I'm standing at the end of the bridge to North Korea. It stops here at the border, in a riot of twisted metal. Ahead of me the piers march in pairs, on across the Yalu river until they reach the other bank. This bombed-out bridge is a tourist attraction: even now, at the end of a hard winter, a steady trickle of Chinese and South Korean tourists make the walk to the end, where you can have your photo taken with North Korea as a backdrop, or gaze at it through a telescope.

The difference between the two banks couldn't be greater. The side I've just come from is the Chinese city of Dandong: neon lights, big hotels covered in white tiles and debased PoMo detailing, traffic. The other bank is the North Korean town of Sinuiju. On the skyline I've counted 30 smokestacks, but only ever seen smoke coming from three; by the riverbank there's a big wheel, but in seven years of visiting, I've never seen it turn; there are low, grey blocks of flats, a few whitewashed buildings and a little park. Someone is welding among rusty hulks on the riverbank. It's all very much how one expects North Korea to look.

LRB 10 August 2000 | PDF Download