46. "Can you help me get into North Korea?"
Back in Khabarovsk they order a late supper served downstairs in restaurant at the Parus . Eddie is starving for good food after a day in Kabul.
The Parus in its sub level has a restaurant with clean, white-cover, round tables and its waitresses in black apron dress.
As they look over the menu, Boris suggests they start with shrimp cocktail; then hot borscht - the red beet soup invented in Russia. Main course is steak, cooked rare, with onions fried over it and German style hash potato and string beans and cooked carrots. Eddie has mentioned his Jewish origin, so Boris orders a plate of matzohs and gefilte fish made from freshly caught Amur River whitefish. As they are ordering, the blond driver Valentin joins the table at Eddie's previous invitation. He is a hefty Ukrainian who loves Jewish because he is married to a Jewess. Boris jokes, "Ukrainians love the Jews! An't it, Valentin? An't your grandpa a cossack? Ha! Ha! Ha!"
Valentin makes a dour expression because his wife, Ruth, always reminds him how bad the Cossacks did the Jews in old, bad days in Kiev. But his expression improves as he listens to Boris continue to order supper.
For dessert, Boris asks Eddie "Do you like what you in America call the Baked Alaska we Russians discovered?" Eddie nods Yes and Valentin appears overjoyed, so Boris adds it. Then the chai tea from a large silver samovar and lots of Halvah.
The order having been made, Boris asks a telephone to table. He has conversation with someone in Russian. As he finishes, a bottle of white wine is poured for the three.
"Mr. Eduard, you are lucky. But is because we approve you. Ha! Ha! Ha!" Eddie notes and Valentin joins the chuckling and Eddie guesses So Valentin is KGB too.
Boris explains. "That was the foreign ministry man in Moscow. Tomorrow you be on plane, Destination Pyongyang. Two days and red carpet."
Eddie cannot stop thanking Boris. After the first minute Boris stretches out his palm in a Please stop sign and says "Not necessary, young friend. Subject, as in Amerika a done deal. Ha! Ha! Ha! Now, the eating!"
Eddie at start wants to enjoy the effect of the wine. The white wine preferred to red goes against opinion on health effects but Eddie favors white because he has noted that the red badly stains everything and he concluded the staining goes on inside the body and is not good for long life. He lifts his goblet of best French Chateaubriand 1923 and says "To science-civilization, may it come soon."
"Choroshau!" exclaims Valentin lifting his goblet and Eddie guesses Valentin understands English.
They each take small sips and savor the wine, avoiding small talk. Boris says "My colleague in Moscow say you have opportunity to meet Mr Rewi Alley who also visit Pyongyang. He can tell many thing including the stupidity in China." Boris stops and each one does another sip.
The waitress, Eddie notes, without seeming to lurk keeps aware of the guests drinking and when the goblets are almost empty, she serves the shrimp cocktails. These come in glass cups. The base of the cocktail is shredded cabbage and pieces of fresh tomato slices and tiny cut fresh carrots and raw spinach leaves; then, on top, the shrimps, thick, long and at end curled, 3 each in the glass cup and a dish of hot red sauce. Eddie notes the shrimp is encased in its transparent shell that he knows is full of bone-building calcium and he eats head and all.
Boris asks the waitress for small scissors and as the leader he proceeds to cut his shrimps into small bite pieces and also the tomato slices and larger spinach leaves. Pairs of chopsticks are at each diner's place. This way of eating - cutting the large food bodies into small bites and picking each up singly with chopsticks is a way of slowing eating and prolonging its pleasure if compared to the usual large piece swallowing of uncut food using knife and fork. Conversation now stops in order to deeply enjoy the moment of eating.
Then it resumes:
"North Korea is model of how prepare for the overpopulation - how you say - crunch," comments Boris, after they all have enjoyed the last of the shrimp cocktail and are between servings. "The people regimented and no experience in your democrazy" - he chuckles again - "so they satisfied with pleasures of modern Korean life. You like kimchee?"
"Wha?" Eddie gives a Bronx interrogative.
Boris waves to the waitress and orders "Kimchee davai!"
Quickly she brings plates of the juicy, stinging, spiced and pickled cabbage.
All Eddie can think as he enjoys is Wow! Wow! Wow! and empties his plate.
The steak orders are now placed in front of each diner. Each one actively scissors the steak into small pieces and also the string beans, carrots and potato. Then they eat silent and slow, small piece by small piece with chopsticks.
It is near 15 minutes later, when a 2nd round of wine is filled into the glasses. Eddie silently approves the not mixing of drinks. Beer and ale has too much salt and calories; other liquor has too concentrated alcohol.
Eddie's tongue is loosening. "That Mr Putin is some guy. What's his middle initial V?"
"Vladimirovitch. It means son of Vladimir, not son of bitch" explains Boris again chuckling. He is real mensch as Yid would say. I wish he were in control instead of the current fools in Politburo. I am afraid they are going to end Soviet Union," Boris says worriedly and Valentin nods head agreement.
On To Pyongyang.
Eddie's small commercial Aeroflot jet with its few diplomatic passengers. touches down on an almost empty field. As he enters passport & customs check building, Eddie notices a small group on hand, who turn out to be the officials and one greeter, an old man with red face, and he immediately comes forward and shakes Eddie's hand and says, "Rewi Alley, At's me, Guvner," in a funny British cockney way. Then he says something to the passport and custom official in Korean, Eddie guesses, and, minutes later, Eddie and he are sitting together in Rewi's Volkswagen Beetle car.
An Evening with Rewi.
Rewi Alley is dean of western communists in the Orient, based in Beijing, and Eddie knows his story well. Rewi has seen and heard and thought a lot about the passing parade.
Rewi and Eddie arrive at Pyongyang's only intourist hotel and it is a little before 5 PM. Rewi, thoughtful for traveler's needs but also wanting much to talk, says in his New Zealand way to Eddie: "Look, Mate! Why don't you get an hour rest and then, if you don't mind, I'll come and drink with you, and fill you in on things. By the way, Mate, it's all my shout!", Rewi's slang for My treat.
Eddie takes a quick shower and checks his few travel things. Coming out of shower after noting the water is water-color, in contrast to Amur River brown at the Parus, he puts on a Yukata wrap cotton gown with dark-blue stork outlines on white cotton background and lies down on the bed, made with red cover and using sand pillow as he is used to. His quartered pentagin pill is on the bedside table and he puts it under his tongue. Soon he is reposing. He thinks good thought and feels content with the trip.
An hour later his wrist alarm goes off and almost at same time a knock at door and without waiting for reply, the door is opened and a red-faced Rewi, glass of amber drink Eddie guesses is scotch, in right hand and bottle of same in left hand.
"Hello, Mate. Djya sleep? Donchyamind me comin' in? Now I'm 87, I be gone any day so I don't like sleep. Like to feel alive, long as I can, Mate. Bloody alive!"
Eddie sits up. Staying on edge of bed he indicates Rewi sit on chair facing. He tells Rewi, he prefers not to drink but assures him he does not mind Rewi's drinking. Rewi sits and pours himself another portion from the bottle, swigs part of it and starts talking.
"Mate, I tell you. When you gets past 80 on feet wit' wit an' wits, and you knows you ain't got a long time, things git very, very shine, like clear. Like bein' absolutely positootly sure the gods don' exist and when you die it's just the blankety blank end like when you lie down and sleep without dream except it never stop and it's goo'by forever.
"An' you stop worryin about all that boollshit: Morality! Ethics! Conscience! Good! Bad! Sin! It's all the bunkum.
"Listen Mate, I been aroun' a long time here in the Orient. I love communism not for the politics but because I love to share. Why, mate, if I was married, I'd a share me wife. I lived primitive communism when I grew up wit' the Maori in New Z, see.
"Lemmee tell ya, Mate. Bad days ahead for us lefties. Joe Stalin, bless his unimmortal spirit, was the greatest bloke we ever had. Yeah, he had rough edges. But like your General Ulysses S. Grant, he pounded the enemy into a bloody pulp and never let up. Great man!
"Kruschev OK but he made a mistake trashin' Stalin. It was beginnin' a the end for the USSR because Stalin was needed then. Then came Brezhnev, a corrupt apparatchik. He used to be Stalin's chauffeur. Not fit to clean old Joe's boots. An' after he die and all the other blokes - forget it. They be on pay by CIA. Forgive my rhymin', Simon!"
Eddie asks, "How about Mao?" knowing Rewi Alley is the wisest old China hand.
Rewi chug-a-lugs his glass of scotch, wipes his lips with back of left hand, and takes a moment to recover from the jolt of the liquor.
"Ya heard of Mister Midas, aintchya, Mate?"
"Sure," Eddie replies, "that Midas-touch guy, everything he touched turned shiny yellow."
"Well, Mate, this dead Mr Mao, that's now s'posed to be called Zedong but Tse-tung is more accurate classically for his given name, - this guy Mao. I like to rename Ze dung in me Frenchie Zealie accent. He was anti-Midas. Ever'thin' he touch turn to dung - you know dung, animal shit."
Eddie perks up. Like almost all fellow traveler pro-communists even in 1985, Mao Tse-tung, or Zedong, according to the latest advised spelling, or familiarly Chairman Mao, or even more hagiographically, The Great Helmsman, is someone that he, Eddie, considers an icon of communism, a founder of a great nation communist state, a George Washington. And here is Rewi Alley referring to Mao as shit-maker. Eddie knows it is not necessary to ask for clarification, he is going to get it. So he sits on edge of bed and listens.
"Mr Mao was a bloke oo pulled the 'ool over ever'one's eyes but I never trusted the fat Chink. The first moment I meet the bloody bloke in 1927, I see the shifty eye and overfed look and the mole my Chinese astrology says shows the shiftiest, most dishonest bloke on Earth.
"Yeah, ever'thin' he touch. turned to stink like you know what.
"First, he grab hold a the young new communist party and rips it away from Karl Marx and Lenin's teachin' that communism oughta come outa a city proletariate - the factory workers of the coastal cities Shanghai, Peking, Nanking. No, says Mao. We gotta use the peasant farmers of China!" Rewi slaps his thigh and laughs out loud. "The Chinese farmer was the most reactionary bloke on earth. Mao chose the farmer to man his revolution because Mao hisself is son of a country money lender and he knew the Chinese farmer was the stupidest bloke he could find and easy pickings to follow him blindly.
"Well, once he get control a the party he mucked it up by losin' a civil war to Chiang Kai-shek and havin' to retreat from the coastal cities into the inner wilderness. They call that retreat today the Long March and today it is celebrated as Mao's brilliant ploy. But, be gawd, it really were a huge mismanaged disaster for the cadre. It show how Mao's mistakes are changed into propaganda shouts.
"Well, he is losing the war to Chiang when, lucky for him, the Japs step in and invade China and Mao finds hisself leadin' the patriotic forces because of Chiang's pro Jap sympathies. " Rewi pauses. "People say today, Well, no matter what! You gotta give Mao credit for winnin' the Revolution against Chiang in 1949. Credit, shit! He had goo' generals like Chu teh and Lin Piao, diplomats like Chou En lai and state planners like Liu Shao Chi. And the Chiang Kai-shek forces were incompetent, dishonest and unpopular. So 1949 we got the People's Republic of China and 3 cheers for it. I was there.
"The PRC needed peace to consolidate so what does Mao go and do but get involved in the Korean War. "Then the Great Leap Forward where Mao's incompetence result in millions dyin' a famine! Then he make the split with the Soviet Union and invite Nixon and Kissinger - the wolves in lambs clothing into China.
"Yeah, Kruschev was right to write in his memoirs. 'Mao, is no communist; he's, a bourgeosie nationalist capitalist roader!
"And the Cultural Revolution leadin' directly to Deng Hsiao-Ping's turn toward capitalism! And now see China today!
"I used to wake up in the morning in the early 1970's and happily view the thousands of Peking citizens going to work on bicycles and not a bit a smoke pollution from cars. Now capitalism is returnin' to China and I wake up and almost cough to death, and look out a window and traffic jams are worse ever' day.
"And a stock market too!"
Rewi puts down his glass and suddenly smiles. "Mate, let's get happy. At 87, who cares about fools?" He rubs his stomach area. "You hungry, Mate?
Eddie says Yes and Rewi orders a Korean supper by telephone. As they wait for the room service, Rewi says, "Mate, I'm gonna die any day now. Lucky I still got me marbles -" he pats top of his head "- and I'm on me feet. But I got a touch of the sif in Frozen Chosen from bad pussy durin' the Korean War and never got enough penicillin so now I got a bulge in me aorta and the docs say it could bust any day now. They want me to have surgery but I say Thanks, but no thanks, Mates! That kinda surgery can leave you brain dead, ain't it so doc?"
Eddie nods Yes.
"So me who is about to die salute you, kid. Ever'thin' clear now. We are here on this earth to enjoy, if we lucky enough to get in that position. And here we be. So fuck 'em all. Especially the women.
Hey mate, you like Korean pussy?"
Eddie smiles and Rewi assumes it means Yes.
"I can order for you too - two!. Ha! Ha! Ha!"
A discreet knock. Rewi says enter in Korean and three women come with the food.
Eddie sees he and Rewi will be eating communist style. No individual servings, everything on three big trays and single plates that he and Rewi may eat off of with chopsticks. He takes out the little scissors Boris had introduced him to at the Parus and explains to Rewi eating small scissored bite bits by chopstick pick up.
"Brilliant, Mate! Whyn't I think it up after 87 years now?"
They start with white rice, in its own pot and a waitress fills two bowls. Then they sit each with a bowl and a plate of red juicy kimchee pickled cabbage.
"This is the kimchee of Frozen Chosen, Mate. At's what we called Korea in Pyongyang when MacArthur's troops marched in durin' the winter a 1950."
Rewi picks up a red sauce-dripping piece of cabbage stalk of the kimchee between chopsticks and feeds it into Eddie's mouth to start the eating. Then they go at it but not as slowly as Eddie would prefer. Eddie finds the bland, hot, clean tasting white rice is the perfect eating companion to the sharp spicy juicy kimchee.
A cooking hibachi is set on the floor where they eat, and one of the Korean gowned waitresses barbecues strips of meat, pieces of onions, carrots, peppers, and other delicacies and then Rewi directs Eddie to chopstick up one sizzling morsel after another and dip into one or another brown pungent sauce and soup in small bowls between them before popping it into mouth.
"Which one a these three pussies you like, to eat, Mate?" Rewi asks, and Eddie smilingly shakes head No and keeps popping the just sizzling morsels covered with pungent sauce into his mouth and chewing slowly, savoring each; and Rewi seeing the look on Eddie's face realizes it is not a time to talk but to eat.
After supper is finished and the girls have packed up the leftovers and left, Rewi gets up and offers Eddie his right hand to shake. As Eddie shakes hands, Rewi says, "Thank ye, Mate, for listenin' to this senile old bloke at's me. Now, I let you sleep. Tomorree I give ye a guided tour a this beautiful last communist city on Earth, and who knows how long it'll last a way things are goin' now in Russia and China." He turns and leaves.
Eddie takes off his clothes in the rather warm hotel room, goes to toilet, brushes teeth using a fresh toothbrush from Tokyo and no toothpaste but just the water from tap, taking a minute to use the small bristles of the brush in place of the usual after-dinner toothpick, which he no longer uses because of its danger to put too many mouth bacteria into one's blood and infect heart valve. Then he washes face and hands, dries off, goes back to the room and after turning off light, lies down atop bed and puts a quarter pentagin he had on bed table under tongue. In minutes, good thoughts start and he drifts into pleasant dreaming sleep. Tomorrow the tour!
Pyongyang Tour
Next day, Eddie, with Rewi by his side, tours the North Korean capital. They go to a factory where women assemble transistor radios and Eddie is impressed by the clean, good working conditions, the nursery child care for working mothers, the slimness of all the workers. (Rewi chuckles at the healthy starvation of the North) Also he notes portraits of the beloved leader Kim Il Sung on every wall. "Better than Ronnie Reagan, mate!" quips Rewi.
Then to a grammar school where the very well behaved oriental slit-eye kids impress Eddie as being the opposite of rowdy NYC. He worries to Rewi that these oriental kids will never develop critical minds.Discussing it on a tea break, the New Zealie says - "Mate! Where this overpopulated world is headin', critical minds is a last thin' it gonna need. These quiet kids who do what they told and don't make more'n one baby a piece are gonna save tomorra's worl'."
They stop in a bookstore showing mostly works of Kim Il sung, Mao Tsetung and Josef Stalin. Rewi quips "Hemingway is the last thing these blokes need up north here."
The rest of the tour does not impress Eddie. But neither does it disappoint him. He realizes what he already knew - that North Korea is an isolated mote in a dying Cold War and if, as it looks like, the communist side loses, North Korea will become an anomaly and starved to extinction due to the U.S. CIA bad works. But his sympathy goes to these quiet, uncomplaining, uncritical people. Someday, he wonders and hopes, maybe the world will go sane and we shall have science civilization for all.
Next day, he flies to Hong Kong. Rewi tags along.
End of Chapter. To continue next, click 16.47 Hongkong and Han Suyin
"Listen Mate, I been aroun' a long time here in the Orient. I love communism not for the politics but because I love to share. Why, mate, if I was married, I'd a share me wife. I lived primitive communism when I grew up wit' the Maori in New Z, see.
"Lemmee tell ya, Mate. Bad days ahead for us lefties. Joe Stalin, bless his unimmortal spirit, was the greatest bloke we ever had. Yeah, he had rough edges. But like your General Ulysses S. Grant, he pounded the enemy into a bloody pulp and never let up. Great man!
"Kruschev OK but he made a mistake trashin' Stalin. It was beginnin' a the end for the USSR because Stalin was needed then. Then came Brezhnev, a corrupt apparatchik. He used to be Stalin's chauffeur. Not fit to clean old Joe's boots. An' after he die and all the other blokes - forget it. They be on pay by CIA. Forgive my rhymin', Simon!"
Eddie asks, "How about Mao?" knowing Rewi Alley is the wisest old China hand.
Rewi chug-a-lugs his glass of scotch, wipes his lips with back of left hand, and takes a moment to recover from the jolt of the liquor.
"Ya heard of Mister Midas, aintchya, Mate?"
"Sure," Eddie replies, "that Midas-touch guy, everything he touched turned shiny yellow."
"Well, Mate, this dead Mr Mao, that's now s'posed to be called Zedong but Tse-tung is more accurate classically for his given name, - this guy Mao. I like to rename Ze dung in me Frenchie Zealie accent. He was anti-Midas. Ever'thin' he touch turn to dung - you know dung, animal shit."
Eddie perks up. Like almost all fellow traveler pro-communists even in 1985, Mao Tse-tung, or Zedong, according to the latest advised spelling, or familiarly Chairman Mao, or even more hagiographically, The Great Helmsman, is someone that he, Eddie, considers an icon of communism, a founder of a great nation communist state, a George Washington. And here is Rewi Alley referring to Mao as shit-maker. Eddie knows it is not necessary to ask for clarification, he is going to get it. So he sits on edge of bed and listens.
"Mr Mao was a bloke oo pulled the 'ool over ever'one's eyes but I never trusted the fat Chink. The first moment I meet the bloody bloke in 1927, I see the shifty eye and overfed look and the mole my Chinese astrology says shows the shiftiest, most dishonest bloke on Earth.
"Yeah, ever'thin' he touch. turned to stink like you know what.
"First, he grab hold a the young new communist party and rips it away from Karl Marx and Lenin's teachin' that communism oughta come outa a city proletariate - the factory workers of the coastal cities Shanghai, Peking, Nanking. No, says Mao. We gotta use the peasant farmers of China!" Rewi slaps his thigh and laughs out loud. "The Chinese farmer was the most reactionary bloke on earth. Mao chose the farmer to man his revolution because Mao hisself is son of a country money lender and he knew the Chinese farmer was the stupidest bloke he could find and easy pickings to follow him blindly.
"Well, once he get control a the party he mucked it up by losin' a civil war to Chiang Kai-shek and havin' to retreat from the coastal cities into the inner wilderness. They call that retreat today the Long March and today it is celebrated as Mao's brilliant ploy. But, be gawd, it really were a huge mismanaged disaster for the cadre. It show how Mao's mistakes are changed into propaganda shouts.
"Well, he is losing the war to Chiang when, lucky for him, the Japs step in and invade China and Mao finds hisself leadin' the patriotic forces because of Chiang's pro Jap sympathies. " Rewi pauses. "People say today, Well, no matter what! You gotta give Mao credit for winnin' the Revolution against Chiang in 1949. Credit, shit! He had goo' generals like Chu teh and Lin Piao, diplomats like Chou En lai and state planners like Liu Shao Chi. And the Chiang Kai-shek forces were incompetent, dishonest and unpopular. So 1949 we got the People's Republic of China and 3 cheers for it. I was there.
"The PRC needed peace to consolidate so what does Mao go and do but get involved in the Korean War. "Then the Great Leap Forward where Mao's incompetence result in millions dyin' a famine! Then he make the split with the Soviet Union and invite Nixon and Kissinger - the wolves in lambs clothing into China.
"Yeah, Kruschev was right to write in his memoirs. 'Mao, is no communist; he's, a bourgeosie nationalist capitalist roader!
"And the Cultural Revolution leadin' directly to Deng Hsiao-Ping's turn toward capitalism! And now see China today!
"I used to wake up in the morning in the early 1970's and happily view the thousands of Peking citizens going to work on bicycles and not a bit a smoke pollution from cars. Now capitalism is returnin' to China and I wake up and almost cough to death, and look out a window and traffic jams are worse ever' day.
"And a stock market too!"
Rewi puts down his glass and suddenly smiles. "Mate, let's get happy. At 87, who cares about fools?" He rubs his stomach area. "You hungry, Mate?
Eddie says Yes and Rewi orders a Korean supper by telephone. As they wait for the room service, Rewi says, "Mate, I'm gonna die any day now. Lucky I still got me marbles -" he pats top of his head "- and I'm on me feet. But I got a touch of the sif in Frozen Chosen from bad pussy durin' the Korean War and never got enough penicillin so now I got a bulge in me aorta and the docs say it could bust any day now. They want me to have surgery but I say Thanks, but no thanks, Mates! That kinda surgery can leave you brain dead, ain't it so doc?"
Eddie nods Yes.
"So me who is about to die salute you, kid. Ever'thin' clear now. We are here on this earth to enjoy, if we lucky enough to get in that position. And here we be. So fuck 'em all. Especially the women.
Hey mate, you like Korean pussy?"
Eddie smiles and Rewi assumes it means Yes.
"I can order for you too - two!. Ha! Ha! Ha!"
A discreet knock. Rewi says enter in Korean and three women come with the food.
Eddie sees he and Rewi will be eating communist style. No individual servings, everything on three big trays and single plates that he and Rewi may eat off of with chopsticks. He takes out the little scissors Boris had introduced him to at the Parus and explains to Rewi eating small scissored bite bits by chopstick pick up.
"Brilliant, Mate! Whyn't I think it up after 87 years now?"
They start with white rice, in its own pot and a waitress fills two bowls. Then they sit each with a bowl and a plate of red juicy kimchee pickled cabbage.
"This is the kimchee of Frozen Chosen, Mate. At's what we called Korea in Pyongyang when MacArthur's troops marched in durin' the winter a 1950."
Rewi picks up a red sauce-dripping piece of cabbage stalk of the kimchee between chopsticks and feeds it into Eddie's mouth to start the eating. Then they go at it but not as slowly as Eddie would prefer. Eddie finds the bland, hot, clean tasting white rice is the perfect eating companion to the sharp spicy juicy kimchee.
A cooking hibachi is set on the floor where they eat, and one of the Korean gowned waitresses barbecues strips of meat, pieces of onions, carrots, peppers, and other delicacies and then Rewi directs Eddie to chopstick up one sizzling morsel after another and dip into one or another brown pungent sauce and soup in small bowls between them before popping it into mouth.
"Which one a these three pussies you like, to eat, Mate?" Rewi asks, and Eddie smilingly shakes head No and keeps popping the just sizzling morsels covered with pungent sauce into his mouth and chewing slowly, savoring each; and Rewi seeing the look on Eddie's face realizes it is not a time to talk but to eat.
After supper is finished and the girls have packed up the leftovers and left, Rewi gets up and offers Eddie his right hand to shake. As Eddie shakes hands, Rewi says, "Thank ye, Mate, for listenin' to this senile old bloke at's me. Now, I let you sleep. Tomorree I give ye a guided tour a this beautiful last communist city on Earth, and who knows how long it'll last a way things are goin' now in Russia and China." He turns and leaves.
Eddie takes off his clothes in the rather warm hotel room, goes to toilet, brushes teeth using a fresh toothbrush from Tokyo and no toothpaste but just the water from tap, taking a minute to use the small bristles of the brush in place of the usual after-dinner toothpick, which he no longer uses because of its danger to put too many mouth bacteria into one's blood and infect heart valve. Then he washes face and hands, dries off, goes back to the room and after turning off light, lies down atop bed and puts a quarter pentagin he had on bed table under tongue. In minutes, good thoughts start and he drifts into pleasant dreaming sleep. Tomorrow the tour!
Pyongyang Tour
Next day, Eddie, with Rewi by his side, tours the North Korean capital. They go to a factory where women assemble transistor radios and Eddie is impressed by the clean, good working conditions, the nursery child care for working mothers, the slimness of all the workers. (Rewi chuckles at the healthy starvation of the North) Also he notes portraits of the beloved leader Kim Il Sung on every wall. "Better than Ronnie Reagan, mate!" quips Rewi.
Then to a grammar school where the very well behaved oriental slit-eye kids impress Eddie as being the opposite of rowdy NYC. He worries to Rewi that these oriental kids will never develop critical minds.Discussing it on a tea break, the New Zealie says - "Mate! Where this overpopulated world is headin', critical minds is a last thin' it gonna need. These quiet kids who do what they told and don't make more'n one baby a piece are gonna save tomorra's worl'."
They stop in a bookstore showing mostly works of Kim Il sung, Mao Tsetung and Josef Stalin. Rewi quips "Hemingway is the last thing these blokes need up north here."
The rest of the tour does not impress Eddie. But neither does it disappoint him. He realizes what he already knew - that North Korea is an isolated mote in a dying Cold War and if, as it looks like, the communist side loses, North Korea will become an anomaly and starved to extinction due to the U.S. CIA bad works. But his sympathy goes to these quiet, uncomplaining, uncritical people. Someday, he wonders and hopes, maybe the world will go sane and we shall have science civilization for all.
Next day, he flies to Hong Kong. Rewi tags along.
End of Chapter. To continue next, click 16.47 Hongkong and Han Suyin
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