Summer nights at Dandong’s waterfront can be quite surreal. The evening starts early. About half an hour before the sun sets the Chinese border city begins a transformation into a bizarre Pyongyang themed mini-Las Vegas.
SKIRTING THE BORDER
Only the narrow Yalu and Tumen rivers separate neighbors China and North Korea. The river banks are so close to each other that people can easily see across the border, and into each other’s lives.
NORTH KOREA CHINESE STYLE
Dandong, in China’s northeast Liaoning Province is a city of rumors and spies. Locals remark “Sometimes in Dandong, you just feel what’s going on.” Dandong is the closest you can get to North Korea without actually visiting.
TRUSTED NOT TO WANDER
Situated on the Yalu River border with China, most of the inhabitants of North Korea’s city of Sinuiju are privileged to, but mostly trusted not to, wander into China. North Korean businesspeople, traders, workers, and agents continuously cross the Yalu into Dandong, a colorful and increasingly cosmopolitan Chinese city.
CHEMICAL WEAPONS PRODUCTION
Warm weather encourages Chinese locals to picnic while they relax on the Yalu River border of North Korea and China. All looks serene at this particularly scenic stretch of the river. However, the smokestacks on the opposite North Korean riverbank serve a sinister purpose.
FATHER AND SON DWARF COMMUTERS
North Korea is free from commercial product advertising. With no product advertising, you would think there wouldn’t be a need for roadside billboards. However that’s not the case, there are billboards, but they only promote one “product” or “brand”; the “brilliance” of the Kim family.
CHOLLIMA ON THE WING
Pyongyang’s Chollima Statue symbolizes “the heroic mettle and indomitable spirit of the Korean people who are making ceaseless innovations and continuous advances so quickly, at the speed of the Chollima.”