The pictures are not bad, but the captions are incredibly cringe and condescending. Of course he would not bother to tell us how to disable the delete in the firmware. Seriously, I mean, thousands of people have gone on these state-sponsored package tours in North Korea and we see the same set of trains, roads, hotels and attractions that they have really got boring.
One photography project I do found interesting is the set below commissioned by Getty Images. The photographers they hired found a loophole in their visa conditions, managed enter NK from Russia and reached Pyongyang on trains rarely used by tourists. They were able to interact more with the locals since the border guards as well as people en route have not been "coached" to speak to foreginers and the whole thing came out feeling much more genuine than these tourist flicks.
Condescending? This is an enslaved country with concentration many times larger than anything the Nazis cooked up. It's hard to condescend to one of the great evils in history.
I agree with the OP, I found the captions extremely condescending. Especially the ones about China. The worst one for me was:
> At night, the elderly Chinese dance in the streets in unison avoiding any displays of individuality.
This comment would be the same as going to an aerobics class and saying "the gym rats move in unison avoiding any displays of individuality". These dancing grannies are not much difference, one of the main reasons they do this is for health and to stay active. Like going to the gym there is also a social component; health and social reasons are why the grannies dance. Actually each group does things differently and the moves are part of the tradition. It's as about anti-individualistic as going to an aerobic or yoga class.
Really, it starts going bad at the opening:
> The Koreans are one nation, but not unlike Germany, the country was divided between the USSR and the US following World War 2.
This is just factually incorrect. A more apt comparison would be Germany and Austria. Yes they are both ethnically Korean, but Korean has only been unified for about half it's approximately 1500 year history and when it was unified it was often unified in a similar feudal way that Germany and Austria where "unified" in the HRE. The reality is Korea has always been the primary location of proxy wars between China and Japan. The only unified points was when one of China or Japan was strong enough to dominate the whole peninsula. Even the North/South terms are very Western in origin with most surrounding Asian countries having completely different names for the two countries that are as related as "Germany" and "Austria".
On the ground within South Korea, especially towards the south of the country, there just isn't a sense that unification should even be attempted or that the two countries have much in common.
Finally, one of the main reasons China is willing to take a stronger hand against North Korea and support sanctions is because South Korea has been moving increasingly from Japanese/American sphere to the Chinese sphere of influence. Especially under the conservative Park. This more than anything else is likely to spell doom for North Korea.
I do not think you are correct. For millenia, there have been excruciatingly few imbalances of power (war) between China, Japan, and Korea. Here is a great video overview [0]. If he is to believed (and external sources seem to agree), Korea and Asia has been far more stable for far longer periods of time (until ~1900) than Europe and America.
Furthermore, historically Korea (through various eras) has often (or always?) extended out of the Korean peninsula further into China than it is now. So in general they've been a lot more peaceful and unified than they are today. And yes it's an
ill comparison to Germany and Austria because Korea has been around far longer.
> Even the North/South terms are very Western in origin with most surrounding Asian countries having completely different names for the two countries that are as related as "Germany" and "Austria".
Interestingly, the name "Austria" comes from "eastern realm":
Did not expect Godwin's law to be invoked so soon but I will give it a shot:
>The Chinese city where you get to do that is called Dandong. I read somewhere it was the most humane of Chinese cities, most having become a polluted nightmare these days...
If he was being ironic I must have missed it. He seems to regard Dandong as the pinnacle of Chinese economic ascendancy when the city actually has a reputation for rampant violent crime thanks to smuggling and drug trade that occurs across the border.
>Pluralism and individualism are regarded as the greatest enemy. I understood the significance of being able to drive a car anywhere you want, when you please, where you please - as our guide told us in North Korea you only travel big distances by bus or train, when you get permission.
Internal visa is an evil system, but this paragraphs just reeks of material and moral superiority. Hey why don't you just become a rugged individual like me and save up for a car when there is only three scheduled trains every week?
>North Koreans supposedly believe that the entire world is in awe of their achievements.
That's a lot to ask for a paddy field in the middle of nowhere.
>The man has some genuine dignity.
Again, really hard to figure out whether it is sarcasm or not.
See, I am not interested in defending the NK regime. However the author/photographer shows a rather disappointing lack of understanding, respect or the slightest empathy to for his subjects. Hence his pictures, while technically sound, are no better than the millions of photos taken by Western tourists in North Korea.
>> Pluralism and individualism are regarded as the greatest enemy. I understood the significance of being able to drive a car anywhere you want, when you please, where you please - as our guide told us in North Korea you only travel big distances by bus or train, when you get permission.
> Internal visa is an evil system, but this paragraphs just reeks of material and moral superiority. Hey why don't you just become a rugged individual like me and save up for a car when there is only three scheduled trains every week?
I'm not sure it's meant that way. I don't see material superiority in it. Noting your appreciation for your ability to get into a car and drive where you want when confronted with strict control of movement doesn't necessarily imply "they should get a car", but that the you understand that ability in a new light, as a freedom that isn't available to everyone.
I agree the captions sometimes come across as a little heavy handed, but also I think you're also being overly critical in some cases where it's not called for.
Addendum:
>> The man has some genuine dignity.
> Again, really hard to figure out whether it is sarcasm or not.
I was a bit unsure whether it was sarcasm initially as well, but decided it wasn't because a) The man looks dignified to me, especially in comparison to the train crossing guard in the prior slides, and b) I don't believe he uses sarcasm much in these slides, at least not the same type of sarcasm that would be exhibited here if this was meant sarcastically.
Thanks for the comments. Perhaps I was over-reacting, but I was more frustrated with other aspects of this post that I will spell out now at the risk of sounding like jealousy or argumentum ad hominem
- This set of photos has gone viral and was presented "the latest ILLEGAL photographs smuggled out of the hermit kingdom" in many reputable media outlets. It even made to the first page of HN (disguised as a technical write-up). Yet there is nothing remarkable about it. Sure, tourists are not supposed to take photos of soldiers, of police, of anything not pretty during their train journey to Pyongyang, or in some accounts, badly composed shots of their national monuments. But such photos seem to never be in short supply, a simple search will reveal hundreds of blog posts and image galleries littered with such snaps with nobody expressing slightest fear of reprisal. Whatever accomplishments it may have, had been blown out of proportion.
- The photographer is from Eastern Europe. My feeling from interaction with many Eastern Europeans of various background is that many of them will go out of their way to denounce their Cold War legacy, sometimes to the extent of borderline reactionary to my center-left mind. The multiple mentions of "individualism" in pretty unusual contexts as well as a general holier-than-thou attitude to countries presently aligned with Russia is eerily familiar.
> I was a bit unsure whether it was sarcasm initially as well...
This is a fair comment and I appreciate your thoughts. I actually stopped reading by that line then, but on my second attempt the last panel really stood out:
>> Elegant men, beautiful women, walking in a simulated hurry, travelers without a reason (ours was the only train that day), all to impress us and so that the station doesn't look empty.
Staged or not,there is no evidence either way. But if the observer has already decided that anything nice is only for show, then this will be the only thing he sees.
> Staged or not,there is no evidence either way. But if the observer has already decided that anything nice is only for show, then this will be the only thing he sees.
I agree there wasn't much evidence presented for a lot of the slides, but I took it more as a travelogue than an exposé. While I would have preferred more commentary and evidence for certain items, I'm not going to fault the photographer for describing each image and the context as they saw it.
> This set of photos has gone viral and was presented "the latest ILLEGAL photographs smuggled out of the hermit kingdom" in many reputable media outlets.
Is that the media, or was the author/photographer also pushing that agenda? It's very poorly titled here on HN as of now. The author mentions recovering an image once or twice from what I saw, but the title here suggests they are all rare and special images. I guess the question is, should we fault and be overly critical of the author because of how others pushed his work, or should be try to assess the author on his own merits and fault the media for their part in the circus (assuming the author was not pushing this view, which I know nothing about).
That picture is the first of a pair from this location in his second gallery (linked by someone here in the comments), and the description on reddit lines up with his comments on the slide:
In North Korea, there are places you can visit and places you cannot visit, and the latter are far more numerous. Well, this is one of them. Usually, we were accompanied by our guides, one in the front, one in the back. But at one point they were both in the front, which allowed for a literally 15-second long detour into this ordinary shop for North Koreans. That gave me maybe 10 seconds to take this and the following picture, before being kicked out by the bad cop, and the atmosphere became rather unpleasant. I'm not sure if he saw me taking these pictures.
He repeats that verbatim in one of the reddit comments, and adds "Also, I've got a photo album with the photos of my journey into North Korea, if anyone is interested." I don't really see that as the photographer trying to pass all the images off as special, he specifically linked this one image from that gallery, and clearly distinguishes between this image, and others from his trip. Whether this image is really special or not is another story, but I don't really doubt that the author believes it's special due to the circumstances he took it in (it could easily have been the guides trying to exert general control, not specifically that they viewed this location off-limits).
As another commenter here noted, it's possible he was sold an "experience" by the tour company he chose, and they were playing to the group. In any case, there's definitely a lot of popular mythology at play with regard to North Korea, intensified by the lack of useful information, and this all plays into that, which I'm sure it's one of the reasons it's gaining so much traction. People like the idea of him having to smuggle out the pictures, whether or not that's an accurate description of what happened or what he's really saying. I don't wonder at why it's being spread that way, even if I do lament it.
> As another commenter here noted, it's possible he was sold an "experience" by the tour company he chose, and they were playing to the group. In any case, there's definitely a lot of popular mythology at play with regard to North Korea, intensified by the lack of useful information, and this all plays into that, which I'm sure it's one of the reasons it's gaining so much traction. People like the idea of him having to smuggle out the pictures, whether or not that's an accurate description of what happened or what he's really saying. I don't wonder at why it's being spread that way, even if I do lament it.
I just had a chance to go through the second gallery and this is pretty much the same conclusion I have arrived at. A lot of information he tries to pass as facts are well-debunked myths that he swallowed hook, line and sinker.
Perhaps the word "agenda" is a little bit harsh, it feels more like ignorance/naivety than malice. After all, it is just another sad episode of regurgitated stale narrative being passed around as something novel.
North Korea is it's own, special form of evil which has developed nukes at the expense of nearly their entire GDP, most work is compelled, executed a general by antiaircraft gun, keeps people from escaping, still technically at war (ceasation of hositilities but still points AKs across the border) with the South and starves millions to death. Perhaps the mentioning of Godwin's law is itself groupthink dismissing legitimate "evil" suspects like Drumpf, Assad, Putin, Daesh, etc., that need more nuanced discussion, not shutting down. Shutting down is for tinfoil hat "micro-aggressions" and bikeshedding femto-issues, not ruthless regimes which genocidally-eradicate their own populace to ensure their own survival.
Godwin's law has come full circle to the point where it's invoked even where the comparisons make sense. The Nazi party of WWII and the atrocities committed by them are not entirely incomparable, even if they are often used hyperbolically. Reserving a special place for those actions and refusing comparison invites us to ignore when the comparisons are apt, and to see the connections where they are relevant.
In some respects, North Korea is far worse than Nazism ever was (such as in its fanatacism), but in others it's nowhere near (such as the Holocaust, unless the situation there is far, far worse than anyone knows).
WW2 was a significant event in world history, it has relevance in many areas. It's also a great example of unique issues. It undoubtedly has relevance to many, varied subjects. as such, Godwins law is unproductive memetic junk.
> Condescending? This is an enslaved country with concentration many times larger than anything the Nazis cooked up. It's hard to condescend to one of the great evils in history.
Well, for starters, comparing the people who live in North Korea to animals is one way.
> It's quite incredible to witness Chinese or South Korean tourists interacting with North Korean fishermen - it reminded me of safaris is [sic] East Africa. You keep wondering, what are the North Koreans really thinking?
Yeah, people from New Orleans said the same regarding the bus tours of the poorest zones (esp. Lower 9th), that it made their neighbourhood feel like a zoo.
I definitely disagree with your interpretation of the photographer's comments. I found them rather interesting and not "cringe". His page is not a tech blog with how-tos on how to use your camera, so if that is what you were expecting, I can understand why you are disappointed. But actually, his page is for showing photographs and sharing information about the country, much of it was rather insightful while brief. The motivated spectator can then google details about your camera's firmware for the next time you travel to North Korea yourself.
Much of it was misinformed or plain wrong. The particulars has been extensively discussed in this thread.
> The motivated spectator can then google details about your camera's firmware for the next time you travel to North Korea yourself.
The photographer appears to use Nikon SLRs which I am familiar with (I have a Df and has been using Nikon for the past decade). A handful of old models had homebrew firmware patches but it was mostly for shooting video[0]. There has been no new releases since.
Can somebody point me where to look? Googling turned up nothing like what's been described in the linked gallery.
I also found the captions off putting and unnecessary, so much so that I felt compelled to tell him as much on his facebook page.
Having spent a considerable amount of time in eastern Europe (where the photographer is from), it has been my observation that, at least anecdotally, considerably more people from these regions (as opposed to more mature democracies) are emotionally unprepared to look at political issues from a neutral perspective. His comments are heavy with his own experiences and prejudices. It's an understandable reaction to growing up in a repressive regime however it seems highly biased to more neutral observers.
That's an interesting comment for me to read as someone born in Eastern Europe. I can sort-of see what you mean from my own experiences, but I'm not entirely sure if I'm guilty of that as well.
What would it mean for you to "look at political issues from a neutral perspective"?
To me at least it means to understand the geopolitical sphere from first principles. To achieve this I think it is necessary to have studied and understood the history of and the art form of propaganda and to be able to analyse media from this perspective, regardless of it's source and regardless of whether or not it confirms your world view.
I would also like to add that it requires a strong aptitude for multistep thinking.
That's kind of vague, though, and is laden with the assumption that YOU understand the world "from first principles" and the ones disagreeing with you don't.
Especially your second comment strikes me as quite arrogant. "I know what I'm talking about because I can do lateral thinking, and the brainwashed masses clearly do not".
The way I see it, anyone with a university-or-equivalent education tends to believe that what-they-know is some absolute truth of the world and "the other side" is somehow brainwashed by their respective media or government, whether "capitalist" or "communist".
Can you tell me what these "first principles" are that you use to understand geopolitics? Can you justify to me that this set of first principles is necessary and sufficient for a complete understanding of the topic in question? That there exists no other principle that you've ignored without which your understanding is incomplete?
Or.. are you just using your world-view to make yourself feel good about how clever you are?
Admittedly I found it hard to verbalise and perhaps I didn't do it justice. I don't claim to know any absolute truths (actually I don't believe they exist when it comes to politics). I have spent a great deal of time and thought into seeing multiple sides of arguments. I often see the lack of this ability in people who share the same world view as I do.
>the other side
You've really misunderstood me if you think this is about taking sides.
I would characterise first principles to be things like 'who benefits in this situation' and 'what is the historical context of the situation'. Essentially it comes down to not taking sides and looking at situations from everyones and no ones perspective.
I'm aware that it's never possible to 100% escape ones conditioning and we've all be conditioned in one way or another, either purposefully or not. You really don't need me to tell you that certain people are far more susceptible to their conditioning purely based on the fact that they're not even aware of the possibility that they have been conditioned at all. I wouldn't take offence by anything I said as while I did single out Eastern Europeans it's not exactly a unique phenomenon to any locality, it purely reflects my experiences. I've also met plenty of Eastern Europeans to whom this doesn't apply at all.
Yes, it does look like I misunderstood your position a bit. It wasn't that I took offence as an "eastern european" (I moved out a decade ago and prefer to have as little to do with the place as I can), but more so as a computer scientist it's ingrained in me to respond to a claim of knowing something from "first principles" by asking what those principles are.
I agree with you that the two that you've mentioned are excellent starting points. In that light, yes, those are not the kind of things that the people I grew up around tended to do. (Or like you say, not a thing that a lot of people anywhere tend to do).
I guess like you, I've spent a lot of time looking at all the sides of an issue that I can find, but I guess I reached a point where I'm just like "so what now?" For all that analysis, I never really figured out what to do with it.
agreed. And actually for me, the pictures are nearly indistinguishable from what I've seen in India and Thailand. nothing shocking about minimalist infrastructure in a 3rd world country unless you have never been out of the 1st world.
I know this comment has been criticized a lot, and rightly so. As the last picture of train station with "elegant men and beautiful women" acting to look the station busy, is by itself so much of a story, as to make me want more of it.
(And I hate that this is the top comment. As its almost off topic, and has utterly non interesting commentary, in contrast to the pictures which offer us so much - again I hark back to the last telling photograph - I will surely be tuned for more photos from this travelogue.)
Did we see the same page? I am trying to find the offensive wording. If being blunt if offensive then as a society we are failing. Just like some of the old Warsaw pact North Korea is surreal at times. The extent to which they go to control information and what is seen or not seen is not much different than the Soviet Union and Warsaw pact.
I have seen other picture galleries and the stark truth is how empty it all looks, abandoned even. It is the "post nuclear war people coming back and surviving look" that many authors write.
I went to North Korea in January as an American (incidentally on the same tour as the kid who is currently being detained there and in the same group). As mentioned in the article, Americans can't go on the train, so I can't speak to his experiences specifically, but I have a few reactions to this.
1. He probably didn't need to modify his camera firmware - I took pictures of basically whatever I wanted and they didn't look or care. The only exception to this was the (singular) grocery store, which I thought was hilarious because it was actually pretty nice. (With surprisingly good food, too! I'm still snacking on some of the candies I bought there.) I went on a helicopter ride and took a bunch of pictures of anti-aircraft guns and the like hoping that they would make me delete them and I would have a story to tell, but no such luck.
2. There's a big difference between the different tour companies. Some of them really sold the dystopian totalitarian state experience, with extremely strict guides who yelled at people on the tour and checked everybody's cameras and so on. The people on those tours seemed to have signed up for that experience and were, I think, happy to receive it. My group was drunk off our collective asses literally 24/7, our guides were making dick jokes, a guy wandered off on his own on New Years Eve and didn't get back to the hotel until ~3am after getting in a fistfight with a cab driver, and it was generally a party. It seems to me like the author of this article went in looking for a dystopia to photograph, and the tour company gave him one.
3. North Korea is poor as hell, obviously has a horrible government, etc. If you've been to other extremely poor parts of the globe it's obvious that it's a poor country trying to pretend to be a rich one. The successful example of neighboring South Korea makes their failure to provide for their citizens even sadder. But I would guess total quality of life is comparable or better in the DPRK than many other places I've been. (Somalia, nasty bits of Bangladesh, etc)
4. The citizens and possibly government are (not totally unreasonably) terrified that the US is going to invade and crush them like ants at any given moment. I think this drives a lot of their government's malinvestments.
> 4. The citizens and possibly government are (not totally unreasonably) terrified that the US is going to invade and crush them like ants at any given moment.
Are you joking ? The US would never do that since China wants North Korea to keep acting as a buffer state against America's influence. Plus, the US has never hinted of any operation in the region.
The North Koreans are totally obsessed with the Korean War, and seem to think that the entire world is too. They've convinced themselves that the US started the first Korean war because controlling the Korean peninsula is vitally important for some reason that I can't remember (the propaganda drones on a bit too much). It's a bit silly, but it seems to be what they believe. As an American I obviously don't think we have an all-consuming desire to invade and subjugate the Korean peoples or that it's a major goal of our government.
That said, it wasn't that long ago that North Korea was on Bush's hit list ("axis of evil"), we regularly organize large military exercises preparing for a new Korean war, and we've got all sorts of belligerent rhetoric that a paranoid DPRK intelligence officer would definitely take as a threat. Even confirmed war hawks like Bernie Sanders name them as the biggest threat to the US on the world stage (which is ridiculous, IMO).
It's ridiculous to think of the DPRK as a threat at it's current level but allowing such an antagonistic state to research ICBMs is a long-term threat. Personally I would rather us a take them down now then let them fall apart in 50 years when they have the capability to nuke Seoul.
Right, but imagine that you're the head of the DPRK military and you're reading this comment as the general attitude of America. Now you think that you have to get nukes ASAP, and you're risking US invasion at any time until you do (look what happened to Saddam!).
Once you have nukes, you think, you'll have a shred of leverage over the US since you'll have the capability to nuke Seoul. With that leverage, you can ensure that your glorious people's republic will continue to prosper without another devastating war. Who cares if you throw the economy under the bus until you're nuclear-armed - that's just the price you have to pay for security.
I personally don't think that the DPRK has any real intention of starting a war - they know that there's about five minutes between hostilities being declared and Pyongyang turning into a radioactive parking lot.
Pyongyang will almost certainly never be nuked by the US, even if the DPRK used nukes first. The reasons are manifold, and include the political costs (domestic + international) of using nuclear weapons against a captive and largely innocent people, as well as the actual nuclear fallout that would effect nearby neighbours.
Tom Nichols delves deeper into the topic in both article [0] and book [1] forms.
> Pyongyang will almost certainly never be nuked by the US, even if the DPRK used nukes first. The reasons are manifold, and include the political costs (domestic + international) of using nuclear weapons against a captive and largely innocent people, as well as the actual nuclear fallout that would effect nearby neighbours.
On second thought, if the DPRK were to nuke New York or something, I can't see how the US could afford not to nuke back without looking weak. At the same time, that would probably trigger a nuclear apocalypse scenario pretty quickly with retaliation from China and the like.
A strong response would definitely be necessary, but that response is unlikely to be nuclear in kind. The USA and its allies have enough conventional firepower to permanently end the DPRK regime without needing to resort to nukes. Nichols spells it out in more detail.
One would hope that in this case, the US had enough restraint and humanity to not nuke a city in retaliation but launch a decapitation strike against the leadership and the military - perhaps nuking a couple of the larger bases and military ports.
As I understand it, the main reason that we and/or South Korea haven't moshed all over NK like we did in Afghanistan and Iraq is that they've got enough ancient, obsolete, but still quite explosive artillery aimed at Seoul to do at least Hiroshima levels of damage to it.
It'll only get worse once they've got actual nuclear capability, but it's not like you can just declare that you've decided to sacrifice SK's capital and largest city because bad stuff might happen in the future.
Well the big reason the US hasn't "moshed" all over NK is because they have nothing we want. They don't have any really significant resources that I'm aware of, and certainly don't have any oil. They're also right next to China, and China likes to keep them there as a buffer from American-aligned nations like SK and Japan.
Basically, both China and the US are probably rather worried about the situation there, because the NK leadership is so wacky and volatile; neither side actually wants to take over NK because that'd mean having to deal with their internal problems and a giant, starving population that's been fed crazy propaganda from birth about the divinity of their leaders. No one wants to deal with that problem.
Seoul is next door, you don't need an ICBM for something that's as close as that. ICBM stands for inter-continental ballistic missiles and they are made to be able to strike anywhere on Earth.
The DPRK are a real threat. They have long range conventional artillery aimed at Seoul that could cause large loss of life there. We are talking WW2 type loss of life.
> we regularly organize large military exercises preparing for a new Korean war
And as long as we have a military that organizes exercises to keep itself prepared, that's one of the exercises that makes a lot of sense (whereas we can presumably keep preparations for invasion of (say) Belgium on paper only for the time being).
Definitely! But imagine you're North Korea, looking at the world's most powerful military by a huge margin, practicing the invasion of your country a few miles from your border, on a regular basis. Makes you feel pretty nervous, right?
You are mistaken about the audience of that message. The audience is the people of North Korea, not the outside world, that it has no basis in reality doesn't change that because the people of NK for the most part do not have access to information that will confirm to them that it is not real.
> Plus, the US has never hinted of any operation in the region.
I agree that we're not at all likely to invade NK any time soon, but GWB declared Iran, Iraq, and NK to be "the Axis of Evil" and then promptly invaded Iraq. To an outside observer, that's a hell of a lot more than a hint.
How do you square the drunken nature of your tour group with the American student that was detained after presumably doing something he regretted while drunk?
That said, it doesn't mean that the paranoia you see in these sorts of blogs is entirely warranted - in my experience NK wasn't particularly interested in oppressing random tourists (they want those sweet, sweet dollars). They will take a great deal of offense if you go in and rip down their propaganda posters, though. :)
Did it ever occur to you that maybe you were still watched and "handled" much the same as any other group, you just didn't notice it?
I've got 100 sources saying that the North is a dystopia where brainwashing is common, starvation is not unusual, and the "Dear Leader" is believed to be able to read minds, etc. These sources are diplomats, researchers, former citizens of NK, defectors, and so forth.
I've got one guy on HN who talks about having fun in a drunken boozefest where the guides told dick jokes.
I'm perfectly fine with changing my view, but Occam's Razor here tells me that, at best, both these stories are true. That is, you had the dystopian tour. You had the "indulge the rich westerners while we take their tourist money" version. After all, if you're not a political threat, and they can isolate/watch you, for them it'd be like being visited by a cadre of millionaires. Who cares if they're undisciplined and unruly? Keep them away from the normal folks and let them feel like they're on a junket.
Hrm, that's the not impression I tried to give in my comment. Obviously I was in a dystopia, and it was made very clear that we were being handled - not even the guides tried to pretend we were being shown the North Korea that civilians see. The guy who sat in front of me on the bus was literally arrested on the way out of the airport and is still stuck there! I'm pretty aware of the situation.
The way the North Korea tours work is as following:
1. The government-run North Korean tourist organization partners with foreign tour companies (all based in China, AFAIK). There are several foreign tour companies (Koryo Tours, Young Pioneer Tours, etc), which all cater to different segments of the market and advertise their services differently.
2. Every tour goes to the same locations and in theory gets the same commentary, but the various tour companies can send different foreign guides, and have some power to get different Korean guides. This, combined with the different sections of the market, has a pretty huge effect on your experience on the tour. I went with YPT, which is why it was a party with a bunch of mid-twenties Americans/British Commonwealth guys. If you go with, say, Koryo Tours, you're signing up for what I referred to as the dystopia experience where it's an older, primarily continental European crowd and the guides yell at you for taking pictures. I personally think that this is what the people taking the dystopia tours are looking for - they want to go home and talk about how they braved the tyranny of the government minders and snuck pictures of random rice fields.
On a personal note, I've been to some of the worst places on Earth by most objective and subjective measures, and digging under the skin (and into the dumpsters) of dysfunctional places is a hobby of mine. It's always a little funny to me that if you try to humanize the North Koreans a little (not even trying to make excuses for their government!), the default assumption from people who've never been there is that you're a rube who has been taken in by obvious propaganda.
Do you know if the guy who was arrested actually tried to steal something? Did you see it happen? One of the questions I have about this whole thing is, did they just select someone and charge them with something for hostage leverage or did he actually do something?
Also, in regards to the prior post you were responding to, did you consider that your drunken tour group was targeted by the government? If I were looking to get a hostage by getting someone to step over an invisible line I might give the group free booze and make the environment seem relaxed till it wasn't relaxed any more.
I don't want to get into too much detail on this out of respect for Otto. I wasn't there when he took the poster down, but I definitely believe that he did.
Also, no invisible lines were crossed - we were told very specifically before arriving in NK by the tour company that under no circumstances should we go to the staff-only floor of the hotel and that people had gotten in trouble for going there previously (it's moderately infamous). My memory of that is hazy, but it may even have been in response to a question about that floor from Otto. As I said in another comment, I really don't think that the NK government is interested in oppressing tourists for no reason.
That's how these things always go (15 years is the usual "sentence"). Assuming that the US is willing to play ball, they'll start negotiating now and eventually trade him for a visit from the director of the CIA or some rice or whatever. AFAIK no American since the Korean war has actually served a sentence from the DPRK.
My bad, I originally found the photos from this french version of an euronews article [1] which states that he “modified the camera's firmware so that the delete button doesn't exactly remove the photos" [2]
[2] "Ses photos, il a réussi à les prendre parfois au su des gardiens guides qui encadrent sans aucune relâche les touristes dans le pays, puis à les cacher de la censure en “modifiant le logiciel de l’appareil photo afin que le bouton effacer n’efface pas vraiment les photos” mais simplement ne les affiche plus."
My take is neither your nor his journey can be representative of another's journey. So, your experience can differ for many different reasons, from bosses to bribes, to group dynamics to personal circumstances, etc.
So, maybe some of the handlers are sticklers others just don't care. No doubt as there are people into ruin porn [like Detroit or the Ruhr] there are people who think it's neat to get a glimpse of what it's like to visit a desperate place --that does not mean the place is not desperate and a devastating place for the locals and for that reason I would not find blame in people taking "pictures everyone else has already taken".
It does not matter the veneer the person touring is looking for, what matters is the subsurface substance and that is the total backwardness and despair these people experience, just as the people of Venezuela experience at the hands of an inept ruler who blames the [American] "imperialists" or whatever accusation for any misfortune and misgovernance.
This is akin to blaming Christopher Anderson for his take on Venezuela.
I went to North Korea with CYTS back in 2009. I wasn't allowed to take a laptop or mobile phone at all.
My group only spoke Chinese. But they weren't drunk all the time, nor intimidating. They were surprised to see a Westerner in that group, but continued as normal. I think that some of the choreographed activities (e.g. train station actors) were skipped for my group - what little movement I saw on the street seemed pretty legit.
I used data recovery software to get a photo back of a North Korean labour camp in Chegdomyn after a Russian guard caught me and told me to delete it. Maybe I'll upload it some day.
Why did you visit NK? What were you hoping to see/experience? What did you get out of your visit? Did it meet your expectations going in? If not, how so?
We hear things about hard-to-get-to places like NK but I'm sure it's nothing like being there.
Whenever I got home from my previous vacations, my mom would say, disapprovingly, "Where are you going next, North Korea?!". I had a spare week this winter and thought that sounded like a pretty good idea. Also, it's an interesting place that's much maligned (rightly), and I wanted to see it for myself. It occupies a unique place in the modern international mythology.
To be honest, I didn't get a whole lot out of my visit. Everywhere I go, humans are pretty much like humans elsewhere. If you've been to another repressive third-world country and pay attention to posts like this, you have a pretty good idea of what North Korea looks like - its aesthetic form is just more extreme and it's trying to pretend to tourists that it's a second world country. My inner giant-statues fan was pretty pleased. I would say that it met my expectations going in. If anyone is ever in China and has a few days and a few hundred dollars to kill, I would highly recommend it. I wouldn't recommend making the flight just for the DPRK.
My personal takeaway is that I no longer like the hard-line stance against North Korea, don't think the sanctions are a good idea (I did going in), and would rather see them brought into the international community via the inexorable march of global capitalism. I suspect that isolating them only makes them more dangerous to the civilian population and more willing to lash out to the international one. (In other words, they behave like humans everywhere else in the world!)
NK is really a surreal place, no matter how much you learn about it, something new will still shock you
for example, I watched a documentary about a Western eye doctor who went there pro bono to do cataract surgeries
the thing was, when he gave people their sight back they didn't thank him, they went up to a picture of 'Dear Leader' and wept and prostrated themselves in a cathartic show of gratitude
I met a lady of Korean origin on a flight from Dalian (China) to Tokyo. She was on her way home, after visiting siblings in North Korea. She had Japanese citizenship, so it was allowed. She told me that when her sister spoke privately of the good weather, she would thank the Dear Leader for his grace.
On a previous visit, her host had proudly presented a bag of emaciated sesame seeds as a gift. On this visit the gift was reciprocated with a bag of lush Japan-grown seeds. Nothing was said, but at that moment her sister's face showed realisation.
1. They are legitimately brainwashed into believing he is God; or
2. They simply know anytime the cameras are on or the Party is present, as would be the case for such an event, they are required to approach Dear Leader's picture and begin the tears...or off to the camps for them and their whole family.
My mother cried at Stalin's death, so I have no problem believing it was #1.
On the other hand, this appears to be a common trait with beloved leaders. In [1] we can read that "rare was the person who did not cry that long weekend".
Camp 14: Total Control Zone, it's a heartbreaking movie about what life is like in the gulags of North Korea. Shocking to think that sort of thing is still going on just a few miles away from the developed world.
There's a NK defector where I live who runs a restaurant, who's family spent some time in a NK prison when he defected (he bribed their way out) and claims there is financial incentive for defectors to come up with the most sensational stories possible. Even the author of that book the movie is based on admitted he fictionalized parts of it a few months ago so the movie, which is merely based on the book is likely a complete fabrication. Not saying horrible things don't happen in totalitarian gulags but I wouldn't trust that movie to be anything except fiction.
The defector here uses Kakao Talk to contact his NK family every day, and he manages to send them money on a regular basis at only a 15% fee through some Chinese Hawala-like network. Most of the military and party officials like to gamble remotely in Chinese/Myanmar casinos so there is widespread unregistered money transfer networks in place across the country.
A couple rail fans booked a train from Vienna to Pyongyang in 2008.
Their travelogue is fascinating although it can take some effort to wade through the train-schedule minutia and whatnot if you're not into that but well worth it for the uncensored images.
"The forbidden railway: Vienna - Pyongyang 윈 - 모스크바 - 두만강 - 평양
36 hours in North Korea without a guide..."
Pictures are okay if not just generic NK photos, definitely not rare, and the captions, wtf?
"At night, the elderly Chinese dance in the streets in unison avoiding any displays of individuality."
What is this? To avoid any display of individuality??? I just marvel at this wishful thinking. They do that in unison because it's fun to do activities with other people sharing the same interest. If i'm playing Starcraft with a bunch of friends, am I avoiding display of individuality? Why can't the biased eyes just state the obvious that the elderly are just enjoying themselves.
Honestly I've seen way better NK photos and way better wishful NK journalism. Why is this even on Hacker News?
What a weird title for this. He doesn't even say that that actually happened, just that you can override your firmware to make the delete button not work.
Why not create a SD card that doesn't actually delete data (until it gets completely full and there's no other way, of course) but instead encrypts it in such a way that only those who know can retrieve it; sort of like an NSA backdoor, but one you control...
I want to get two PQI Air Cards with WiFi and make a custom firmware to auto-sync the contents. Then there would be a continuous backup to a safe location (e.g. iPod + iFlash) with no additional software needed.
It's not the article title (the real title is "Road to North Korea Photography") but the clickbait, and it's even not true. The author never claims he changed his firmware.
Dear mods e.g. dang, can you pretty please correct this? Thanks.
In case anyone was wondering some of the ways rural Chinese were dealing with the aborted-their-baby-girls problem...
> If you're caught escaping by the Chinese, they send you back if you're a man. But the captured women are referred to as "pigs", and sold to Chinese men
1) NK's ICBMs program is much more advanced than SK's
2) Young generation is openly doubting the regime
3) There's a lot of smuggling of SK's soap operas and music
4) Their nuclear research is top-notch considering the circumstances
5) All other parties involved (US,China,Japan,South Korea, Russia) are all to be blamed for suffering of 25 millions of people living in an artificial skansen of communism.
6) Praising the great leader is one way how to protect yourself and your family when the "democratic, cool westerners" are not going to help you.
And the guy is openly preaching China for being much more advanced ? NK's regime is scary but the one in China is even scarier. They are pragmatic criminals that embraced the art of trade.
US and SK should have invaded and liberated the NK long time ago. They are as much part of the problem as the NK's leadership is.
> All other parties involved (US,China,Japan,South Korea, Russia) are all to be blamed for suffering of 25 millions of people living in an artificial skansen of communism.
> US and SK should have invaded and liberated the NK long time ago. They are as much part of the problem as the NK's leadership is.
I'm glad you're so high on your own morality that you're willing to condemn thousands of people that aren't you to death in starting a war. There's the possibility that economics and the changing international climate will bleed over and convince the populace to change. That's what people have been hoping for - a chance for change with a minimum of bloodshed. A chance to convince rather than force.
Yes, there's debate over whether a long-term peaceful approach or a short-term decisive strike would cause the least "suffering". I get that. But it's not as simple as the US going over to free the shit out of them. China has previously committed to at least partial protection of NK in an armed conflict. And while NK's military power is relatively anemic compared to most of the world, throwing down with China isn't exactly an attractive opportunity. Plus, there's already a lot of negative perception about US intervention in other countries. It doesn't always go well, and it's certainly rarely perceived well.
And then there's all the naive kids that would be dying because you think it's their fault for not doing something about every single thing that goes wrong on the planet. Exactly why should those kids get embroiled in a war as opposed to living their own lives? Even the ones who survive likely won't be able to integrate and function well in society afterwards. Not to mention the harsh effect on the NK and SK populace. Yeah, you can think of it as being like quickly pulling off a band-aid until you realize all the dead people and ruined lives it costs to take the shortcut.
Maybe you should try not condemning other people for ignorance when you're asking thousands to die for your naive internet opinion of global politics. If war's the solution you want, go do it yourself instead of trying to get the rest of us to do it for you.
Are you perhaps joking ? My naive view of global politics is as naive as your moral standard towards poor NK's children.
US is a superpower and if it wants to keep its allies alive it needs to do something for them as well. Your double standards really surprise me.
US cannot afford to loose SK but if the US keeps ignoring the NK/China problem that will push SK more and more to the hands of Chinese.
Sooner or later you will realize that koreans are the bffs of China, Japan feels threatened and there is nothing you can do about that boiling hot pot that formed in the Pacific.
It's not about NK's suffering population at all. Nobody cares about them and that is what's scary.
> My naive view of global politics is as naive as your moral standard towards poor NK's children.
The problem is that you're asking us to kill people in order to "save" people. You're asking us to choose who lives and who dies while imposing a different standard of government and living upon others. That's what's naive - the idea that you and others are somehow so moral that you're allowed to pick when it's right to go kill people.
The last few invasions where the US stepped in to do this went rather poorly, and it has received mostly negative feedback for this in international politics. It's a bit unrealistic to believe that we're doing the right thing in forced liberation operations when everyone is so upset about it. Us stepping in is just asking for another international gripe session of "who's the US bullying today?" Thanks, but no. We'll wait until we're officially asked.
> It's not about NK's suffering population at all. Nobody cares about them and that is what's scary.
People care. Just not enough to die and make others die for them. Which was the exact level of consideration you exhibited towards everyone who would die in the war you want to start. We want NK to change, but to force them to do so with munitions isn't really the best idea.
We don't particularly like the way things are going over there, but we've got enough of a warmongering reputation as is. Everything suggests that while we can maintain the peace, we should. At least until the situation is conducive for intervention without a significant loss of life. The real question isn't why someone halfway around the world doesn't want to send people over there to die, but why the countries right next door think it's somehow our job to do it when any one of them could do it easier and cheaper. They could probably even do it alone, given NK's anemic economy, but they could also start and then ask for help. Waiting for us to do it seems like people want the results without having to get their hands dirty.
> US is a superpower and if it wants to keep its allies alive it needs to do something for them as well. Your double standards really surprise me.
SK has gotten plenty of support in the face of potential attacks _targeting them_. That's what allies do. Supporting the invasion of a completely separate country to "free" them of a dictator and killing thousands in the process is a totally different story. NK and SK were once one. And there are still families across both borders. But they are _separate_ countries. And thus have separate political relationships.
NK is not our ally. SK is. They happen to be in conflict, though not actively. We can help protect SK without engaging in proactive slaughter of all conflicting parties.
> Sooner or later you will realize that koreans are the bffs of China, Japan feels threatened and there is nothing you can do about that boiling hot pot that formed in the Pacific.
Yeah, no. Korea, China, and Japan all have hundreds of years of history between each other. Many of it is not pleasant, such as Japan's mass slaughter of millions of Chinese and Korean people in WWII, forced prostitution, etc. And there is plenty of conflict even today around shared resources such as international waters, islands, Taiwan, etc. Korea's tech industry and China's rampant disregard of corporate IP also make for uneasy international meetings. Even modern fictional literature contains racist and nationalist messages that causes conflict. At the end of the day, they manage not to shoot each other, but they're hardly all BFFs. At most, they have strategic peace treaties to help deal with more volatile relationships.
Asking a third party to jump in the middle with weapons is just asking for problems. Especially when the largest superpower which lives right next door has already said not to, because it would retaliate.
A lot of people expressed concern about the title. I just would like to say that it does come from a misunderstanding about the original article I read the story from [1], as I expressed in another comment [2].
I've discovered plenty of North Kore related stories in HN that people already cover in the comments section [3] or other submissions [4] [5].
I thought that given these two points this story would be quite interesting here in HN. As of the title, knowing now that it's not exactly true I let the mods choose a more appropriate one if needed.
It is amazing what a generation of brain washing and isolation can do to the perspective of a nation. Amazing to hear a quarter of the population is mentally deficient due to malnutrition, no wonder they believe the world is in awe of their accomplishments. I chuckled when I read they believe payments form other nations (International Aid) are their spoils from war.
Topographically what a beautiful country, I hope some day the North Koreans are afforded an opportunity at freedom.
While this is what they're told, it's not necessarily what they believe. In the socialist eastern europe people have been regularly told lies on the radio / TV. Most people knew. And others knew they knew. That doesn't mean the propaganda stopped.
Lots of old movies, songs, comedy shows, etc. referenced that fact subtly, and often they managed to get it through the censorship.
Propaganda exists not to convince. Propaganda exists to define what the rules are, so they can spot people who deviate. If "dogs" was an illegal word, then anyone that says "dogs" becomes an way to spot people prone to illegal activity.
Dictatorships really don't care what you think, they care what you DO, and more importantly, they care what you can openly discuss and with whom. Making it easy to spot those likely to rebel is the goal of propaganda, who gives a hoot what anyone thinks.
That's going to the extreme the other way. Propaganda has multiple uses, trying to reduce it to "only this and not other reasons" is a mistake. There can be propaganda against and for something. There can be political and religious propaganda. There may be propaganda to keep you in place, or to force some specific idea. I think the view you described is a very simplified one.
If by that you mean "we can say anything", you might need to reconsider. [1]
For example, saying "the Holocaust is a hoax" in Canada or Germany can get you in jail. [2] Saying something that even hints that women are different than men in the UK will probably result in you losing your job. [3] I'm pretty sure the same is true in the US, at least on the East Coast.
Probably an outsider has no way to tell how many North Koreans really believe the party line and how many of them are just saying what they need to say to keep themselves and their families out of concentration camps.
Yes, they've been isolated and deceived, but don't be too quick to mock them. Your own worldview is probably not nearly as accurate and complete as you think it is. (Nor mine.)
>"Anyone who composes a work that has not been assigned to the writer through this chain of command is by definition guilty of treason. All written works in North Korea must be initiated in response to a specific request from the Workers’ Party."
>"After the Korean War, North Korea was economically a more attractive destination than South Korea, and many people, including 100,000 ethnic Koreans from Japan, were welcomed into North Korea."
>"in North Korea you only travel big distances by bus or train, when you get permission."
>"This was one of the most strange moments - when we finally arrived in Pyongyang. Through the courtains of the compartment window, we looked at a surreal scene that appeared like something out of a theatre in its perfection and artifice. Elegant men, beautiful women, walking in a simulated hurry, travellers without a reason (ours was the only train that day), all to impress us and so that the station doesn't look empty."
This looks very much like late 1970s, early 1980s in rural areas of China. For me they are reminiscent of my childhood, when rural areas were still not affected by air/land/water pollution.
When my cousin visited the DPRK, she said that all the paper there was like tissue, and that anything made there of plastic would shatter when dropped. Really limited manufacturing abilities.
Nice. Here is what I see if I just consider the pictures: very clean cities and countryside, disciplined and healthy people living their simple lives. People work and serve their country. Everyone is poor but equally so. No apparent inequality. People get education and perform arts. Of all poor places on Earth it doesn't look like it is the worst.
So this is how it looks to me if I put aside the usual "North Korea is evil" media context.
I wonder if the North Koreans who get killed for letting a device slip by them which then is used to mock their security will be told exactly why they're being tortured/murdered, or if it will just happen. :(
You don't deserve to be downmodded for saying that.
But it's not so black and white - I totally understand your position. But if people don't visit no one will really understand how bad it is.
There is no good answer.
I feel so bad for them, I want to do something. War even. I have no ability to. And in any case I don't know if war is even a good idea or not.
But the truth is I only think about it when I see photos like this, then I move on and continue my regular day. These photos need to be constant to have people remember all the time.
I understand your sentiment and sympathize with it. I would agree with it if tourists did actually interact with average citizens. They don't though. So I see no benefit to visiting the country. It does nothing other than bring money to their leadership and this is why I have the view that I do.
A shocking number of people don't realize just how bad it is there. And that there are, in fact, concentration camps of historically unimaginable sizes operating as we speak.
It's a mixed bag. That morally reprehensible money raises awareness of exactly what's going on, and just how abused their citizens are.
One wonders if, ever there were a just war, it wouldn't be to free the North Koreans.
>And that there are, in fact, concentration camps of historically unimaginable sizes operating as we speak.
the entire population of north korea is ~24m. while i have no doubts that the nork prison camps are hideously inhumane, there's no way they approach the extermination camps in eastern europe of ww2
There's not a fair comparison between the two, aside from both types being evil.
European camps lasted, what, maybe 6 years total? They were used to commit attempted genocide. They were hell on earth but those camps are done.
North Korean camps have been around 40 years? They're used to "re-educate wrongdoers". They are a continuing hell on earth that the world allows to continue (unfortunately, due to realpolitik).
He did not interact with ordinary citizens. As far as I can tell he did not talk to any of the dwarfs he referenced early in the album. Nor did he talk with any of the concentration camp prisoners or with anyone else regarding that topic.
That's a simplistic view. I'd argue the more you understand something the better chance you have of changing or defeating it. Add to that, the people who reside there have a chance to see and speak with someone from outside without the constraints of state propaganda.
Finally, economic sanctions don't work very well - as demonstrated by Cuba, Russia and North Korea. They hurt the people more than the regime.
Would you have vacationed in Nazi occupied Poland given the chance? Khmer Rouge controlled Phnom Pen? Is there a regime so deplorable that doing business with it is morally reprehensible? To me the answer is yes and North Korea qualifi4s.
But the US did "do business" with the Khmer Rouge. The moment the Khmer Rouge fell from power in 1979, the US began fighting for them to keep control of the Cambodian United Nations seat. The US began arming them as well.
This thread is great for watching college educated Americans pontificate with great moral indignation about things they know nothing about (but think they know everything about).
I've clearly demonstrated some knowledge on the subject so it is incorrect to characterize me as knowing nothing on it. The crimes of the U.S.government are many and some are morally reprehensible. My question was to icanhackit and it was regarding whether or not it is ever morally wrong to visit a country. I certain icanhackit did not advocate for or do business with the Khmer Rouge. As such your post doesn't really apply to me or to what I wrote.
One could argue that it is wrong to visit the U.S. and I have advocated that people refrain from visiting the U.S. for similar reasons that I advocate that people not visit North Korea. However, the crimes of North Korea seem to be at quite a different level than the U.S.
> However, the crimes of North Korea seem to be at quite a different level than the U.S.
That's debatable. It's all a matter of perspective and the difference here is that the people of NK are the ones that suffer mostly from the crimes of NK whereas the people in the US are definitely not the ones paying for the crimes perpetrated by the US.
This seems to be a recurring thing for communist nations (in so far as they are really communist, but that's another matter entirely), they are very hard on their population.
On one hand, I can understand your statement. But on the other hand, without much insight into the country, the outside world would have a limited view of the country. These pictures shows how bleak and controlled life is in North Korea. For me, I am glad to have seen these pictures.
That'd be one way to do it, just graft the circuit board from a digital camera onto the back of a film SLR. Why yes, sir, I've deleted all of my photos!
This is the craziest thing I have the read in this recent memory: "Anyone who composes a work that has not been assigned to the writer through this chain of command is by definition guilty of treason. All written works in North Korea must be initiated in response to a specific request from the Workers’ Party."
I went to NK few months ago, while they do check cameras on train, they didn't check anything at all when I leave the country via airport. They call this "internationalization", I felt a little bit stupid for encrypting all the photos I took.
I was mostly struck by a "civilized" backdrop (used loosely) with nary a billboard or piece of litter in view. If I didn't know better, I'd say it looked quiet nice there. But I know better.
Admittedly an aside, but why the author's little jibe about Sigma lenses being amateur? My 18-35mm outperforms Zeiss and Canon glass that is 3 times its price.
I think he was saying they look amateur. An excellent lens from a "cheaper" brand would be exactly what you'd want to bring to get excellent images without flaunting your wealth/professionalism with the fancier brands.
I can't do it right now but I plead to those of you with the resources and skill to spin up mirrors of this website to do so. I expect imminent problems.
all i see is
- less population
- no traffic
- clear air and very less pollution
- farm and live easy
- walk and cycle and stay fit
- great childhood of enjoying countryside
Overall, they are 117th in life expectancy with 65years+. My greatest and largest democracy as well offers just the same.
Don't get any of this living in the greatest democracy's top Urban city !
Are their life expectancy statistics accurate? How do we know?
I suspect most statistics about North Korea are either invented by the North Korean government, or else they are mere educated guesses by outsiders. (I'd imagine various intelligence agencies likely have more accurate educated guesses than those that are commonly available, but those guesses will be kept secret in order to protect the confidential sources used to inform them.)
I've seen better photos. Some of the people on my trip took better photos (I took some pretty clumsy photos; these are better than mine in terms of framing and light and all that sort of thing). These are fine, but to call them the greatest work of North Korean photography is simply incorrect.
People think that a more complicated life is better. I like the simplicity of the North Korean life. As I'm Bulgarian, it reminds me about Bulgaria during communism. Choices were simple, life was good, but it wasn't sustainable without the support of the USSR. So, in that regard, I admire NK for managing to cope till now given Cuba pretty much gave in. Don't get me wrong, I'm not supporting the regimes, but I love the simple life that's becoming extinct due to corporations taking over our lives!
Life in USSR has never been as tough as it is in NK. Maybe in the 30s, 40s and early 50s. Maybe... My grandmother who was born in 1924 in the Soviet Union used to tell me that the Soviets would laugh at the brainwashing that was happening in NK even back in the time when she was a young woman. But I do agree with you. As someone who grew up and lived in USSR for a good portion of my life I often think about the simplistic life of those times. People didn't have everything under the sun as most in Western societies, but it was enough and it was cherished.
Countryside Romania still has a bit of that simplistic charm. I've been further east along the China/NK border, speak Chinese, and the Chinese I met there generally said NK now is like China in the 50s. That was 10 years ago, though.
This comment and far too many others you've posted are an abuse of HN, not because of the positions you take but because HN isn't a forum for screaming your politics at other people.
Since you've ignored our requests not to do this, I'm banning your account. If you don't want it to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com.
I'm too impatient for negative replies...let me write my own. Let me try to get into the mind of some Phillips Exeter heir who now lives in the Mission and is working for Zynga or something...
Uh...this is "whataboutism". Let me helpfully link that for you - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism . See what the article says? We're talking about what we're always talking about, the crimes of North Korea, the crimes of Russia etc. If you point out things the US did, that's "whataboutism". We can ignore that.
One photography project I do found interesting is the set below commissioned by Getty Images. The photographers they hired found a loophole in their visa conditions, managed enter NK from Russia and reached Pyongyang on trains rarely used by tourists. They were able to interact more with the locals since the border guards as well as people en route have not been "coached" to speak to foreginers and the whole thing came out feeling much more genuine than these tourist flicks.
Selected pictures featured in Daily Mail: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3210256/Fascinating-...
Photographer's Portfolio: http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/search/events/573232783?exclude...
Photographer's written account of their travel (in Chinese), plus a few candid shots that Getty refused to buy: https://www.zhihu.com/question/19972643/answer/81163727