PYONGYANG, NORTH KOREA — With our noses pressed to the windows of the bus, we could see festive garlands of lights twinkling along the main road as though it were Christmas. The soaring monuments to the late North Korean founder Kim Il Sung were illuminated by floodlights, giving this city's skyline a warm glow.
We arrived at our hotel, where cellphones were available for rent from a counter in the lobby. Journalists were directed to a filing center with broadband Internet access.
Over the course of 48 hours touring with the New York Philharmonic, a delegation of 300 musicians, journalists and orchestra benefactors was whisked between our overheated hotel and theaters and banquet halls.
We were feted with multi-course dinners of salmon, crab gratin, lamb and pheasant. Our breakfast buffet was decorated with ice sculptures and included foods meant to cater to American palates.
OK, some of it was a little weird, like the banana and tomato sandwich. But the overall impression was that the North Koreans were trying hard to please and had the means to do so. Even if you were a cynical journalist, it was hard not to be impressed.
Wrong.
Within hours after our plane left, the lights went out. The cellphone kiosk closed down and the broadband was disconnected.
Pyongyang looked again like what it really is: the capital of the one of the world's most desperately poor and dysfunctional countries. As is often the case, the best show was the city itself, which had been displayed to create an illusion of prosperity.
"As soon as you guys left, it was pitch dark again," said Jean-Pierre de Margerie, country director of the United Nations World Food Program here and a resident of Pyongyang for the last 18 months.
The North Koreans "are very good at putting on a show," he said in a telephone interview from Pyongyang.
In fact, people working in North Korea say the situation is as grim as ever.
The Buddhist charity Good Friends reported last month that food is as scarce this year as in the mid-1990s, when famine killed an estimated 2 million people. The World Food Program says that last summer's flooding had destroyed more cropland than previously estimated and that only 10% to 20% of the population had enough to eat.
An agronomist working in North Korea said Pyongyang was eager to conceal the extent of its economic woes because it was hoping to attract foreign investment.
