Saudi Arabia is connected to the outside world. North Korea is not. That alone makes it no contest for me (though myriad other comparisons pretty much all go the same way)…
We’ve had posters on these boards who lived in Saudi Arabia. Who among us has ever even spoken to someone from North Korea? There’s just no equivalence in my mind.
To all you North Korea naysayers - I think that, if you are one of the small people in one of these dictatorial countries, you don’t have much contact with the regime. You just quietly live your life in your village doing whatever it is you do. You chat to your neighbours and have friends and family round for meals - all the usual stuff. All the insane dictats and rulings made by the regime in the capital just go over your head and don’t have much bearing on your day to day life.
North Korea is a beautiful country with towering mountain ranges and thick forest covering 80% of the territory. Because of it’s secretive nature and extreme poverty much of this is unexplored wilderness. It gets hot in summer and cold in winter but the other two seasons have a really nice climate.
I would love to go hiking through the mountains in North Korea. It’s so isolated and remote up there, you won’t come across any military (they’re all at the DMZ) and you could forget the regime even exist out there.
Absent the insane misogynistic social conditions the place is an arid hell hole with no redeeming environmental qualities. mutantmoose stated it well, if your an average citizen then Korea is a nice place to live and you can socialize normally. I could grow my own food, brew my own beer and life would be good.
The climate was definitely a tough consideration for me. I find desert climates unbearable, both visually and temperature wise.
I found some pictures of North Korea here.
I’m still going to say Saudi Arabia but both countries promise a horrible quality of life in some way or the other. Plus, I did some research and I’m not clear whether or not you’re allowed to opt out of Islam privately in your own home, or if you’re required to bow to Mecca with everyone else you’re working with etc… It seems that although SA promises to allow non-Muslims to worship privately in their own homes, it isn’t in the actual laws and the clemency for heathens might apply more to the enclaved foreigners (who won’t tattle on each other) and the OP doesn’t allow for diplomatic or MNC enclaves (in the case of SA for the latter).
Because in that case, what’s the difference between NK and SA?
In SA, you could still talk to your friends and colleagues back home?
I have been to North Korea and lived in the Gulf for 3 years. Anyone choosing North Korea is simply insane. The past 10 years have been very good at vilifying the Arab world and Saudi especially. There is simply no comparison with the DPRK vis-a-vis Saudi.
Heck, if offered a job I’d move to Saudi today. Not a chance with North Korea.
I don’t think you’re responding to the rules of the op:
**The rules:
In NK you have the advantage of food, family, a normal social life and a Garden of Eden location. All the things that make life worth living.
In SA you have the advantage of food, family, no social life and Hell’s back forty to live in and look at.
Abha gets about 23 inches of rain a year, which is about the same as San Francisco. Not quite “lush” to my mind ( SF is in a Mediterranean climate zone afterall ), but enough to support extensive juniper woodlands in the nearby Asir National Park, which is reputedly reasonably pretty.
Actually the lack of information form the outside and the starkness of the place would make the DPRK a no-go for me. The DPRK is no Garden of Eden - it is a concrete jungle with no color… and those were the good parts that I was allowed to visit.
Oh, well, as a lady-doper there’s a good chance I’d have to beg permission from a man to let me!
Desert Nomad
It would be interesting to hear any tales you have from your visit there.
I think that under the terms of the OP you would be living there as if one of the locals, subject to local law. You would be allowed to wander anywhere. When you went there it was part of an official tour so you only went where they told you to go. But, nevertheless, would be interesting to hear any experiences.
Think I’d still rather live in NK even if the situations were reversed - if SA were a hardline communist state and NK were a fundamentalist islamic state. NK would still have the nicer mountains. Not that I’m criticising the desert. The desert is awesome. I’m not dissing the desert.
It’s just that the desert is so vast and flat that the best way to explore it is in a 4x4 whereas mountains and forests you have to explore slowly on foot.
But in NK, as a human-doper, there’s a definite chance you’d have to beg permission from the powers that be to let you… and they won’t. I’m not claiming SA is nice in this respect (though I’ve never heard that they have laws against women using the Internet/international telephony/mail/what-have-you), but NK is still worse.
I’m sure it would be, but as both a Hindu & a woman, I really don’t think life in Saudi Arabia would be as awesome. I mean, I’m shirk for god(s)'s sake! A shirky lady. I feel like that would make me ripe for a beheading, or at least a “Welcome to Saudi Arabia” lashing.
But you’re right. I’m assuming Saudi Arabia has a few books, whereas NK probably has none.
Actually locals need permission to go most anywhere - certainly to leave their assigned city (only the elite can live in Pyongyang). Most people leave their town or village only under very special situations.
You have zero news from the outside. TVs and radios pickup one channel (no knob to change the channel) and every home has a speaker which can’t be switched off that plays propaganda (aka “news”) 24/7.
I found the DPRK to be fascinating and I hope to go back for another visit… but to live there? Not in a million years. Comparing it to Saudi is just silly. It’d be like asking me if I want to live in Congo or Germany.
Right. In North Korea you can’t just “go hiking”, because your village is a prison, and you need a passport to leave. And they only give you permission to leave if your travel benefits the ruling class.
The notion that under a totalitarian dictatorship you’re OK as long as you keep to yourself is simply laughable. The dictatorship reaches right down to the village level. Imagine living your whole life where your boss is also in charge of the cops, and is also your landlord. And every block has a designated asshole whose job is to keep an eye on you. And weekly self-criticism sessions.
It is literally like living in a prison, with guards, snitches, being watched all the time, every moment of your life is under the eyes of the authorities, and you can never trust anyone because anyone could narc you out to the authorities.
Yeah, there isn’t any barbed wire around your prison (unless you’re sent to one of the actual concentration camps). But you can’t just walk away, because where are you going to go? Every village, every town, is just another prison. And you can’t just wander into another village, because there’s no work for you there, no food. You can’t live there because every building belongs to the government, and you don’t have permission to live there.
so basically it’s like how women are treated in SA plus the added advantage of living in a sand trap.
Given the conditions of ther OP Saudi wins hands down.
In North Korea, you’d be the richest person around by several orders of magnitude, but it would make no difference. You’re not a member of the political elite - you’re not even Korean, so the secret police would be all over your ass like you cannot imagine. If you wanted to travel, you would be travel without a police escort. You could not talk to a local without the police and your official translator/goon being present. You are not going to see another Westerner since they’re all in compounds which the OP says you can’t go to. You’d spend ten years not being able to talk to anyone.
SA would be a cake walk by comparison, even if you’re a Philipino woman. Since you’ve got a decent standard of living, you can get by. You have enough money to live in Riyhad, which is not an actively bad place to be. You can get around - the restrictions on women not being able to drive etc. are pretty elastic with pocket full of western money and a resident’s permit. You can’t go the pub to socialize, but that’s what the mosque is for. Once you make a few friends there, life becomes actually liveable.
I’m a (atheist, feminist) woman and Saudi Arabia, no question. There are bad aspects especially for women but it’s a rich and beautiful country and I’ve known people who lived there and liked it.
It’s full of educated women, too. They just don’t usually hold jobs after college. IIRC some 70% of college graduates there are women. PLENTY of reading material, smart girls have to keep busy somehow when they are at home.
Saudi Arabia. At least you can talk to *people * there and not sad empty shells. Also: How cool is it to never be hungry or cold in North Korea when pretty much everybody else are starving and freezing. I would rather live in Liberia than North Korea.
As a Jewish woman, I think I’d be stuck with North Korea. Fun.