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Jennifer Dodgson
Jennifer Dodgson is based in France and will shortly be beginning a PhD on maritime security policy in east Asia.
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Evergreen How North Korea attempted to sell itself to the outside worldMany attempts have been made to present North Korea in a better light, with varying degrees of success Jennifer Dodgson August 8, 2014 NK News North Korea’s approach to marketing itself to foreign visitors has often been contradictory, the product of competing bureaucracies and the changing whims of the leadership. As in many other fields, tourism is affected by the actions of several different branches of government, with incompatible policies and changes in the composition of the leadership often appearing to create massive internal confusion. The output of the Korea Central News Agency (KCNA) is a good example of this. It proudly and faithfully reports even the most banal signs of appreciation from the outside world (“Greetings to Kim Jong Un from Mexican Political Party Leader”, “Lao Diplomats Visit International Friendship Exhibition House”…), while regularly printing vitriol calculated to offend and alienate 99% of international public opinion — the racist and sexist articles targeting Presidents Park and Obama spring immediately to mind. In this environment, North Korean authorities can often seem hungry for foreign visitors one minute, then going out of their way to frighten them off the next. Soon after the showpiece Masikryong Ski Resort was completed to much fanfare in winter 2013, authorities stepped up their actions against foreign visitors in the country, detaining several who they claimed breached multiple domestic laws. Often this is what happens when the various aims and remits of different state bureaucracies compete. And of course, the functionaries who put so much effort into constructing and promoting facilities like the new Masikryong Ski Resort had no power to prevent the security services arresting several foreign visitors in quick succession. Equally, the North Korean authorities have been working hard to reduce legal and administrative obstacles for Chinese tourists, while simultaneously making travel much more difficult for Hwagyo, or ethnic Chinese living in North Korea. EARLY EFFORTS TO ATTRACT FOREIGNERS This contradictory behavior can also, however, be a product of changing political circumstances. While the nation has never been open to visitors in the same way that most countries are, there have been times in North Korea’s history when it appeared less hostile to visitors than has been for the last 20 years. At the end of the 1980s, with the Soviet Bloc collapsing and Communism looking increasingly shaky elsewhere, North Korea began preparing for existence in a post-communist world. While authorities were not prepared to compromise on the fundamentals of the regime, they were willing to consider adopting a softer position on the world stage. The readiness to contemplate normalization can be seen in a surprisingly beguiling brochure, reproduced here courtesy of Retro DPRK, which in 1991 was designed to promote tourism in the DPRK to western visitors: “A Sightseeing Guide to Korea”. The photographs and the text could easily come from any early 90s tourist brochure, with the usual selection of national monuments and beach shots that every country uses in its promotional material. And the English text reads largely as though it was written by a native speaker — unlike many official publications released nowadays. While you might find an occasional hint that the book is not focusing on a normal country (the map at the beginning depicts the entire Korean peninsula as though it were one country, even though only northern destinations are featured), the general impression is of a modern, outgoing and forward-looking nation. So what changed after the book was published in 1991? As history shows, although the DPRK authorities were willing to appear more open, Pyongyang was unable to make the reforms necessary to effectively adapt to a post-Soviet world. The sudden removal of the political and economic support provided by Communist allies sent the country into a terminal decline. A combination of isolation, mismanagement and unpredictable weather sent the country into a four-year famine, and an even longer-term economic crisis. In reaction to the worsening situation and the threat of internal instability, the state clamped down on internal dissent and foreign influences. It strengthened the songbun (military first) policy, both to assure the military’s support for the government and to secure its assistance in maintaining law and order. The country effectively moved onto the total war footing that it is only now beginning – very slightly – to relax. Did North Korea’s presentation of itself subsequently change? It would appear not. While the 1991 brochure can be considered a slick production for its time, a look at subsequent productions suggests that things failed to move forwards – and in some cases even went backwards. A pamphlet produced in the mid-1990s to advertise the Majon Resort, located in the relatively difficult to access coastal city of Hamhung, is a case in point: It is a grim representation of North Korea’s situation: while the rest of the world continued to advance and grow ever more internationalized, North Korea regressed in isolation. While the 1991 brochure reproduces the look of the time to produce a glossy, attractive hundred-plus page document with high production values, the Majon resort equivalent is a dated pamphlet that could belong to another era. And so it continued… As the rest of the world moved from mid-90s pastels to web 2.0 gloss, hipster chic, Apple minimalism and beyond, North Korean graphic design remained – more or less – frozen at the precise moment at which the country cut itself off from the world. And even though North Korean socialist realist art has developed and grown more sophisticated over the years and design technology has improved, the aesthetics of publicity materials have changed little. Moreover, the quality of the English text has clearly regressed, as can be seen in this brochure from 2002: Or this one, which was published in 2009: While this functional form of design can be put down, at least in part, to the DPRK’s isolation, it can also be attributed to the state bureaucracy’s effect in discouraging innovation and personal initiative. While a graphic designer in a competitive labor market is obliged to stand out and be noticed in order to get work, one working in a system such as the DPRK’s has no incentive to take risks. The best way to keep one’s job, in other words, is to stick to the methods and ideas that have already been validated by one’s hierarchy. Even North Korea’s modern day visions of the future resemble something from our own past. In a series of paintings of an idealized future produced for a new “Utopian Tours” exhibition staged by Nick Bonner of Koryo Tours at the Venice Architecture Biennale, North Korean architects produced a vision of the future with a distinctly retro vibe. “We asked them to go crazy, to see what they would come up with given absolutely no constraints,” Bonner told NK News. But their designs look a lot like late-stage Soviet imaginings, reflecting the most recent sustained contact with the outside world many North Koreans might have experienced. Even the recent influx of Chinese and South Korean aesthetics throughout the country, by means of illicit USB sticks filled with the latest dramas, appears to have had relatively little influence on the future designs. Ideology is not entirely absent, even here: “We all are in the nest together and have to learn to be together harmoniously,” said one of the designers, explaining the concept behind the communal “Birdsnest Riverside Guesthouse” (above). So, will North Korea ever be able to reform the way it presents itself to the outside world, or rebrand, as marketers would say? In fact, rebranding is a challenge that many countries with far stronger tourist economies than North Korea have had to face. Many opt for the “everything is normal” approach, chosen by Tunisia for its 2013 post-Arab Spring publicity push, when their National Tourist Office launched its first Europe-wide advertising campaign, featuring unremarkable billboard montages of traditional holiday activities in soothing pastel colors, emphasizing normality. Another option is to acknowledge the past, but reassure potential visitors that things have changed. Egypt recently launched a campaign along these lines, using the slogan “We miss you” in an attempt to entice visitors back. But even though North Korea may have taken several practical steps to make visiting easier, it is difficult to imagine it running a mainstream advertising campaign in the bus stops and underground stations of the West any time soon. As Chad O’Carroll put it, who writes regularly about tourism for NK News, “As far as I know North Korea doesn’t promote itself as a tourist destination much outside of the country. It did have a pavilion at the Shanghai expo a couple of years ago, but beyond that there is very limited official outreach to promote the country.” That does not mean that no one else has considered the idea, however. As tourist numbers have grown, as have the specialist travel agencies, and many have begun establishing brands of their own. These campaigns do not, by and large, attempt to reform North Korea’s image, but rather borrow recognizable communist and Juche iconography to distinguish themselves from more traditional tour operators. Young Pioneer Tours has its hammer-and-sickle logo and quasi-cyrillic font, while Uri Tours and Koryo Tours both use a red star header and propaganda poster aesthetic. North Korea Travel, for its part, re-imagines the guidebook concept into app format and presents North Korea in a particularly accessible manner. It is an obvious strategy — many Western visitors to North Korea are attracted by its eccentricity while also being concerned about the ethical implications of contributing to the regime. The challenge for travel agencies is to walk the line between emphasizing the unconventional nature of the DPRK and frightening potential visitors away. According to Simon Cockerell of Koryo Tours, their aim is merely to “tell it like it is”. While the agency has “no motivation to scare people”, they remain in the business of providing people with access to an interesting and unusual destination. But, he adds, the majority of visitors have a pre-existing interest in North Korea, and so Koryo’s task is less to market North Korea than to explain to prospective visitors what travelling to the country is really like. Main picture: NK News North Korea's approach to marketing itself to foreign visitors has often been contradictory, the product of competing bureaucracies and the changing whims of the leadership. As in many other fields, tourism is affected by the actions of several different branches of government, with incompatible policies and changes in the composition of the leadership often appearing to create massive internal confusion. The output of the Korea Central News Agency (KCNA) is a good example of this. It proudly and faithfully reports even the most banal signs of appreciation from the outside world ("Greetings to Kim Jong Un from Mexican Political Party Leader", "Lao Diplomats Visit International Friendship Exhibition House”…), while regularly printing vitriol calculated to offend and alienate 99% of international public opinion — the racist and sexist articles targeting Presidents Park and Obama spring immediately to mind. Become a member for less than $4 per week.
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Jennifer Dodgson is based in France and will shortly be beginning a PhD on maritime security policy in east Asia.
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