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Curious if anyone knows of any more recent descriptions about what life is like in North Korea, like in the last 5-10 years. Most things I've read including thi
by why_at 2y ago
Curious if anyone knows of any more recent descriptions about what life is like in North Korea, like in the last 5-10 years. Most things I've read including this article are decades old.
How much have things changed there in terms of technology, food security etc?
- odysseus 2y agoCheck out the 2023 documentary Beyond Utopia for a glimpse. It’s currently on Hulu.
- gre 2y agohttps://youtu.be/2BO83Ig-E8E?si=WK1Gp62Hbx0624Wx https://youtu.be/2BO83Ig-E8E?si=WK1Gp62Hbx0624Wx Documentary about getting s haircut in North Korea
- hereme888 2y agoYou mean a shameless North Korean propaganda video with a ridiculously twisted version of history and reality?
- Taek 2y agoWorth keeping in mind that NK has one of the most active / visible cyber teams on the planet, presumably including astro-turfing and propaganda. Which means any conversation on the internet about NK is likely to be polluted with propaganda, even if none of the participants themselves are operatives - all it takes is someone unwittingly ingesting a bad fact once for that bad fact to get circulated.
- Garvi 2y agoWould you care to elaborate with any source for this claim? Otherwise I have to crown this the dumbest thing that I've read on the internet this week. I see the HN moderation is doing a great job at keeping the triple digit IQs away.
- galdosdi 2y agoIt's so well known it would be easier for you to source your claim. Or you know, you could source the claim yourself. Obviously you didn't bother before posting. When I say dragons fly over the rainbows, I need to source the claim. When I say that the sky is blue, it's you who needs to look it up if you doubt it so much.
- gre 2y agoAre you suggesting that boyboy, an Australian youtube channel that posts about everything, is a North Korean propagandist? Or is it me? Anything said about north Korea that is not absolutely bonkers is propaganda?
- red-iron-pine 2y agoboyboy doesn't have to be propagandist to regurgitate some factoids that were put out deliberately elsewhere as agi-prop. that's the point, you poison the well once and everyone keeps drinking from it, forever.
- gre 2y agowhich facts are wrong? genuinely want to correct my worldview
- gverrilla 2y agothis is a group from Brazil (so portuguese - you can use yt's autotranslate) who supports and studies NK - they have visited and on this live they show the pictures/videos and talk about life there, food, etc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQNQWwXA6_0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQNQWwXA6_0
- cmrdporcupine 2y agoI clicked that and skipped through it and now YouTube's algorithm thinks I want to watch a whole bunch of Brazillian neo-hyper-Stalinist-cult tankie videos.
- red-iron-pine 2y agosounds like one to watch from my work account
- snicky 2y agoAfter the famine in 90s both the party and the people realized that the state can't really guarantee any food security so it's mostly taken care of by free market as anywhere else in the world now. Trading goods may not be entirely legal, but is widely accepted. Check "North Korea Confidential" by Daniel Tudor and James Pearson from 2015.
- MIC132 2y agoThis is from 2019: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpdYcy8JtiisXTMb4zug_oCIBi0ICTxkX https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpdYcy8JtiisXTMb4zug_oCIB...
- maxglute 2y agoThere's hours and hours of NK footage if you search for North Korea Travel / Vlog in simplified chinese. They tend to have much laxer guides/minders, fluent in mandarin vs western travellers with minders with shit English (and I presume more suspicious / cautious). Very few of Chinese vlogs have auto subtitles which can be translated to english unfortunately. Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZgzAquCs-o&list=PLk70D7sV6Qv33RNf6FyBGJoc4OjDssnW1&index=5 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZgzAquCs-o&list=PLk70D7sV6Q... There was a few playlist from central asian travellers and with Chinese business man exploring with more casual minders a few years back but I can't find them. I know a few PRC nationals who made the trip for business, TLDR is NK cities and towns feels like PRC in the 90s with energy of PRC in the 80s. Some of the villages/hamlets seem like PRC from the 70s (which I guess is what most ppl think of NK). Other era reference points probably not helpful for ppl without context of growing up in PRC. So it's worth scrubbing through some of the videos, a lot of it is city and keep in mind NK is 60% urbanized.
- seanmcdirmid 2y agoThey won't let Americans in, except during the mas games, and even otherwise you can usually get in with a Chinese tour group. One of my American coworkers in Beijing went back in 2011 or so, and didn't have any problem, although I got the feeling it wasn't as interesting as she thought it would be. Educationally speaking, the DPRK would catch up pretty quickly if they were able to liberalize their economy as much as China, even without all the help they could get from ROK, Japan, USA. It isn't Afghanistan (where liberalization wouldn't stick), or even Laos where there is a lot of work to do on modernizing society, which makes its current state even more depressing.
- maxglute 2y agoIMO NK in the unfortunate geographic situation where Kim's inherited the half of the peninsula with just not enough ariable land, but not so not enough that juche isn't viable. NK with water access could probably be an alright middle (or even upper middle) income country exporting their 5-10T mineral reserves. They had enough prexisting/rebuilt industry to perhaps even export higher value processed goods + not unserious effort at socialism to avoid dutch disease. Kims playing a solid hand poorly, but the cards are still enough not to fold. Which is sad.
- rvoje 2y agoHeres some propaganda: https://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/cause-of-death/malnutrition/by-country/ https://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/cause-of-death/malnutrit... https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/46164212.pdf https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/46164212.pdf https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2017-09-14/north-korea-s-secret-weapon-economic-growth https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2017-09-14/north-...
- usr1106 2y agoThe pandemic has probably changed a lot. Virtually no foreigners have been there after 2019, so I guess the best we know is that we don't know.
- InDubioProRubio 2y agoRemember those marching formations, where a normal AK looked like a giant toy wielded by kids.
- divan 2y agoHonest and unpaid North Korea influencers (apparently trying to influence South Korea) can tell a bit :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzFoNe5rNMo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzFoNe5rNMo
- tuennesje 2y agoThis book was published 2009, https://archive.org/details/nothing-to-envy-ordinary-lives-in-north-korea-pdfdrive.com https://archive.org/details/nothing-to-envy-ordinary-lives-i..., and I can highly recommend it for anyone wanting to know a little about how life might have looked like growing up in North-Korea.