As a South Korean living abroad, I am regularly asked about North Korea by curious foreigners despite having no special expertise on the subject besides having

As a South Korean living abroad, I am regularly asked about North Korea by curious foreigners despite having no special expertise on the subject besides having followed the news all my life by the virtue of being from the south of the DMZ. One of the most difficult things to convey, even to fellow South Koreans, is the fact that North Korea is as complex as any human society. For most people, North Korea is the very definition of the Great Unknown, and we tend to imagine such things as monoliths (it is incredible for instance how many outsiders seem to picture Africa as one giant mass of starvation, disease, and war, and are astonished to see anything that doesn't fit the preconception like bustling modern cities with a thriving middle class). It is easy to describe the lack of freedoms, cult of personality, massive prison camps, the songbun caste system and total lack of civil society in North Korea, leaving the curious foreigner shaking her head at the bizarreness and monstrosity of it all. But it is also easy to forget that this is a society inhabited by flesh and blood humans, not ruthless robots and their abstract oppressed victims. We don't get to see much of this side of course. But in some ways in the last decade or so North Korea has been creeping towards something close to normalcy, albeit far from ideal—corrupt officials, flourishing black markets, extreme disparities in wealth, and even cross-border trade with China. Nothing to portend a Soviet-style collapse of course, but even the slightest increase in openness is something we should welcome.