Here I talk about the unexpected beauty of the land of North Korea — at least of the parts the government let us see. It was early Spring and North Korea is pretty north, so there weren’t many leaves on the trees yet. And whatever your feelings about the government or people, the land, flora, and fauna remain the land, flora, and fauna and it’s hard not to appreciate the[…] Keep reading →

Shortly after last post’s videos, we returned to Kim Il Sung Square and interacted with more North Koreans, overcoming language obstacles in North Korea with friendly body language. If our would-be leaders don’t create peace, understanding, and communication between us, we have to lead them. The more we interact the more we understand each other. That’s how we show we aren’t the monsters or dupes their government says we are[…] Keep reading →

Here is a quick video with my thoughts on some differences between my expectations of North Korea (and those of everyone I know who visited) and experiences. I’m on the avenue between the Foreign language bookshop and Kim Il Sung Square. You’ll see Kiwi Tom being silly in the background (he does stand-up comedy, among other things) and the usual desolate, sparsely populated city. Here I shake hands with a[…] Keep reading →

Following up yesterday’s post on George Clooney on living well, I sampled another clip from the same interview in which he talked about accountability. The context is his winning an award for his work on Darfur. I think the clip illustrates how to keep focused on results, not accolades. And even to remember that the results you can achieve don’t necessarily mean results that you want to achieve in the[…] Keep reading →

Usually I post North Korea posts separate from my main page, but I consider today’s videos too-good examples of leadership not to include in the main page (despite being in the middle of a series of George Clooney posts). The scene: Kim Il Sung Square, Pyongyang, April 14, 2012 — the day before the celebration of the hundred-year anniversary of Kim Il Sung’s birth. Whether you like him or not,[…] Keep reading →

Today was see a few random videos. First some oil tankers in the river by a road in Pyongyang seen from our bus. Sorry not that interesting. Just sharing for completeness. Here we see the inside of our bus while we road on an insanely bumpy road. The North Korean government seems to want to portray itself as the best at everything, so putting foreigners and such a poorly kept[…] Keep reading →

As if getting to see an industrial site like the steel factory wasn’t enough, we got to tour a glass factory too. Here we see the input, which I think is melting down old glass and other ingredients to make new glass. You can see they color different parts of the machinery different colors. Input: melting glass and ingredients Middle: the machine Here we see the middle part of the[…] Keep reading →