Arirang: 622 New DPRK Travel Photos
by Richardson ~ May 16th, 2007. Filed under: North Korea.Update: of note are a few pics of a Westerner wearing what appears to be a KPA (Korean People’s Army) uniform, as well as a Kim lapel badge.
Original post: A fresh set of North Korean travel photos from someone who went on a Korean Friendship Association (KFA) organized Arirang trip from 20 April to 01 May. I hope they didn’t believe the propaganda fed to them from the KFA. As usual, well worth a gander. (h/t Julien)
I had to post this one (which one of these don’t belong - hint; girth):
May 16th, 2007 at 9:57 pm
The Westerner in the photo is none other than Senor Alejandro Cao de Benos de Les y Perez himself, the self-appointed ‘president’ of the Korean Friendship Association (he even managed to get himself interviwed by NPR).
The sychophant’s ‘uniform’ is a take-off of the KPA’s which, supposedly, he designed himslf.
From what I understand he runs the ‘business’ out of an office in Barcelona, Spain.
Yeah, it takes all types.
May 16th, 2007 at 10:07 pm
Michael; thanks very much for that info. I didn’t know who that was.
A quick search gives us the KFP homepage, a Wikipedia article on the KFA, and one on Senor Lackey (Alejandro Cao de Benos de Les y Perez).
May 16th, 2007 at 11:57 pm
After reviewing the pictures in the ‘flickr’ set, the photo on page 6, bottom row, 4th one in from the left, tagged as DPRK (782), comes across as being quite remarkable. I cannot recall ever seeing a photograph of ‘normal’ street traffic in Pyongyang in which there were so many vehicles (private and otherwise).
It stands out even more vividly when one compares this photo to every other street scene in this particular collection … or in any collection on ‘flickr’, for that matter.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/waasa/488281068/in/set-72157600178944452/
May 17th, 2007 at 2:02 am
Well, a perfected Latin Idiot. What a pity that Mendoza, Montaner, and Vargas Llosa could not have had this bit of information when they penned their famous: “Guide to the Perfect Latin American Idiot!” (reviews available on Amazon, for those interested.) back in the 1990s. They could have included a chapter on the “perfected Latin-Euro idiot”. On the other hand, what’s the difference between this, and walking around with a “Che” tee shirt? Pseudo-Jucheists versus Pseudo-revolutionaries. The irony, of course, is that his family names suggest noble blood. Could that claim be as illusory as his uniform?
May 17th, 2007 at 3:08 am
Actually, our chubby boy, to distinguish him from the “Fat Boy”, can claim noble descent from both the Cao de Benos and De Les sides, which fused into a single title in 1742 when (Don) Francisco Cao de Benos succeeded to the barony De Les. Thus the full paternal family name is Cao de Benos de Les. In addition to family still living in Tarragona, a relative heads the National University of Distance Learning campus in Ceuta (UNED CEUTA), one of the two remaining Spanish colonial possessions on the coast of Morocco. Every family is entitled to their black sheep, and Miguel de Unamuno would have greatly appreciated the ironies of a Cao de Benos de Les in the pay of Kim Jong-il. If virtually unknown in the English blogosphere, Alejandro occasionally excites interest in the Spanish blogo-sphere, both on the left and right. His tracts defend the regime on leftist sites, denying such facts as the existence of North Korean refugees in China (impossible to cross, as both borders are so heavily guarded), while the name of “General Alejandro Cao de Benos de Les y Perez”, a “general in the North Korean Army” who has a “specialty in atomic weapons”, is excoriated on right wing sites in places as distant as Bolivia. General Cao de Benos de Les? I’m impressed! (Perhaps you have to make Marshal before you get scrambled eggs on your cap ;=))
May 17th, 2007 at 8:46 am
So there is the theoretical chance, however remote in reality, that he could someday become a literal royal idiot! Heh.
I hadn’t realized this was the nutjob who rifled the room of Andrew Morse (ABC News) in Pyongyang in 2004, and even forced him to sign some sort of bizarre apology before leaving the country.
May 17th, 2007 at 12:24 pm
I’m surprised he didn’t try to deface the Wikipedia entry, although I would dispute the notion there that he is a “USEFUL idiot” for the DPRK, because there is no way on earth that anyone takes pathetic trust-fund Trotskyites like him seriously.
May 17th, 2007 at 1:20 pm
Slim,
Re: #7
There sure seemed to be a couple of thousand of them (useful idiots) when I was last in Seoul.
May 17th, 2007 at 1:48 pm
All of this, just to get laid.
May 17th, 2007 at 5:15 pm
“there is no way on earth that anyone takes pathetic trust-fund Trotskyites like him seriously.”
These folks do:
Korea Is One
http://korea-is-one.org/spip.php?rubrique5
Appears to be a mixed group of foreigners and ethnic Koreans brainwashed through organized visits to the DPRK. Check out the DMZ demo for a laugh.
Korea American National Coordinating Council
http://www.kancc.org/english/
The organizers of this group include church ministers and active members of various churches. Their resource room boasts English versions of the works of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il.
May 18th, 2007 at 2:31 pm
Hey,
Why are my pictures here without my permission??? Or not even a link to my page?
Mihkel
May 18th, 2007 at 2:55 pm
Waasa/Mihkel, Did you get laid?
May 18th, 2007 at 4:09 pm
Waasa; there is indeed a link to your flickr page (the same one you entered as your URL when leaving a comment – I’ve bolded the text above in case you missed that), thus the photos are correctly attributed to you and within fair use as well as the CC you specifiy on the full-sized photos.
If you refer to your main flickr page, I’m glad you mentioned that and I’ve updated the post with a bolded link to those sets of DPRK pics as well.
Great pics, but I sincerely hope you don’t buy into the KFA drivel.
May 18th, 2007 at 4:52 pm
And actually you should delete ““Waasa’s” other DPRK photo collections - 2,886 photos!” because it only shows my last upload picutures and not only Korean.
So delete update 2:) okei?
If so - my mistake. Sry.
Mihkel
May 18th, 2007 at 4:58 pm
No problem, done.
May 18th, 2007 at 5:08 pm
What do you mean…KFA drivel?
May 18th, 2007 at 5:13 pm
Slim,
Further to #7:
You might be interested today’s article in the Dong-A Ilbo:
http://english.donga.com/srv/service.php3?biid=2007051913988
May 18th, 2007 at 5:18 pm
Re: KFA drivel; Pro-North Korean regime propaganda, including praise of Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il, Juch’e, etc.
This blog is 100 percent pro-North Korean people, which necessarily means hoping for the fall of their government.
May 18th, 2007 at 5:18 pm
“I hope you don’t buy into the KFA drivel.”
A “drivel” is a tunnel for cars driving through large hillsides. Sometimes, drivers must pay a toll (or fee) for accessing a “drivel”. Thus, he is checking if you had to pay a fee for driving through the mountainous regions of the DPRK during your Arirang tour.
May 18th, 2007 at 5:24 pm
Heh, you could probably fool a lot of folks with that.
But in this case, Waasa, it’s a noun meaning, “stupid or senseless talk.”
May 18th, 2007 at 5:47 pm
From the looks of the pictures, many of these KFA Arirang tourists are Kool-Aid drinkers indeed.
May 18th, 2007 at 6:57 pm
Apart from those wearing the Kim Il Sung pins, the rest of the group really did not seem to be’true believers’, not even ‘teeny bit believers’. To answer a question from earlier - the reason the traffic was so heavy in the Waasa’s photograph (photo 782) was that the photo was taken on April 25th - the 75th anniversary of the Korean People’s Army. It was a very, very big deal, and everyone - it seemed - either participated in the military parade or the torch march, or went to watch.
May 19th, 2007 at 4:40 am
I saw this guy on a YouTube video conducting a guided tour of the DMZ (now removed) yelling “Yankee go home!” and was wondering how a western looking fellow got the job.
This is a very, very odd tale indeed.
May 19th, 2007 at 5:07 pm
I noticed a photo of an ambulance in this Photo set.
I just recently returned from one of the standard 1 week tourist trips (28th April - 5th May). I only saw 1 proper ambulance in the whole week I was in the DPRK, which was probably the one in the photo. I image that the ambulance is only available to the very elite.
While in Pyongyang, I witnessed a horrible car accident. A women was run over by a car (probably driving at a min. 70 km). I just remember seeing what I thought was a manikin flying through the air and bouncing off the road a few times, until I realised it was a women. One of our minders/guides ran up to the women, he and another man both picked her up and shook her extremely violently (her head was flopping around ) then through her in the back of the car that had hit her and sped off. If the women had survived the initial accident, I don’t think she would have survived the bad first aid.
I wonder if they did this because some foreigners had witnessed the accident or if this is standard procedure for DPRK accident victims?, Or do Ambulances like the old cars with red crosses you see around DPRK normally attend such accidents?.
May 19th, 2007 at 5:26 pm
There were three ambulances parked in front of the maternity hospital we toured last month. The windows were frosted most of the way up, but I stood on the back bumper and took a very quick peek inside one of them. It was completely empty. There was no medical equipment of any kind. Just a totally empty van with ambulance marking painted on the outside.
May 19th, 2007 at 9:21 pm
James C.; looks like we’ll not get the hanky-panky report from anyone… yet.
Parsley; thanks for the info on the non-Juch’e believers. Aside from having to put up with the propaganda, I imagine that a KFA tour might be better than one with Koryo Tours (if anyone knows this to be true or false, please let us know).
Jack; thanks for mentioning that video, here it is: “The DMZ at Panmunjom from the North” (9:54) At one point he’s chanting – and get’s a couple others to join in, “Yankees go home.” Classy.
BigW; while I had suspected that emergency care in North Korea was very poor to non-existent, your description makes it sound even worse (it’s no where near Western standard in South Korea, but far better than the empty ambulances Parley describes). I hope she was ok, or at least didn’t suffer.
May 19th, 2007 at 10:47 pm
Richardson, thanks for linking the video again. I feel like making a long winded post on my own site about this windbag. Then again, maybe not, but maybe will because of the sheer oddness of it all.
Also, this guy appears on state run TV. See, I do not understand how a guy could make a substandard (okay let’s be honest here crappy) web site and all of a sudden is a DPRK hero.
I guess nobody else was willing to take the job.
May 21st, 2007 at 10:06 am
Richardson’s YouTube post above is from the KFA trip to the DPRK in 2004. I know because I was there and am (briefly) in the video. I have posted my pictures from the 2004 and 2005 KFA trips, as well as other media and You Tube links (including Richardson’s) below:
2004: http://www.nkeconwatch.com/dprk-travel-2004/
2005: http://www.nkeconwatch.com/dprk-travel-2005/
May 21st, 2007 at 6:05 pm
Thanks for those links, NKeconWatch. The write-ups to go along with the pics is relatively much better than many site, which only have a slew of pics with no real description of what/where/when it is.