ASIA / PACIFIC
Page 4 n THE ASIAN REPORTER
August 7, 2017
Under ICBM’s red glare, Pyongyang pretties up its “pyramid”
PET PROJECT. The sky is overcast at the end
of a workday on July 17, 2017, in Pyongyang, North
Korea, where the 105-story pyramid-shaped
Ryugyong Hotel is seen in this photograph towering
over residential apartments. The hotel has been under
construction since 1987 and was intended to be a
landmark and a symbol of progress and prosperity,
but the economic difficulties the country went through
forced the project into repeated delays. Nearly 30
years later, it has become a major Pyongyang land-
mark, but has never been used as a hotel as it was
intended. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)
By Eric Talmadge
The Associated Press
YONGYANG, North Korea —
While North Korea’s second
launch of an intercontinental
ballistic missile (ICBM) dominated head-
lines, Pyongyang quietly unveiled renova-
tions around the capital’s biggest land-
mark: a futuristic, pyramid-shaped, 105-
story hotel, the world’s tallest unoccupied
building.
After decades of embarrassing delays
and rumors that the building may not even
be structurally sound, could this be Kim
Jong Un’s next pet project?
If nothing else, it at least has a new
propaganda sign: “Rocket Power Nation.”
Walls set up to keep people out of a
construction area around the gargantuan
Ryugyong Hotel were pulled down as the
North marked the anniversary of the
Korean War armistice. Revealed were two
broad new walkways leading to the
building and the big red propaganda sign
declaring that North Korea is a leading
rocket power.
That, of course, is Kim’s other pet
project.
The day after the anniversary, North
Korea test-launched its second ICBM,
which experts believe demonstrated that
the North’s weapons can now theoretically
reach most of the United States.
For more than a week leading up to the
anniversary, a major holiday in North
Korea, “soldier-builders” at the site in
central Pyongyang were clearly visible
behind the walls, along with heavy
equipment for digging and brightly colored
P
propaganda billboards that are a staple at
North Korean construction sites, intended
to boost morale.
Rumors, almost always unfounded, of
plans to once and for all finish the hotel
project are something of a parlor game
among Pyongyang watchers. And it
remains to be seen if the current work on
the Ryugyong is intended to be a step
toward actually finishing the long-stalled
project or, more likely, an effort to make
better use of the land around it.
But it’s not surprising that work to do
something with the idle landmark would
begin. Pyongyang has been undergoing
massive redevelopment since Kim
assumed power when his father died in
late 2011.
At Kim’s orders, several major high-rise
areas have been completed, including one
with a 70-story residence and dozens of
other tall buildings in the capital’s
“Ryomyong,” or “dawn,” district in April.
Pyongyang also has a new international
airport, a massive sci-tech complex with a
main building shaped like a giant atom,
and many other recreational and
educational facilities.
How Kim can afford to pay for the
apparent construction boom and his
significantly accelerated testing of multi-
million-dollar missiles is a mystery, but
has led many sanctions advocates to point
the finger at China, by far North Korea’s
biggest trading partner, for not doing
enough to turn the economic screws on its
neighbor.
From a distance, the glassy, greenish-
blue Ryugyong looks like it’s ready for
business. But it is believed to be far from
complete inside and possibly even
structurally unsound.
Work on the building started in 1987
while Kim’s grandfather, Kim Il Sung,
North Korea’s founder and “eternal
president,” was still alive. It was supposed
to open in 1989 and would have been the
world’s tallest hotel — surpassing another
in Singapore that was built by a South
Korean company.
But a severe economic crash and
famines in the 1990s left North Korea in no
position to pump funds into the hotel’s
construction, and it stayed little more than
an embarrassing concrete shell for well
over a decade before Egypt’s Orascom
Group — which was also key in
establishing the North’s cellphone system
— helped pay for work to complete the
building’s shiny exterior in 2011.
Questions remain about whether it is
structurally sound enough to ever operate
as a hotel or office building.
Officials have offered no information
regarding their plans for its future.
Eric Talmadge is The AP’s Pyongyang bureau chief.
70-year-old YouTube hit redefining beauty in South Korea
ENGAGING ELDER. South Korea’s YouTube
star, Park Makrye, 70, right, and her granddaughter,
Kim Yura, 27, left, give a demonstration of make-up
tutorials for Park’s YouTube channel during an inter-
view at her home in Yongin, South Korea. Her fans
love Park’s unfiltered comments in her local dialect,
such as a remark about Korean soap operas —
“those things get pregnant days and nights.”
(AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
Continued from page 2
and Instagram.
Since then, everything has “flipped like
a pancake,” Park quips.
“I learned then that my grandmother
was just like us. She likes to travel, eat
tasty food, and take pretty photos,” said
Kim, who films and edits the videos.
“I’m her fan, too. She is such a cool
person.”
Her fans love Park’s unfiltered com-
ments in her local dialect, such as a re-
mark about Korean soap operas — “those
things get pregnant days and nights.”
Park’s unabashed willingness to share
her story and emotions, and her lack of
shame over her poor education, appeal to
young South Koreans.
“The reason she is so popular is that she
talks candidly without pretension about
things that women feel uncomfortable
about,” said Lee Taek Gwang, a professor
of culture studies at Kyunghee University.
“She talks about topics that we don’t dare
to talk about, especially on women’s
issues.”
About cosmetic companies’ promises to
make women younger and prettier, Park
scoffs, “You just have to be born again.”
Offering make-up tips to help people
look a decade younger, she warns teenage
viewers, “You guys shouldn’t do this or
you’ll look like infants.”
On YouTube and Instagram, Park and
her granddaughter document adventures
such as kayaking on the Han River in
Seoul and doing a magazine shoot. The duo
recently went to Japan’s Tottori prefec-
ture.
Park, whose father refused to send her
to school because she was a girl, is having
the time of her life.
As a teenager, she cut firewood in the
mountains, walking hours to haul it home.
A neighbor gave her brief lessons in
reading and writing. She does not know
how to spell most words.
“My mom and dad didn’t teach me even
though we were not poor because they
wanted to put me to work,” she said. “As I
do YouTube now, I feel sorry that I haven’t
been educated.”
Still, nothing deters Park from writing,
even if her Instagram posts are almost
illegible and need “interpretation,” she
laughs.
Her fans have dubbed her unique way of
expressing herself, with no spaces between
words and respellings like “shampangyi”
for champagne, as the “Makrye font.” They
compete to guess what they mean.
Even though Park’s family was
relatively well off, she was left on her own
when her husband ran up debts and
abandoned her and their three young
children. She woke up every morning at
4:00 to run a restaurant, returning after
9:00 at night. She repaid the debts and
raised the kids on her own at a time when
many single mothers were forced to put
their babies up for adoption and received
little to no government assistance.
All three children finished high school,
and Kim, her granddaughter, was the first
in the family to attend college.
Asked how long she would run her diner,
Park replied in a second.
“Until I die.”
China donates 100 busses for use in Cambodia’s capital
EASING CONGESTION. A Chinese man stands in front of the first
line of busses donated by China to Cambodia during a handover cere-
mony in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Cambodia’s key ally, China, provided
100 busses to impoverished Cambodia to help relieve traffic jams in the
capital. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)
By Sopheng Cheang
The Associated Press
P
HNOM PENH, Cambodia — China turned over to
Cambodia 100 busses to be used to expand public
transportation in its capital, Phnom Penh.
The donation of the vehicles comes three years after
municipal bus transportation was reintroduced in the
capital. Currently, the city of roughly 2.5 million people
has about 1.5 million motorbikes and more than 30,000
cars clogging its roads.
The value of the new busses was not announced. Labels
on the busses indicated they came from China’s Zheng-
zhou Yutong Bus Co., one of the world’s leading bus
producers.
China is Cambodia’s most important political and
economic ally. It has provided millions of dollars in aid and
investment over the past decade, agreed to write off debts,
and granted Cambodia tariff-free status for hundreds of
items. Cambodia in turn generally supports China’s
positions on international political issues.
Phnom Penh mayor Khuong Sreng, said at the
handover ceremony that the donation reflected the close
relations between the two countries and would help
reduce traffic jams and air pollution in the capital, as well
as ease the burden of transport costs for the poor.
He said the donation reflects the strong relationship
and good cooperation of the two countries, and also helps
Phnom Penh to reduce the traffic jams as well as air
pollution and the poverty of the people.
In 2014, public bus service was reintroduced in Phnom
Penh in an effort to ease traffic congestion. An initial
effort at such service was tried in 2001, but was cancelled
after two months due to a lack of interest from the largely
motorbike-riding public. Motorbike taxis are a popular
form of transport, as they are in many Southeast Asian
nations.