North Korea, Tourist Destination

June 14, 2006 7:22 AM

Fascinating photo setof North Korean life, as taken by a Russian tourist. The degree of "Big Brother" style oversight present via the photo narration is daunting.
posted by jonson (90 comments total)

Interesting that in that map in first image, the "west" is in the "east" (placing North Korea in the dead center of the world) - is this common for maps in Asia?
posted by SmileyChewtrain at 7:43 AM on June 14, 2006

Damn, what a grey place.
posted by Cycloptichorn at 7:44 AM on June 14, 2006

Fantastic post. My heart really goes out to the people of North Korea.
posted by JeremyT at 7:45 AM on June 14, 2006

strange how so many of the shots have few people in them ... good post ... and make sure you flip to page 2 ... there's more there
posted by pyramid termite at 7:46 AM on June 14, 2006

great post. awesome pictures. so unreal.
posted by namagomi at 7:49 AM on June 14, 2006

The huge concrete blocks they can use to block the roads are crazy.
posted by smackfu at 7:50 AM on June 14, 2006

Ah, the magical home country of the Ruygyong Hotel and the Pyongyang Robogirl (.pdf).

North Korea equally fascinates and worries me more than any other country on the planet.
posted by slimepuppy at 7:50 AM on June 14, 2006

Is it just me or did the shots of Pyongyang from above remind anyone else of part-way through a game of SimCity?

And frankly the amount of govrenment repression that comes through was scary. Imagine if the photographer had had a free rein of subject matter.
posted by Dipsomaniac at 7:51 AM on June 14, 2006

Obligatory link to Simon Bone's tour of North Korea in 1998, one of the best descriptions I've ever read of the country.
posted by chuma at 7:53 AM on June 14, 2006

These photos are amazing. For another outsider's look at North Korea I can recommend Guy Delisle's graphic novel/travel diary Pyongyang.
posted by creeky at 7:54 AM on June 14, 2006

What a grim, creepy world. The people look more like prisoneers than citizens.
posted by chance at 7:57 AM on June 14, 2006

Interesting that in that map in first image, the "west" is in the "east" (placing North Korea in the dead center of the world) - is this common for maps in Asia?

It is, as far as I know. It's certainly how maps are printed in Japan. Notice, however, that what we in the West think of as the "right" way of printing maps is not-so-subtly designed to put Great Britain in the center of the world.
posted by Faint of Butt at 7:57 AM on June 14, 2006

Yeah. I guess the map could be printed upside-down and still be "accurate," whatever that means... I wasn't sure if this was a NK thing or something fairly common. Since we in the, uh, West think of continents/cultures in terms of "East" and "West," I wonder if the terminology is reversed in the "East," or ignored, or what.
posted by SmileyChewtrain at 8:03 AM on June 14, 2006

I don't think we are seeing communism, as much as we are not seeing democracy. It's more like rich compared to poor, but we are so used to see dirt poor africans that NK seems more of a contradiction (skycraper vs lack of cars)
posted by elpapacito at 8:07 AM on June 14, 2006

Wow these are great. Here's a previous post from an American tourist's photos. There was also a great photoset here (I think it was here) a while back all about the crazy pageants they put in, but I'll be arsed if I can find it.

I was just watching Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations show last night, and his assistant, who is Korean, brought him to South Korea. They visited her grandfather, who escaped the DPKR and still lives very close to the DMZ (where very few people choose to live). His only wish was to be able to return to his parents' graves in the north.
posted by mkultra at 8:10 AM on June 14, 2006

Great post Jonson, thanks! I especially liked the barbed wire fences on the beach.
posted by msali at 8:15 AM on June 14, 2006

Thanks for the post.. Interesting.

Just one comment: I spent a year in South Korea back in the early 70's. Much of this looks very similar (although, I'm sure that much has changed in the South in the past 30+ years). The text takes a sort of negative slant, even on topics/items that may not be specific to North Korea.
posted by HuronBob at 8:18 AM on June 14, 2006

Great post. Helps me to see just how different a country can be. So...foreign. Moved by the barbed wire on the beach as well.
posted by bullitt 5 at 8:27 AM on June 14, 2006

Excellent post -- thanks.
posted by languagehat at 8:29 AM on June 14, 2006

mkultra, I'm pretty sure the pageant photos were in that FPP you linked to.

Thanks, Jonson, great post.
posted by ibmcginty at 8:30 AM on June 14, 2006

Oh, no, wait, sorry-- I meant, "One-link FPP? You suck, this link is gay."
posted by ibmcginty at 8:30 AM on June 14, 2006

i love the colorful trash can statues -- its a good contrast to the pictures highlighting the less-than-wonderful aspects to life in NK. even with barbed wire around people can still find ways to have a little fun.
posted by cubby at 8:33 AM on June 14, 2006

Cool
posted by thirteenkiller at 8:35 AM on June 14, 2006

Wait, is this the same Artemy Lebedev that designed the Optimus Keyboard?
posted by zsazsa at 8:37 AM on June 14, 2006

great post. thanks.
posted by ClanvidHorse at 8:40 AM on June 14, 2006

zsazsa: as far as I can tell, yes.
posted by mrbill at 8:41 AM on June 14, 2006

The barbed wire beaches reminded me of being on the coast of Central California, being able to see the beaches, but being unable to get to them without trespassing on private property. It felt bad and dumb.
posted by Aghast. at 8:42 AM on June 14, 2006

Very interesting photos. I'd love to go back to China and visit North Korea. I wish I could bring some wheat flour and give it to people...

HuronBob is right about the generally negative slant of the comments. I lived in Taiwan from 1996 to 2004, and the buildings there were also generally oppressive, gray and cement. NK is still far greyer, but it's not that far off.

Maps in China and Taiwan also have Eurasia on the Left and the Americas on the right. If you think about it, it just makes sense -- a lot of American maps split Asia in two and have to repeat part of the edges.
posted by jiawen at 8:48 AM on June 14, 2006

Great post. It's also worth following mkultra's link to Scott Fisher's "Journey Into Kimland." A long story, by net standards, but it's definitely worth the read.
posted by Alexandros at 8:52 AM on June 14, 2006

It's sobering to see how long and thoroughly a dictatorship can flourish. Cherish and guard you freedom, whatever quantity of it you may possess.
posted by fleetmouse at 8:53 AM on June 14, 2006

fascinating and a little bit scary. it's kind of cool to see how life is over there, though. like cubby said, the statues are a nice contrast to all the grey. i like how their underground is decorated, and the pins of kim il song are interesting.
posted by londontube at 8:54 AM on June 14, 2006

That is awesome. Thank you.
Talk about an interesting thing on the internet that most haven't seen before.... NK revealed of most of its ugliness. Part of me expects that is much, much more that this guy wasn't able to get a shot of.
posted by dios at 9:10 AM on June 14, 2006

I went to school in the former Soviet Union, and a lot of the urban photos really remind me of that.

Concrete is the main material and they use it with little aesthetic sensibility.

And is it just me, or dose the pyramid hotel look like one of the ministry buildings from 1984.
posted by Relay at 9:22 AM on June 14, 2006

This is the country we should have invaded: there is a distinct something to be accomplished.
posted by Ryvar at 9:24 AM on June 14, 2006

Interesting that in that map in first image, the "west" is in the "east" (placing North Korea in the dead center of the world) - is this common for maps in Asia?

A concept known as cartographic ethnocentrism. Everyone does it.
posted by The White Hat at 9:31 AM on June 14, 2006

Great photos. The subway station (on page 2) was beautiful, and I liked the cheerful plaster animals next to the road--very strange. Otherwise it looks like the incarnation of a fever dream of Ayn Rand. This isn't communism, it seems more like a freakish fascism run by a delusional cult despot god-king. Kinda.
posted by tula at 9:32 AM on June 14, 2006

Looks a lot like Kyrgyzstan, except the roads are in much better condition in DPRK.
posted by Meatbomb at 9:33 AM on June 14, 2006

Excellent post, jonson. Thanks!
posted by graventy at 9:33 AM on June 14, 2006

The food booth where you exchange money for tokens,go to another to get your puchase, reminded me of getting a drink at the airport in Salt Lake City Utah.
posted by hortense at 9:50 AM on June 14, 2006

A concept known as cartographic ethnocentrism. Everyone does it.

Bah! I live in NEW YORK CITY, buddy. EVERYONE knows that a particular manhole in the dead center of Times Square in Mid-Town is the Direct Center of the Universe.
posted by SmileyChewtrain at 9:52 AM on June 14, 2006

HuronBob is right about the generally negative slant of the comments.

Good Christ, if you can't be negative about North Korea, what can you be negative about? I'd be a little scared of someone who could look at those pictures and react with "My, what handsome architecture! And those empty roads... so clean and attractive!"
posted by languagehat at 9:54 AM on June 14, 2006

This is the country we should have invaded

Sadly, yes. Unfortunately, they have nukes and no oil. And a big, big army. And the Chinese might not be cool with that.

ibmcginty- Yes! The Arirang Festival page!
posted by mkultra at 9:59 AM on June 14, 2006

Otherwise it looks like the incarnation of a fever dream of Ayn Rand.

Or Vladdy Lenin, even.

This isn't communism, it seems more like a freakish fascism run by a delusional cult despot god-king.

The difference being?
posted by loquax at 10:00 AM on June 14, 2006

North Korea: (one of) The Most Fucked-up Place(s) on Earth!

It's always weirded me out to see/hear of countries who close their borders to keep the citizens in, as opposed to keeping foreign invaders out. The electric-fenced beaches are depressing. Good for the government, bad for everyone else.
posted by exlotuseater at 10:00 AM on June 14, 2006

What's that about a "bad photoshop by Korea Magazine"? A third way down the page? Anyone know the story about this?
posted by RufusW at 10:12 AM on June 14, 2006

MetaFilter: a freakish fascism run by a delusional cult despot god-king.

Sorry.
posted by Faint of Butt at 10:15 AM on June 14, 2006

This is the country we should have invaded: there is a distinct something to be accomplished.

I believe we tried that once already.
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 10:20 AM on June 14, 2006

Good post. I find NK interesting, in a bleak and depressing sort of way.
posted by absalom at 10:21 AM on June 14, 2006

You may want to check out 'North Korea: A Day in the Life'
I have it but haven't seen it yet.. now I think I'll definitely watch it tonight.
posted by imaswinger at 10:35 AM on June 14, 2006

What's that about a "bad photoshop by Korea Magazine"? A third way down the page? Anyone know the story about this? - RufusW

If you read the 3rd comment after the images, the OP says "As for the photoshopped picture, the clone tool was badly used to cover up something so the road and the fence are not straight." If you look in the circled area, it's pretty obvious.

If someone can read the original Russian text, maybe there's more info there. Anybody?
posted by raedyn at 10:45 AM on June 14, 2006

This is the country we should have invaded

Or maybe there is no need to. China wasn't invaded yet the country turned to capitalist economy...slowly but surely chinese people will become primarily consumers, even if maybe not up to western standards of quantity and quality , or maybe technological advancements will allow them to. I think we shouldn't expect Chines or asia to further imitate western style capitalism , expecially when we consider no matter how rich we think we are we can't provide universal healthcare and social security, but we can have all the inexpensive junk we want.
posted by elpapacito at 11:00 AM on June 14, 2006

Just one comment: I spent a year in South Korea back in the early 70's. Much of this looks very similar (although, I'm sure that much has changed in the South in the past 30+ years). The text takes a sort of negative slant, even on topics/items that may not be specific to North Korea.
posted by HuronBob at 8:18 AM PST on June 14 [+fave] [!]

Pretty much all of Asia looked like that until the 80s. And to think NK is made to look superficially better than it actually is.

So if we tried to liberate NK, would citizens back thier govt or would it just crumble?
posted by b_thinky at 11:11 AM on June 14, 2006

If someone can read the original Russian text, maybe there's more info there.

Yeah, a lot gets left out in the English version. For instance, where the latter just says "Traffic lights exist but they dont work," the Russian has:

Светофоры в городе иногда встречаются, но не работают. Единственный работающий светофор установлен напротив входа в мавзолей Ким Ир Сена. В остальных случаях с немногочисленными машинами справляются в столице — регулировщица, а в других городах — регулировщик.

Traffic lights are sometimes found in the city, but they don't work. The only working traffic light is placed opposite the entrance to the Kim Il Sung mausoleum. In Pyongyang the remaining cases where there are a few cars are dealt with by female traffic cops—in other cities, by male traffic cops.

And here's the Photoshop comment in Russian (on p. 5):

Творческий коллектив редакции журнала «Корея», кстати, обзавелся фотошопом, в котором исправляет недочеты реальности — стирает людей, дорисовывает газоны, ровняет дороги. Но делает это плохо. Вот тут, скажем, неизвестный ретушер явно вредит престижу страны, оставляя следы инструментом «штамп» (№ 594 за март 2006)

The art department of the magazine Korea, by the way, make use of Photoshop to correct the insuffiencies of reality—it wipes out people, adds lawns, evens out roads. But it does it badly. Here, for example, the unknown retoucher clearly harms the prestige of the country, leaving traces of the Stamp tool.

posted by languagehat at 11:40 AM on June 14, 2006

Great post, great snaps. I've seen all the web-available photo tours of the DPRK, and this is easily the most candid set. I wonder if a Russian might have a little more leeway than, say, an Australian. And people are entitled to point out that many street scenes in Pyongyang are no worse than what you could find in say, East St. Louis, but there's an important caveat--by all accounts, even getting to live in Pyongyang is a privilege for only the most loyal party members. This is as good as it gets, unbelievably, and the North Koreans who make it past the labor camps, AK's, the barbed wire, the dogs, etc., and into China (they don't even bother trying to make it through the DMZ, for good reason) are about a foot shorter and 50 pounds lighter than the average human adult, due to a diet consisting mostly of grass, bark, and cardboard stew. Truly a horrific regime that makes Saddam's look like Club Med. Human life is worth nothing, literally.

That said, I get hours of entertainement here, the official newswire of the DPRK.
posted by bardic at 11:50 AM on June 14, 2006

I think we shouldn't expect Chines or asia to further imitate western style capitalism , expecially when we consider no matter how rich we think we are we can't provide universal healthcare and social security

American-style capitalism affects to have that flaw, which is a political rather than economic one, but the Europeans manage to get by well enough. And I expect the PRC will succeed where other nations have failed in building a centralized state capitalist autocracy. Why? I think they've realized that most people are indifferent to civil rights. The freedom that tend to be valued is, well, the freedom to be a consumer: to live a materially comfortable life. Provided the government is capable of providing this opportunity, who needs things like elections and free speech?

As for the OP, nothing that I saw in those pictures seems substantially different from images of the central Asian former Soviet republics, except perhaps for the lack of urban nightlife. The people there actually seemed better off than they did in the (admittedly rather horrific) image of North Korean life that I had in my head, which was something between concentration camp and gulag.
posted by Makoto at 11:53 AM on June 14, 2006

Benz!
posted by pantsrobot at 12:10 PM on June 14, 2006

This isn't communism, it seems more like a freakish fascism run by a delusional cult despot god-king.

The difference being?
posted by loquax at 10:00 AM PST on June 14 [+fave] [!]

Don't be obtuse--the Great Leaders and NK are extremes.
posted by tula at 12:39 PM on June 14, 2006

Really? Talk to the people of China, the Soviet Union, Romania, Albania, Bulgaria, East Germany and Cuba. Wonder if they had walls and electrified fences keeping them in. Wonder if they had monuments to megalomania. Wonder if they suffered through purges, starvation and tyranny at the hands of the party and the secret police. Exception? No, my obtuse friend, the DPRK is the model, whether present-day "communists" know it or not.
posted by loquax at 1:08 PM on June 14, 2006

.
posted by bardic at 1:28 PM on June 14, 2006

The contrast between in theory-only idealized workers paradise and the cruel reality of barbed wire on the beach is exactly what I was pointing out. And NK seems to be an extreme example of such a 1984ish nightmare. Communist Hungary and the former Yugoslavia didn't look like this and didn't treat outsiders the way this guy describes. I don't want Castro as my dad, but he doesn't seem quite as bizarrely insane as Kim Jong Il.
posted by tula at 2:02 PM on June 14, 2006

If someone can read the original Russian text, maybe there's more info there. Anybody?

I like this paragraph, the one right above the Photoshop one:
At the end of 1950, american troops have spread smallpox, as well as other infectious diseases in the northern parts of Korea. Just in the period from January to March of 1952, they dropped "biological bombs" and other various objects contaminated with deadly bacteria more than 700 times in more than 400 different places in the northern part of Korea.
Those bombs contained mice, flies, mosquitoes, flees, spiders and other organisms that were contaminated with cholera, plague, typhus and other infectious pathogens.
posted by c13 at 2:53 PM on June 14, 2006

Communist Hungary and the former Yugoslavia didn't look like this and didn't treat outsiders the way this guy describes

Which is why I didn't mention them, but mentioned a number of other countries that did. Ceausescu modelled his regime in Romania after that in the DPRK, which in turn took its cues from Mao and Stalin. Castro does not allow his citizens to leave, hence the "boat people". East Germany built a wall and shot citizens attempting to escape. Nobody even knows what the hell went on in Albania for 50 years. It's not a coincidence that ostensibly "communist" countries so often fall under the control of totalitarian dictators and succumb to cults of personality. Often, it's the only way a country can artificially maintain such an inefficient and unappealing economy and society. North Korea is not an isolated example of "communism" run amok, but an inevitable, if, at this point, anachronistic, end point for Marxism, Collectivism and Communism. The exceptions are the countries like Sweden and Canada that manage to balance "socialism" with "liberalism", and to a lesser extent, Cold War-era Poland, Hungary, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia that drew the line at massacring and imprisoning the citizenry in order to keep them in line.
posted by loquax at 3:03 PM on June 14, 2006

Sweden and Canada. And Germany and France and England and Switzerland and Italy and Spain and Portugal and Norway and Finland and Belgium and Greece and Japan and many, many others. You make it sound like places where a mild form of governmental control over certain things are off on Mars or something.

Fine, Communism was bad. But to label all countries as being "infected" with "teh Red" just because they manage to provide decent health care for their populace is ax grinding of the worst sort. And no, these countries certainly aren't perfect, but many of them tend to have longer life-expectancies than ostensibly free-market havens like the US.
posted by bardic at 3:21 PM on June 14, 2006

Dubai is pretty nice for not being a democracy.
posted by smackfu at 3:28 PM on June 14, 2006

You make it sound like places where a mild form of governmental control over certain things are off on Mars or something.

Of course not, any country by definition has governmental control. Sweden and Canada just came to mind as representative of "social democratic" states.

But to label all countries as being "infected" with "teh Red" just because they manage to provide decent health care for their populace is ax grinding of the worst sort.

I don't think I did that at all. I was trying to point out that the DPRK is (was) not exceptional when it comes to "communist" countries, that's it.
posted by loquax at 3:42 PM on June 14, 2006

Why do dirt-ass-poor countries with really oppressive governments always have an excess of monuments to their leaders? It's as if they're saying, "Your life is hell? Blame THIS guy!"
posted by Afroblanco at 3:59 PM on June 14, 2006

depressing
posted by slatternus at 4:08 PM on June 14, 2006

I think something that only results only some of the time or even "often" can't really be called inevitable.

This isn't communism, it seems more like a freakish fascism run by a delusional cult despot god-king.

The difference being?
posted by loquax at 10:00 AM PST on June 14

You just said communism in Hungary and Yugoslavia,etc. was different from NK. There's your difference.
posted by tula at 4:09 PM on June 14, 2006

Well, this is a conversation that perhaps doesn't belong here, but I'm of the belief that the natural, uninterrupted progression of socialism, communism, marxism, whatever, is the type of state that we saw under Stalin and Mao, and still see in the DPRK ("The Road to Serfdom"). When it hasn't happened that way, there's been interference, either external or internal, political or economic, cultural or religious. Communism in Hungary and Yugoslavia would have been the same as in the DRPK or Romania had it not been for Western influence, cultural and religious attitudes and historical realities. That's what I meant by inevitable, not that the DPRK is the result of any slight bit of socialism or even communism. Left to its own devices and unchecked by democratic renewal, individualism, capitalism and liberalism, "freakish fascism run by a delusional despot god-king" is exactly what communism leads to.

Of course, the opposite is true of anarchist-libertarian states left unchecked by any measure of socialism, but you don't have quite so many recent examples of unfettered capitalism resulting in massive human repression, death and misery as you have with unfettered communism.
posted by loquax at 5:06 PM on June 14, 2006

Grim.

On another note: what is it with communist military uniforms and those big-assed, ridiculous, goofy hats?
posted by bwg at 5:14 PM on June 14, 2006

I don't think it's that bad to live in an unpolished world. I'm sure North Koreans still have friends and family and lives and happiness just like America, even if their government is shit. Propaganda has instilled in us the idea that there is no joy where the ideology is flawed, but I really don't think that's true.
posted by Citizen Premier at 5:21 PM on June 14, 2006

Yea Citizen Premier, about time someone recognized that it doesn't necessarily make you miserable to be starving to death because of a truly terrible style of government!
posted by jacalata at 5:39 PM on June 14, 2006

At the end of 1950, american troops have spread smallpox, as well as other infectious diseases in the northern parts of Korea. Just in the period from January to March of 1952, they dropped "biological bombs" and other various objects contaminated with deadly bacteria more than 700 times in more than 400 different places in the northern part of Korea.
Those bombs contained mice, flies, mosquitoes, flees, spiders and other organisms that were contaminated with cholera, plague, typhus and other infectious pathogens.
posted by hortense at 5:45 PM on June 14, 2006

I'm sure North Koreans still have friends and family and lives and happiness
posted by StickyCarpet at 5:45 PM on June 14, 2006

'Unchecked' is what condemns any system to it's worst case. Consolidation of power in the hands of a few is bad regardless of the system that got you there.
posted by tula at 5:59 PM on June 14, 2006

'Unchecked' is what condemns any system to it's worst case.

However communism/socialism by design has fewer (if any) real, practical checks on power, as opposed to capitalism/liberalism. The will (and power) of the individual is subordinate to the state. The communist state controls the economy, essential services, cultural output, in most cases religion, and it is incompatible with free will, deviation from the norm and attempts to change it. Communism is not just a system of government or economics upon which a society is based, it is an all-encompasing philosophy, ideology and unshakable truth. Witness the purges of counter-revolutionaries, the absence of any political opposition in any communist country and the collapse of almost every communist regime almost as soon as the opportunity presented itself. Not to mention the extreme political propaganda, youth indoctrination and compulsory philosophical agreement.

Using the US as an example, changes to the government can be made, either through elections, grassroots/societal movements, local pressures, religion or economics. These individualist freedoms and civil human rights act as extra-state checks, whereas the economic rights ostensibly enshrined in communism do not. You can easily trace the non-government initiated changes and renewal in American society, for better or for worse, even leaving out liberal concepts like democracy, political participation and a free press. Poland was able to resist DPRK-style communism mostly because religion remained an important alternate source of power. Hungary and Czechoslovakia because of their cultural heritage and self-indentification with the West. But these weren't checks "allowed" or created by the state, they were expressions of individualism and ground-level resistance to the monolith that was their government.

The only change that true Communist societies experience is brought on by total collapse, external influence or top-level decisions and politics. Nothing has changed in North Korea for 50 years because of the lack of alternate sources of power, or checks permitted in the type of society they have. That is by design, or at least a mandatory prerequisite to the formation of a Communist society as opposed to other systems (including Social Democracies).
posted by loquax at 6:39 PM on June 14, 2006

A concept known as cartographic ethnocentrism. Everyone does it.

And observe the map device here — how the map is itself completely Gondor-centric. Rohan and Gondor are treated as though they are the literal center of Middle Earth. Obviously this is because they have men living there.
posted by Alexandros at 6:47 PM on June 14, 2006

... the North Koreans who make it past the labor camps, AK's, the barbed wire, the dogs, etc., and into China (they don't even bother trying to make it through the DMZ, for good reason) are about a foot shorter and 50 pounds lighter than the average human adult, due to a diet consisting mostly of grass, bark, and cardboard stew.

Those few that make it to China and are caught by the Chinese authorities are promptly sent back to NK, where the error of their ways is drolly underlined by their being sent to a forced-labor camp where they are starved and beaten to death.
posted by Ritchie at 6:48 PM on June 14, 2006

Some studies claim North Korean teenage boys average almost a foot less height than their Southern counterparts, that is, they are less than 5' tall and less than 100 lbs. One young adult refugee was heard to remark to his companion that they can never get married because South Korean women are "too big for us."

Experts warn that mental deficits are sure to accompany such dwarfism.
posted by jamjam at 6:56 PM on June 14, 2006

This is fascinating. Page 2 also has this link to another photoset/description of North Korea.
posted by SisterHavana at 7:30 PM on June 14, 2006

this was really interesting, thank you.
posted by sophist at 7:58 PM on June 14, 2006

loquax, if the only examples of communism you will allow as innate and true are those that are extreme, then of course then you will conclude that communism is by nature extreme. There are many possible paths to despotism: theocracy, fascism, monarchy, etc., none of which look fondly on individual freedom or dissent.
posted by tula at 7:59 PM on June 14, 2006

You guys should really check out the rest of Lebedev's site. God, I wish I could travel as much as this guy!
posted by c13 at 8:18 PM on June 14, 2006

I mean this site.
posted by c13 at 8:21 PM on June 14, 2006

Good Christ, if you can't be negative about North Korea, what can you be negative about? I'd be a little scared of someone who could look at those pictures and react with "My, what handsome architecture! And those empty roads... so clean and makes attractive!"

Excluded middle: it is possible to not be so negative, or to avoid using such broad strokes, while still being accurate about how bad things really are. Pointing at things in North Korea that are very bad, but not at all particular to that country, and making them out to be worse than they are is, in my view, wrong.
posted by jiawen at 11:10 PM on June 14, 2006

Eh. You're entitled to your point of view; I'm all for fairness and objectivity, but extending it to monstrous dictatorships that starve and murder their people is a little beyond my powers. I'd rather err on the side of negativity than find myself in the gutter with Citizen Premier:

I don't think it's that bad to live in an unpolished world.

How on earth did that excrescent "makes" wind up in your copy-and-paste of my comment?
posted by languagehat at 5:35 AM on June 15, 2006

I don't think it's that bad to live in an unpolished world. I'm sure North Koreans still have friends and family and lives and happiness just like America, even if their government is shit. Propaganda has instilled in us the idea that there is no joy where the ideology is flawed, but I really don't think that's true.
posted by Citizen Premier at 9:21 AM ACST on June 15 [+fave] [!]

I'm living in the west of China at the moment, and there are several Turk-derived minorities out here whose lives aren't by any stretch wonderful. There's a lot of racism, and it's funny to get the butt end of some of it when I'm mistaken for one of the Uyghurs (I'm caucasian with black hair and brown eyes). Waiters in Han restaurants tend to ignore me until they hear my accent and one place even tried to throw me out, I was once told rudely that the "minority languages section is over there" at the bookstore when I read the signs slower than the average Han (something that would never happen in the east of China), and there aren't a lot of Uyghers living in the rich neighborhoods. There's a river running through this town, and the Uygher side is pretty run-down. This government isn't quite as shitty as NK, but with economic opportunity as limited as it is and average wages a third of what they are on the coast, life sucks for the minorities. Out in the countryside, some people are starving and living in mud huts, and I've visited some of those places. But as a group they aren't miserable at all. Cynical, sure, but they have friends, family, jobs, and happiness just like anywhere else on the planet.

And on cement and communist architecture, it's nice to see it all being torn down for malls and pastel apartment buildings. Soon all of Asia will look like the Hong Kong suburbs.
posted by saysthis at 11:38 AM on June 15, 2006

Wow. Amazing pictures. I'd noticed that one of the comments mentioned Half Life 2 and the look of City 17. I suppose for me it's the feel of the pictures and the grey nothingness - specifically in the pictures of the roads that you can't cross unless at a crossing, even though there's no cars on them. Haunted. This one is almost Chernobyl.

Welcome. Welcome to City 17.

You have chosen, or been chosen, to relocate to one of our finest remaining urban centers. I thought so much of City 17 that I elected to establish my administration here, in the Citadel so thoughtfully provided by Our Benefactors. I've been proud to call City 17 my home.

And so, whether you are here to stay or passing through on your way to parts unknown - welcome to City 17. It's safer here.
posted by Zack_Replica at 12:57 PM on June 15, 2006

Cultivation of Sponge Gourd Encouraged
Pyongyang, June 14 (KCNA) -- Sponge gourd is being widely cultivated in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. A campaign to plant sponge gourd in idle land is being launched at institutions, enterprises and residential quarters of Pyongyang and local areas.
The sponge gourd is a cash crop that the Korean people have grown from olden times.
Its attractive fruits and thick vine emitting fragrance make the life emotional.
There are two species of sponge gourd--one for fiber and the other for food.
The sponge gourd for fiber is dried and used as kitchen cleaner and shoe liner.
The fruits of the species for food are picked to cook ten days after the falling of the flower.
The juice of the sponge gourd harvested before frost are used not only as raw materials for beauty lotion, perfume and cosmetics but also as medicine for the treatment of malignant abscess, waist pains, fever and cough. And it is applicable to increasing mother's milk volume and neutralizing poison.
The oil contained in the seeds is used as painting materials.
The sponge gourd plant is resistant blights and harmful inspects.

Ever forward human progress! The sun shines upon Kim Jong Il and the lucky citizens of DPRK!
posted by Meatbomb at 5:08 PM on June 15, 2006

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posted by nickyskye at 6:28 PM on June 15, 2006