Why North Korea Will Muddle Through

After consulting with their superiors, the guards at Rajin har bor allowed us to exit. Apparently two Americans on a morning jog were not thought to pose a grave threat to national security. As we ran up the hill overlooking the harbor, I noticed a small military installa tion. On our way down I watched two soldiers stealthily working their way through the dilapidated structures, eventually reaching an isolated corner of the base, far from their comrades. Like two characters from a B movie, the soldiers looked left and right before kneeling. One removed his knapsack and placed it between them in the dirt. He opened it and withdrew two . . . Bananas. At that moment his colleague glanced upward and spied us on the ridge above. The soldiers leaped to their feet and turned their bodies to shield the bananas from our view. The presumably banana-laden knapsack was stashed at the base of a wall, and, checking that they otherwise had not been observed, the soldiers headed back toward the center of the base.