Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea

I’m a little conflicted about this book. On one hand, it’s boring, but on the other hand, it’s about the most boring country on earth. North Korea has sterile buildings, no casual socialization, no casual music or arts, and no food. So why does the author bother to draw it? There isn’t really anything to draw.

    Delise is a Quebec-born artist and animator, now living in the south of France, and travels to Pyongyang to visit the state animation studios. There are other foreigners in Pyongyang – French, Italian, and Arab – mostly doing engineering projects. There are things to entertain them – discos, cafes, and a bowling alley – all of which lack essential parts. Worse, they’re only open to foreigners, so there won’t be a lot of people there to talk to. That’s fine with Kim, because the foreigners can’t speak or understand Korean and therefore they can’t corrupt the locals with their fascinating stories of Western capitalism. On more than one occasion, the author says he’d rather be nuked.

    High rise hotels have only three occupied floors. The 1,000 foot tall pyramid-shaped hotel is a concrete shell (covered with glass by the time of this writing) and admired by only three tourists. There’s a club for tourists, situated inside an ugly Soviet-style lobby that used to be the Romanian embassy. I have to wonder why Romania needed an embassy in North Korea, when the two countries had almost no relationship. Neither country had anything to contribute to the other.

     I wasn’t surprised by the guitar-playing kids who do a performance for the tourists. I saw it on youtube, where the kids in Soviet-style outfits play an old Russian melody. The kids look like they’re less than eight years old, and they play huge guitars. I wonder how their tiny fingers can handle the massive frets. Maybe those “kids” are actually dwarves? What surprises me is that the leaders of North Korea can’t see that nobody’s fooled. They have to be aware of how foreigners are laughing at them. I also wonder how a country that hasn’t had a war in years can need to conscript men for over ten years at a time. With so many people forced into the army, it’s a wonder there’s anyone to grow the food.

   Maybe their “Dear Leader” is fully aware how the foreigners see him, but doesn’t care. The Kim family spent decades being obeyed, so maybe they’re happy as long as their own people are kept in line. One thing however, is certain; the North Koreans are brainwashed, and if the doors of North Korea ever open up, they’re going to need to bring in psychiatrists.

The Nordic Theory of Everything

From the start, the author judges the Americans as over-anxious, and blames the anxiety on parents who micromanage their children’s lives. The anxious-parent micromanagement stresses the parents, and teaches the kids nothing about taking care of themselves. They’ll spend fortunes on tutors (and even do their kids’ homework) to get them into top colleges, stress themselves to pay for it, and four years later they have less money and some kids who can’t support themselves. But in Scandinavia, things are a wee bit different; college is free, kids are expected to move out at age 18, and the parents don’t stress.

    The author quotes a US-educated Swedish academic named Lars Tradaigh on several issues. The first one is financial aid for college – which in the USA requires you to state your parents’ income – and that is alien to Scandinavia. In Sweden, your parents are no longer obligated to support you after age 18, so the idea of your parents’ income being an issue is ridiculous. The second issue is elder care, which looks bleak, since the average American can’t afford it. Look at it in terms of economics; parents today are supporting their grown children (the sandwich generation) so they can’t possibly support an aged relative as well. In Sweden, the state pays for the health care and nursing, and that’s it. The children are expected to take their elders for walks, talk to them, do stuff with them. Social workers can’t do that.

    It’s the same thing with childcare in Finland. The government provides free maternity leave and daycare, so the parents are not stressed about taking care of the children. But this would be impossible here in the USA, for a million reasons. First, the USA has a teenage pregnancy problem, which Scandinavia does not. Not only that, but all over the country you find women with lots of kids by different men, and they’re on welfare their whole lives. Scandinavia has a low birthrate and no teen pregnancy, so they’re not swamped with the bills. Then there’s another great American problem to deal with; crack babies, and the kids with FAS. Few kids in Scandinavia are born addicted to drugs, so all those Nordic teachers aren’t struggling to retarded students. Lastly, the USA has a titanic defense budget, and that cuts into what we can spend on daycare. As for the government providing free housing so 18 year old kids can live on their own, forget it. You’d have nonstop partying and trips to the ER.

   There is one Nordic practice that can work, and that’s a school curriculum involving hikes. In Sweden, the children are taken into the woods, given a compass, and told to find their way back. They’ll do this in all weathers, rain or shine, and their motto is “there is no bad weather, only inadequate clothing.” The kids learn to be self-reliant, solve problems on their own, and get along without their parents. Maybe the US problem is that we’re desperate for the kids to achieve what does not exist? Look at the schools, with their uniforms (the kids look sloppy anyway) and the dress codes (that lead to conflicts.) Do truckers have dress codes? What about cab drivers? Do electricians wear neckties? Do most NYC teachers wear neckties? The answer is usually no. So why make kids dress up for school? It’s part of the spectrum, of Americans forcing useless things on their kids, and it’s all because of paranoia.

   Unfortunately, the majority of Scandinavia’s ways can’t work in the USA because…..well I guess everything here is different. Finland has  a high number of percentage of women legislators, and we have few. Norway has a tiny defense budget, ours is astronomical. Denmark has no teenage pregnancy, but we certainly do, and it’s a drain on our nation. Scandinavia has an anything-goes attitude towards sexuality, no censorship, and they’re racially homogenous. True, they have free college, but it’s only for kids that qualify, and they do have vocational training (which most US schools have gotten rid of.) The reason they can afford to have free college is that you don’t attend if your grades are no good. Here in the USA, any idiot can go to community college, even if they can barely read.

    I’d love to see the forest hikes in US schools. Maybe if we’re less paranoid about lawsuits, we might see it in this lifetime.

My Friend Dahmer

    Back in 2000, actor Noah Taylor caused a a stir by playing the young Adolf Hitler. Nobody complained about the performance; everyone agreed that he nailed it perfectly. What bothered the audience was the subject matter, and that it made the monster look, for lack of a better term, less monstrous. I remember watching the film and saying “you know, I almost feel sorry for the poor bastard,” which is essentially what the character is – a lonely man with no family and no friends – wandering a world he doesn’t recognize. Maybe the problem is that we’re used to stories about monsters, but they’re easy to recognize. Human monsters, the kind that inhabit the prisons, aren’t like the trolls and dragons in fairy tales. They aren’t born with fangs, claws, and a terrible appetite. We know that at some point they were just kids, and we wonder what those kids were like.

    Backderf’s memoir of his friend (more like acquaintance) Jeffrey Dahmer is not a horror show, but a dark comedy. I wonder if Todd Solondz – creator of dark comedies set in America’s suburbs – would’ve been better suited to direct the film version? The author draws and writes of Dahmer as a freakish outcast in a 1970’s suburban school, not fitting in with any of the cliques. He’s fascinated by dead animals, but he’s not part of the group that loves science. He’s built like a football player, but has no attraction to sports. He’s weird, but doesn’t hang out with the weird kids. Dahmer spends his time alone, drinking too much, in his shed with dead specimens. Then the awkward teen starts making bizarre noises and gestures in the hallway, amusing and puzzling everyone at the same time. Backderf doesn’t draw much of the dead animal collection because he didn’t see much of it. The problem is that Dahmer kept so much hidden from everyone; the dead animals, the drinking, the problems with his family. When Dahmer’s father Lionel wrote his own memoir to try and make sense of it all, he claimed 100% ignorance. The author of this graphic memoir agrees, there was extreme ignorance on part of the adults.

    In terms of Backderf’s drawing style, I can only say that it’s perfect. His realistic drawing is necessary in the story, because the facial features, clothes, and period décor are an essential influence on the characters. Art Spiegelman’s mouthless mice wouldn’t have worked, neither would Marjane Satrapi’s block figures. The author gives us a full-on frontal assault of the 1970’s – the sterility of the school, the kitschy home décor, the foliage of the woods – and how it all influences the events. A recurring character in the story is Lloyd Figg (the school’s emotionally disturbed kid) and he’s drawn as fat and curly-haired, which helps establish the boy’s awkwardness. In fact the awkwardness is a recurring theme in My Friend Dahmer, not just social, but physical as well. Dahmer’s posture is drawn as stiff, his walk is stiff, and he doesn’t seem sure of what to do with his arms. As for his face, he’s portrayed as a wall-faced kid hiding behind long hair and glasses.

   There is no lesson to be learned from My Friend Dahmer. Like the Vegas Shooter, Dahmer showed few obvious signs that he was going to go on a killing spree. In the epilogue, the author hears that a former classmate was arrested for mass murder, and he’s certain it was Lloyd Figg. He figures is has to be, Lloyd Figg is well known to the local police. Then he hears it was Dahmer, and stares in disbelief. How could it be Jeffrey Dahmer, he wonders, if that boy showed no signs? When it comes to spotting a future serial killer, the fact is that very often you can’t.