Practically every single day at expo, several countries or provincial pavilions will have their "Expo Day" and today was an exceptional day because on September 6th, 2010 North Korea (DPRK) decided to have its national day.
If no one realized this, but this girl has weird interests, and particularly I have some odd fascination with the nation that is North Korea. My odd obsession with North Korea peaked this spring 2010 when I was studying in Beijing. By the spring semester, my good friend from Fall term Jane :) sent me a care package filled with many goodies, such as crackers, granola, a charming letter and two good reads all on North Korea. The first was "Escaping North Korea" by Mike Kim and "Nothing to Envy" and I munched on this new knowledge like there was no tomorrow. Selina, my new spring roommate got a little worried about my sanity, and teased me about my obsession with North Korea.
She also made this erie connection. Whenever I read Mao or my NK books, I got really these stomachaches, were the books trying to kill me? Why did I always get a bit nauseous? It was very odd.
i went to the NK pavilion today to see any special activities took place. The only difference was the pavilion opened at 1 in the afternoon (They had festivities CLOSED OFF TO THE PUBLIC ) and the female employees dressed in the traditional "hanbok" outfit, though they wore a very cheap quality barbie doll like pink with dazzling sparkles. I thought it was slightly tacky.
SO TO add another book to my COLLECTION,I got myself some bed time reading, "the benevolent sun" which is about the beloved leader of DPRK; Kim Il Sung. I also purchased some lovely stamps and some (I'm pretty sure) authentic North Korean pins that also stabbed me in the thumb because they have no pin backs, it's just a pin needle glued to the back and you can just stab into your landiard or into your skin as you clip into your shirt. When I was making my purchases, I bumped into Ben Cohen and Dave from USAP who also came to see the excitement at the DPRK National Expo day.
"nice, you actually got it (the book)? I'll expect a book report" Dave said.
Ben said he'll borrow it when i'm done, and we all found out "the benevolent sun" is a trilogy since I saw vol 2 on the top shelf and I got vol 1. The nice North Korean lady said 2 and 3 were coming soon.
I declined the offer a plastic bag for my book saying that I could put it in my bag (cuz I always do that, trying to be more eco friendly/i'm from boulder, we live in trees) , but the lady assured me that it was better to put the book in a plastic bag. I was getting the feeling it was respect for Kim Il Sung's face who is on the cover.
"are you Chinese?" she asked in English
I thought about my response and to avoid any awkwardness I quickly said "yes I am," knowing that if I said "American" my chances of friendly conversation with this particuarly nice lady would cease. Sometimes my Asian appearance helps disguise my actual identity.
"Oh!" in surprise. "but your English is really good!"
How flattering, what to do? Pull out the Asian girl "cute" card and blush, hide your face and say "oh you are so nice!! Thank you!"
In the North Korean pavilion, there are several monitors showcasing all kinds of North Korean features, but there is one giant screen that plays North Korean music spectaculars. There along the lines of this video shown below.
