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Life inside the North Korean Bubble (with video)
- MarkBook 16y agoHaving the benefit of hindsight in looking at outside interventions elsewhere (Africa, Iraq, Afghanistan etc ) I think that maybe the best thing would be for all other countries (including China) to stop interfering in North korea. It's not possible of course
- lionhearted 16y agoI agree in theory, but I'm reminded of a quote by Trotsky - "You might not be interested in war, but war is interested in you." North Korea is on China's borders, thousands of people each month sneak into China from North Korea, and their crazopathic government is next door to China no matter what. I think China being very mildly pro-NK is a case of "Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer." North Korea is probably the biggest potential threat to China if relations were to break down between them.
- MarkBook 16y agoThis is something that always puzzles me. How come it's accepted as a given that countries cannot seal their borders. The Soviet Bloc were pretty good at it EDIT also the border between north and south korea is pretty tight
- DrJokepu 16y agoThe Eastern Block wasn't that good at all at sealing borders. Many millions of people have emigrated to the West from Eastern Europe during the Cold War.
- MarkBook 16y agoMillions I have a problem in believing, certainly once the iron curtain proper was put in place.
- eru 16y agoYou don't need to resort to believing--either way. Just look at some statistics. You have all the web at your disposal, I suppose.
- Mark_Book 16y agoWikipaedia says 13.3 million crossed east to west europe between 1950 and 1990, 75% of this movement was sanctioned so that makes for 4 million irregular crossings or about 100,000 per year. Currently the US is estimated to have 11.5 million illegal immigrants with about 0.5 million entering each year
- eru 16y agoThanks for actually doing the work I was only bitching about!
- gaius 16y agoThe UK is an island but our borders have more holes than a colander. Illegal immigration and people smuggling are a huge issue here, and a political hot potato. The problem must be 10x worse for countries with land borders.
- MarkBook 16y agoI don't buy this. What's lacking is the political will to secure the borders of the UK. If the UK is so porous then how come Germany wasn't able to stroll over in 1940. People have been told that's it's impossible to keep out illegals and through repetition and the evidence of their eyes have come to believe it. Meanwhile in 'nice areas' the only illegals visible are the domestic servants who would otherwise be unaffordable. If countries are as helpless to prevent immigration as is generally implied then we might as well dismantle borders altogether.
- rmc 16y ago> If the UK is so porous then how come Germany wasn't able to stroll over in 1940. A few thousand unorganised migrant workers who are trying to smuggle themselves in with no more than a suitcase each and try to hide in the corners of soceity when they get there is quite different from a massive uniformed army with tanks and trucks who then try to take over the running of the government when they get here. Also the army was legally allowed and ordered to shoot the Germans who were trying to come over, whereas they is not the political will to shoot migrant workers.
- fgf 16y agoHe's not talking about an invasion but of infiltration by saboteurs and spys..
- Mark_Book 16y agoIt's not the will to shoot illegals that's needed, simply the will to implement the law as it stands by putting in the necessary resources into border policing and deporting those illegals who are discovered. Almost all illegals into the UK entered as paying passengers, ie they needed a ticket. If commercial carriers can police their passageways why can't the government police the doorways to those routes?
- swombat 16y agoForget about war. How about food? The documentary mentions that North Korea survives thanks to food from the World Food Programme. Cut all imports, and I wonder how long the régime would last when even the army starts starving to death. Of course, it's possible millions of people would die in the process.
- istari 16y agoYou're forgetting one of the basic laws of diplomacy: don't try to starve out someone with thousands of artillery tubes pointed at your capital.
- DrJokepu 16y agoI agree, this is something Koreans (both North and South) will have to fight for themselves (only "fighting" metaphorically hopefully). Korea has a history of being oppressed by various other nations and the official ideology of North Korea ("Juche") is basically, amongst other things, saying "f*ck you" to the rest of the world. People are actually serious about it, it's not just some propaganda. Clearly, in a situation like this, foreign intervention is possibly not the best way forward.
- VMG 16y agoWhat about Germany and Kosovo?
- ugh 16y agoI get the feeling that South Koreans are a lot less keen to be unified than West Germans were before the cold war ended, probably justifiably so. There was at least some exchange between West and East, nothing like the complete isolation of North Korea. East Germans could just turn on their TV and watch some West German television when they wanted to compare systems. (Areas the West German TV signals couldn’t reach were called “Valleys of the Clueless” :) East Germany was also one of the most “progressive” eastern bloc states, supposed to be a showcase for actually existing socialism. And, as far as tyrannies go, one of the milder ones, while Kim Jong-il is all the way up there with Hitler and Stalin. Then there is time: East Germany survived for forty years, North Korea is in its seventh decade. It survived the last twenty years without a cold war keeping it alive (except the one between North and South Korea, I guess). The German unification cost billions and caused many problems. By no means an easy process that’s now, twenty years after it started, by no means completely finished. So I kind of can understand South Koreans who are weary of the prospect of unification. Unification did work out ok. I don’t know whether that would have been the case had East Germany been a lot more like North Korea.
- lionhearted 16y agoI was in South Korea last month and there's a few different attitudes. There's a general sense that there should be one Korea at some point or other, though people disagree on the particulars based on what they focus on when they think about it. Some people think the opportunities for manufacturing and development in North Korea are going to be great and are excited to have more Korean companies do their manufacturing in NK instead of China going forwards. Many of the younger people are excited about the idea of no longer needing two years of mandatory military service, which is currently required mostly because of the North Korean threat (the older generation was more patriotic towards military service, the younger generation seems to see it as a bit more of a burden). Some people are afraid of the ripple effect on the economy, in fact a lot of the Koreans I asked were aware of the West Germany/East Germany example you mentioned. The general sentiment seems to be about 50/50 - half in favor of unification the sooner the better, half in favor of having North Korea as a separate state but with much friendlier and greater cooperation between them, and with a better government in the North. The older people seem more in favor of a short term unification, the younger people seem more disposed towards having North Korea be a separate state until they're ready to join back up. Everyone - everyone in South Korea hates Kim Jong-il, and most people seem kind of embarassed and blush when you mention him.
- cubicle67 16y agoI recommend the British documentary A State of Mind http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0456012/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0456012/ as another rare insight into North korean life. It covers about a year in the life of a family who have two young girls training in preparation for the Mass Games. Utterly compelling and handles a very difficult subject matter with sensitivity and without passing judgement.
- orlandu63 16y agoNetflix also has this documentary available for on-demand streaming.
- jlcgull 16y agodoubleplusgood!
- starnix17 16y agoIf you want to see more of North Korea from the inside (and from a tourist perspective), I highly recommend the Vice Guide to North Korea: http://www.vbs.tv/newsroom/vice-guide-to-north-korea-1-of-14 http://www.vbs.tv/newsroom/vice-guide-to-north-korea-1-of-14
- vinhboy 16y agoAnyone know why NK keep letting these videos get made, even though it makes them look like total douche bags? Do they really believe something good would come out of it?
- rmc 16y agoAllowing forgein visitors is one of their main ways of getting hard forgein currency, that they can then use for trade.
- InclinedPlane 16y agoI doubt that's anywhere near as significant as the hard foreign currency they get via arms (and technology) trade (a circa $100 mil/year business at least).
- zokier 16y agoEveryone already knows that they are "total douche bags", so allowing these videos does little harm. But by allowing these videos NK can show that they are opening up and being progressive etc. which helps foreign relations. "Look, we are the good guys, we have changed. We even allowed that one video."
- callahad 16y agoThe list of search results displayed from the DPRK's search engine was interesting. The query "handbook" brought up quite a few hits on IBM's Websphere Application Server, and even a guide on deploying UMTS towers. Does anyone have more information on how the country's network access works? Edit: Some discussion over at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1426919 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1426919
- mikecane 16y agoI looked at the BBC video embedded there. I noticed the DELL logos. It makes me wonder how the DELL logo is explained to the students who encounter it. Are they told DELL is a Korean company? Do they wonder why they don't see that hardware elsewhere?
- w1ntermute 16y agoYeah, I'm surprised the logos aren't removed from the computers.
- Bjoern 16y agoAh this again, I call dupe. We had this 8 days ago. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1406757 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1406757 (more interesting discussion there)
- mkramlich 16y agoI hold that the existence of North Korea, and it's conditions, makes a mockery of the United Nations. How can the world community of nations allow a country like that to exist and treat it's people like that? Why do supposedly "good" and civilized nations allow that to continue? Yes it might require military action to end it. But perhaps it would be worth it in order to reduce the suffering of 20+ million people.
- gfodor 16y agoThis is a highly simplistic analysis, if for no other reason that any attempt to use force to rectify the situation will result in the needless death of likely thousands of innocent South Koreans.
- mkramlich 16y ago... as opposed to the millions who have probably died under North Korean misrule, and the thousands or millions more who will likely also die in the future due to it? I disagree it's a simplistic analysis, and I even disagree that a "simple" analysis is inherently bad. But I think we both agree that people dying is a bad thing.
- zavulon 16y agoI would agree with you... unfortunately, there's only one thing that complicates the matters: nuclear weapons. If attacked, NK would of course be overwhelmed - but not before doing some massive and catastrophic damage to their near and not so near neighbors.
- InclinedPlane 16y agoNuclear weapons hardly change the balance of the equation even. So much of South Korea's population lives in the Seoul metropolitan area and within range of hardened, well-hidden North Korean artillery that it makes it a near certainty that any hot-war on the peninsula would come at the price of hundreds of thousands to millions of South Korean deaths. Add in nuclear weapons, unconventional warfare (who knows how many sleeper terrorist agents the DPRK has in the South), and conventional battlefield losses and you get a horrific butcher's bill on both sides for any likely engagement. Stacked against that the ongoing horror visited on North Korea's citizens by its own regime is not enough to warrant such sacrifices, sad as that is.
- narrator 16y agoThis is a preview of the future without oil. The North Koreans lost all their oil subsidies from the Soviets in the early 90s. That's why they had the famines in the 90s, nobody drives cars and why there are no tractors.