I hope so - say what you will about the country, and it’ll probably be true, but IMHO they have a beautiful national anthem (lyrics and info on my site), one of my favourites.
Themepark 1984 is another North Korea travel documentary I’ve seen, by a Finnish guy named Aleksanteri Kulvik. I found it quite interesting. Doesn’t touch on the speaker system, though. I do recall seeing another N.Korea-documentary about a young gymnast girl preparing for the mass sport events they organize over there, and it mentioned the fact that the speakers couldn’t be turned off, they could just be turned down.
That website kept on failing for me so I have watched it on youtube, where it is split into 14 videos.
This lack of an on-off switch must be something basic to communism, as the radio I had in Moscow (which had push-button presets for stations rather than a tuning dial) also had no on-off switch.
If I recall correctly, after the German invasion consumer radios were replaced by wired speakers, at least in Leningrad. During the siege of Leningrad the speakers broadcast a ticking metronome when there was no other programming.
Check out YouTube for some North Korean television broadcasts. The voices in most of them are elevated, hurried and frantic; the closest equivalent in English would probably be a 1940s-era newsreel story about some battle in the Pacific. Imagine something sounding like this in your home, 24-7.
Well, of course, I meant typical news propaganda for North Korea.
Wow. Dude singing “Anarchy in the UK” in front of befuddled North Koreans is a highlight. Incredible.
I knew from my reading that North Korea was really this insular, but to see it portrayed in video is certainly strange. And people think Americans are overly patriotic…at least if we don’t wave the flag hard or fast enough we don’t “disappear”!
That whole part about the captured American “spy ship” as a national treasure is pretty amusing and somewhat sad. They cling to it like its still the 1960’s. And propagandize the hell out of it.
Utter madness. But thanks for the link.
Did you notice how the felt on the pool table would scrunch up under her hand? They don’t even do that properly.
What do you suppose the upheaval will be like when North Koreans find out how shitty they’ve had it for so long?
ETA: Big props to Boyo Jim for that link. I bookmarked it. The NK video is simply astounding.
I like the part where the guy gently puts his hand on the North Korean girl’s shoulder while singing and she shrugs it right off. Or the part where the NK hostess tries innocently to sing along to a couple of the Sex Pistols lyrics and has the most confused look on her face.
Gotta say, though: I didn’t like all the, “They got angry at us for filming” parts. Dude, they must have told them a million times to not film, they continued to film, lied about it, and then they act all annoyed when the tour guide gets angry at them for filming? Cmon…“don’t film here” means “don’t film here.” Break the rules and you’re asking for trouble. And, of course, that just reinforces the image of Westerners that the North Korean tour guides, who undoubtedly are some of the most committed of all North Koreans, have in their minds.
Again, let me just suggest watching the Liberia video. That was a major mindfuck.
Not to derail the thread, but I’m having a slow day at work and I just finished watching the Liberia video. I guess all I can say is that I feel very fortunate to be an American.
I always thought this story would make a great book.
From what I’ve read, most of them eat corn mush when things are going OK. You might get rice on your birthday if you’re lucky–it’s a luxury food. And then the bark during famines.
People do cross over to China to get out, but of course it’s expensive and dangerous, and the women are forced to sell themselves. China doesn’t want to deal with NK refugees, so they have to live in hiding. A few make it to an American consulate. There are one or two small organizations that help people get back and forth (some people go back!) and do the consulate thing, which requires some cloak and dagger maneuvering.
How about that one kid, huh? “This is a Liberian general’s heart! I’m going to eat it!” Blech.
Interesting when you remember that Liberia was founded by freed American slaves.
What happened?
You know, it took me until the reply to realize what Ale’s post said.
I read it as the peasants were told to eat grass and make dog noises.
:o
:smack:
This was touched upon in the video: The freed slaves went to Liberia and made the native Liberians their own slaves. During this time, Americo-Liberians became an elite group in Liberian politics and society; native Liberians got pretty pissed and overthrew the American-descended Liberian government. After that Liberia fell into the same maelstrom of violence and insanity and warlordism that plagued/plagues other parts of Africa today. The America government, naturally, couldn’t give less of a shit.
But if we did, everybody would complain of interference in a country’s internal affairs, being on the wrong side of the dispute, nation-building, and so on.
That being said, given the stifling order of North Korea, versus the anarchy of Liberia … wow, two very, very different kinds of hell.
True, very true. It’s a pretty shitty double-edged sword.
If I had to choose to live in one of the two places, I’m pretty sure I’d pick North Korea. It seems really, really bizarre, but not particularly dangerous in most cases. Hell, you might even be able to have something that might possibly begin to resemble a “normal” life on some levelt. Liberia, OTOH, seems to just be a dangerous, lawless hellhole that few would be able to survive.
I’ve recommended that before.
You should all check out A State of Mind, which streams free on Netflix.
It’s a documentary filmed in North Korea, shows the speakers quite a bit, and also…you won’t believe this part, but the director claims they had no censorship or editing from the North Korean government.
Now stop everything and go watch it on Netflix. 