North Korea just allowed tourists to visit for the first time in 5 years — and what they saw was shocking.
NYPost: A group of Western tourists were treated to a surreal performance of North Korean schoolchildren dancing and singing against a backdrop of animated ballistic missiles during the first officially sanctioned trip to the Hermit Kingdom in five years.
The unsettling choreographed display was just the tip of the weirdness iceberg for the handful of thrill-seeking travelers from the UK, France, Germany and Australia who made the four-day trek to the Asian country’s remote Rason region last week.
One tourist revealed the trip was so closely monitored by Kim Jong Un’s repressive regime that he even had to ask permission to use the bathroom. more here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24R8JObNNQ4&t=473s
part 1 of 3. That documentary of Vice news founder tour of North Korea is just amazing. I highly recommend watching
Are they sure they were in NOKO and not Commiefornia?
Most likely closet communists.
Probably for the cuisine.
Jpm – That gave me the willies.
THAT is an open air prison, people.
When I lived in Japan, (mid-late 70s) I was thoroughly creeped out that China, Russia and all the Koreas were *right there*. And I was grade school age.
its the haircuts and cigarettes.
🇰🇵
no, it’s the gochujang and doenjang that keeps them coming back.
👍🤔
https://www.nknews.org/2023/08/ask-a-north-korean-whats-different-about-food-in-north-and-south-korea/
Most in DPRK worry about whether they can eat rather than what, but some dishes still elicit nostalgia for defectors and other stupid humans.
🤣🙃😵🥱
To visit relatives?
Nope. Good question, “Why?”. Maybe for primary research but it wouldn’t be very fruitful unless all you wanted to know was how locked down everything is. Way too disturbing to pay money for. We get enough of that just reading blogs.
🛑 MENTALLY, SOUTH KOREA IS ABOUT THE SAME 🛑
▪️ obsessive-compulsive need to be approved at all times, no matter how screwed up something gets, can’t blame a South Korean for any of it. They’ll give out 10,000 excuses that are clearly meant for a naive 8 year old but you have to accept it to help them save-face. No arguing, criticism, or finding errors in directions, just do it and be quiet.
▪️ they spy on foreigners. If you ever had a job there, one of the staff members is assigned to follow the foreigner’s around and report back what they did, where they went. God forbid you take a day off to go to the clinic or hospital. They’ll purposely drive you there, wait for you in the lobby, then drive you back to WORK! You ain’t going back to your home to take medicine and sleep it off, unless a bone is sticking out, you’re escorted back to work.
▪️ on weekends, the foreign staff are spied on, especially during COVID-19, because native Koreans don’t spread disease, they are careful, they wear masks and don’t go to dance clubs, those filthy foreigners are the real disease-spreaders.
▪️in the office, the Korean staff pretend they are working, but they are really there to LISTEN-SPY on the foreigners and report back to management any slight or gripe they may have uttered.
Wish I was joking…