this post was submitted on 05 Jul 2023
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What were some of the absurd stories she told and how do you know they're not real?
I'm asking this because it's my understanding that it's hard getting information from there for either side.
Things like North Korean parents feeding their children mud, or Kim Jong-un personally executing an orchestra conductor in front of a crowd.
North Korea is not a complete black box. Americans are banned from the country, but most Europeans can visit on guided tours.
Millions of North Koreans work abroad in China. If anyone actually wanted to know what life was like in North Korea, you could just ask them. But no-one with the money to hire a translator and head to Beijing is really interested in the very boring truth; that North Korea is a poor, imperfect country where the vast majority of people live normal lives.
The documentary "Loyal Citizens of Pyeongyang in Seoul" has a few interviews with North Korean citizens who went to the South for better economic opportunities before having their passports seized and prevented from going home to the North.
America bans Americans from visiting the country, the DPRK does not.
Land of the free and all
It's changed in recent years - the BBC did an excellent documentary about what life has been like in DPRK recently by interviewing people inside, and it's become a lot worse now. People starving to death, no more trade with China, the lot.
At least about the guided tours, everyone I saw talking about their experience resumed to "you do as you're told and only go were they let you/guide you". There is no freedom to go around and see actual people in their daily lives.
Yeah that shit is highly staged and controlled. You see what they want you to see.
And these millions of workers going to China, you think they are going to talk any shit about their government? Lol