this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2023
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Comradeship // Freechat
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I haven't been since the pandemic, and I know it hit them pretty hard, but it was a much nicer place than a lot of liberals think it is. They are always opening new housing projects that are actually REALLY nice. Wide variety of food and services, as long as you don't care about having specific brand names on everything you consume. The best part was definitely that people actually had time to live.
I lived in SK (about one year) and the DPRK (aobut three months) thanks to my grad school research, and I can say that I would much prefer to live in the DPRK than SK again. SK is an absolute unchecked exploitative capitalist hellscape, I am not sure there is a country on earth with worse work-life balance. I live in Japan and SK makes us look like a workers paradise.
Wow that’s pretty cool! I’d love to visit the DPRK one day but it’s literally illegal for me as an American :/
Maybe it will be possible again, it wasn't too long ago Americans could still go. Would be happy to answer any questions you had then, though my trip wasn't the normal tourism one so probably a bit different.
Oh I'd love to hear about your experience! I imagine since you had such an extended stay, you didn't have any kind of chaperone with you?
On arrival I did, but it felt more like a guide than a minder. Once I was set up at the university I was more or less left to my own devices around campus. I took a few trips to other areas and had a guide again, but they never really stopped me from doing anything. Mostly helped with communication. I do speak Korean but not perfectly, and there are some dialect differences here or there I struggled with.
I definitely was not watched 24/7 like people would lead you to believe.
Makes sense. Jeez it's insane just how exaggerated and pervasive western propaganda is...like, I've done a good amount of research to try and undo my perceptions about the DPRK, but even still I have the thought that "surely there must be something that's accurate in the media that's just wildly exaggerated". But I guess US media does just make up whatever the fuck they want.
Did you visit more rural towns? What were they like? I was checking the sattelite images out on Google earth and it looks like they're really tiny and spread out. Also did you go to the Waterpark? Lol
I did vist a couple smaller towns. They seemed very similar to rural towns in my country (Japan) at first glance. People were friendly. All of the ones I went to had a community center that people seemed to use pretty often after work; they seemed to offer classes and further education type programs. When I talk about the DPRK having way better work-life balance than the south, that is one of the big things that jumped out to me. They were probably about what you would expect from rural farming communities for the most part.
If you are talking about Munsu, it opened after my last visit, so I did not have the chance to go. Looks fun though.