, narrow at the chest and hugely wide below the waist. One of the Philharmonic women waggishly observes that the outfit is actually quite practical in that it requires no brassiere and can easily hide a large rear end.

 
 

The program mostly consists of several traditional Korean ballet numbers each of whose choreography contrasts a soloist with a small group. There is a live and polished-sounding orchestra in the pit. Elaborate animated sets and props such as colorful fans or whirling ribbons create a wonderful variety show atmosphere. I'm reminded of the Lawrence Welk Show from the 1960's.

 
 

There are two purely instrumental interludes in which musicians take the stage with traditional folk instruments, and we naturally lean forward in our seats to watch with professional interest. A woman performs on a plucked instrument held across her lap with such consummate virtuosity and beautiful musicality that we burst into prolonged applause. These people are really good.

 
 

8:00pm   At the dinner reception following the performance we are assigned tables in a vast ballroom, each table evidently carefully balanced to include two or three musicians, a couple of patrons, a North Korean, and a translator.

 
 

A word here about the role of the "translator": as in many controlled societies, the word is a euphemism used to describe a person not only fluent in a foreign language but also responsible for seeing that you do not wander off unattended, and that the official view of things is advanced as often as possible. Despite our awareness of this dual role, we all enthusiastically engage our translator/handlers as our only direct contact with the North Korean people. Individual experiences vary wildly. Some of them prove to be amusing and relaxed hosts; others cripple conversations with boilerplate excursions into the hagiography of the Great Leader. One offers the surprising observation that, because there are so many different cultures and races in the United States, we are not a nation. The majority seem to have learned their English (and other languages) without having left the DPRK, although I meet one woman who has learned her French in Geneva.

 
 

The dinner is a multicourse extravaganza that leaves us feeling like fatted geese as we reel off to bed. The cornucopia of food at the reception and the excess heat in our rooms combine to make us feel guilty at the thought of so many people in this poor country who have to do without.

 
 

February 26, 9:30am   The next morning, we have a camera blocking rehearsal until noon. Dressed in full concert attire, we go through the entire program, in order, in front of an invited crowd of press and students. Following the rehearsal we linger onstage for a formal presentation of gifts from the Philharmonic musicians to the local conservatory. Supplies such as strings and sheet music parts and scores are handed to representatives of the school as cameras and boom microphones lean in. The reaction seems polite but muted.

 
 

Following lunch back at the hotel I forgo a recommended sightseeing event in order to take a nap and recharge my batteries. The camera rehearsal has emphasized the need for focus in the face of a very high-pressure concert.

 
 

5:00pm   Back at the hall. In one of the men's dressing rooms I climb back into my formal dress of white tie and tails. In place of the usual routine ennui that attends concert preparation I am experiencing something very close to anxiety. I want very much for this concert to go well and to be well-received by this audience. "It's show time, guys" I say as I leave for the backstage area.

 
 

Instead of warming up on stage as we usually do, the Philharmonic will wait until broadcast time to appear. Many of us find private corners in which to play scales and iron out difficult passages. A few watch from the wings as the audience takes their place. Apart from the group or 50 or so staff and patrons who have traveled with us, the crowd consists largely of middle-aged Korean men in identical dark suits, the usual red lapel pin on prominent display. Many of them are accompanied by women resplendent in traditional dress. Backstage there are numerous Korean stage workers and officials, none of whom interact with us.

 
 

6:00pm   The signal is given and we quickly file out to our places on stage. Polite applause greets our appearance. I look back and forth from the DPRK flag on one side to the Stars and Stripes on the other, and gaze curiously into the upturned faces of the audience, as if we were species from neighboring planets. Following an introduction by a woman in suspiciously familiar hyperemotional Korean, Music Director Lorin Maazel strides onstage and gives Principal Percussionist Christopher Lamb the cue for a snare drum roll, and we are on our way with the DPRK national anthem. The audience rises to its feet. Aware that I am visible to the people in the first few rows, I try to give the bass line as much snap and fervor as possible; nothing could convey an impression of disrespect as readily as a failure to give the music my all. As soon as the last C major chord has been cut off, Maazel cues another drum roll and we launch into the Star Spangled Banner, this arrangement in B-flat major. Because the first note is an F-natural, the pedant in me realizes that the order of the two anthems has produced a perfect, if unplanned, secondary dominant sequence. All musicians have inane passing thoughts such as these at moments of stress.

 
 

Once the two anthems have been played, the crowd resumes their seats and Maazel cues the horns to begin the Overture to Act III of Wagner's Lohengrin. It's the clarion call to a musical journey that continues through Dvorak's Symphony From the New World and Gershwin's An American in Paris. A program that had seemed at first blush to be one big hopeless chestnut now seems brilliantly right. Part of me, the same part that had noticed the functionalism of the order of the anthems, can't help thinking of the taxi horns in the Gershwin. I'm hoping that the North Koreans will have a hard time demonizing a culture that can include something as wonderfully silly as tuned taxi horns in a major symphonic work. And when Principal Trumpet Philip Smith sends the great seductive trumpet solo floating into the hall, I want to believe that playing this lovely could start to change some minds.

 
 

But it is the finale to the program that will break down the wall between the people on either side of the proscenium.

 
 

Arirang is a folk song known all over the Korean peninsula as the plaint of separated lovers; its understated melody perfectly captures the most basic of human emotions in its graceful sinuous curves. It is our third encore and our final offering of the evening to the people of North Korea.

 
 

As the introductory piccolo cadenza gives way to the melody, there is a palpable thrill of recognition in the audience. By the time the nearly ten-minute arrangement has run its course, a deep current of emotion has everyone in the auditorium in its grip. I can see several of the dark-suited men wiping tears from their eyes as the crowd rises and gives the visiting New Yorkers a five-minute ovation. When at last it's time to leave the stage, many of us begin spontaneously to wave to our listeners and, like a dam giving way, they respond with cheers, more applause, and eager waving of their own. By the time we finally do reluctantly leave the stage, many of us are overcome by what has just happened and remain bent over our instrument cases as we collect ourselves. In the dressing room we're unwontedly silent as we change back into our street clothes.

 
 

Our lives as musicians, ordinarily lived in monastic pursuit of a self-referential standard, have been changed forever by this single proof of the power of our art. Witnesses to, and actuators of, an event of potentially great moment, we share a knowing silence during the ride back through the city to our hotel. Pyongyang seems a little less dark tonight.

 
 


* * * * * * * * * *

 
 


I admire the writing style Carter uses here. He’s writing about a colorless society that remains colorless even when colors are present. I see the bulk of his presentation in black-and-white, something like a film noir from the 1940’s. I read in the Times about the effect the Korean folk song had, and it’s intriguing to see from a musician’s-eye-level the turnabout the music caused in the audience. Perhaps the Philharmonic imported just a soupçon of color to this forlorn place.

 
 

I’ve never been to North Korea, and have only seen it across the border from the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) when I was in South Korea (2005/7).

 
 

Carter says he wrote this essay for a friend who works in the Italian press agency ANSA, so it presumably has appeared in Italian translation. An abridged version has appeared in Strings magazine, a periodical for classical string players. Carter never heard back from the New Yorker when he sent it in, unsolicited, which is their loss, so what appears here is the first complete English version of the essay to be published, for which I thank him again.

 
 
 
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