Tony Hamilton, who now lives in Dacula and serves as Worship Minister at Annistown Road Baptist Church in Snellville, was one of 150 members of the Sons of Jubal who gave two performances last month in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang.
It was part of a two-week Asian tour for the choral and orchestra group, made up of volunteer professional musicians, church musicians, educators, and institutional leaders from Georgia.
The trip began as controversy was swirling around the planned launch of a long-range missile by the North Koreans, which took place while they were in the country with the missile crashing into the sea far short of its intended flight.
Hamilton says there was never any thought of cancelling the trip because of the planned missile launch and the war of words over the launch between the West and the North Korean government.
"No, none at all," Hamilton said. "
Hamilton added that they didn't hear "anything about" the launch when it occurred. "The only time I ever heard anything about the missile launch was in a hotel room one afternoon (when I) turned the TV on and I think it was a BBC report that I saw that said that the missile had been launched but I didn't know anything it."
Hamilton said the Sons of Jubal performed two concerts while in Pyongyang at the city's symphony hall and the audience was a mixture of average North Koreans and VIPs.
"We had some of the VIPs that invited us there but regular folks from North Korea were in the audience, too."
North Korea has a reputation as a closed society, being one of the last bastions of communism in the world but Hamilton said he never felt his group was being overly watched and monitored although they were not allowed to freely travel on their own.
"Everywhere we went...we were escorted," he said. "We had a police car that escorted us everywhere we went and I felt like that was just to help us get through traffic, and get from Point A to Point B. But as far as, you know, feeling like we were being watched the whole time, I'm sure we were, but I didn't feel that."
As far as traffic was concerned, Hamilton said North Koreans do a lot of walking but he said there are also a lot of cars and bicycles on the road and they were held up by traffic jams a couple of times and "it was nice to be treated like VIPs, you just got around it and kept going."
Hamilton said the North Korean people were very friendly and there was "lots of waving. The North Korean people like to wave at dignitaries and that's what we felt like we were because everybody was waving at us."
There was a press bus in the country for the missile launch and much was made of the fact that the driver made a wrong turn and the journalists got to see some of the squalor that many North Koreans live in but Hamilton said he saw none of that during the trip, pointing out that they were escorted everywhere they went.
The Sons of Jubal also had the chance to perform in Bejing, China. Hamilton said they gave three concerts in the Chinese capital, one of them in a Christian church that was filled "almost to capacity" when they arrived for the performance.
"We performed on that Sunday to about 3,500 people. That was in the main sanctuary and they had an overflow downstairs. You couldn't get into the main building. They were on the steps and the parking lot outside."
Hamilton said "I felt very at home (in the church). Actually, one of the men in our group is a pastor and he actually preached that Sunday morning and the pastor of the church interpreted for him, and he preached 'gospel,' he preached 'Bible.'"
Hamilton says he feels good about the trip, that it accomplished "wholeheartedly" the goals of bettering, in some small way, the relations between the U.S. and North Korea... at least the people of the two countries.
"I feel like we were very well accepted in North Korea. Our concerts were very well attended. Our second concert...the venue that we were in was filled to capacity, standing room only and we were given a standing ovation at the end of our concert and asked to do an encore which we heard later on is highly unheard of" by the North Koreans.
Global Resource Services, Inc. (GRS), a non-profit, non-governmental organization based in Atlanta, is coordinating the cultural exchange. GRS has already sent three other groups to North Korea, including the Grammy Award Winning group, Casting Crowns. The organization, according to its Web site, has three main principles: relationships, respect, and reconciliation.
Tony Hamilton with North Korean friend. (Photos courtesy Georgia Baptist Convention)
Sons of Jubal performing in North Korea.
http://accesswdun.com/article/2012/5/248416