Is it funny!?

有一天有人问你：1加1等于几？你很纳闷，犹豫了很久：等于2。那人掏出枪砰的一声就把你打死了。然后吹了吹枪口的烟说：你知道的太多了。。。

Prima di andare a dormire

Splendido attico, in tema di zanzare e frastuono sparato dentro con tanto di tendine stile lenzuola dell'evaso. Ci piace. Andrebbe anche tutto bene. Manca un po' la puzza di tabacco, il vicino transessuale con la suocera incinta, un paio di santini e il libro in affitto, Agata Christie. Tutto sommato ci possiamo anche starci bene anche. Però. In caso contrario, piccola, le vie per andare a fare in culo sono infinite. Come quelle di qualcunaltro di non ricordo bene il nome. Io sciolgo le mie mutande qui. Sì, sono d'accordo anche io, magari un po' più di sudiciume come quella volta a Il Cairo, gente un po' più squattrinata, troppi colletti con le scarpe troppo pulite. Capisco, capisco. Danno fastidio anche a me. In compenso però risparmiamo sulla luce elettrica. La notte è abbagliata a giorno, le insegne dei locali ma poi che cazzo locali, un clarinettista per caso, i Parà della Folgore, camionisti dall'est e quelle cosine con rossetto e tacchi a spillo in attesa della loro prima mestruazione. Rimangio tutto. Decisamente meglio di quella notte a Il Cairo. E poi sai a cosa pensavo?! Quel viaggiatore solitario che ho perso per strada. Sarebbe stato in grado di addormentarsi anche in una vasca di piranha, poi improvvisamente perse quel non so cosa, arrancava ad ogni salita, non mordeva più la strada né andava all'assalto dell'ultimo vagone treno merci, si spense dentro e fuori e non cercava più neanche la sua solitudine. E, peggio d'ogni altra cosa, non si fermava più ad osservare. "Due cremini al cioccolato. E un kalashnikov, per la piccola...".

Identità sessuale. E gravidanza.

"Mi chiamo Rubén e sono incinto"

p.s. Fatevi un giro soprattutto tra i commenti.

Quanto al preservativo...

Il barone Fanfulla da Lodi, condottiero di gran rinomanza, fu condotto una sera in istanza, da una donna di facile amor.
Era nuova ai certami d'amore, di fanfulla la casta alabarda, ma alla vista di tanta bernarda, prese il brando e si mise a pugnar.
E cavalca, cavalca, cavalca, alla fine Fanfulla si accascia, al risveglio la turpe bagascia, "Cento scudi mi devi tu dar".
Vaffancul, vaffancul, vaffanculo, le risponde Fanfulla incazzato, venti scudi già ieri ti ho dato, ed il resto lo prendi nel cul
Passa un giorno, due giorni, tre giorni, e a Fanfulla gli prude l'uccello, cos'è mai questo male novello, che natura ci vuole donar?
Fu chiamato un famoso dottore, quello venne e poi disse: "Fanfulla, qui bisogna amputare una palla, se di scolo non vuoi tu morir"
La morale di questa vicenda, si riduce alla legge del menga: chi l'ha preso nel cul se lo tenga, ed impari ad usare il goldon!

Canzone goliardica "Fanfulla da Lodi", condottiero italiano a cavallo tra quattro e cinquecento

中国的女服装：年轻毛泽东的看法

"If a woman’s head and a man’s head are actually the same, and there is no real difference between a woman’s waist and man’s, why must women have their hair piled up in those ostentatious and awkward buns? Why must they wear those messy skirts cinched tightly at the waist? I think women are regarded as criminals to start with, and tall buns and long skirts are the instruments of torture applied to them by men. There is also their facial makeup, which is the brand of a criminal; the jewelry on their hands, which constitutes shackles; and their pierced ears and bound feet, which represent corporal punishment. Schools and families are their prisons. They dare not voice their pain, nor step out from behind closed doors. If we ask, how can they escape this suffering, my answer is, only by raising a women’s revolutionary army"

Mao Zedong, about women and appearance, 1919

丁玲 (1904 - 1986)

"Happiness is to take up the struggle in the midst of the raging storm, not to pluck the lute in the moonlight or recite poetry among the blossoms"

Ding Ling, Chinese novelist (1904 - 1986).

Recommending a few movies...

"The Changeling" (in English, with English and Chinese subtitles), "is based on the true story of a woman who is reunited with her kidnapped son — only to realize he is an impostor".

"Caos calmo" (in Italian, with English and Chinese subtitles), set in Italy, a kind of "philosophy of life".

"Hunger" (in English, with Chinese subtitles), a movie about Bobby Sand and theIrish hunger strike in 1981.

"Quando sei nato non puoi più nasconderti" ("Once You're Born You Can No Longer Hide"), a good and dramatic portrait on the situation of migrants in Italy.

"Io, l'altro", about migrants and "terrorism paranoia" in Italy.

Ancora scoregge nucleari!

Militarizzazioni, spese per la Difesa che aumentano, nucleare. C'è puzza di Guerra Fredda. E l'esercito yankee sempre in prima fila. Stati Uniti, Corea del sud e Giappone in paranoia per le esercitazioni militari della sempre più incomprensibile Corea del Nord. Dov'erano gli americani quando i francesi testavano il nuclare a Mururoa!?
Per me, l'unico luogo consono dove trova posto il nucleare (e scusate se non sono abbastanza volgare) è il buco del culo dei potenti. Invece di imparare dalla storia, si tende sempre ad andare indietro. Sarò forse all'antica, ma quando sento la parola "nucleare" non mi viene da pensare alla Corea del Nord. Ma a Hiroshima e Nagasaki.

p.s. Cina, ridacci YouTube cazzo!!

Conference

Anarchism and Sexuality in Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries

Deadline - 30.06.2009
Anarchism and Sexuality conference, Leeds, 19th February 2010.

The aim of this conference is to explore the connections between anarchist thought and activism in regions of extensive uptake of anarchist ideas, e.g. Spain, Portugal and Latin America, with respect to an important area of anarchist ideas and practice: sexuality.This is an under-studied area in anarchist historiography and other disciplines, such as history of labour movements, and this is particularly the case in some understudied countries within these regions (especially Portugal and Brazil). As areas with large anarchist movements, they offer telling examples of how anarchism engaged with this important question.Sexuality was taken up by anarchist movements as an example of their attempt to interconnect cultural, social and economic questions and forms of exploitation and as a response to broad issues of power differentials between men and women in society, the role of the Catholic Church and as an attempt to live and experience cultural change as part of the overall challenge anarchist movements have provided against capitalist social relations.This is relevant not just on a historical level but also has relevance to current debates on the relations between politics, sexuality, cultural change and identities. We invite papers on historical as well as present day intersections between anarchism and sexuality, and their implications for anarchist or libertarian practice. We would also encourage contributions on Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking Asia and Africa and their respective anarchist movements.In addition to providing a forum for the discussion of the legacy and the present of anarchist thought, the conference aims to allow for a critical engagement with current theories that derive from the realities of countries generally unknown in British critical thinking, political science and sociology, not to speak of gender and sexuality studies.Please send abstracts of no more than 200 words or expressions of interest to Gwendolyn Windpassinger (G.Windpassinger@lboro.ac.uk) or Richard Cleminson (R.M.Cleminson@leeds.ac.uk) by Tuesday, 30th of June, 2009.

Richard Cleminson (University of Leeds)
Gwendolyn Windpassinger (Loughborough University)

To all those who are interested in Chinese movies

China National Film Museum 中国电影博物馆

Presentazione del libro "Appunti dalla Cina" 讲座推荐

"Appunti dalla Cina

Presentazione del libro di Anita Capozzi e Patrizia Galli
28 marzo, ore 16.00 Teatro dell'Istituto Italiano di Cultura
Se vi interessa leggere cosa è successo alle pensioni nel dopo-Mao, quali siano le considerazioni dei genitori pechinesi quando decidono la scuola per il figlio, come vive un mingong (lavoratori migranti) o l'importanza dello hukou (residenza) per un cittadino, questo è il libro per voi. La professoressa Marina Timoteo, docente di Diritto privato comparato presso l'Università di Bologna e direttore dell'Istituto Confucio a Bologna, presenterà il libro insieme a Patrizia Galli, una delle autrici. "

"芭特里奇·加里，作者之一，将与波洛尼亚大学私权比较学玛丽娜·迪莫多奥教授共同为大家介绍这本书。 关于本书后毛泽东时代，普通家庭的生活是怎样的？在北京，父母在为孩子选择学校的时候都考虑些什么？民工的生存状态如何？户口对一个人有多么重要？如果你有兴趣了解这些，那么这本书正是为你所写。

日期: 2009年3月28日
时间: 16:00
地点: 意大利文化处剧场
组织者: 意大利文化处
免费入场"

Link: Italiano 中文

Freddura pesantissima. Non fa ridere, fa riflettere.

Nascita del bambin Gesù...

Giuseppe: - E pensare che vivrà solo 33 anni...

Maria: - Beh, per essere un Palestinese è già tanto!

"集体主义"

北京"地下"音乐

CNN Video about Beijing's underground music

Do you know Kirghizistan?

"Manas" è un poema epico della letteratura kirghiza, contiene mezzo milione di versi (venti volte il numero dei versi di Iliade e Odissea messi insieme!). Me ne parlava l'altra sera un'amica kirghiza, tanto per farmi toccare ancora una volta con mano quanto poco ne sappiamo delle culture ad est di Brindisi...

Letame sullo Stato dei privilegi

Tre articoli, due de LaStampa e uno de IlCorriere:

"Guerra al lussoLanci di sterco tra i tavoli vip. L'ingresso del ristorante in piazza Carignano a Torino. Blitz anarchico al Cambio di Torino. Sei incappucciati terrorizzano i clienti"

"Voi vi ingozzate e nei cpt si crepa"

"Per protesta contro i «Centri di identificazione ed espulsione» degli immigrati. Torino: sterco gettato nel ristorante vip. Un gruppo di anarchici ha fatto irruzione al «Cambio» spargendo escrementi"

A Torino, un gruppo di attivisti (definiti "anarco-insurrezionalisti", altro mito creato dal giornalismo italiano) ha fatto irruzione in un ristorante d'alta classe spargendo letame nel pavimento e cercano così di attrarre l'attenzione di giornali e opinione pubblica sulle condizioni bestiali dei migranti rinchiusi nei CEI (centri di identificazione ed espulsione). Serie di azioni e volantinaggi che a Torino vanno avanti da settimane.

I giornali si chiedono ancora se esser ricchi sia un reato e secondo me la domanda è sempre mal posta. Dovrebbe essere invece "è giusto ed intelligente che uno Stato permetta solo ad alcuni di arricchirsi? Come? E fino a quanto?". "Berlusconi, da dove vengono tutti quei soldi?!" hanno chiesto in tanti al premier italiano. La stessa domanda forse andava fatta ai clienti del ristorante di lusso di Torino.

Perché se giovani italiani neo laureati finiscono a lavorare nel call center per 300 euro al mese, perché se molti giovani europei vengono a cercar lavoro in Cina, perché se molti migranti vanno a raccogliere pomodori nei campi di Puglia e Basilicata dodici ore al giorno in nero per 20 euro al giorno, perché se c'è un esercito di disoccupati e cassa integrati strozzati dal caro vita e dal mutuo delle banche per comprarsi casa, perché se tutto questo c'è ancora chi in Italia paga 500 euro per un'ora di sesso con una prostituta d'alto bordo, perché c'è chi può pagare 300 euro per una cena o chi acquista ville in Sardegna?! La domanda non è se sia lecito o meno, la domanda è COME?! Chi lo permette?! Perché se alcune persone vivono con 1000 euro al mese ad altre non bastano 10000 euro al mese?! Da dove vengono quei soldi? Hanno a che vedere con evasione, furto, sfruttamento, illegalità, disonestà? Basta col mito del "lasciamo arrichire qualcuno per poi arricchirci tutti", basta con lo slogan dei comunisti nei paesi occidentali "Ridistribuzione! Ridistribuzione!". E basta con questa retorica del ricco che porta lavoro! Anche la mafia porta lavoro, anche il caporale che sfrutta in nero i migranti per raccogliere pomodori porta lavoro, anche chi fa traffico di droga, armi e organi umani porta lavoro, anche il boia è un lavoro, anche il soldato è un mestiere, anche chi sfrutta la prostituzione fa un lavoro, se lavorare significa inculare il prossimo tuo meglio avere un mondo di disoccupati, che poi significa un mondo di zappatori di terra. A me la zappa!

Sarà che vivendo in Cina e avendo visitato paesi come Cambogia, Laos o Corea del Nord alcune domande te lo poni, rimetti in discussione il "laissez faire" dei paesi occidentali, ricchi e democratici, faro ed esempio per la libertà nel mondo.

Non sto qui a fare il moralista, ma poi se vi cade letame in testa mentre siete al ristorante di classe non state a chiedervi il perché!

Serata sfascio (finalmente!!!). Rock'n Roll Rock'n Roll!!

... ritrovato il piacere delle sbronze, dei concerti, delle donne e delle risse. Evvai evvai!!

Riot in Tibet

"Una multitud ataca una comisaría de policía en una zona tibetana de China"

中国经济危机与民工情况

An article about Crisis in China and migrant workers:

China in Crisis: Reason to Panic?

"Black Rim" magazine "黑环"杂志

"The magazine covers issues like migrant workers in China and the protests in Japan this summer as well as reports from anarchist projects across Asia."

Free download here!

La globalizzazione delle manganellate. E relativa migrazione.

Manganellate a Bergamo, manganellate a Pisa, manganellate a Roma, manganellate a Barcelona... manganellate per tutti i gusti, per tutte le guste!

Un video da una televisione catalana, scontri a Barcelona. Il tizio incappucciato è di Macerata, evidentemente quelle che prendeva in Italia non gli bastavano, tutti in Spagna scappano i migliori, ahahaha! Grande fratello grande!

"Els Mossos d'Esquadra han desallotjat aquesta nit una trentena d'estudiants que des de dijous havien ocupat les instal·lacions de la Universitat Pompeu Fabra, a Barcelona, per protestar contra el Pla Bolonya"

Jack... artista, regista, fratello

CHI SI FERMA È PERDUTO is competing in the "Short Film Awards" category and we are asking for your vote to make it to the finals. Here´s how:

· Click on this URL

http://www.babelgum.com/html/clip.php?clipId=3000029

to go to my film
· To play the video, you´ll need to install the Babelgum player - it only takes seconds
· In full screen mode, select the green "Vote" button (on the top of the screen, next to the film title) to vote for my entry - or simply wait for the "Vote Now" window to appear at the bottom of the screen.
· Remember, you can only vote when the video is playing in full screen. You can only vote once per day, but please come back daily to vote for the film!

Perché i cinesi lavorano sempre? 为什么中国人喜欢加班而不休息？！

leader at China Galaxy said: "Who cares about labor rights? Do they [transnational corporations] really care about our working conditions? In times of rushed production, we're obliged to violate the code"

"The foreigners put us in a trap. On the one hand they talk about human rights, but on the other hand they also want good products cheaply. For that they have to trade off human rights. It's quite obvious."

"With overtime work in the evenings and weekends, we could earn about six to seven hundred yuan (US$75-90) each month. Without overtime work, we could only earn three to four hundred yuan (US$50). That is not even enough to cover my expenses in the city."

"Yes, you may say we prefer long working hours. We've traveled a long distance to order to work. If we can't feed ourselves, what's the use of having a holiday on Sunday?"


From "Global Production, Company Codes of Conduct, and Labor Conditions in China: A Case Study of Two Factories", by Pun Ngai, 2005.

Report from North Korea (III) 去北朝鲜旅游：报告（III）

The day after it’s Panmunjom (Military Demarcation Line)’s turn. It’s at the border line with South Korea, two hours by bus from Pyongyang. The highway is always full of holes and army check points. The border line which divide the Korean peninsula is 248 km long and 4 km wide. After the war in 1950, the two parts managed an armistice, discussed and signed it in a small house here in Panmunjom. The two countries are still officially in war. According to DPRK, U.S. army and corrupted South Korean government don’t allow the reunification of the peninsula, ruling a dictatorship against the interest of Korean people and menacing the north and free part of Korea with military actions. Mr. Jin and some soldiers brought us to the border line, telling us to not take picture of military stuff and pay attention to American and South Korean army, cause it’s not a safe place. The Military Demarcation Line is the area in the world with the biggest amount of soldiers.
Unfortunately, there were not American or South Korea soldiers, maybe because it was Sunday and it was cold. There are no eagles in the sky of Democratic Korea

After a few pictures with our “safety” DPRK soldiers and some cigarettes we took the bus back to Kaesong, the first city and industrialized area you meet leaving Panmunjom. It is considered a rich city with a glorious past, but it’s just an horrible town with tall empty building and bare countryside around, farmers and a couple of temples. In Kaesong, from the bus, we saw something I wouldn’t have seen: thousands of boys and girls in military clothes, holding fake rifles, running and singing behind a truck with the DPRK flag. I mean boys and girls from six to fifteen years, behaving like soldiers, ready to the war. Really horrible. In this occasion our bus driver and Mr. Jin seem really embarrassed and nervous, the latter demand us to not take any picture, absolutely. It was so horrible, and hard to describe.
Once out of the bus, we were in the middle of the town, with common people not much surprised of us but still with many kids always scared of me, a bastard western imperialist.

We had lunch in a courtyard and than visited Gaoli Temple, the first University in Korea. Even inside the temple there were soldiers, or at least, people with military clothes. And newlyweds taking pictures with family (and soldiers!). Some shopping in a stamps and book shop, before leaving to Pyongyang and Kim Il Song’s birthplace.
It’s 12 km north of Pyongyang and it is amazing how similar is to ShaoShou village in Hunan (birthplace of Mao Zedong). We had a walk around the park and saw the places Kim grow up before leaving his family at age of 13 years.

Next stop has been the subway of Pyongyang. Not bad, really beautiful to say the truth, really cheap for Koreans, free for us. It’s in Stalinist architecture, a mix of Beijing and Moscow’s subway style. Amazing was the silence inside the subway. People walking without saying a word, someone reading. No one was talking while we were sitting inside a cabin. I mean no one, and there were at least fifty persons around us. Maybe they were scared of us. Or maybe scared, but not of us.

Next, always in the center of Pyongyang, the Juche Tower. Juche is the socialist political philosophy set up by Kim Il-sung. It’s a sort of Confucian Stalinist Dictatorship, with high respect for authority, Workers’ Party and Kim’s family leaders. It focuses its economy on agricultural and technological development, gender and class egalitarianism, cooperation between workers, farmers and intellectuals (Juche’s symbol is an hammer, a sickle and a brush crossed together) on the way to the socialist paradise.
Every year on Summer, Workers’ Party organizes Mass Games at the May Day Stadium (the biggest in Asia with 150.000 seats), to celebrate Kim Il-sung, DPRK and its leadership. It’s a two weeks performance with more than 50.000 artists and acrobats taking part on it.

After Juche Tower, on my Chinese fellows’ demand, Mr. Jin brought us to a “hot pot” restaurant, in front of the embassies of Jordan, Iran, Romania, and Malaysia. “Hot pot” is a common way of cooking and eating in Korean restaurants, especially in China’s Korean restaurants. But maybe it’s not that common in DPRK, in fact the food was not that good, and my Chinese friends not happy at all. They ran away to the hotel to eat something of their feed and cold noodles. A final drive by bus for the central no-lights streets of Pyongyang and a last watch to the main square of the city, between the National Library and Juche Tower, with two huge portraits of Marx and Lenin.

On the hotel we invited Mr. Jin to have a beer with us; he looks happy to share time with us, never stopping to talk us about his wonderful socialist country, his people, habits, leadership and socio-economic situations. Everything works until one of us starts to ask questions or Mr. Guang starts to jeer DPRK and compare it with China before 1978’s reforms. Mr. Guang told me that the life in South Korea is completely different and told Tom to have a deep look to nowadays’ DPRK if he wants to know what was the life of his parents when they where young. Maybe in the head of Mr. Guang (and not only of him I guess, but of all the other Chinese friends) DPRK is just waiting for the death of his leader Kim Jong-il and a new era of reform and economic development, de-militarization and peace. Discussing with Tom and Wu about our impression of DPRK we realized that Mr. Jin and Miss Ki gave us different info about their own life and education, and how they could speak a so good Chinese. We discovered that there are soldiers holding machine guns all around the hotel. And someone stole Mr. Guang’s carton of cigarettes in his room. Maybe he was just drunk and forgot where he put it, or maybe it was just a little revenge from DPRK’s people.

I spent the last night watching TV serial about Korean farmers’ life. The last day, we bought some souvenir… I bought a big flag of DPRK (just to make my South Korean friends in Beijing feel angry), a book written by Kim Jong-il about Juche in 1982, Pyongyang city map, the weekly “Pyongyang Times” in English language and a VCD documentary of DPRK revolution. “Pyongyang Times” gives some propaganda news about Kim Jong-il visiting factories, farms and foreign leaders, economic accomplishments in the field of medicine and science, brief news about China and opposition forces in South Korea, Women’s International Day and stuff like this. But having a look at the recent pictures of Kim Jong-il, I think professor Toshimitsu Shigemura (from Tokyo Waseda University, a scholar of DPRK) is right when he asserts that Kim is dead in 2003 and now replaced by some other stand-ins. In these pictures he look different, never smiling, holding big and black glasses and a Russian style fur hat to hide half of his face…. Who knows!?

Fortunately, this time we left from Pyongyang railway station on the morning, so no problem of power shortage. Mr. Jin helped us with tickets and food. The station was crowd of people, but mainly Chinese workers. In our cabin we drank the last Korean beer; Tom and Wu were a little bit scared because they still have some Korean money (it’s forbidden to bring them outside, they said) and many pictures of army stuff and soldiers in their camera. Fortunately we had no problem at the customs, and we spent only a couple of hours this time. Customs police and soldiers just took our passport, gave a look to our pockets and bags. No dogs. So no way to discover drugs or weapons I think. A couple of policewomen (beautiful women!) I met four days ago in the same customs greeted me with a smile. DPRK soldiers haven’t been bad with us, after all. In spite of their “famous brainwashing”, they were not so many as I saw in Turkey or Sri Lanka, and not so ass hole like in Romania, U.S. or Russia. DPRK is a country in war. Or at least this is what their leaders tell to the people. And the result is that one person each ten is a soldier.

It has been the first time in all my life I haven’t seen at all any track or sign of capitalism (expect in the hotel, of course). Nothing. No beggars, no homeless, no bars, no shopping mall, no commercial, no fashion, no drug sellers, no banks, nothing. Nothing even on TV. No pubs, no disco, no rich people, no money, no shopping. Silence, clean streets, no cars, power shortage, soldiers, poor farmers, ambiguous walkers, ambiguous digging in the countryside, ambiguous guides. Many slogans and portraits of the two Kim.
Well, I think Mr. Guang is right when he suggests me DPRK is 1970s China, and they are just waiting for a new era of reforms and open relations with foreign countries. According to Mr. Bei, Mao’s era was not completely bad for the people, but he made big mistakes like the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. Tom and Wu are too young to say something about that period. But they, like me, think there’s something fucking strange in DPRK, like the lack of freedom and this atmosphere of fear and silence.
DPRK should be really similar to last Mao’s China. And to 1950s Soviet Union. In other words, I think DPRK is still living the Cold War. And educate its children to the war and to hate Americans, South Koreans and Japanese. At the moment, I just want to know and read more about DPRK contemporary history, Juche and economic planning, but I do hope Kim Jong-il era will finish with his life.

And now I know how to answer to the previous question, “Why I decided to go to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea?”. The Cold War. I decided to go there to have the opportunity, twenty years after the smash of Berlin’s wall, to have a look and to feel the crazy atmosphere of Cold War. At the same time, I hope this “atmosphere” will end soon.


Beijing, March 17th 2009
Daniele Massaccesi

Pictures from North Korea (III) 北朝鲜，一些照片（III）

Report from North Korea (II) 去北朝鲜旅游：报告（II）

The second day we left the hotel and go by bus to the center of the city. We took pictures of the National Library (really cool one, looks like a little part of Chinese Forbidden City) and some monuments. Mr. Jin demanded us to buy flower (one euro for bouquet) to put in front of the Mansuade Grand Monument (huge bronze statue of “Great Leader” Kim Il-sung and dozens of farmers, soldiers and workers fighting for the socialist revolution in Korea). Than he demanded us to bow, in sign of respect. It has been really embarrassing for me, if I think of how many people died in Italy for my freedom and to avoid that in 2009 an Italian could still bow in front of any mother fucker. But still, I didn’t want to give any problem to Mr. Jin, and watching around I saw huge groups of Korean workers marching as soldiers, forming precise teams and bowing in front of their leader. And here the ancestral question: is it belief in something or fear for something else?!

Not far from Mansuade Grand Monument there is the Chollima statue, the Korean mythical horse.
Streets in the center of Pyongyang are really big, not many cars, lot of people dressing all the same (western dark suit or poor dark clothes), walking in the same direction, not easy to find someone talking or smiling, but of course there is someone doing that. I hope. What is pretty strange are a huge amount of kids walking as well, but alone, with no adults or parents, just going, sometime with other kids, sometime alone, often carrying sacks. A lot of soldiers along the streets, most of them holding rifles or machine guns. There are no traffic lights, I mean, there are, but they don’t work, I think cause of the power shortage; instead of them there are many traffic watchers, a kind of policeman who act as a robot telling to the cars (one to one! As I told you there are no many cars…) when to go and when to stop. Most of them are women. Beautiful women.
For the whole tour a man with a camcorder stayed with us, in the bus and during the visit, filming us all the day, but Mr. Jin told us it was to make a video-souvenir of our trip in DPRK. I haven’t bought the video.

Next stop is Myohyangsan Mountain. Two hours by bus from Pyongyang. We had the opportunity to have a look about the landscape, countryside and farmers’ life out of Pyongyang. The “highway” is pretty fucked up, but it’s not a problem cause there are no cars. Only soldiers and people walking along the highway, with horses and cows sometime. We are on March, so the weather was cold (minus 6 degrees in Pyongyang) and the landscape nothing special, only bare countryside and farmers apparently “doing nothing”. Sometime you can see teams of workers (common people I think, not farmers) organized together to dig and excavate something, under the flag of DPRK; most of them were smoking or chilling out, dirty of mud, holding red flags, using raw tools. Children are working as well. But, as many Chinese children who lives in Italy do when they are discovered by Italian police, they could say “I’m just helping my parents with their job!”.

During the trip by bus Mr. Jin was happy to introduce and explain us North Korean social and political situation. It sound more like a propaganda, he never stopped using terms like “great leader” and “American imperialism”, making comparison with Mao’s socialist China and other socialist developed countries. It sound like he tried to justify DPRK’s conditions with proud, showing us that: North Korea has no U.S. military posts (Italy has!), no prostitution, no drug, no unemployment, no pollution, no homeless, and everyone is happy in living in and working for the socialist paradise. I don’t know how, but I succeeded in not asking anything or making comments, but Mr. Guang, who was sitting a long of me, could not and said something like “Stop with these bullshits, your country looks like China during Cultural Revolution, poor and militarized! No freedom, no food and Party control”. Mr. Jin began a long discussion with him, saying it’s only a point of view and that DPRK chose its own destiny and still fight against American imperialism for a unite Korea.

At Myohyangsan Mountain we visited the Pujian Temple and the International Friendship Exhibition. The latter is a huge museum under the mountain (to avoid air attacks!) where are collected all the presents and gifts foreign presidents, parties and organizations gave to Kim Jong-il (son of the “Great Leader” Kim Il-sung and general secretary of Workers’ Party and chairman of Defence Commission) during last years. The museum looks like an Empire Palace and it’s forbidden to take pictures inside. Gifts came from all the part of the world (many from Italy, for example) and Mr. Jin focused on the fact that in other countries (like in Italy, for example!!) most of the leaders receive gifts from foreign visitors and take them for themselves while Kim Jong-il takes them for his country and his people. Well, about this, he was not completely wrong. But Mr. Guang didn’t stop to make fun of this “puppet country”, that looks, in his opinion, exactly like China thirty years ago.

Back in Pyongyang we have seen the Friendship Tower (a place foreign leaders and visitors use to go, bring flowers and leave some words on a big book inside the tower), Arch of Triumph and a huge stadium, were boys and girls were playing and were workers were bringing flowers and bowing to don’t know what kind of monument or slogan. The city is full of portraits of Kim Jong-il and Kim Il Song. And full of their slogan and catchphrase. I can’t speak or read Korean but you can understand they are slogan because most of them finish with a exclamation mark and have close to them some draw of political propaganda like Soviet Union and China had before.

Mr. Jin decided suddenly (?!) to bring us to visit a school in Pyongyang. Of course everything was planned and organized. Anyway, the school was not bad, it has many classes, classrooms, instrumentation and rooms for physic and musical activities. Portraits of Kim Jong-il and Kim Il-sung were everywhere. Some girls looks like a little bit scared watching a western tourist like me. A performance of a dozen of girls, singing and playing different instruments has been set up for us. Mr. Jin told us that a person who can not sing or dance is not a real Korean. So, I am not. At the end of the performance the girls called us to dance, I refuse but Mr. Jin demanded me to do that, otherwise it means I don’t respect them. So I danced. Maybe it’s only my personal opinion, but I think 99% of Korean girls are beautiful, and Tom and Wu agree with me. Before leaving, Mr. Guang gave some sweets to the girls, but seems like they didn’t appreciate it. Maybe they are not young enough for candies or maybe there were expecting for money. Outside we gave thank to the teacher and saw some students playing football while other were working as masons to construct I don’t know what kind of pillars.

Before the dinner, Mr. Jin showed us a serial of big bronze set of soldiers statues (DPRK army categories) in a park, memory of the war in 1950/1953.

After that Mr. Jin brought us to a shop full of Korean souvenirs; prices were not expensive at all, but I guess it was a place only for foreigners. I bought a small DPRK flag brooch for 0.5 euro and a carton of North Korean cigarettes for 5 euro. After dinner, back to he hotel. Beer and cigarettes in this tall hotel, isolated from the rest of the city, from the rest of the country.

Pictures from North Korea (II) 北朝鲜，一些照片（II）

Report from North Korea (I) 去北朝鲜旅游：报告（I）

No eagles in the sky of Democratic Korea

Why I decided to go to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea? Hard to say. Let me first tell you two things:

- I was planning it since 2005 when I suddenly had the idea to write my MA thesis about North Korean refugees in China and started to collect material and getting information about it. At the end I changed my idea and turned topic about economic development in Tibet;


- “Why are you going to North Korea?” is the question I heard more often recently. There could be still many reasons for me to visit DPRK, but for now I cannot figure out a precise one.


My tour began in Beijing, central train station. Everything is organized by a Chinese travel agency based in DanDong, on the border line with DPRK. I found their contact on the net and had a long conversation by e-mail with Sabrina, a Chinese girl who works with them. Later, I realized DanDong is full of travel agencies which organize tour to DPRK. What I had to do is just to bring my ass to DanDong (14 hours by train from Beijing, 143 RMB, “hard seat”), my passport, two pictures and 5.600 RMB cash (around 500 euro). It is an everything included price (four days tour, visa, train to Pyongyang, bus, accommodation, food, tickets for museums and other places. What is not included is “shopping”. But “Shopping in North Korea” sounds more like a cult movie or the title for a best seller). It’s not cheap at all, but cheap enough if compared with other prices set out by other companies in Beijing who work with DPRK. For the same programme of travel, the price for Chinese tourists is almost the half. I think it’s due to China-DPRK economic and politic agreements. China is the first trade partner of North Korea, and send them huge amount of cereals and other grass materials to supply DPRK’s economic difficulties. To get visa and permission to visit DPRK for U.S., South Korea and Japan citizens is harder and more expensive. Should be easier for Cambodians, Vietnamese, Laotians and Australians. Almost impossible for journalists, reporters and professional photographers.

The long way from Beijing to DanDong passed pretty fast. I had long conversation with some Chinese guys sitting in front of me, we talked about DPRK, Chinese and Italian labor and social conditions, Falungong, Dalai Lama, Chinese economic development, migrants, beer. Not, it wasn’t me asking or pointing out those issues, but them. Later an old Chinese came and never stop talking until the morning; he was a kind of high educated member of the CCP and retired teacher, he knows a lot about political issues and tried to convince the other Chinese travelers on the good wishes of the CCP and next coming social and economic successes and accomplishments. He talked eve about Tibet, Xinjiang, ethnic minorities, corruption. Recently, I’m more and more well surprised about the “hot issues” Chinese young and old people I heard to point out daily, in subway, restaurants, University campus.

While smoking a couple of packs of cigarettes in front of the window, I was thinking of how can be DPRK smashed up, never ending landscape of “nothing”, only poor farmlands and grey tall building in Pyongyang… What I am going to see? Something even worse than what I saw in Kenya? And while wondering as above, I suddenly realized that the countryside in front of me was exactly like this! Hebei and Liaoning provinces of China, kilometers and kilometers of nothing, rocks and bare lands, only a few villages of short houses made of red bricks and soil, grey sky, coal smog, broken glasses, farmers dressing like people in Zhang Yimou 1980’s movies. Well, nothing shocking at all actually, that’s only the China we know. But leaving in Beijing for long time this is exactly the kind of China you’re going to remove from your brain. By the way…

I couldn’t sleep for all the trip, red and talked a lot, arrived in DanDng pretty fucked up.
7.17 a.m. I met Sabrina, she showed me their travel agency (that open at 9 a.m.) and suggested me to take a look around. DanDong is a “small village” of two millions of inhabitants, one of the “most Chinese city” I’ve never seen in China. If not for cartel in both Chinese and Korean language. I couldn’t see any foreigners during the 24 hours I spent in DanDong. On the south you can easily find Yalu Jiang (or Amnok River). And in front of you, here you are, North Korea. Grey the sky, grey and muddy the water, “Friendship’s Bridge” which linked the two parts of lands and formal customs in DanDong for DPRK. Built up in 1910 by Japanese army, fucked up by American bombs in 1950, re-built up by Chinese and Korean workers.
It was snowing and raining for all the day, I had the good idea to have a never ending walk all along the river and spent the night in a internet café. Couldn’t sleep even that night, my personal “sleep strike” was keeping on, the night in DanDong ran fast away, with cigarettes, videos and articles about DPRK.
7 a. m., I left the internet café and join the other travelers who were going to North Korea at the train station. They’re eight, all Chinese. Finally a good news. Between them there is a forty something worker from Beijing, he has two daughters who are studying in South Africa; we will call him Mr. Bei. A 18 years old guy from Haerbin (north east China) who is studying in Canada; we will call him Tom. A 28 years old guy from Dalian (not far from DanDong), married, with a daughter of seven months; we will call him Wu. And an old business man from Guangdong (south China), who can’t speak a good Mandarin; we will call him Mr. Guang.

On the train to Pyongyang I am in a cabin with four/five guys from DPRK. They dress all the same, bring many bags with them. One of them can speak a little bit of Chinese, he asked me where I am from, questions about Italy and about my studies in Beijing. I remember them 1966’s Italy-North Korea 0:1 football match and we are immediately friends. They offered me cigarettes, mandarins and cakes, helped me during the boring praxis at the customs. Later, my Chinese friends told me the way from DanDong took seven hours (three hours only for the customs!) but I don’t remember much about that cause I slept for all the trip.

What I remember is one of the most shocking scene of all my life: as we arrived at Pyongyang railway station we came out of the train and there was not any light at all, we could just see people running and screaming in any direction, soldiers and guys in uniform, men and women with big bags on their shoulder bringing children with them. And no light. No fucking light. Everything dark I mean. The only light was that of the moon. We all were a little bit scared. No guide with us, just people screaming and pushing us. Wu tried to ask something but no one could speak Chinese. Finally the light suddenly came back and we could recognize the exit. Pyongyang station looks like Sophia’s railway station (Bulgaria) when I saw it ten years ago. Simply “Stalinist”. Once outside, we finally found our two guides: one 64 years old Korean man, we will call him Mr. Jin, and a young Korean lady, we will call her Miss Ki. Both of them could speak a perfect Chinese, but Mr. Jin’s one has a really strong south China accent. They brought us to the bus for the hotel, apologizing for the delay and the shortage of light in the station.

Shortage of electricity is really common in DPRK. During my four days it happened many times that the light suddenly disappeared, coming back after ten / twenty minutes. Trains always delay because of this. You can easily notice it even because at night the city is almost completely in darkness, no light in the streets, only in some buildings and for great monuments of DPRK’s leaders. The second big shortage is oil. There are no cars in the streets, not even during the day. Really a few one. No oil means no fuel, no fuel means no cars. And no cars no pollution. It’s amazing the silence and tranquility you can feel in a capital city of three millions inhabitants like Pyongyang. Never seen before.

The bus brought us to Yanggakdo Hotel, one of the most tall and luxurious of the city. It’s not far from the center of the city, in the middle of a little island in Datong River. The are no bus or cars in front of the hotel, the parking place is empty. No lights outside of the hotel, no light in the city. As we arrived Mr. Jin and Miss Ki showed us the restaurant and let us have dinner, while they disappeared.
North Korean food is not bad at all: as a western I could say that it is really similar to Chinese and South Korean food, but of course it is not. No matter if breakfast, lunch or dinner time, in these days we have always been eating kimchi (the traditional spicy cabbage, I love it!), eggs, fish, vegetables, omelette, few chicken and pork meat (really few), Korean beer (sweet, I like it), cold water (Chinese people use to drink hot or boiled water, but Koreans do not). Of course my Chinese fellows have never been satisfied with this kind of food, cause of quality and quantity. But Chinese people are never satisfied with any kind of food that is not “their food”, so I think it’s not strange at all.
“3” is the lucky and warmly welcome number in Korea. In China it is “8” or “7”, “4” is the worst one. “Gaomasmida” (or something like that) means “Thank you”, and “Agnonasmida” means “Hey, what’s up dude?!” (in a more polite way).
They have holiday just on Sunday; they celebrate Women’s International Day and Workers’ Day, but not Valentine’s Day; the most important festivity is on April the 15th, Kim Il-sung birth day. There are holidays on Summer and Winter, too.

After the dinner Mr. Jin showed us the rest of the hotel: on the first floor there were barber shops, souvenir shop, bookshop, bars, karaoke, Chinese restaurant, Russian restaurant, ping pong and pool room, swimming pool, sauna, and all this kind of things that are not so common for North Korean people. We asked Mr. Jin if we could go out of the hotel for a walk and he said “better no, it’s dark and dangerous outside”. Mr. Jin is one of the best diplomatic person I have never met, always smiling, always helpful: he knows his job and knows how to not allow you to do something. He asked us to not take pictures of soldiers and military stuff, don’t asked political questions and do not behave disrespectful. At the same time he invited us to ask as many questions as we want and to feel free to take pictures of what we are going to see during the tour. Miss Ki didn’t talk much, she only worked as interpreter for us when visiting monuments or museums.
The hotel was pretty empty, but there were some other customers, Russian, North Koreans, and some British guys I saw in Beijing.
There was shortage of light even in many grounds of the hotel, but our rooms were really clean and had any kind of commodity. Shopping inside the hotel was not that expensive in comparison with hotels in Europe or China: 0.5 euro for a beer, 1 euro for a book written by Kim Jong-il, 2 euro for an hour at ping pong room, 2 euro for cold noodles. You can pay in euro, dollars or renminbi (Chinese currency). You cannot use any international card, but you can change money in the lobby, even if Mr. Jin told us to don’t do that (Korean currency is useless out of DPRK). Tom changed 20 renminbi (about 1.8 euro) for 500 Korean money, only once back in China we have discovered that the change should be 1 renminbi for 400 Korean money. Maybe that’s why Mr. Jin told us to do not change money in the lobby.
The TV inside our room had many channels, most of them from Chinese TV, but even in Russian and Korean. Korean TV has no commercials at all, just broadcast news about their leader and Workers’ Party, TV serials about history of their revolution and life in the countryside. Not so different from the first time I watched TV in China, on February 2004.

Pictures from North Korea (I) 北朝鲜，一些照片（I）

(On the way to North Korea... I do really hope to get there. And be back in a few days, as well. Let's keep the fingers crossed! See you all!)

"mother's lock" 婆婆上锁

"the most important source of social support for pre- marital sexual intercourse comes from the parents of young men. Premarital sex not only reduces the financial burden of wedding costs, but it also virtually insures the marriage. Thus, parents of young men often encourage their sons to engage in premarital in- tercourse. In Wuhan, the new term "mother's lock" (popo shang suo) best illustrates this phenomenon. This refers to the practice whereby, in order to encourage her son to have sex with his girl- friend, a mother locks the young couple inside the bedroom"

"Virginity and premarital sex in contemporary China", Xiao Zhou, 1989.

Women's Day Party!

Women's Day Party at People's University of China, foreign students' dormitory. Vietnamese, Thai and Korean food... just a little bit spicy

:-)