Friday, July 18: Our last full day in Korea started like the ones before it, with a breakfast of yogurt, toast and an omelet. We’d asked about the possibility of a site visit, so our counterparts from the Academy and leaders of the Asia Pacific Peace Committee took us into the countryside about 24 miles outside of Pyongyang, We visited three sites, all good candidates for a project. All are fallow farmland, all have power nearby, and all are close to existing villages from which the beneficiary families will be selected. Each will accommodate 50 to 75 houses with room for community facilities.
We continued our discussions about the project and I learned that they were concerned about both the scope and timing of our proposal. I had suggested that we consider building in 25 unit phases, which was misunderstood to mean no more than a 25 house project. I assured them that the initiative could be as large as funding would permit. I’d also suggested that we start building next spring, after the winter cold. They assured me that they were accustomed to working in the cold, and would like to start as quickly as possible.
North Korea is hilly and mountainous with relatively little good farmland. The area we visited is relatively flat, and farm work was in high gear. Workers were in the fields, cultivating, irrigating and harvesting. There were vast fields of cabbage, an essential for kim chee. We saw rice paddies and corn fields and the landscape was deep green as far as we could see. But the limited available farmland, coupled with massive flooding and crippling droughts over the past few years, has seriously impacted the country’s ability to feed itself. There are concerns that this year’s famine will be even worse than those of the past few years. Korea will need the world’s help this year. Hopefully we’ll put a little less grain in our gas tanks and be able to send a little more there to help feed a nation in need.
We agreed to continue our discussions during a follow-up visit in September. This would give them time to work on some plans and allow us to assemble a small team of professionals who could help deal with the issues of green building, alternative energy, water and sewer handling and heating. The latter is especially interesting as the traditional Korean heating system involves moving heated air, essentially stove smoke, through under-floor ductwork. It’s not an environmentally friendly system and actually results in carbon monoxide deaths across the peninsula each winter. But the local folks aren’t sure their houses are well heated if the floors aren’t warm, so we will have to be creative with this one.
That evening we signed a Memorandum of Understanding between the Academy and The Fuller Center which will help guide our next steps and memorialize what we’ve agreed to so far. We’re not ready to make a formal announcement about our developing partnership just yet, but we have established a high level of understanding and trust and are confident that this initiative will move forward.
We ended the day with a spectacular meal at the revolving restaurant atop the Koryo hotel. The food was outstanding—this will be one of my more memorable dining experiences. Among the treats were sautéed pine mushrooms, a highly prized delicacy that would otherwise be beyond my means. We toasted our successful week, shared gifts, and talked about what was to come. It was a delightful end to an amazing adventure. Tomorrow we would return to Beijing, and then on to the best part of any trip, going home.
We continued our discussions about the project and I learned that they were concerned about both the scope and timing of our proposal. I had suggested that we consider building in 25 unit phases, which was misunderstood to mean no more than a 25 house project. I assured them that the initiative could be as large as funding would permit. I’d also suggested that we start building next spring, after the winter cold. They assured me that they were accustomed to working in the cold, and would like to start as quickly as possible.
North Korea is hilly and mountainous with relatively little good farmland. The area we visited is relatively flat, and farm work was in high gear. Workers were in the fields, cultivating, irrigating and harvesting. There were vast fields of cabbage, an essential for kim chee. We saw rice paddies and corn fields and the landscape was deep green as far as we could see. But the limited available farmland, coupled with massive flooding and crippling droughts over the past few years, has seriously impacted the country’s ability to feed itself. There are concerns that this year’s famine will be even worse than those of the past few years. Korea will need the world’s help this year. Hopefully we’ll put a little less grain in our gas tanks and be able to send a little more there to help feed a nation in need.
We agreed to continue our discussions during a follow-up visit in September. This would give them time to work on some plans and allow us to assemble a small team of professionals who could help deal with the issues of green building, alternative energy, water and sewer handling and heating. The latter is especially interesting as the traditional Korean heating system involves moving heated air, essentially stove smoke, through under-floor ductwork. It’s not an environmentally friendly system and actually results in carbon monoxide deaths across the peninsula each winter. But the local folks aren’t sure their houses are well heated if the floors aren’t warm, so we will have to be creative with this one.
That evening we signed a Memorandum of Understanding between the Academy and The Fuller Center which will help guide our next steps and memorialize what we’ve agreed to so far. We’re not ready to make a formal announcement about our developing partnership just yet, but we have established a high level of understanding and trust and are confident that this initiative will move forward.
We ended the day with a spectacular meal at the revolving restaurant atop the Koryo hotel. The food was outstanding—this will be one of my more memorable dining experiences. Among the treats were sautéed pine mushrooms, a highly prized delicacy that would otherwise be beyond my means. We toasted our successful week, shared gifts, and talked about what was to come. It was a delightful end to an amazing adventure. Tomorrow we would return to Beijing, and then on to the best part of any trip, going home.
[Photo-- signing the MOU]
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