Connexscions Volume VIII Issue 02 Jan - WKWSCI Home - Nanyang ...

CAMPUS
Sojourning into
Pyongyang
Journalism students on a landmark practicum bond over
blackouts, freezing temperatures and bizarre episodes
When a group of final-year students won
the chance to visit North Korea for a
week last December for their Short
Overseas Journalism (SOJOURN) module, they
never imagined that the most newsworthy event
would take place after they left. Eight days after they
departed Pyongyang, North Korea’s supreme leader
Kim Jung Il passed away.
When the country’s gates closed to the outside
world, final-year student Elizabeth Law thought to
Supervisor Ms Hedwig Alfred (centre) giving a briefing on the
bus
by Amellia Razak
herself, “Thank goodness we went there earlier. If not
I’d be really annoyed.”
The Straits Times ran a special feature on the group’s
visit to Asia’s famously hermitic nation.
“Honestly, it was very, very humbling,” said
Elizabeth. “When you look at the other names in the
newspaper, you know these people work hard for their
bylines, but all we did was be at the right place at the
right time, with the right person.”
Each year, the journalism faculty allows a select
few to venture overseas for its SOJOURN programme.
Supported by the Wee Kim Wee Legacy Fund, the
programme was created to give students the opportunity
to hone their journalism skills in an environment
unlike home.
For the group of 16 final-year students on the
practicum, being so close to an event that had a great
impact on foreign relations between East and West had
more personal implications.
Despite the freezing temperatures, Elizabeth counted
herself lucky to have walked the streets of Pyongyang.
“It was about zero degrees and even though the
walk was supposed to take only 45 minutes, we took
nearly two hours and by the end of it, I could barely feel
my face,” she said.
To fourth-year student Foo Jieying, the sight of so
much extravagance in a country with a meagre GDP
was stunning.
“You’d be surprised at how much North Korea tries
to give off this perfect image, from multi-talented,
plastic-smiled kindergarten kids to chandeliered ceilings
in libraries and subway stations. For a country so poor,
it’s amazing and shocking at the same time how they
prioritise the flow of money,” Jieying observed.
She has a new appreciation for the comfort of
Singapore—how lucky we are to not have the frequent
blackouts and desolate lands of North Korea.
While she was in Pyongyang, Jieying was also
unable to shake off the feeling of being watched.
“There’s this talk about hidden cameras behind
mirrors in the room and that possibility got some of us
a little paranoid,” she admitted.
That was not the only “creepy” feeling the students
had during the week-long visit. Even a visit with
kindergarten children gave the group chills, as the
entire visit had an air of being overly staged and
carefully executed.
Elizabeth recalled their visit to a school where dead
animals stuffed with cotton lined the corridors.
“The teacher had a long stick which she would
use to point at animals and the kids would shout their
names, or point at the animals to answer the question.
Since I was one of the photographers, I was standing
quite near the front and the next thing I knew, a kid
was grabbing me and shoving the stick into my hand!”
While the children put on a performance for their
visitors, they appeared to be capable of “turning on you
fast”, Elizabeth observed.
“One minute they’re welcoming you at the top of
their lungs and the next, they’re laughing loudly at you
for not knowing what ‘hedgehog’ is in Korean.”
Regardless, stepping into a land steeped in history gave
the group many learning points. North Korea is a cultural
goldmine that outside eyes try hard to peek into.
The group visited the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ)
in Panmunjeom, even stopping at Mangyongdae, the
birth town of Eternal Leader Kim Il-Sung.
For the group, those precious few days will remain
with them for a long time, not just because of the
bizarre behaviour of the children, or the North Koreans’
obeisance to their leaders, but rather, because of the
bond the students developed with one another.
“We were not allowed any gadgets other than our
cameras and we didn’t have the chance to be plugged
in (to the computer) or use our phones,” Jieying said,
adding that as they only had each other for company
and entertainment, “I think the bunch of us grew from
strangers to pretty good friends in a week”. C
A soldier paying respects at the site where the 1953 Armistice ending the Korean
War was signed
The brightly lit Pyongyang railway station at night
The Sojourn team taking a photo with kindergarten children
4 CONNEXSCIONS
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