Last year we tried teaching our guide, Ms Yu, the phrase “You’re so money and you don’t even know it.” So this year when Jordan was busy doing something else, I decided to teach it to Ms Han, then have her say it to him. I don’t think she quite got the meaning of the phrase, but I think the fun came across. About halfway through the video switches to[…] Keep reading →

If you’re an entrepreneur or VC in New York, clear off Monday, April 15, 2013 from 7:00 PM to 9:30 PM. I’ve written before about InSITE, the entrepreneurship group I started working with at Columbia Business School, and a friend there winning a competition with a business to reduce pollution. If you didn’t know, InSITE brings together graduate students at various schools around NYC (mainly from Columbia’s and NYU’s business,[…] Keep reading →

Dozens of North Korean couples celebrate their weddings in a park with a giant statue of Kim Il Sung. Part way through, they start inviting us — Americans! — to join their parties (we think they thought we were Russian). Amazing insight to an intimate part of North Korean life.

If you want to see the most amazing kids, you might be surprised to find some in this country schoolhouse in North Korea. Yes, we only see what the government lets us see, and the government seems to have learned showing off its kids shows off a part of the country the world will love, but this did happen and it’s part of North Korea. Watch this video. You won’t[…] Keep reading →

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[…] Keep reading →

I just realized I never posted this video of me getting the block and game-winning goal in North Korea’s first Ultimate Frisbee tournament in August 2011 (actually, I posted it on a site I since enjoyed leaving.) I consider it one of the highlights of my Ultimate career not for the level of competition but for living out Ultimate’s Spirit of the Game clause “Spirit of the Game. Ultimate relies[…] Keep reading →

Here we are approaching Mansudae Hill, the location of 20-meter tall statues of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il.  Love the men or hate them, they ruled the country for seventy years, so they’re important for the people here. We see children leaving the giant statues of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. At the start I was holding the camera at my side to be more respectful[…] Keep reading →

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[…] Keep reading →

A video of the Revolutionary Martyrs’ Cemetery on the hundredth anniversary of Kim Il Sung’s birth — roughly like being at Arlington on July 4, 1976. There were many soldiers and foreign tourists, making for an odd mix. Normally the government prohibits tourists from taking pictures of the military, but perhaps for the special day, since they were there ceremonially, and since there were so many of them they let[…] Keep reading →