NorthKorea

Why do I show fireworks from North Korea when the whole world does fireworks? For one thing, the whole show was bigger, longer, and more awesome than probably any fireworks show I've seen. Sorry you can't see everything from just the videos here. Second, people typically think of how much the government spends on the fireworks when it's people are starving. Is North Korea the only country that puts on big fireworks shows while its people starve? Or large portions are in jail? Before you point out differences between North Korea and whatever countries you may have thought of, what similarities do you notice too? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtwqyU7SNhI By the way, something else you can't see from the videos here is that during the fireworks was the…

I interviewed Joe, who had been living in South Korea before visiting North Korea, about the experience at the Revolutionary Martyrs’ Cemetery, since it was such an emotional experience. At this point we are in a park just below the cemetery, which is on one of Pyongyang's highest points, I believe. He talks about how surprising it was to be given such deference in the face of North Korea's social and economic situation. The country is full of contradiction, though it also reveals contradictions in other places, which contributes to why I find visiting there so educational. At the time we recorded this video, Pyongyang was holding its grand parade as you'd expect North Korea to do. Foreigners were relegated to a fun state-fair like…

Would you expect an amusement park in Pyongyang, North Korea? Not only did we go to a big one, we saw remnants of old roller coasters and other rides in other parts of Pyongyang. We weren't sure how many people got to enjoy the fun fair, but for most tourists it's their best chance to interact directly with North Koreans untrained by the government to lead their tours. We had great chances earlier that day in Kim Il Sung Square, but this was fun too. Here Jordan and I take some pictures with some cute girls. What can we say, whom else would we take pictures with? You may remember Jordan as the guy who invited me to North Korea the first time. He also…

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. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Zec1nanZyo 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 road suggests others are far worse, if alternative infrastructure exists at all. I can't imagine how they feel about the difference between what they want to portray and what they can't help but show. I did my best to hold the camera steady, but that was impossible on this road. Plus the road was…

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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eYE9s0IMW4 Middle: the machine Here we see the middle part of the factory's production line. I couldn't capture looking inside the contraption to see the glowing molten glass but the camera couldn't capture its brightness. Sorry about the noisiness. That's just the place. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcbvgXeRYX4 Output Here we see some output of the contraption -- a line of metal glass. If you look carefully you'll see what…

As I wrote before, North Korea seems to like making models of sites and I like making fly-through videos of models. Here are two more videos of models. I'm not sure of what. Something industrial. Maybe the steel factory? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUsL4cZiRkw Here's the second video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbrP8-9RfH4 Typically when they showed us models like this they described how they represent a time Kim Il Sung visited the place, even if his visiting probably contributed little to the functionality of the place. We came to understand the number of visits by the leader indicated the place's significance.

Part of my series of videos on North Korea from my April 2012 visit, for now unedited and in the order I took the videos. Today’s videos are of our visit to a North Korean steel factory. They told us we were among the first foreigners to visit the place in a long time, maybe ever. We loved visiting this place. That we got to tour right into the heart of such an industrial place was incredible. They didn't have us wear hard hats or take any sort of safety training. I joked that if the U.S. government had a problem with us visiting North Korea, at first the State Department would have the problem but after this video it would be OSHA. The driveway…

Part of my series of videos on North Korea from my April 2012 visit, for now unedited and in the order I took the videos. Today's videos happen to cover infrastructure. Pyongyang Roadside This video shows the view out of a tour bus of a typical Pyongyang street. You can see the (in)famous Ryugyong Hotel, a subway stop entrance, and Pyongyang's typically empty roadways. You can hear our guide's voice over the bus's speaker. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evqCqTFPhuU Potholiest Highway in the World This video shows the view from our bus of the highway with the most potholes I've ever seen. I think they called it the Children's Highway, or something like that. Though about ten lanes wide, vehicles often have no smooth lane to drive on. I…