Phyllis J. Fenwick: Letters from North Korea.

Fryday is fortunate in having readers throughout the world who take time to comment on various posts. We rarely publish those comments, but are no less grateful for them.  Even rarer do we give Fryday over to another writer. An exception is the self-styled and self-appointed  “international correspondent” for Fryday Miss Phyllis J. Fenwick. Miss Fenwick, 86 years old, is on a perpetual quest for the ancestral breeding ground of the Devonport guppy—a fish that the whole world, apart from Ms Fenwick, knows could not possibly exist. Often, as in this case, she writes to Fryday about her adventures. If you would like to know more about those and Phyllis and her doomed quest, including her recent trip to Somalia, she has a Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/phyllis.fenwick.3. Currently, Phyllis is on her search in North Korea at the personal invitation of “Supreme Leader” Kim Jong-un. Whilst there is difficulty communicating with the outside world, she did manage to get this through to us earlier this week. Have a good weekend and remember: nothing should be taken too seriously.

Dear Fryday Friends
Greetings from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. As you can imagine, I am so excited to be here. Ahead of me, I am told, is to be an audience with the young president for life, Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un. Why such a young man should want to meet an old woman such as me, is beyond me.
However, I am told that he does and is even most insistent on it, so perhaps he too shares our interest in the ancestral breeding grounds of the Devonport Guppy and is willing to materially assist my search.
Certainly, everybody has been most helpful since I arrived. There was a representative of the North Korean Government there to meet me when I arrived at Incheon airport in South Korea. He very quickly ushered me into a car and we headed north. A nice young man who sadly smiled very little, he said through an interpreter that we would be travelling on back roads for the most part so I could see as much of the country as I could. How very kind of him to think of that. When we arrived at the border with North Korea, he said he would have a new experience for me. Indeed he did! Instead of crossing the border as most tourists do, he took me through a very special tunnel under the border! I felt very special. He said that the tunnel, I believe it is three miles long, was dug single-handedly by Kim Jong-un’s father, Kim Jong-il in three days! Extraordinary!
Now I am in Wonsan, the administrative seat of the province of Kangwon. I am impatient to head north to the nation’s capital Pyongyang to meet the President, but I am told the delay is because I first have to be greeted formally by Kangwon’s governor. The problem is that they do not yet know who it will be this week. And here, my friends, we arrive at one of the most outstanding revelations yet of my thus far short stay in Korea.
Contrary to what I was told before leaving for Korea, North Korea is not an authoritarian state ruled by a dictator. In fact, and here I am sure you will be as astonished as I, it is the most democratic country I have ever visited.
The people here all owe that to their much loved supreme leader Kim Jong-un who carries on the tradition of his father Kim Jong-il and grandfather Kim II-sung (I am wondering if they are related to that dreadful Kim Dot-com, but I think not).
According to my guide and his interpreter, the family has always been insistent all North Koreans have a leadership opportunity. Kim Jong-un personally selects the country’s leaders, as did his forefathers before him, and to ensure that everybody gets an opportunity those leaders rarely last more than a week.
What a wonderful system. New Zealand has much to learn from North Korea.
So, I am waiting to find out who Kangwon’s governor is to be this week. I am sure he will be very nice.
Indeed everybody I have met has been most obliging, and most industrious—perhaps too industrious. Yesterday, I spoke to my guide and his interpreter about the breeding habits of the Devonport Guppy. Just three hours into my dissertation, the interpreter rose and said he and his guide were required elsewhere on urgent government business. They promptly left and I haven’t seen them since. When I mentioned this to the manager of my hotel, he said I was not to worry. He said that many North Koreans disappeared and were never seen again. Funnily enough, he must be one of them. I have not seen him since, either.
Yours sincerely, your friend,
Phyllis J. Fenwick (Miss).