A short story from Adventures in Startupland
The short story below, Road to Pyongyang, belongs to the initial drafts we intend to include in our forthcoming book Adventures in Startupland. The book is co-authored with Professor Simon Down. His kick-off piece on our adventures, The Bar on Sungri Street, is available here.
Disclaimer: The book won’t be about North Korea. What it is about then? Let’s leave that as a surprise, for now.
The road to Pyongyang
March 2012
I drag deeply on my Zhonghua cigarette, eighteen floors up, staring into the grey city horizon. Am I really going to do this? I roll the hazy potential of the thought around my mind, as if it too was smoke. From the balcony the bright sulphurous lights of the Worker’s Stadium remind me that life in Beijing is comfortable. Uncomplicated. Fun even. Or used to be, before Xi’s crackdowns on the ideologically corrupt Western night life began.
I have the forms on the desktop. An application to teach at the new university, located, well, in Pyongyang.
Few weeks back, I came across the university in Science while looking at articles about the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. I can read whatever I want now I’ve submitted my soon-to-be-defended PhD. According to the article*, Crunch Time for North Korea’s Revolutionary New University, they were recruiting Western visiting scholars to teach business in English.
I’ve done a bit of amateur risk assessment. Most sources explain that North Korea is safe for foreigners as long as you do what you are told. Always ask before doing anything. There are some bad stories. Westerners do end up in prison. Maybe worse. Or who knows.
I finish my cigarette and sit at my desk. I go through the list.
Academic fit? International business. Tick.
Language? All in English. Tick.
Connections with the world? This is a first North Korean university with full Internet access. Foreign faculty use e-mail and surf the Web; they can even visit sites banned in China, such as YouTube and Facebook.
Tick. That is way better than majestically censored China.
Another cigarette.
Looking at the city lights from my balcony. There are hundreds of cities in China. What am I doing here? I am fed up: in suspension. No real local friends, just acquaintances looking for angles, business opportunities.
All the expat Scandis seem to be obsessed about finding the best meatballs, or about how to get the best price shipping their stuff back. They are here to demonstrate fealty to their corporate masters. Careers, an interest in fine wine and babies beckon. And they all hate Beijing and the Chinese. We’ve all had some fun, but nights in drinking baijiu and comparing meatballs is, well ….. let’s just say I’m ready for a change, a bigger adventure.
Next day I drop by at Chaoyang district, in a shop that sells books and where North Korean embassy is located.
On display there is the Pyongyang Times, books by the leaders and other Juche-ideology material.
Browsing, I wonder if diving into this parallel reality is wise. But I soon forget about the application, and life in China trundles on as life does. Then, six months later this:
Yes, you can come but we wish to be upfront — we don’t pay a salary. The flight cost $180, visa $60. The housing and canteen food are free.
I can do that.
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The future content in my Medium includes selected short stories from our forthcoming book and I intend to publish openings on impact-driven co-creations and other slightly wild experiments with handy lists.
*)Stone, R. (2011) ‘Crunch time for North Korea’s revolutionary new university’ Science 334: 6063: 1624–1625.
The authors assert their copyright of this work © 2022
Down, S. and Heikkila, J.P. (2022) Adventures in Startupland. Unpublished manuscript.