A Notebook in Pyongyang

A buddy of mine just sent this picture he took while I was in Pyongyang, North Korea

So on my last day and few hours in Pyongyang, while almost everybody else was buying souvenirs, I was standing outside near the metro station and these school girls were walking by and I said "Hello" first in Korean, then in English. After that they all ran up around me. One of them pulled out a notebook and handed it over with a pen.

I was wondering what to write so I just wrote some basic things.

"My name is Christian."

They all said "Ooooh"

"I am from San Francisco."

They all went in awe.

"My mother is from Nicaragua."

"Wow", they went.

"My father is from Mexico."

And then they had a look of being surprised.

"I speak English, Spanish, and Russian." I wrote.

"Ooooooo, wow, wow." Again for every thing I was writing.

Then, a few minutes later into this, their teacher came up from behind and said something in Korean, then they said "San Francisco." Which then I assumed the teacher asked where I was from. After that, she yelled "America!" took the notebook, and told them to follow her. They were all looking behind while she was taking them away.

Moral of the story: Generation difference between the old and the new in North Korea, and how it's slowly changing. They may take away the notepad, but not the moment and experience. Not from them, me, or anyone.

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