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glare upon seeing me—a clearly unwelcome and uninvited American Imperialist with a camera in her hands—proudly earned the first spot on my “Shit I Think Might Be Real” list. Followed second by the wedding reception…I think.
    I am allowed perhaps five seconds to snap this photo of the happy couple before being ushered out of the fakarant faster than a president is pushed out of harm’s way during an assassination attempt.

Alice laughed. There’s no use trying, she said: one CAN’T believe impossible things. I daresay you haven’t had much practice, said the Queen.
—Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass

CHAPTER 6
AND THEN THERE WERE TWO
    W e pull up to the front gate of the Paeksong Food Factory in Pyongsong for my scheduled tour. When no one meets our car, Driver begins to honk with ever-increasing urgency and yells furiously until the military chick meant to be guarding the entrance stumbles out of her booth, disheveled and abashed.
    It quickly becomes clear she is both out of uniform and has been sleeping. I am beyond entertained as I watch her hurriedly try to pull herself together (hat on, shirt buttoned up and tucked in, halter/belt thing on, etc.) while she frantically runs back and forth from the gate to the factory. I’m no expert on the NoKo system of rule, but I’m pretty certain that being out of uniform is bad, and being asleep even worse, but both ? Ouch. Her cartoonlike scrambling is amazing and immediately makes my “Shit I Think Might Be Real” list.
    After three or four sprints to the inside of the factory and back, she enters and exits her booth one last time, then lifts the gate and motions us inside. As we step out of our car to an empty parking lot, we are met by the local guides and the factory manager. It’s then that Older Handler tells me the shocking news: A mere five minutes earlier, the factory unexpectedly lost power, forcing it to close and send all 5,000 employees home. We will still be allowed inside, but there will be no people to see and nothing working.
    A group of Brits who happen to be visiting the factory at the same time seem to enjoy peppering their handlers with questions they must know will result in inane answers:
BRIT: So, all 5,000 people have just left the building five minutes ago and gone home then, or are they all waiting in the lunchroom for the power to come back on?
LOCAL GUIDE: Yes.
    Having spent some time in factories (and not being a complete idiot), I, too, can smell a ruse. All the surfaces, machines, and equipment are pristine. It seems unlikely—nay, impossible—to manufacture the purported plethora of products on the same two lines with just a few different machines. And all 5,000 people left mere minutes ago, and there isn’t a single shred of physical evidence that even one human has ever worked here? Except for, of course, the napping guard.
    But more importantly, I’m pretty sure if the factory she is single-handedly tasked with guarding did just lose power one- to four-and-a-half minutes ago, causing it to unexpectedly close down and send 5,000 workers home (or be held in the lunchroom), she would be fully clothed, or at least awake, if not both.
    Lest you think I doubt the veracity of Older Handler’s claim based on the actions of one unkempt, napping guard and solid housekeeping, on our approach to the factory on the only road in, we hadn’t seen a single person coming the other way. Certainly there had to be a straggler or two. Someone with a limp?
    My bewilderment grows once our tour of the factory begins. I am so stupefied by the factory’s “control room” that I forget to take a photo of it. First, there are no electronic displays or control panels of any kindanywhere in the room. Second, there are no electronic displays or control panels of any kind anywhere in the room . There are: two barren desks; four chairs; and three dormant “monitors” affixed to the wall that I would swear aren’t real but rather are those