English-speaking guides offer insights to Pyongyang Marathon participants

English-speaking North Korean tour guides are drawing attention in post-trip videos uploaded by participants of the Pyongyang International Marathon, held on April 6 for the first time in six years.

Harry Jaggard, a British YouTuber with 2.35 million subscribers as of Tuesday, posted two videos on April 9 and 14, documenting his guided group tour in Pyongyang. In the videos, he frequently asks the guides questions and they respond comfortably in English.

Jaggard revealed in the YouTube video that he’s never ran a marathon before and that he decided to participate in the event just to visit Pyongyang. He added that he is participating through his membership with an amateur athletic association in the United Kingdom.

Participants in the marathon were reportedly granted special invitations from North Korea’s Ministry of Physical Culture and Sports, rather than entering on general tourist visas.

During his trip to Pyongyang, Jaggard said his group visited the Grand People’s Study House. Inside the aged building, there were English-language books that also looked secondhand, such as the Harry Potter series.

A staff member dressed in hanbok, traditional Korean dress, explained to the group in English that digitized or e-book versions of older publications were available. When asked which book she liked best, she replied in English, “Of course, our country’s book,” without mentioning the book’s title.

“When we’re off camera, they’re very open and they’ll say what they really think,” commented Jaggard. However, the YouTuber said that staffers seemed to have a ready made response “as soon as you point to the camera,” adding that the staffers begin citing music and books of the regime.

“It’s like a script that they’ve learned,” Jaggard said.

At the Kangdong General Greenhouse Farm, located about an hour from Pyongyang, another guide gave an English explanation of how crops were grown using artificial photosynthesis. At the Taedonggang Brewery, a guide jokingly pointed at a pillar shaped like a Taedonggang beer bottle saying it is the best beer.

In one moment, Jaggard asked a guide whether North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has a daughter. The guide replied that he thinks so. But when he followed up by asking whether she might become the next leader, the guide hesitated and saying he wasn’t sure with a visibly awkward expression.

Recent tourist videos from North Korea have captured guides using foreign languages more naturally than before. Even when discussing the country’s leader, they seem to speak more casually and less rigidly than in the past.

Although North Korea reopened tourism to Western visitors last month for the first time in over five years, the reopening was suspended again after only three weeks. The marathon-linked tours appear to have been a one-time event.

BY BAE JAE-SUNG [kim.minyoung5@joongang.co.kr]