In April 2016, I visited North Korea with a group tour organized by Koryo Tours.

Visiting North Korea was controversial decision for me to make.  I knew there was a serious downside to it; I would indirectly be financing the world’s most dystopian, orwellian state and the crimes they commit. 

But the same could be said for visiting many nations with corrupt governments, or even for patronizing immoral corporations.

Lost in the discussion are the North Korean people – in visiting, I’d also be interacting with average people, supporting them in their livelihoods, and exchanging culturally with them.  I knew, when I visited this troubled country, that I could use my trip for good, and provide the North Koreans I met with a positive experience with me, perhaps the only American they will meet for the foreseeable future.  On this charge, I believe I succeeded.

The first North Koreans I met and the only ones I got to know well were our tour guides.  And they were lovely people.  They took a lot of our increasingly invasive questions politely and calmly, never leaving the party line, but also never showing impatience as we tried to push them over it.  On our last evening in the country, we even got a semi-professional singing performance from one of them, as the elegant Ms. Jeon gave a beautiful, regal rendition of Pangapsumnida, one of the national songs, on our tour bus.  And as it turned out, they had one more surprise for us before taking us back to the hotel, that last night in Pyongyang.

We were going to a real bar.

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