When I stood in front of the Kim Il-sung’s statue, the winter sun threw out its light on the copper-red surface of the statue. Two Koreans passed by, took a bow, and left for work. The local guide asked one of us to represent all the tourists, and to greet the statue with a bunch of flowers which spreaded out a color of riot red.

It was the sunshine that made me run a hand over my bewildered eyes. I pondered.

Before the train left Sinuiju, the fourth largest city of North Korea, I had just experienced the most awkward procedures to enter a country. Mobile phone and laptop were kept at the travel agency before coming to the custom. And our photos in the SD cards were checked at the custom. The Korean officer asked me to identify people in one of my pictures, and it was a picture in which people are having Barbecue.

7:30 pm, Pyong Yang station. We spent 6 hour to ride merely 200 kilometers. One can get tired by multiplying speed and time. A Chinese made bus waited for us at the square of Pyong Yang railway station to pick us up to the hotel. There was almost no street light in the country. Along the pedestrian way, a long line waiting in the chilly night for a bus to drive them home, looked like a line of terra-cotta in the darkness. Each of them owned a mask-like expression. It was an expression you can’t find anywhere else. The guide told us that due to lack of oil, the public transportation system, like bus, operates in rush hour only.

Moving along the empty and dark street in the city, our bus stopped at a 47-floor building, a hotel where all the foreign tourists had been held. There are places for gambling, KTV, massage, and beers in the hotel and the Koreans are not allowed to enter. “How do you know if one guy is Chinese or Korean?” “Everyone of us wears a brooch of President Kim’s head.” The guide answered.

There was no big difference of the rooms between this hotel and those we used to live. Leaning against the window sill, I have tried to extend my sight to every corner of the city. Apart from some dots of randomly scattered lights, the Tower of Juche Idea was standing still under the cover of the night with a flying fire-red light on top.