Six Days in North Korea | Hacker News Reader

Six Days in North Korea

nytimes.com

54 pointstswartz41 comments

Open articleView on HN

For those who would like to follow North Korea on a more than casual basis, these sites are likely to be of interest:

* NK News (http://nknews.org)

* DailyNK (https://www.dailynk.com/english/index.php)

And perhaps especially since this is HN:

* North Korea Tech (https://www.northkoreatech.org)

https://www.facebook.com/dprk360

http://38north.org/

NY Times team did a great job of making this responsive. It works really well on mobile.

That said, this is best viewed on desktop on a huge monitor. It looks gorgeous. Really, beautiful job to their front end team, consistently delivering this kind of experience.

And yet the video was awful in every way. It cut too fast, not allowing us to fully appreciate what was going on, and it had no playback controls so if you missed anything you have to wait for the entire thing to loop back up. Did you see the blue box that trapped the foot? I don't know what that was.

It covers your shoe with a polythene shoe cover. Mostly used in hospitals.

Yeah the video started to load for me then froze and I couldn't get it started again without reloading the entire page and scrolling back down.

What's your rate for shilling?

You do realize that everything in these pictures is thoroughly and carefully pre-selected and even engineered for display purposes, right?

(I was born in the Soviet Union. It is mostly unknown for Western people how much propaganda matters in totalitarian countries, and how little it has to do with reality).

Slide 2 - FOR THE FEW FOREIGN JOURNALISTS WHO HAVE HAD REPEATED ACCESS TO THE NORTH, THE VIEWS FROM THE WINDOW BECOME VITAL, OFFERING COUNTERPOINTS TO THE CASCADE OF OFFICIALLY ARRANGED SCENES.

Sorry for caps, but that seems to be the entire point of this story, it looks at the photos of silly things, like just 5 swimsuits on a rack of clothes in a 'shop'.

Having been there on holiday myself, the only way to ensure that everything is pre-selected and engineered would be to effectively shut down the entire city (indeed, every city and town I went to), and create a kind of bubble around each of our buses (and, when we switched to foot, around each pocket of walking tourists); fake cities filled with actors, all standing and doing nothing until someone shouts "The bus is almost visible" at which point they break into action like a pack of extras on a Hollywood set, pretending to be walking somewhere as the bus passes, only to stop as soon as it's out of sight. Everyone's life on permanent hold, just waiting to show the tourists what it looks like when people walk on the pavement. What glory for the Fatherland that is!

To say that "everything in these pictures is thoroughly and carefully pre-selected and even engineered" is simply not true.

>effectively shut down the entire city

So.. you guys were carefully corralled in the city? N Korea is mostly rural, with most of its population barely able to get enough calories to eat. Pyongyang is a propagandist show-room and is full of connected party types. Your average N Korean doesn't live that lifestyle. This is all fairly well documented by various sources, mostly via the oral histories of defectors:

http://www.amazon.com/Nothing-Envy-Ordinary-Lives-North/dp/0...

http://www.amazon.com/Escape-Camp-14-Remarkable-Odyssey/dp/0...

If you care to discredit these works, I will argue with you on a point to point basis. I have read both and other sources that describe the regime and everyday life in North Korea. Perhaps we can also get Dennis Rodman in here too but clearly you both are on the same page.

Sadly, I find North Korea cheerleading often to be a biased political position tied to the usual pro-China HN crowd that finds fault with everything the US/EU do, thus anything the US/EU are critical of, must be good and any criticism of these regimes must be "western propaganda."

So.. you guys were carefully corralled in the city?

No. We travelled through rural regions as well; small towns and so forth. I saw (but did not go into) numerous very small villages. Those were not much more than a collection of buildings, generally with a dirt track leading to it from the road we were on.

In the city, whilst walking with our two guides, the distance between the front walker and the rear walker was on the order of a hundred metres at times. When I went there, it was a significant national holiday. Some of the exhibition centres we went to had literally thousands of people flowing through them while we were there. We were in the crowds, mixing in with the people attending. Huge flows of people. At a military parade, we stepped off the bus and stood with the crowd to watch. On the underground, we stepped onto the carriages with the locals who were waiting for the train. A funfair in Pyongyang; huge, huge queues outside and inside. Enormous numbers of people milling about and again, our group wandered through them.

I saw numerous signs of deprivation and malnutrition. I saw extensive evidence of a massive solid fuel shortage in recent years. I saw a lot of things that made it clear that the nation is, in many many ways, truly grotesque. I also saw an upright stuffed alligator on wheels holding a drinks tray that David Koresh of Waco fame had sent as a gift.

I would hazard (but of course do not know) that I know more about the subject than you do (both before and after travelling there I read an enormous amount of the available literature and various collections of conference proceedings), and I have the additional evidence of my own eyes.

The western media LOVES to spin stories about the DPRK, and the western public LOVES to read them. There is a lot - a LOT - wrong with the DPRK, but the media seem to be able to write pretty much anything they like and people want to believe it. You know what, go there and see it for yourself. Run in the Pyongyang marathon. Do a cycling tour.

I'm curious about your perspective on this article, "North Korea: A nation of racist dwarfs"

[0]http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_wor...

I've nearly given up on understanding the reality of the situation. Are you Dennis Rodman? ;)

>I would hazard (but of course do not know) that I know more about the subject than you do

I have read two books from defectors, who I imagine had more personal involvement and first-hand experience than some western tourist who fancies himself an expert because he went cycling there once.

Tourism isn't the wonderful learning experience you make it out to be. Its, by its nature, 100% artificial. You have no skin in this game. You can walk out at any time and your money is coveted so you get treated and handled a certain way compared to a local. Tourism doesn't teach you jack shit about the country you're visiting and I say this as someone with two passports who visits his parent's native country frequently. I am not an expert on that country even though speak the language, have family there, etc. I just dont have skin in the game and when I'm there I'm treated like a tourist - not a local. I dont ever have to interview for a job there, deal with the authorities really, pay taxes, deal with the local mafioso/crooked cops/bad government past a superficial level, deal with any of the everyday grind outside of tourist framework, serve in their military, etc.

I wish more North Korean apologists understood this. Instead we have an online army of Dennis Rodmans trivializing the human rights catastrophe in North Korea because the food they were served was okay and the locals all smiled as you drove past in your air conditioned bus.

Yes, I've read those and all the others. I don't see your point. Did I say that I know more about it than them? No. Did I say that I know more about it than you? Yes. Should you get all defensive about that? No. These things happen.

Did I say that tourism was some kind of magic bullet? No. I'm saying that the place is not some kind of vast, elaborate stage-show being run for the purpose of giving tourists something to look at. That's what I said.

I wish more North Korean apologists understood this.

To be fair, you didn't actually call me an apologist (which is nice because that's a astonishingly offensive thing to call someone). I think I was pretty clear in my earlier comments - grotesque, deprivation, malnutrition and so on. I have said here before that the continuing existence of the nation is a stain on the soul of humanity. There is a huge difference between presenting fact, and being an apologist.

What's offensive is that you had no moral problem giving money to such a brutal and repressive regime while believing said regime is a stain on the soul of humanity. you talked, in another post on here, that one can bicycle in North Korea or run in the Pyonyang marathon. Those are great things to do in a country that is a stain on the soul of humanity. Giving money to this regime makes you part of the problem.

And yet people pay taxes to the u.s., a brutal and desparate country where the state regularly tortures people in prison, puts its citizens to death innocent or guilty, and sponsors some of the worse terrorists on the planet. The u.s. has far more affect than nk when it comes to misery.

I'd be skeptical of some of the more outlandish defector testimonies. They have a strong incentive to exaggerate and invent stories, and owing to the relative seclusion of North Korea, it's pretty easy to not get called on it.

Many of the defector testimonies also comes from the mid 90s, when North Korea was undergoing a famine, and while that famine was really severe, it was still 20 years ago and their malnutrition levels have plunged precipitously since. If it were still that bad today, probably the regime would have collapsed already.

Tourism in the country is very controlled, but it's not 100%. Kernels of truth will slip through. Honestly, the propaganda and the truth is quite easy to distinguish, too - their propaganda is very unsophisticated and pretty blunt and not every tour guide is a mindless brainwashed automaton.

>They have a strong incentive to exaggerate and invent stories, and owing to the relative seclusion of North Korea, it's pretty easy to not get called on it.

So anything that contradicts North Korea state propaganda must be untrue? Oh, ok.

You know, you could just swap the phrase "North Korea state propaganda" with "American impeeeerialists" (you must draw out the e) and you'd sound exactly of like one of them.

Would you understand United States of America better if you read a book by someone who was in an American prison,or if you went on a cycling trip throughout the entire country?

How about doing both? They are not mutually exclusive you know.

>So.. you guys were carefully corralled in the city? N Korea is mostly rural, with most of its population barely able to get enough calories to eat.

My tour group was driven through the countryside all the way to the border with South Korea, and I took the train all the way to China. I was very careful to get photos of as many villagers as possible during the whole length of the country. There was poverty, of course -they could hardly hide it - but to be honest, I've seen a lot worse even in rural China.

The only thing that really set it apart from other 3rd world countries was the lack of vehicles. Buses between towns were sparse and incredibly overcrowded and a not-insignificant number of people appeared to be walking or cycling between towns.

Ironically they had a gleaming six lane highway that the tour guide bragged about being built during the 'arduous march' (google it), killing a lot of the workers. With propaganda like that who needs lies?

I took the train all the way to China.

Pyongyang to Dandong? I did that. Did you stay in Dandong? The contrast was a real mind screw. I sat in my hotel room in Dandong, overlooking the bridge; beneath me, Chinese boom town. Lights, cars, noise, street-hawkers, adverts. The bridge extending over the river, and half way across the coloured lights on it just stop. After that, darkness. No lights on the bridge, no lights on the land, nothing. I went to the True Love nightclub in Dandong, with the lights and the bouncing floor and the kids with tall hair and a floor show that was translated for me by a Singaporean accountant and a Canadian (both of whom I'd met in the DPRK), and self-medicated.

I did not, no, but I've been to many other Chinese cities just like it.

Sinuiju is still an industrial city, so I wouldn't describe it in quite those terms.

Still, Dandong does provide a stark contrast, and goes some way to explaining why North Korea's list of "countries that have the best quality of life" has China at #1 and NK at #2. It's impossible to deny that China is getting rich.

North Korea has a history of doing crazy things to make things seem normal or better than they are. For example they built and have maintained an fake and empty village next to the DMZ for the last 50 years to try and entice the South Koreans to come north.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kijong-dong

North Korea is not a rational place.

It was built in the 1950s when South Korea was still very, very poor. The idea of encouraging defections back then wasn't quite so crazy.

I'm pretty sure that the village is actually inhabited now and has been for many years. Probably as soon as they realized that its propaganda value was limited.

There's plenty of shit made up and printed in 'prestigious' media outlets about North Korea. If a story seems too crazy to be true, then there's a good chance that it actually isn't.

Like yours, for instance.

As of 2014, North Korea insists it a real village. The lights still come on at night. But anyone with binoculars can see the streets are empty.

http://boingboing.net/2014/07/08/north-koreas-creepy-fake-ci...

It's not my "story" or "made up". It's 2 cited 3rd party articles. No reason to be a jerk to people contributing to the conversation.

And I thought the opening of the Beijing games was some impressive organization!

I suspect that a sizable proportion of the population believes the situation you describe to be true; that is our propaganda.

I have a hard time understanding why someone with a conscience would spend money in a brutal, repressive regime. Do you have any compunction about giving money that supports such a regime? Is there a level of brutality and oppression that would make you not want to directly support that brutality and oppression?

EDIT: I seem to have hit a nerve. Is it always OK to vacation in a brutal regime? If so why? I'd love hear why directly giving money to the North Korean regime is an acceptable thing to do.

You know how touristy places look more like each other than the genuine thing? Souvenir trash shops, tastes you are used to. People doing traditional stuff, except it's only a show and their souls are not in it. A sell out.

I think that would be a good development.

I was always fascinated by cars in North Korea - what brands do they use? How do they get there? What do you have to do to drive one? Exactly how uncommon are they? Who fixes them, and how do they know how? If the supreme leader is driven in a Mercedes, how do they get the parts for it?

I come from Poland where during communist times cars were really hard to come by, you had to wait 10 years on an official list to be allowed to buy one, but people always managed to get by somehow. Most models were of course of Soviet production, but an odd western car would sometimes appear, imported through friends of friends of someone in the party. Obviously NK is completely different, but I still find it very interesting, and it's hard to find any information about this anywhere.

The UN has a report on NK:

http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/CoIDPRK/Pages/Reportoft...

It's a 372 page Word document(!) Anyway, buried deep inside you'll see the regime imported a dozen Mercedes-Benz for the elites. Importing these luxuries is against sanctions, so that must have been quite a feat in itself. How they keep them running is another issue.

An article from 2014 suggests the government use at least one Mercedes, and probably bought it via Russia or China. I'd guess they just drive it over the border...

Maybe parts don't count as "luxury vehicles", in which case they can buy them from Europe. Alternatively, China/Russia.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/northkorea/11...

China produces compatible parts for almost every car, including Mercedes.

I read this recently, it seems there's a bunch of 1970s Volvos floating around which are not paid for http://jalopnik.com/north-korea-still-owes-393-000-000-for-v...

The empty freeway from the window was the killer shot for me. Imagine if you showed the average citizen there a picture of LA or even Beijing during rush hour.

Yes, its so interesting to see those types of pictures. I'd be fascinated to hear what North Koreans think of the freeway system in their country since few people use it.

Hey, I've been there!

I ran my fastest marathon ever while being tailed by the paddy wagon, suited up and bowed down before the embalmed body of Kim Jong Il, locked and loaded to shoot at chickens, and tripped out in psychedelic halls of mirrors in the DPRK - North Korea.

Here's how it all went down...

http://jeffreydonenfeld.com/blog/2015/06/exploring-north-kor...

I am impressed that Pyongyang appears in Google maps https://www.google.com.pr/maps/place/Ryugyong+Hotel,+Pyongya... I was looking for the giant Ryuyong Hotel in the center of town.

Clicking on some of the landmarks around the hotel, they have some Google reviews. The reviews for the Pyongyang Arena makes interesting reading.

https://www.google.com.pr/search?q=Pyongyang+Arena,+Pyongyan...

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