I can't help but share some videos from my second trip there -- http://joshuaspodek.com/summary-of-north-korea-videos. Especially the ones singing with North Koreans in Kim Il Sung Square, playing Frisbee with kids, and all-around reinforcing that the people there are the same as people everywhere, just in different environments.
One thing we were surprised by was the openness of our guide. She asked us what our country thought of North Korea, and wanted to hear all about our elections and political system.
At first we thought it was genuine curiosity, but after a while and some pretty dubious claims (come look at this average farmworker's house! everyone in North Korea has a computer!), we suspected that it was designed to "butter us up."
That, I think, was my only real problem with the trip. A lot of what I saw surprised and impressed me (boy, could those children play their instruments!), but I never knew if it was all a ruse for the tourists.
What you saw was just a show run by the North Korean government to further their own agenda. The people that you saw are the people that Koryo Tours (and by extension the government) wants you to see.
Make no mistake, the vast majority of North Korea is a giant interment camp. This is more like what you would see if you were to go off the shiny beaten track that Koryo tours makes you follow: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=1dd_1364601643
1) the Nazi's set up a "public friendly" concentration camp in the Czech Republic, Theresienstadt (1), which they took officials from the Red Cross to and used in media reports sent to the West which demonstrated the "rich Jewish cultural life." of their camps.
2) Crazy Eddie, an electronics store in the early 1980's which turned out to be a massive investor fraud, (2) had a warehouse filled with boxes so he could have an audit, a necessity to go public - the first row of boxes were filled with merchandise, the rest of the boxes were empty.
TL;DR - Humans are trusting people, show them something, and tell them "everything else is just like this thing", and most people will believe you at your word.
(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theresienstadt_concentration_ca...
In addition; North Korea is not suffering from only their decisions. They and us suffer from the cold war.
See the heroin addicted family photo.
A 37 second video clip such as that could have been shot in many places in the world, could be entirely fake, etc...
I suspect reports like this are closer to reality: http://www.nknews.org/2013/01/life-on-the-north-korean-farm/
This paragraph: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korean_famine#Current_st...
+ the articles linked in it are interesting sources.
If North Korea interests you, I highly recommend the documentary: Camp 14: Total Control Zone. You can find it on Netflix and Youtube. In short, it's about a man born in a labor camp with no exposure to the outside world who managed to escape to China and later South Korea.
Are all the other tour companies fake? They must have some seriously dedicated Western actors to spend their lives pretending they went on a tour with one of those fake companies.
HN contains the most people I've ever found who've been to the DPRK. Must be something in the water :)
I think it'd be really interesting to compare notes about what happened on the tours. Of course the formal itinerary was probably very similar, but I wonder if comparing some of the "random" occurrences might reveal something?
For example, while we were touring a park, we happened upon a group of men having a happy little barbecue and singing. It's possible this was totally genuine, but for all I know it was a setup.
This is the thing that's important to remember, and is incredibly difficult with the way our media portrays the DPRK.
The DPRK government, however, is not too far off from how our media describes it.
As for the people, I absolutely do not believe they are brainwashed monsters- merely that they do not have a choice, and get by as they can. For the ones in the higher levels (i.e. living in Pyongyang), it means doing whatever they can to stay in the favors of those in power and not get executed (remember what happened to the soccer coach when they got disqualified during the world cup?). For the vast majority of the rest, living in the almost-exclusively rural North Korean countryside, it means starving to death and not getting killed by the local military.
Maybe I just read too much Foucault. ;)
I'll also add something I put here in my two posts on common questions I got about North Korea -- http://joshuaspodek.com/common-questions-visiting-north-kore... and http://joshuaspodek.com/common-questions-visiting-north-kore....
> Aren’t you supporting a repressive regime?
> Briefly, I know of no popular tourist destination where tourism hasn’t strongly affected the indigenous culture. I believe touring North Korea will increase its trade with the rest of the world and open it up.
> Many people have tried many solutions, including aid, sanctions, diplomacy, and military action. None have decreased the regime’s hold. Doing nothing sustains it as well. If you have a better plan, please let me know.
The regime has shown itself incredibly stable over several generations. I don't see how tourism makes it more stable. Lack of tourism doesn't hurt them. For anyone who wants to change it, what do they propose that hasn't been tried unsuccessfully repeatedly?
He went because he wanted to go and nothing is ever without consequences, anyway.
What level of Korean would you say someone (I'm Canadian) needs to be able to get by? I understand there is always a tour guide, who is a government official. But I just want to know if some Korean is recommended. Thank you.