Comments on: A tour of North Korea

A tour of North Korea

CrunchyFrog — Wed, 07 May 2003 13:21:39 -0800

Impressive monuments, lousy souvenir stands, and lots and lots of vigilant soldiers. An American living in South Korea takes a once-in-a-lifetime trip to North Korea. 11 pages full of photos including a hundred thousand colored pieces of cardboard, and a sampling of the five billion pictures of Kim Il-sung.

By: xmutex

xmutex — Wed, 07 May 2003 13:40:31 -0800

very interesting; thanks. and here i thought i was going to get some work done.

By: ronv

ronv — Wed, 07 May 2003 14:10:08 -0800

good god. why not just call it "oceania?"

By: filmgoerjuan

filmgoerjuan — Wed, 07 May 2003 14:26:37 -0800

Great account and amazing pictures. A trip to the North sounds like equal parts fascination and frustration. I've been to third world dictatorships before, but this one takes the cake.

By: shadow45

shadow45 — Wed, 07 May 2003 15:12:43 -0800

"The only thing that seemed out of place (other than us) was the meat. Having dined on dog meat numerous times in the South most of us agreed that we probably weren't eating beef . . . Squeamish diners beware - nothing says you're eating dog like having little hairs poking out of the fatty parts of the meat!" Exscuse me while I file that under Shit I Didn't Need To Know

By: homunculus

homunculus — Wed, 07 May 2003 15:32:59 -0800

Too bad he didn't get to see Kim Jong-Il control the weather.

By: alicesshoe

alicesshoe — Wed, 07 May 2003 16:07:14 -0800

It seems time stands still for many a Communist country. NKorea reminded him of the 70's? Interesting, it was the 70's when I visited then Communist Poland. It looked like they were stuck in the 50's. Is a false hope in the belief of the good old days, no change is a good thing? The huge 2 story billboards praising the system are one and the same in NKorea and Communist Poland of the past. No slagging the leaders, the same. No photo's allowed here and there, the same; visas, the same. I was a student then. Dress codes? I stuck out like a sore thumb. Trust? No one. Once driving my [privileged [a doctor]] Uncle's car, I was stopped by the military police. I showed them my international license. The photo was taken when I had past shoulder length, "long" hair. I had trimmed it for the trip. "This is a woman, where's you're license?" the guy says to me. "No, that's me before my hair cut", I reply. I pulled out the Canadian passport to show him the names were the same. He let me go along my way after a lengthy discussion, but I'll never forget his "this is a woman" comment. Excellent link, thanks CrunchyFrog, what a great trip. What an incredible landscape, those mountains. I'm exhausted. I hope that wall the "SKoreans and US" built will come down soon.

By: Mitrovarr

Mitrovarr — Wed, 07 May 2003 17:18:59 -0800

Very interesting. For some reason, I'd always figured that North Korea was a miserable tract of scorched and blasted land covered in starving peasants, but it's nice to know that isn't true.

By: cell divide

cell divide — Wed, 07 May 2003 17:30:55 -0800

Wow great link, one of the most interesting I have found on Metafilter! Thanks, CrunchyFrog. Oh and Mitovarr, foreigners aren't allowed for the most part go to those parts of N. Korea, but they exist.

By: smackfu

smackfu — Wed, 07 May 2003 18:31:21 -0800

Excellent and very interesting... Is it wrong that I have a thing for massive sculptures?

By: alumshubby

alumshubby — Wed, 07 May 2003 18:41:50 -0800

Impressive monuments...lousy souvenir stands...???? Hell, I thought you were talking about Gettysburg for a second there.

By: MrBaliHai

MrBaliHai — Wed, 07 May 2003 18:57:23 -0800

That was incredibly interesting and very creepy. Thanks for posting it. I visited the Soviet Union back in 1965 and it wasn't anywhere near as closed a society as this.

By: dejah420

dejah420 — Wed, 07 May 2003 20:23:37 -0800

Great link cruchyfrog! Thanks!

By: Dukebloo

Dukebloo — Wed, 07 May 2003 21:25:43 -0800

What a great travelogue. I'm hoping that no one gets in trouble bc of the things said on the site, but then again, these guys barely have a concept of the Internet, much less metafilter.

By: RobbieFal

RobbieFal — Thu, 08 May 2003 18:43:45 -0800

I hear that "The Dear Leader" (KJI) surfs the net, but he visits a few major news sites to check about what is being said about him. Hello Kim Il-Jong, if you're out there. Don't change your hair for nobody! :)