Has anyone visited North Korea?
Discussion
DMZ tunnels between North and South.
So, you were close 😅
Trips into North Korea itself weren’t allowed when I was there due to a break down in relations :-) Best I could do was “no mans land”. Quite interesting to learn about their competition for the highest flag, blasting propaganda using speakers (both ways), and chisel marks in the tunnel (suggesting they were digging North to South) to presumably get out (but tunnels were also used for spies).
So you saw only the half of the tunnel right ?
I had a coworker who grew up in north china (jilin), he said during elementary school (late 90s) he had class field trips to north Korea -- the trips made him to appreciate home a lot. I think he mentioned there was no running water/sewage or something.
He described how moving to the US made him realize how far underdeveloped China was (especially his region), which was wild for him because he thought he was comparably well-off
A lot of us were growing in propoganda state.
There's a cultural element too (or the lack of one). There's this notion of looking for those being worse off as a means to be like "at least I'm not doing worse than 'those' people". People are looked down for the strangest things, skin color not even in the picture, a spoken dialect is enough
It's so weird to me to be constantly obsessed with people worse off than oneselves.
It's one thing to have people focused on rankings in addition to class-obsession on their own, but getting to State push that is a whole other ballgame; insidious.
Doesn't seem like normal human behavior, shouldn't they be looking up?
正常人沒在比爛的好嗎？🥹
Yes, twice! About 5 & 7 years ago. Highly recommend. Although much has changed, and it’s lately become harder for citizens of certain countries to visit since then. It’s not a particularly easy trip, especially for someone used to independent travel– You will be assigned a ‘minder’ and only get to see a highly curated view of the country. There are also specific rules to follow in regard to what can be photographed, going out alone, associating with locals, etc. But incredibly interesting experience, one of the highlights of 20+ years of travel as an independent photographer.
Haven’t had the chance 😎