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Three years in North Korea as a foreigner (2021)

mydiplomaticlife.com

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Re: Three years in North Korea as a foreigner (2021)

#71

Post by Scoundreller »

BizarreByte wrote: post #22
victorbjorklund wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A big political enemy of the saudi family that been a pain in their ass (rightly so since they are an evil dictatorship) vs random student that just took a poster as a souvernir. Not the same thing. Anyone can be killed in North Korea. 99,99999999999% of people are not on the saudi familys enemy list.

> random student that just took a poster as a souvernir. Let's not mince words here, he stole government property in a country with some of the harshest laws on earth. Did he deserve to die for it? No, but it was an incredibly stupid thing to do.

yeah for sure, because otherwise NK has fantastic relations with USA!

Re: Three years in North Korea as a foreigner (2021)

#72

Post by mschuster91 »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #10
gwbas1c wrote: post #6

Years ago, I was lucky enough to listen to a talk from an American who got to be a tourist in North Korea. Ever since then I've been fascinated with stories like this. North Korea is on my bucket list, but hopefully after the state loosens up.

North Korea can take you with whatever justification they feel like and return you as a vegetable. I know the mass games look cool and people like to go to weird places, please avoid North Korea

Add Afghanistan to that list. Some Austrian far-right dumbass went there to make a YouTube video to claim Afghanistan were safe (obviously to justify deporting refugees there) - and lo behold, he got arrested by the Taliban on espionage charges and ultimately released after 9 extensive months of negotiations [1].

[1] https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/politik/ausland/oesterreich-r...

Re: Three years in North Korea as a foreigner (2021)

#73

Post by [deleted] »

netsharc wrote: post #21
notdonspaulding wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They did not have internet. From the article: > You were in a country that really was sealed off from the rest of the world. No internet or social media. All press and TV (one channel) dedicated not for news but solely for the glorification of the Leader. That is the Kim dynasty and the regime.

Obviously the average citizen don't have Internet, but an embassy without Internet (most probably through satellite) is unthinkable, they need to be able to talk to their home government. But if we go back 20 years (others have said this is written in the early 2000's), satellite communication was probably worse than 28.8k modems and really expensive, so yeah, it could've been there but only for official and not pers…

[deleted]

Re: Three years in North Korea as a foreigner (2021)

#74

Post by jiggawatts »

thriftwy wrote: post #38

https://www.tema.ru/travel/north-korea-1/ Artemy Lebedev, a known Russian web designer, visited North Korea and posted his notes with pictures (in Russian, should not be an obstacle these days). There are three more sections with the selector below.

> in Russian, should not be an obstacle these days

It blows my mind a tiny bit every time I translate something with GPT-4. It’s flawless!

Fascinating article, it explained a few things I didn’t get before. E.g.: the locals collect grass in bags to feed to rabbits.

Re: Three years in North Korea as a foreigner (2021)

#75

Post by V__ »

influx wrote: post #70
V__ wrote: post #53

I'll preface this by saying that I can't support this with a source, so take it with a grain of salt. An acquaintance of mine knew someone who worked in that German embassy. Apparently, the extreme isolation of North Korea also made it extremely difficult to have any kind of opsec inside the embassy. Since anything could only be brought in through diplomatic pouches it created an attack vector of one. A few days afte…

Which do you think is more likely, the scif was compromised, or one of the people in the scif was?

He didn't specify whether the scif itself was bugged or they planted a bug on someone, just that it wasn't a leak.

Re: Three years in North Korea as a foreigner (2021)

#77

Post by kstrauser »

smcl wrote: post #60
AtlasBarfed wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

North Korea can take you with whatever justification they feel like and return you as a vegetable. I know the mass games look cool and people like to go to weird places, please avoid North Korea

I am sorry but if you travel somewhere like Iran or North Korea you are doing so explicitly against the advice of most governments. Every single person visiting these places is told that they need to keep their shit together, otherwise the consequences could be dire for them or for those they come into contact with.

Iran doesn't chill my blood in the same way imagining being in North Korea does. I have no desire to go there. I wouldn't go if offered. It still strikes me as a more or less rational country that stridently disagrees with my own country's politics (and my own), not a boot stamping on a human face — forever.

Re: Three years in North Korea as a foreigner (2021)

#78

Post by lutoma »

__s wrote: post #40
thriftwy wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They likely go to specialized shops for foreigners where you may only pay with US$-backed coupons, and can purchase most of stuff you can commonly buy in Japan.

> There were a handful of shops that catered for foreigners. All transactions had to be in Euros as possession of local currency by foreigners was forbidden. A lot of the items were imported from China and from time to time, local fresh produce would make a rare appearance. Meat was always in short supply.

Here's a video of what one of those shops looks like by an Indonesian diplomat:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRYJ9u0sEE4

Re: Three years in North Korea as a foreigner (2021)

#79

Post by pasquinelli »

jrockway wrote: post #59
stuff4ben wrote: post #2

This was fascinating! If I could do it all over again, I'd have gone into the US Foreign Service. Maybe not to places like North Korea (which we don't have a presence in anyways), but I'd have loved to travel the world. Maybe in the next life...

> Maybe in the next life... I told myself this about an important decision. I thought about it more and decided I didn't really believe in that (proof: what do you remember from your last life), so just did it in this one. No regrets!

you'll eventually forget this life too, so i'm not sure about your proof ;)

Re: Three years in North Korea as a foreigner (2021)

#80

Post by smcl »

kstrauser wrote: post #77
smcl wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am sorry but if you travel somewhere like Iran or North Korea you are doing so explicitly against the advice of most governments. Every single person visiting these places is told that they need to keep their shit together, otherwise the consequences could be dire for them or for those they come into contact with.

Iran doesn't chill my blood in the same way imagining being in North Korea does. I have no desire to go there. I wouldn't go if offered. It still strikes me as a more or less rational country that stridently disagrees with my own country's politics (and my own), not a boot stamping on a human face — forever.

Honestly I’d still like to visit both (particularly Iran) and I know people who have. But there is definitely advice you need to heed in both places (tbh in all places…)
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