Want to Look at North Korea?
Whenever I’m at a border of two countries, I would notice that both sides would usually be well developed. Usually one would be well developed, then the other would catch up. I have seen this in Hong Kong and Shenzhen, Macau and Zhuhai and even Singapore and Johor Bahru. When one of the two are prosperous, somehow some of the money from the richer one would flow over to the less developed one. Sometimes this happens spectacularly as in the case of Hong Kong and Shenzhen. Which brings me to the case of Ji’an and Manp’o in North Korea.
Idle Tourist Boats on the Yalu River 鸭绿江
The two cities couldn’t be any more different. Ji’an City is a well developed albeit small city. It is organized clean and has all the basic necessities of a city. Compare this to Manp’o in North Korea. There are housing blocks, all low rise ones. The only office there is probably the factory itself and nothing more. People would be sent along the banks of the Yalu River to reinforce them, who knows if they’re even paid to do that. As for power? It is doubtful that the city even has 24 hours of power considering most of the power would be sucked in by the factory.
Unfinished Bridge in the North Korean Side
As for the people, it is plain to see that the people of Ji’an live a much more prosperous life. My driver even owns his own car which he also uses for earning money. He did say he has his own plantation where he lives so he won’t grow hungry when there are no tourists, which at the time of my visit, was fast approaching. I don’t know if my driver has ever been to Manp’o but I doesn’t look like he would be interested to see it. He has probably been through that kind of life as well, but much has changed since then and they are the ones who look at the strange world of North Korea.
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