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Comment by n4r9 | Hacker News Reader

It's always fascinating to hear about the cultural structures within North Korea. The image in my head is one where 5% are comfortable party officials and 95% are starving labourers. Of course that's not true: there are intellectuals and scientists in the middle, like in any other society.

A related article was posted a few months ago regarding North Korean sci-fi. Also fascinating!

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37291007

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In around 2017 I had a scholarship at Wuhan University. During that time the university hosted a cultural fair for international students. What was most interesting to me (as someone from the UK) was that I met for the first time ever students from North Korea.

These students were smartly dressed (suited and booted), which in comparison to everyone else in casual clothes, made them stand out. They spoke excellent English and Chinese, they were polite and thoughtful. Each international group had to give a stage performance, to which the NK students performed a piece similar to Beijing Opera; it was without doubt the most well rehearsed, costumed and, vibrant performance of the lot.

It made me realise I had a very narrow perspective of NK.

Those people are literally North Koreas elite.

That's how propaganda works, they are trained to project that image of NK abroad

That's how propaganda works, we are trained to believe an image of NK.

I wonder what other intelligent things you believe. And it’s not “NK” it is DPRK.

In that case, its not UK, its United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

NK or North Korea is a common name used by many to refer to that country, DPRK is the official name. Anyone is free to use whichever one they want.

NK is 60% urbanized, higher than many ex soviet bloc countries. My uncle goes there for business, and other global south countries as well. In his assessment, everyday NK living conditions better than most of global poor. Compared it to a clean tier3 PRC city from the 90s, pretty ordered, few cars, lots of bikes, few advertisement, clean. Sterile and boring but in his opinion, preferrable to filthy urban centres else where. Same with the rural hamlets he went to. Sucks during winter. He found it charming enough over all. Reality is NK still holding on to residual industrial prowess - it takes some competent state organization to build nukes - and that translates into other parts of civil structures. More countries can't do what NK does, than can. There was a survey where 1/5th of NK defectors in SK were willing to return north, citing nostalgia. Anecdotally that's more than my experience talking diasphora from ex soviet republics in Canada. Of course uncle wasn't there during periods of crisis where gov whent full Juche.

You might be interested in or have already read the Inspector O series by “Frank Church.” To the degree it is accurate (or not) it was fascinating to think of all the things that a mostly stable but alien-to-me society must contain. Cops, municipal workers of all sorts, and the parallel world of a Communist party.

https://www.amazon.com/Corpse-Koryo-Inspector-Novel-Novels/d...

Of course, you only need municipal workers, if you have municipalities.

Eg a nomadic society wouldn't have them.

I like the Inspector Chen Cao novels, too; they're crime novels that usually involve corruption in the Chinese Communist Party https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/126606.Death_of_a_Red_He...

The author Qiu Xiaolong lives in exile in the US.

Not surprisingly, popular ideas about life in North Korea are simplistic and exaggerated. I'll just make a few comments based on casual study while living in South Korea.

First, popular support for the regime is much greater than Westerners typically realize. My wild guess is that at least a third are true believers and much less than that would consider lifting a finger toward regime change. When characterizing North Korea, it is more accurate to call it a brutal society rather than a brutal regime.

Second, a large contributor to this situation is the demographic outcome of the civil war and population management afterwards. During the war, massive numbers of anti-communists were killed or migrated south, and massive numbers of pro-communists were killed or went north. On top of this segregation, the Northern regime established residence zones such that populations were relocated according to their perceived loyalty.

Third, due partly to the relocations, the northern part of the country has the population with the least love for the regime. They also have the greatest opportunity to escape, being close the China. It is often noted that North Korean refugees in China and South Korea have accents from this region. When these refugees tell interviewers that they would like to return home but can't, my interpretation is that they miss their hometowns, but fear punishment by the regime.

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