By Alek Sigley, Tongil Tours founder and postgraduate student at Kim Il Sung University. Before even setting foot in Pyongyang to start my master’s program at Kim Il Sung University at the end of March, I had noted that the 27th of April would be an important day. This had already been decided as the date of the inter-Korean summit between Kim Jong Un and Mun Jae In. The venue had also been set; Panmunjom, a.k.a. the Joint Security Area (JSA) in the DMZ. After some busy and eventful first four weeks settling in at Kim Il Sung University and in Pyongyang more generally, I had almost forgotten about the impending meeting. Then, a few days before the date the topic came up in a discussion. I was discussing the political situation on the Korean Peninsula with one of the tongsuksaeng (local Korean students from Kim Il Sung University living… [Read More]
Archives for May 2018
The Potong River Promenade
By Alek Sigley, Tongil Tours founder and postgraduate student at Kim Il Sung University. This is part of a diary entry from Saturday the 21st of April, 2018, and a continuation from the last part on visiting the Tongil Market After our visit to the Tongil Market, we went to the Potong River for a walk. The Potong River is quite famous as a scenic spot in the centre of Pyongyang. A promenade has been built along its banks, with footpaths, parks, bridges, and a long line of weeping willow trees that follows the river as it snakes its way into the Taedong River further downstream. It’s a popular place for couples to visit on dates. In the 1990s DPRK romantic comedy movie “Oh, Youth!” for example, the couple, consisting of a male history PhD student and female Taekwondo athlete, are seen going for a walk in the area. I’d… [Read More]
Visiting Tongil Market
By Alek Sigley, Tongil Tours founder and postgraduate student at Kim Il Sung University. This is part of a diary entry from Saturday the 21st of April, 2018, and a continuation from the last part on walking down Tongil Street After our very satisfying lunch at the duck speciality restaurant, we returned to Tongil Market (통일거리시장). I had heard a bit about Tongil Market, being the largest in Pyongyang, but had not yet been able to enter since it wasn’t open to tour groups. So this would be my first time going inside and I was excited. It was already 2pm now, the stalls had finished setting up, and the doors were now open for buyers. Photos of the inside are strictly prohibited, so all I can share with you here is an image of the entrance, although there are some stock images of the inside elsewhere online. The inside… [Read More]
A Visit to Tongil Street
By Alek Sigley, Tongil Tours founder and postgraduate student at Kim Il Sung University. This is part of a diary entry from Saturday the 21st of April, 2018 In the morning I saw Victor, a French student here at Kim Il Sung University who was studying Korean language for a semester. We decided to go and explore an area of Pyongyang that we hadn’t been before. After some discussion we decided on first going to Tongil Street. While there we would walk down the street and soak in its architecture—it was lined with huge, monumental apartment blocks that had been built down the street in the late 80s as a part of a massive urban development project. Then we could check out the Tongil Market, the largest market in Pyongyang and the entire DPRK. We got a taxi from the front of the dormitory. The driver started taking us there… [Read More]
The Day I Sat Fifteen Metres from Kim Jong Un
By Alek Sigley, Tongil Tours founder and postgraduate student at Kim Il Sung University. This is my diary entry from Monday the 16th of April, 2018 In the morning I got up and went out with Han Sol, a Korean-Canadian student in his 3rd year of his undergraduate degree at Kim Il Sung University. Sunday, the day before, had been the “Day of the Sun” holiday marking Kim Il Sung’s birthday, and we were given a break from classes on Monday too. Han Sol has a Vietnamese friend who is in his class at Kim Il Sung University, and who also attended the foreigners’ high school in Pyongyang with him for a while. She lives with her family in an apartment inside the Vietnamese embassy and she kindly invited us to visit her place to chill out, and also, importantly, use the internet (this is how I uploaded some of… [Read More]
What I did on North Korean Christmas, the “Day of the Sun”
By Alek Sigley, Tongil Tours founder and postgraduate student at Kim Il Sung University. The 15th of April is the biggest day in the North Korean calendar. Known as T’aeyangchŏl (태양절) in Korean and usually translated as the “Day of the Sun” or “Festival of the Sun” in English, it marks the birthday of the country’s founding leader, Kim Il Sung. This year it fell on a Sunday, and the Monday after was also made into a day off. It’s a bit like Christmas and Chinese New Year rolled into one. Christmas because students receive a gift of new uniforms, candy, stationary and other such items “from the fatherly leader” on the day. Chinese New Year because people tend to spend the day with family, watching special gala programming on the television. There are also fireworks in Pyongyang, bands playing on the street, and a variety of other celebratory events… [Read More]
