These are the photos from my last 24 hours in North Korea.
Beer and Peace
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.
Continue readingThe “Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum” of Pyongyang
Editor’s note: this was part of Day Five in North Korea.
On Wednesday, May 6th, 2016, I visited the Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum, or Victorious War Museum for short, in Pyongyang, North Korea. This site is nothing more or less than the anchor of the reclusive nation’s false understanding and deliberate misrepresentation of the Korean War.
Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum, Pyongyang.
It was a bizarre and troubling experience.
Here, at last, would be the final, full-throated, heavy dose of propaganda for which we had all done our best to prepare. There was no precedent for the experience, not even the earlier tours to the North Korean side of the demilitarized zone or the resting halls of the two deceased leaders. The military museum would outdo all of that. We were given enough false information for a Quentin Tarantino alternate-history flick, told by people who genuinely believed it (with a similar adoration of violence).
North Korea in Photos: On-The-Spot Guidance
Day Four
At nearly every single visit for our last two days in North Korea, various tour guides attempted to impress upon us the extent of leaders Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il’s “on-the-spot guidance” in moving North Korea forward.
The first journey of day four would be by subway.
North Korea in Photos: Day Three
Day three in North Korea began with a trip to the DMZ.
It continued thereafter with several major visits.