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| A young couple hold hands as they pass the Rodong Sinmun building, home to the official newspaper of the Workers' Party of Korea, in this August 2018 photo. Courtesy of Lindsey Miller |
By Kwon Mee-yoo
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| Lindsey Miller, author of "North Korea: Like Nowhere Else" / Courtesy of Lindsey Miller |
"In 2017, there were nuclear tests and announcements. I remember any time when there would be a launch of some kind or a test, I would always try to get out and see what it felt like. And actually, a lot of the time, it felt very normal," Miller told The Korea Times during a Zoom interview, Sept. 28. Miller is currently living in Taipei with her husband.
"We see often on state media people clapping and jumping. In Pyongyang when these things happen, people were going to work, children were going to school, and people were working in shops and walking to the park ― the daily life continued."
Miller compiled her photos of North Korea and wrote short essays on her experiences in the book, "North Korea: Like Nowhere Else." The book was first published in the U.K. in May and the Korean edition was released in mid-September.
In the book, a photo taken by Miller in November 2017 gives a behind-the-scenes view of the well-crafted footage released by the North Korean state media.
"The photo shows the higher sort of crowd in the background in front of the cameras jumping and dancing and digging. And then people on the other side of the cameras who were just watching it. Some clapped, some were very bothered and some were too busy trying to pass by to pay attention," Miller explained.
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| Soldiers on the back of a truck in Pyongyang, August 2018 / Courtesy of Lindsey Miller |
Witness of everyday life
Miller said she didn't realize how powerful her assumptions about the country and the people were until she arrived in the world's most secretive state.
"That was because all of the information I consumed before going to the country had been based on news reports, or from reading books or watching documentaries. And because there's so little information that comes out of the country about everyday life, I had no concept of what that would be like, until I experienced it for myself," she said.
"The book tries to bring across this idea that North Koreans are often labeled in propaganda outside of North Korea. I think that's an overly simplistic view because human beings are complicated and cannot be summarized in a word like that."
Miller is an award-winning composer and music director who worked for the Royal Shakespeare Company and other theatrical productions, but she pursued her artistic desire in another way when in North Korea ― through photography. She almost always had her camera with her when walking around the city to capture whatever she found interesting.
"So photography, for me, was a way of being creative and feeling free in an environment that often made me feel the opposite. For me, as a musician, art and creativity is a way of expressing yourself and your interpretation of the world around you (as that) can't be controlled. My interpretation belongs to me and my creative voice belongs to me. So that was a real way of me being able to capture everyday life as I saw it," she said.
"As time progressed I was noticing people more than the portraits of the Kims or the cars. That's a major focus of those pictures, trying to understand where the truth is and where the mythology is. That's why photography was a really powerful way of me being able to look into a moment after it happened and analyze it in more detail, to try and help me understand it more."
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| The cover of Lindsey Miller's book, "North Korea: Like Nowhere Else" / Courtesy of Lindsey Miller |
'People are people'
Some two years after returning to the U.K., Miller felt a responsibility to share her experiences of North Korea, not only to inform other people of the misconceptions, but also to help herself understand what she experienced, because it was so much more complicated than she expected.
"Something I really wanted to achieve with this book was to show that people are people. As North Korean people, they may live in an environment which is dominated by the regime. That does not mean that every single person there is so simple as to characterize them with the political view of the country because human beings are all different," Miller said.
"North Korean people are not robots. I found North Korean people to be very friendly, kind, generous and very curious. People I spoke to were curious about the outside world in a way that I don't think we come across when we think about North Korea outside of that country."
As a foreigner, specifically a diplomatic spouse, most of the North Koreans Miller spoke to were English speakers based in Pyongyang, working at cafes or restaurants.
"At the time when we were there, during 2017 and 2018, a lot was happening on the peninsula. And an example of people being curious is that I sometimes found some North Korean people knowing what was happening which hadn't been shown on television since the state TV delivered the news days after it happened," she said.
"Other examples would be simple questions like asking what it is like in Scotland. People would ask me about my family and what countries I've been to. Some North Korean friends would take pleasure in looking through photographs on my phone of wherever I've been, including South Korea."
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| North Korean girls pose during the Pyongyang Mass Games, August 2018. / Courtesy of Lindsey Miller |
Miller mostly became friends with people who have lots of experience around people of foreign nationality such as those who work in cafes or restaurants, speak several languages such as Chinese, Russian and English, and have confidence around foreigners, something not everybody had. It was difficult to form relationships with those whom she met spontaneously on the street.
"I will talk about an example of meeting a girl in a shop. It was just a random shop, a random day of the week. She spoke Spanish and I speak Spanish as well. We had a nice conversation in Spanish and we got on really well. In that situation, I would give someone my number and, say, ask to go for coffee. But that wasn't possible because foreigners' cell phone networks are separated from North Korean people's cell phone networks. So even in those instances where you meet North Korean people and connect with them, it's not possible to continue on a relationship."
The woman who spoke Spanish was about the same age as Miller. Miller also noticed that young North Korean women share the same changing thoughts on gender roles, just as many other women around the world go through. The North Korean women's stories are told through Miller's voice, which might not have been picked up otherwise.
"Some of the women I spoke to were interestingly not interested in getting married. And there was one woman who said to me that she didn't want children, instead, she wanted a career, working at her job. I think, as a woman, a lot of us can identify with that dilemma," Miller said.
"This image of women being in a traditional gender role definitely exists, but that's not to say that exists for every single person. And the fact that there is a woman in Pyongyang who feels like she doesn't want children and wants a career, she should be acknowledged and taken on board as part of that complex human experience."
Miller believes that, as outsiders, it is important to acknowledge the different spectrum of experience with these pieces of information and that's where her book has power.
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| Pyongyang, September 2018 / Courtesy of Lindsey Miller |
Reaching out to South Korean readers
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| The cover of the South Korean edition of Lindsey Miller's book, "North Korea: Like Nowhere Else" / Courtesy of Lindsey Miller |
"When the opportunity came for it to be translated into Korean, that was really exciting. It wasn't something I ever expected, but I'm very pleased that it offers South Korean readers a chance to read in the Korean language and experience it in a new way," she said.
"I'm not an expert nor a policy analyst. It's a book with a focus on people and my experience there. I would love readers to open the pages and spend time with the people in the photographs and come to their own conclusions. This book is a question to a reader of how much our own perception affects how we view other people."
About two years have passed since her return from North Korea and it is not likely for Miller to go back there, but she still misses her friends in North Korea.
"I definitely miss my friends. That has been the hardest thing. I think about them every single day: what they're doing; what they're thinking; who their families are; are they happy; are they safe; are they healthy amid the pandemic," she said.
"The biggest thing for me is the people, including the people I haven't met and I think about them as well. Elsewhere in the world, when you leave a place, you can make calls and write letters or emails. There are so many ways to keep in touch with people. But with that place, there's nothing like that. So when you say goodbye, it has a completely different meaning. It's very definitive. That's why I dedicated this book to them as I won't forget them."
Even in the news of North Korea's missile launches, Miller looks for something other people might not see.
"When the train missile was launched the week before, I didn't just watch the missile launch. I watched the trees in the background. I was trying to see the poses of the people who were nearby ― the places and people that aren't focused on when those events happen," Miller said.
