Infiltrating North Korea Part 19: A Final Word

by Neil Woodburn on


Infiltrating North Korea is a 19-part series exploring the world’s most reclusive nation and its bizarre, anachronistic way of life. To start reading at the beginning of the series, be sure to click here.

Although it was a short trip of only five days, my time in North Korea proved to be one of the most fascinating journeys I’ve ever taken.

This brief glimpse into the world’s most reclusive nation was a rare opportunity to go back in time and witness what the Soviet Union was like fifty years ago. Everything I’ve ever read about the former USSR was alive and well in the streets of Pyongyang; red banners hanging everywhere, blanket censorship, ubiquitous propaganda, very few automobiles, fantastic and accessible cultural arts, barely any crime, and a tightly controlled populace afraid to even fold a newspaper with an image of Kim Il Sung on the front for fear of doing something sacrilegious to the Great Leader’s image.

The North Koreans, however, have taken this concept of totalitarianism even further than the Soviets ever did. The Korean cult of personality, for example, requires that people not only wear a pin of Kim Il Sung or Kim Jong Il on their lapel every day, but also that they bow to any statue of the leaders they come across–and there are a lot of statues in North Korea. Not even Stalin nor Lenin were worshipped to such a degree.The North Koreans are also more paranoid about tourists than their Soviet predecessors; we weren’t allowed to speak to anyone during our time in North Korea, we were routinely prohibited from taking photographs, and we couldn’t wander about on our own. We saw only what the government wanted us to see and spoke only to those thoroughly vetted and officially approved to deal with tourists.

Knowing that my journey to North Korea was carefully regulated to reveal only the positive sides of this “socialist paradise” was extraordinarily frustrating. History is full of naïve international observers who were similarly distracted by smoke and mirror tactics, and then reported back to the civilized world about the excellent conditions they witnessed at various prisons, camps, and hellholes.


Totalitarian governments are very effective with their Potemkin villages and deceitful webs and I wanted to make sure I did not fall victim as well. I therefore read everything I could get my hands on before visiting the country. If you plan on going yourself, I highly recommend that you do the same, otherwise you will be won over by singing children, clean streets, well dressed citizens, and a fanatical devotion to socialism.

In fact, I will go so far as to say that it’s criminal to visit North Korea without educating yourself first. Mandatory reading starts with The Aquariums of Pyongyang by Kang Chol-Hwan–the son of a privileged Pyongyang family who spent ten years of his life, starting at the age of nine, in a North Korean labor camp. Chol-Hwan is coincidently my age and it was therefore particularly poignant knowing that at the same time I was going to high school homecoming dances and football games in the 1980s, Chol-Hwan was being beaten, brainwashed, and forced to cut trees and dig holes in freezing temperatures without adequate clothing. And, he ate rats to survive.

This certainly raises a moral conundrum; should tourists pay exorbitant prices to visit this totalitarian nation knowing that their hard currency helps support the regime?

I scoffed at this originally because my experience in traveling has taught me that human interaction with supposed “enemies” is the very best diplomacy in the world. In addition, bringing an outside perspective to an imprisoned people can also be extraordinarily powerful. The whole reason East Germany was the first communist country to fall was because they had more access to the outside world than any other communist country–they saw what life was like on the other side of the Wall and they rebelled.


The problem with North Korea, however, is that the people remain isolated even in the presence of foreigners. We were never given a chance to speak or interact with a single person. My initial belief that I could make some type of impact, perhaps by simply giving a child a candy bar, turned out to be an absurd impossibility.

And, as a result, my presence did nothing more than slightly boost the government coffers and help Kim Jong Il purchase more of his beloved premium cognac while the rest of the country starves.

And so, I leave it up to you to decide on whether such a trip is appropriate or not (and if you’d like contact information for my travel agent, please email me). Despite my frustrations, however, I feel fortunate that I was able to go and I can only hope that my injection of hard currency into the Kim Jong Il regime has been negated by this fair and balanced account of my time spent in the Hermit Kingdom.

Yesterday: A Tale of Two Cities

“See-it-while-it’s-there” tourism

by Aaron Hotfelder on

It used to seem like the environmental movement might just be a passing fad, like the Cabbage Patch Kids, the Chia Pet, or our obsession with the two Coreys. (I preferred Haim, what about you?) But apparently that environmental- consciousness aesthetic is here to stay, and its even made its way into the travel sphere.

A new article in London’s Telegraph documents an interesting new trend among travelers. Tourists are flocking to locations such as the Arctic glaciers, Mt. Kilimanjaro, and the Great Barrier Reef because of concerns that, because of global climate change or other environmental circumstances, such destinations may not last for long.

I guess I have two questions in response to this:

1) Are the polar ice caps, Mt. Kilimanjaro, and the Great Barrier Reef in such great danger that we all must visit them now or lose the chance forever? I realize that the answer to this question might be yes.

2) Is flying to these destinations, and thus emitting even more greenhouse gases, not just making the problem even worse? The article addresses just this concern, quoting the head of a conservation group who says, “It’s hard to fault somebody who wants to see something before it disappears, but it’s unfortunate that in their pursuit of doing that, they contribute to the problem.”

Perhaps the most telling part of the article is a quote from a tour company spokesperson, who says, “People who travel to the [the polar ice caps] are keen to help fight global warming. They go home and tell their friends they’ve got to do something.” (italics mine) I imagine that conversation with their friends as going something like this: “Hey, friends. I just flew a gas-guzzling jet halfway around the world to take a look at some melting glaciers. Please help me do a little something about global warming.” Something about that doesn’t sound right.

Smoking ban in Germany spurns crafty workarounds

by Grant Martin on

Here in the United States we’ve had mixed results to smoking bans. In New York and Los Angeles, people are forced to smoke outside of bars and restaurants, although the smokers I’ve talked to tolerate it moderately well. Here in Michigan, the bar and restaurant lobby refuses to let go of the notion that people can still enjoy dinner and drinks without a cigarette — so the various legislation in the works has been all but squashed. Eventually, I imagine they’ll have to go outside and smoke too, even if it isn’t this year.

If the Michigan lobbyists were smart though, they would let the bill pass and start a hole-in-the-wall building company. Like this poor guy in Germany, smokers in US could stick their arms and heads through “smoking points” in the walls, where all of their toxic breath could be exhaled into the atmosphere.

Or they could just be ridiculed by amateur bloggers here on Gadling.

UNESCO delists a World Heritage Site

by Neil Woodburn on

It would be easy to think that once a location becomes a UNESCO World Heritage Site that such an honor is irrevocable.

UNESCO, however, recently shocked the world by proving that they can just as easily remove a site from the list as they can add one.

And why would they do such a thing?

Because sites can change for the worse over time and become something entirely different.

Ironically, it is quite often the UNESCO stamp itself that is the downfall of these World Heritage Sites. Once a location makes the list, tourists soon follow. And tourists, as we all know, quickly attract local authorities and entrepreneurs trying to make a buck.

The problem is that UNESCO actually has no authority over their World Heritage Sites–that’s up to the local governments. And when these local governments start dabbling in the sites, their status becomes endangered.

This is exactly what happened at the Arabian Oryx Sanctuary in Oman after poaching decreased the oryx population by 85% and the government followed up reducing the land area by 90%. This pissed off UNESCO bad enough that they responded by honoring the sanctuary with the organization’s first ever delisting.

It’s sort of sad to see it on the website, with a big line drawn through the name, but I think UNESCO made the right choice. Hopefully this will be a shot across the bow for other countries that need to start thinking seriously about protecting their own World Heritage Sites.

Gadling buys a cow!

by Neil Woodburn on

We did it. We bought a cow.

Well, sort of. Technically we loaned Mirov Zarobiddin the money so that he could buy the cow himself. We did this through an organization called Kiva, a nonprofit that organizes micro loans in developing countries to aspiring entrepreneurs.

We posted about this last week (for more information, click here) and asked our readers for some advice on who we should give a loan to. The idea was that this was an opportunity for travelers to give back to the world at large–a “thank you” if you will, for all the kindness and goodwill encountered in third world nations while traveling abroad.
The only problem is that Kiva has recently received some great press for the fantastic service they provide and all of the candidates we spotlighted last week received their loans within a day or two.

So, we improvised.

I went back to the site and decided to focus upon Tajikistan, a wonderful, but challenging country I visited a few years ago that was peopled with a tough, hard working populace who were handed the short end of the straw when the Soviet Union collapsed.

Amongst the local candidates seeking loans, was Mirov, a 45-year old father of three who is looking to purchase two heads of cattle. Mirov plans to fatten the cattle over the course of 40-45 days and then sell them for a profit. But that’s not all. Mirov has worked out the math and will repeat the process for the next 12 months–the duration of the loan. At the end of the year, he hopes to have made a profit of 3 heads of cattle and to have fully paid off his loan.

One of the great benefits of Kiva is that they provide semi-regular updates about those who have received loans. In this manner, lenders can see the immediate impact of their loans and how they are making life just a little bit better on the other side of our planet.

And so, as we receive these updates regarding Mirov, we will share them with you. In return, if you plan on traveling to Tajikistan in the near future, perhaps you can stop by and visit our cows.

Happy Holidays everyone!