Getting drunk in North Korea | Hacker News Reader

Getting drunk in North Korea

theatlantic.com

91 pointsawwstn44 comments

As a South Korean living abroad, I am regularly asked about North Korea by curious foreigners despite having no special expertise on the subject besides having followed the news all my life by the virtue of being from the south of the DMZ. One of the most difficult things to convey, even to fellow South Koreans, is the fact that North Korea is as complex as any human society. For most people, North Korea is the very definition of the Great Unknown, and we tend to imagine such things as monoliths (it is incredible for instance how many outsiders seem to picture Africa as one giant mass of starvation, disease, and war, and are astonished to see anything that doesn't fit the preconception like bustling modern cities with a thriving middle class).

It is easy to describe the lack of freedoms, cult of personality, massive prison camps, the songbun caste system and total lack of civil society in North Korea, leaving the curious foreigner shaking her head at the bizarreness and monstrosity of it all. But it is also easy to forget that this is a society inhabited by flesh and blood humans, not ruthless robots and their abstract oppressed victims. We don't get to see much of this side of course. But in some ways in the last decade or so North Korea has been creeping towards something close to normalcy, albeit far from ideal—corrupt officials, flourishing black markets, extreme disparities in wealth, and even cross-border trade with China. Nothing to portend a Soviet-style collapse of course, but even the slightest increase in openness is something we should welcome.

My favorite book about the DPRK is Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea (http://www.amazon.com/Nothing-Envy-Ordinary-Lives-ebook/dp/B...).

I'm hopeful that the DPRK is moving toward modernity, but if the stories from that book are anywhere close to the truth, they are still by far the most evil regime on the planet.

I would add "The cleanest race: How North Koreans See Themselves and Why It Matters" (http://www.amazon.com/The-Cleanest-Race-Themselves-ebook/dp/...).

I have been reading about North Korea for a while, and I find this book to open a new perspective on the way north korean people see themselves and their leaders. While I haven't had the pleasure to meet any person born and raised in North Korean (or at least, not as far as I know) I find that some of the contents of the book can be applied to South Koreans. Obviously, only up to a certain degree.

Previous discussion on NK:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5817014 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3368310

Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader was a great read.

I read that as:

  Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader! What
  a great read!

Even though I liked the book. I was not a big fan of story telling style.

> far the most evil regime on the planet.

That should be reserved for The American Empire. IMHO.

Bah in the general direction of your false equivalence.

Call me when we have forced labor camps and generational punishment. The USA sucks, but others most definitely suck more.

Call me when we stop sending drones to kill school children on their way to school. Also, we have indefinite detention without trail. Guantanamo .

North Korea is a result of American Empire( Korean War). They are not going to disarm and be foolish like Libya ( who was silly enough to sign away its nuclear program)

> North Korea is a result of American Empire( Korean War)

It's a good thing you posted this from the US and not the DPRK. Don't think you'd fare as well over there (assuming you could smuggle in a cell phone with a data plan).

Actually, they'd be fine saying that in the DPRK, as it's pretty well accepted that American imperialism _did_ cause the split-off of south Korea.

Then again, maybe not posting on this site. But their post is certainly right along the party line.

Don't expect reasonable discussion of the DRPK here, of all places. :/

There's a reason that one of the HN guidelines is 'stay away from politics.'

There are 46 indefinite detainees at Guantanamo.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_detention_camp#D...

There are 200,000 in North Korean political prison camps.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korea#Political_prison_ca...

I think reasonable people can distinguish which is worse.

The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world. A large, large, large portion of inmates are due to the War on Drugs, which is obviously very political. Not to mention the disproportionate imprisonment of minorities...

What I'm saying is, it's not that simple.

That's probably because the DPRK doesn't release reliable stats.

Also, while you may get indeed thrown in jail for drug possession in the US, in North Korea you, your wife, your parents and your children would end up in labor camp, eating undigested corn kernels out of pig shit and dying of starvation or dysentery in a few years.

Is this a fact?

Yes, it's well known that entire families are punished for the "crimes" of a individual. There was an article a while back that tells the story of a child that was actually born in prison and who eventually escapes NK. Chilling story.

As for eating corn out of pig shit, it's not that much of a stretch. During the last famine, eating grass was commonplace.

Not to mention a recent story where Kim Jong Un had his ex-girlfriend and colleagues shot, then had their families shipped off to a prison camp. Wow, no wonder Dennis Rodman likes hanging with that guy.

Documented here: http://edition.cnn.com/2013/05/10/world/asia/north-korea-gul...

And this is the story of that kid who grew up in prison camp.

Dont forget the crystal meth!

How sad, that to look good the U.S. has to pick the most isolated, state controlled country and still needs to rely on story telling.

Erm, parent didn't originally compare US to DPRK. That honor goes to the top post.

Anyways, which country would the poster want to live in: the DPRK, or the USA? We are lucky enough to vote with our feet (well, in the USA we can); some Europeans even...gasp...come to the great USA sh*thole to live/work and actually...really not kidding...enjoy it enough not to leave. We aren't even kidnapping them...they pay for the airfares themselves!

I was making a point about the U.S. per capita incarceration rate. Shown here on Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarcerat.... It is dismal and countering with North Korea's injustice system being hypothetically worse doesn't make it better.

So America has its problems, we can list them out and maybe deal with them (or not) depending on how people feel about them (e.g. we have a functioning political system).

DPRK has even bigger problems. Any fixes will be hard in coming, and will probably be painful when they do. Its a whole different "screwed up" from how the Europeans think the USA is "screwed up."

Not that I expect to change anyone's world views with a comment, but for the sake of those who are simply curious: The North Korean regime is the brainchild of Stalin, whose one consistent foreign policy was to set up satellite regimes in all states bordering the Soviet Union. After the liberation of Korea, the Soviets who occupied the northern half of the country drove out the people's committees that had been set up by Koreans in Pyongyang and other cities, refused to let the Koreans under their rule participate in the U.N.-mandated elections, and set about installing a puppet regime headed by Kim Il Sung, a major in the Soviet Red Army who didn't even speak fluent Korean at the time. It was North Korea's invasion of the South that sparked the Korean War, and without the involvement of U.N. forces led by the Americans, all of the Korean peninsula would have come under Kim's rule. Now, there is an argument to be made that facing the military might and carpet bombing by the U.S. became a defining experience and national mythology for North Korea, leading to their extreme bunker mentality, but if North Korea can be blamed on an empire, it is only the Soviet one.

You never see these comments on the DPRK articles mentioning the torture, mass executions, widespread starvation, and labor camps. Just on the lighter ones about visiting the country.

> torture

waterboarding, etc

> mass executions

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War#Iraq...

drone strikes, etc.

> widespread starvation

http://feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america/hunger-facts/chi...

People aren't dying here, so it's not the same, but 16.7 million children lived in food insecure households in 2011... not to mention that _we_ have a lot to do with DPRK starvation and famine.

> labor camps

Private prisons, Guantanamo Bay, etc.

I actually found this quote from the article to be quite good:

> It’s simplistic to dismiss North Koreans as brainwashed masses; in fact, we have more in common than we think.

Be careful. When you stretch that far you can injure your back.

Yes just like we never hear about all the civilians and their lifes that have changed forever in the middle east from the endless war we have been waging in the middle east (and all over the world). Just the lighter ones like Miley Cyrus's performance in VMAs.

It's easier to relate to this. We hear about the torture and mass executions, but it's not something we can see. But you can see and experience moments like those described in this article.

Also, everything I've seen suggests the reality is slightly less bleak than our propaganda machine leads us to believe...

Is this malice or just gross ignorance?

Your comment is almost void of content. Maybe the poster has a more international perspective as one can judge the wickedness of a country by stepping outside the border. The Germans of Nazi Germany thought their country was great, it was the oppressed internal people and occupied countries that saw Germany as wicked. But I know, as long as you see yourself having it good or better than elsewhere is all that matters.

The idea the American government is "the most evil regime on the planet" doesn't pass the laugh test. I don't care what your perspective is.

Well, this went all Godwin faster than I expected for HN.

That's not hyperbolic bringing up Nazis. We are specifically talking about evil regimes. Nazi Germany is the canonical example. The point is that the people in the evil regime may not consider it evil when it is other people, outside the country, or unwanted internal people that are getting screwed so the evil regime populace can live in a richer country. When we are talking about settler or imperialist countries they are evil in that their lifestyle is bought by oppressing others.

Germans get an exemption to Godwin's law for some reason.

> What if the nightmare imagined by George Orwell in 1984 were real? What if you had to live in a country where radio dials were fixed to a single government station? Where the surroundings were entirely black-and-white except for the red lettering of the propaganda signs? Where you were required to keep a large portrait of the president on your living room wall and bow to it on national holidays?

This sounds like an incredible read. I just ordered a copy from Amazon. Thanks for the recommendation!

What if the nightmare imagined by George Orwell in 1984 were real?

In the absence or near-absence of Facebook and email and internet browsing and private cars and smart phones, I suspect (in fact I'm certain) that North Koreans have far more privacy from their government than we Americans do.

Just because those things exist and can be used to track you doesn't mean you have to use them.

Just because US privacy rights are being eroded doesn't mean that not having them at all is better.

FYI available on audible.

While there's no doubt that North Korea's regime is cruel and oppressive, and that they're very poor by generally accepted standards of measuring wealth, I've also seen quite a few documentaries suggesting that North Korea is also very different than how we view it.

I've seen one where a tourist sneaks a video camera into the DPRK, and manages to take quite a bit of video, and in many ways they're not so different from us. In most ways, actually.

They drink, go out for picnics, celebrate holidays, and do alot of the 'normal' things we do. The country looks clean, and the people aren't all walking skeletons.

I think the truth about DPRK is somewhere in between our western propaganda, and the communist propaganda... With a bit of sci-fi weirdness thrown in for good measure...

Even with "sneaking in a video camera," most outsiders are only allowed a view of North Korea that doesn't see the bad things. I know there are instances of people seeing parts of the country that aren't on the guided tour, but these are few and far-between, and usually don't include foreigners given free reign to wander over the country-side to see what they can see.

Yeah. Taking photos they'd rather one didn't has gotten people doing hard labor for a decade and a half.

It's very common for foreigners staying at that hotel to get drunk every night. There is no internet, no other recreations and you aren't allowed to leave the hotel. And their home brewed beer is actually pretty good.

Surprised they never mentioned the bowling alley / video game parlour which is hugely popular amongst the children of the well to do.

  "Governments in Communist countries often resort to subsidizing alcohol in order to keep people happy," Petrov explains.

My impression of the Soviet alcohol policy was actually the other way around - alcohol was tightly regulated and sold at high markups, which (maybe not surprisingly) was a barrier to actual attempts to reduce alcoholism, since the state budget was so dependent on the sales.

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