My Holiday in North Korea

Rule of thumb I came to realize: dilapidated, old building = real building with actual DPRK inhabitants; modern, new building = fakery built to make NoKo look normal.

Everyone in North Korea lies to you about everything, all the time. Doesn’t matter what, who, or why, or whether it’s small stuff or big stuff. And when they aren’t outright lying to you, they’re either purposely unclear, or evasive—or if they really object to what you’re asking or saying, they’ll just pretend you aren’t talking or they can’t hear you.

it’s equally likely that it’s true, or not true, which is the fundamental conundrum with everything everyone says to you in North Korea, and it will slowly make you crazy

Koreans have adopted a calendar system predicated on Kim Il-sung’s birthday instead of Jesus Christ’s. Year one is 1912, the year the Dear Great Leader was born, making 2014 year 103, 2015 year 104, and so on. They correlate his birthday and other important dates in his life to all kinds of things: the length of a road, the number of floors in a building, the number of lines in a poem, and how many people can fit in an elevator.

them. No matter what’s going on in a nation politically or socially, or how focused on putting on a show for tourists everyone else is, children will show you the truth. They are who they are, and who they are is a reflection of their country