Whenever you hear about North Korea the news is usually ominous, with the western media
mostly talking about weapons or the country’s sometimes laughable cult of personality thing.
You don’t usually see images of people just doing normal things, some little boy named
Kwang-ho playing with his toys, or his father, Jae-hyun, working his nine-to-five job.
That’s not always the media’s fault, since North Korea is a pretty closed-off country.
Whenever media has been allowed to enter the nation, what they see often seems staged.
But life goes on there, and things are pretty ordinary from day-to-day.
Let’s now see how their lives might compare to yours.
We say we’ll try and focus on the ordinary day-to-day existence of a North Korean, but
one thing we should first ask is can those guys just leave.
We mean, for you, if you felt like going on vacation to the Swiss Alps or sitting on a
beach in Thailand, you could just do that if you had the cash.
It’s a pretty big deal, this being allowed to leave thing.
So, can North Koreans take vacations abroad?
The answer is a resounding no.
North Koreans can forget about skiing in Europe or partying on exotic beaches, but more than
that, most people in the country won’t even have access to other parts of their own nation.
We are not talking about the political elite here, just the average North Korean.
In fact, there aren’t that many cars in the country so just going on a road trip is
not possible for most people.
The country does have a car manufacturer, Pyeonghwa Motors, and there are some foreign-made
cars on the streets, but your average citizen won’t have access to a car or fuel.
Satellite pictures tell a story, because outside of the cities there are hardly any cars at
all.
You have to be special to get a car, and only 11 out of every 1,000 people can get their
hands on one.
We expect these folks are what you might call the elite.
On the upside, you will find public transport options in the cities.
People have to get to work, the city has to function.
In the capital you’ll find rail, buses, trams, taxis and a subway.
It’s really not a thing at all for a normal person just to get in car and go somewhere,
and the fact that about 97 percent of the roads throughout the country are unpaved makes
it hard to drive anywhere anyway.
We can’t find the updated figures, but from satellite images taken some years ago there
were only 449 miles (724km) of paved roads.
What you see in the videos in the capital are the best roads around, and what you don’t
see is what the North Korean government doesn’t want you to see.
Ok, so that’s a bummer for North Koreans.
But what if one evening Mr. Chan-woo wants to go around to his friend’s house, Mr.
Kang-min, and play a game of cards over an ice-cold beer?
First of all, North Korea does have its own brand of beer and it is by far the most popular
alcoholic drink.
That brand of beer is called “Taedonggang Beer.”
North Koreans are not forced to be tee-totallers by any stretch of the imagination.
Let’s say that these two guys have office jobs in the capital of Pyongyang.
That city has a population of about 3.3 million, and there are about 25.7 million folks living
in the entire country.
It would be difficult for us to compare every lifestyle in North Korea for you, because
city-dwellers will live very differently from those in the countryside.
Let’s stick with these two guys in the city for now.
Unlike you, even though these two men might have good jobs, they can’t actually buy
their apartments.
They live where the government sends them and they work in the occupation that has been
allocated to them.
But if the men want to visit each other of course they can do that.
They might sink some cold ones with South Korean soap operas playing on the TV, and
they might even get everyone together for a bit of karaoke, which is very popular in
the country.
We even found that some people will get movies on the black market, and that black market
exists despite the risks.
On a weekend families might visit an amusement park, such as the Kaeson Youth Park or the
Manyongdae Fun Fair.
They might exercise, enjoy swimming, or even go horse-back riding.
If they have a high status they might try ice-skating rinks, golf, or even head to a
ski resort.
Yes, there is one and it’s called the Masikryong Ski Resort.
How is all this paid for?
Well, some people don’t seem to get a wage at all, but they are provided housing and
food.
The “public distribution system” provides food to most of the country.
But wages can be paid, too, and what you get depends on what you do.
We found a few resources that said your average city factory worker will get about $62 a month,
which might not pay for the luxury stuff, but some folks might get 1000 or 2000 per
month.
Those people could eat less of the free food and head to one of the private restaurants
and markets.
From what we can see, some kinds of small businesses are illegal, but the government
might turn a blind eye to that.
To recap, if Mr. Chan-woo and Mr. Kang-min are living in an urban area and have good
jobs, such as IT or banking, they certainly can travel around the city, spend time at
each other’s houses, buy food and black market items, read second-hand Harry Potter
books, and take their families ice-skating.
What they can’t do is access the internet, well, the one you can access, or travel around
their own country.
As for the richer folks, sometimes called “donju”, one journalist said they might
spend tens of dollars on food at restaurants, drink foreign alcohol, and wear brand names
from western nations.
They might throw big house parties and even have their own karaoke machines.
Singing and dancing is big in North Korea, as is imbibing booze.
If the folks are poor they might brew their own, something called “nongtaegi”, but
that’s technically illegal.
As for the poorer people in the countryside, they might have access to free housing and
free food, too.
There have been food shortages and these people have been hardest hit, so living in agrarian
poverty in North Korea is very different from the city lifestyle we have just talked about.
There is evidence of child labor in the countryside and stunted growth due to malnutrition.
There might not be access to electricity and life can just be grim.
On the outskirts of the cities there might be factories, and we saw photos of where those
workers might live.
In one photo there were rows of beds in one cramped room, but it was much better than
a wood hut without electricity.
We should also mention that North Korea has lots of labor camps for people who don’t
tow the line, but that’s another story altogether.
Let’s get back to ordinary city life.
First of all, a big factor in North Korea that is very different from your life is the
access to information.
The TV, the Internet, the newspapers, tell a story that doesn’t really mirror the stories
from the rest of the world.
You might find on a North Korea website that western democracy is demonic or that North
Korean culture goes back 500,000 years.
We kid you not.
This is a snippet from one North Korean food website:
“Our ancestors, who lived on earth from the dawn of human development and pioneered
human civilization, created valuable Korean national heritage that can be proud of the
world in food culture.
Our nation, which has a long history and a splendid culture of half a million years.”
You might talk about “post-truth” but at least you have access to information and
you know very well that there was no civilization 500,000 years ago, far from it.
North Korean authorities might provide information more in line with the term “pre-truth.”
Talk about fake news.
But does that mean North Koreans don’t sit and ponder the meaning of life and the bigger
questions, like wondering how they got here in the first place?
Well, the country has a history of religious practices, including Christianity and Buddhism
and Korean shamanism, but the state is officially atheist.
People can practice religion in secret, and they have, but they might end up in a prison
camp.
If you get caught with a Christian bible you could end up in a lot of trouble or even be
executed.
We are not going to say North Koreans all buy into the propaganda and aren’t skeptical
about what their government tells them, but they certainly have to be tight-lipped regarding
their beliefs.
Whatever the people believe, they are told to support an ideology called “Juche.”
This includes supporting a divine, super-human, eternal, magnificent national leader.
It’s related to the cult of personality, which basically means asking the people to
believe that their state and their leader are amazing and beyond reproach.
Let’s now get back to lighter sides of North Korea.
How do the people date there?
They must fall in love right, because love is a universal language no amount of oppression
can kick it out of us.
How do people meet, date, go on dates?
Is there a North Korean version of Tinder.
“Hi, my name’s Hyung-won.
I’m into eternal devotion of our supreme, majestic leader and working hard for our beautiful
and prosperous nation…I like karaoke and beer, too.”
That would surely limit a person to swiping left.
If you love the leader then would she have to like you?
We found romance information from a North Korean exile, so the information is straight
from the horse’s mouth so to speak.
He said he lived in Pyongyang and wasn’t allowed to travel outside of the city.
He said that the government tried hard to sell love as a kind of collective thing, a
love for the revolution and comrades, but people just fell in love like anyone else
does.
Dating wasn’t a political thing.
He said the very conservative norms of dating were beginning to become a thing of the past
with his generation, and a big reason for that was that western culture was finding
its way into North Korea.
People were beginning to see a bigger world.
The man said that some of his young friends weren’t even buying into the government
propaganda and they were well aware of the oppression that hung over them.
Finding love was an antidote to this feeling of disempowerment.
He met a girl in high school and fell madly in love, but that ended quickly when she joined
the military.
Just about all men will have to do time in the military, and a lot of women will too,
but if you come from an elite family or show great acumen for your studies or are ill,
you can postpone or get away with it.
Anyway, the girl was gone.
But he found another girl, and this time she asked him out.
This is what he wrote in The Guardian newspaper: “In my high school days when I was highly
sentimental, my fellow students and I would go on dates in the park only when it was completely
pitch black outside.
High school students weren’t allowed to freely date in the open.”
After high school things got better because then he was allowed to date out in the open.
Guys and girls would often dance at a social club and there they would stand around first
and then usually a guy would pick up the courage to ask a girl for a dance.
He said one of the problems of course is most men after school are away doing their military
service.
While they are doing that service their parents might be looking around for a suitable woman
for the man to marry when he returns.
He said this doesn’t always end up good, but people shouldn’t think North Korean
life is all that different from your life.
We’d like to end this show with something the guy concluded, only because it’s a perfect
and fitting ending.
This is what he said: “When you step back and observe the reality
of North Korean society, you’ll see that people go on about their daily lives just
like in the rest of the world…The window through which you can look into North Korea
is very small and limited.
But remember that the lifestyle of North Koreans isn’t very different from yours.
The only things they don’t know about are freedom and human rights.”
So, there you go, the facts from a North Korean.
You might live in a different environment, but your body aches, your mind creates, and
your heart yearns for love and friendship just like theirs does.
Now let’s give you two great options for videos for you to watch, “What If There
Was A Nuclear Explosion" and “Only North Korean Websites North Koreans Can Visit”
Both are awesome!
Go watch one of them now!
Why are you still here?
Click one!
Come on!
Do it!