This part of the Wikipedia entry sounds horrifying.
According to defectors, the Notel’s multi-format support is used for evading detection of illegal media consumption: A North Korean disc can be placed in the device while a South Korean or foreign video is played from a USB drive or the SD card, which could be easily removed in case government inspectors arrive and check the device’s temperature to see if it has been recently used, leaving the DVD disc as an alternative explanation.
Imagine a government inspector shows up randomly to see if your entertainment device is warm, and if it is, demands to see what you were watching.
The Orphan Master’s Son is a novel about life in NK. I think it’s fairly accurate, so if anyone is interested in what it’s like, maybe read that. Spoiler alert: It’s horrifying.
Part of retaining power as a dictatorship is giving the people somebody to hate and fear so they’ll be more accepting of the police intrusion in their lives. Folks riled up into a moral panic about [whoever] are much happier signing up to live under a dictator’s thumb as long as he’s “protecting” them from the [whoever]s.
Can be immigrants, LGBTQ+, other races, other religions; it doesn’t much matter. But identifying and vilifying an Other is an essential part of the Fascist dictator playbook.
Right now the USA’s fascist movement government is trying all those out-groups on for size to see which one(s) stick the best. Conversely, over in Russia, they don’t have much in the way of immigrants, other races, and other religions. So LGBTQ+ it is.
I spent six weeks in South Korea in the mid-90s so this is a bit dated but an interesting story anyway. There was a NK spy off the coast of SK in a small boat doing some sort of surveillance. The boat ran aground in SK and was damaged so he tried to hide for a bit and maybe steal some food.
He went to a barn in the boonies reasoning that even if he was caught he would have plenty of time to escape. It didn’t occur to him that a remote farmhouse would have a telephone and authorities could be there in minutes. The first thing he was asked was if he wanted something to eat. He asked for a type of fish that was a rare delicacy in the North thinking he was being a smartass. They were like, “ok be right back” and got some at a store in a few minutes.
A few North Koreans heard a story about two South Korean women quarreling over a parking spot and couldn’t believe it and thought it must be a joke because how could a nation have so many cars that an empty parking spot would be scarce and worth arguing about?
another North Korean, escaping to China, seeing an empty Coca-Cola glass bottle floating in a stream, and couldn’t believe that someone would just discard such a priceless and valuable thing.
Another excellent book (not a novel, a true account) is Without You, There Is No Us by Suki KIm. A writer posing as a missionary, she was a teacher for a time in Pyongyang. Not as horrifying as perhaps some other accounts, because by the standards of NK, Pyongyang is a relatively nice place, but reserved strictly for party officials and loyalists. Normal people aren’t even allowed to travel there without special permission. But it does convey the incredible repressiveness of the regime in North Korea. Truly a hell-hole.
A North Korean soldier who defected to South Korea a few years ago was found to be not only malnourished, but infected with intestinal parasites from whatever he was being fed. So no, things aren’t great, except for Kim Jong Un.
Yeah. The crisis they were experiencing in the 90s ended only because outside aid did eventually make it in, but they are still a badly malnourished nation, and there have been a couple of times since then that it looked like that same crisis was going to repeat itself. It has barely avoided getting back to that level multiple times.
The problem is that North Korea has very little to feed itself with. It’s a mountainous country and much of it is frozen half the year. It can’t sustain itself without trade, yet they have cut themselves off from the rest of the world and don’t allow it. So the people starve. It’s a miserable situation, where a tiny elite group forces everyone else to suffer. I saw something like 60% of the population lives in a state of extreme poverty, and much of the rest of that population is the “privileged” industrial working class (and military) that just starves a little less than the rest of the people.
"In 1953, both North and South Korea were shattered by the destructive three-year Korean War that left upward of two million dead and cities and towns in ruin. Already poor prior to the war, neither country had very promising prospects for the future. However, in the first eight years after the conflict, North Korea carried out an impressive recovery under a highly organized, purposeful government that appeared to be laying the foundations for a modern industrial society. By contrast, South Korea during this time was characterized by political corruption and turmoil, sluggish economic growth, and dependency on massive aid from the United States.
Overcrowded, possessing few natural resources, artificially severed in half, cut off from the more industrial and developed North, riddled with official corruption and political instability, few countries must have seemed a less promising candidate for an economic takeoff."
Interesting. I wasn’t aware of this post-war history.
There’s a picture I posted (probably more than once) of the Korean peninsula at night, taken from the ISS. The difference between the south and the north today is incredible. South Korea is ablaze in light, while the north is almost entirely dark. The only noticeable spot of light in the north is Pyongyang. The image is like a metaphor.
I mentioned a few posts up that I spent time in S Korea on business. My employer had two factories there. The older engineers started going there in the early 80s. They said that things dramatically changed in the lead up to the 1988 Olympics. They cleaned things up in Seoul, especially the infrastructure and the difference was remarkable.